• Escobar: Year Of The Dragon – Silk Roads, BRICS Roads, & Sino-Roads
  Escobar: Year Of The Dragon – Silk Roads, BRICS Roads, & Sino-Roads

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  As we enter incandescent 2024, four major trends will define the progress of interconnected Eurasia.

  1. Financial/trade integration will be the norm. Russia and Iran already integrated their financial message transfer systems, bypassing SWIFT and trading in rials and rubles. Russia-China already settle their accounts in rubles and yuan, coupling immense Chinese industrial capacity with immense Russian resources.

  2. The economic integration of the post-Soviet space, tilting towards Eurasia, will predominantly flow not so much via the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) but interlinked with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

  3. There will be no significant pro-Western inroads in the Heartland: the Central Asian “stans” will be progressively integrated into a single Eurasia economy organized via the SCO.

  4. The clash will become even more acute, pitting the Hegemon and its satellites (Europe and Japan/South Korea/Australia) against Eurasia integration, represented by the three top BRICS (Russia, China, Iran) plus the DPRK and the Arab world incorporated to BRICS 10.

  On the Russian front, the inimitable Sergey Karaganov has laid down the law:

  “We should not deny our European roots; we should treat them with care. After all, Europe has given us a lot. But Russia must move forward. And forward does not mean to the West, but to the East and the South. That is where the future of humanity lies.”

  And that leads us to the Dragon – in the Year of the Dragon.

  

  The Mao and Deng road maps

  There were a whopping 3.68 billion Chinese trips by rail in 2023 – an all-time record.

  China is fast on the way to become an AI global leader by 2030. Tech giant Baidu, for instance, recently released Ernie Bot to rival ChatGPT. AI in China is expanding fast on healthcare, education, and entertainment.

  Efficiency is the key. Chinese scientists have developed the ACCEL chip – capable of performing 4.6 quadrillion operations per second, in comparison to NVIDIA’s A100, which delivers 0.312 quadrillion operations per second of deep learning performance.

  China graduates no less than one million more STEM students than the U.S., year after year. This goes way beyond AI. Asian nations always reach the top 20% in science and mathematics competitions.

  The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) may be lousy on geopolitics. But at least they did a public service showing nations that lead the planet in 44 critical technology sectors.

  China is number one, leading on 37 sectors. The U.S. leads on 7.

  Everyone else leads zero sectors. These include Defense, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, advanced materials, key quantum technology and of course AI.

  How did China get here? It’s quite enlightening today to revisit a 1996 tome by Maurice Mesner: The Deng Xiaoping Era: An Inquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism, 1978-1994.

  First of all, one needs to know what happened under Mao:

  “From 1952 to the mid-1970s, net agricultural output in China increased at an average per annum rate of 2.5 percent, whereas the figure for the most intensive period of Japan’s industrialization (from 1868 to 1912) was 1.7 percent.”

  Across the industrial sphere, all indicators went up: steel production; coal; cement; timber; electric power; crude oil; chemical fertilizers. “By the mid-1970s, China was also producing substantial numbers of jet airplanes, heavy tractors, railway locomotives, and modern oceangoing vessels. The People’s Republic also became a significant nuclear power, complete with intercontinental ballistic missiles. Its first successful atomic bomb test was held in 1964, the first hydrogen bomb was produced in 1967, and a satellite was launched into orbit in 1970.”

  Blame it on Mao: he transformed China “from one of the world’s most backward agrarian countries into the sixth-largest industrial power by the mid-1970s.” On most key social and demographic indicators, China compared favorably not only with India and Pakistan in South Asia but also with “’middle-income’ countries whose per capita GNP was five times that of China.”

  All these breakthroughs laid down the path for Deng: “The higher yields obtained on individual family farms during the early Deng era would not have been possible had it not been for the vast irrigation and flood-control projects – dams, irrigation works, and river dikes – constructed by collectivized peasants in the 1950s and 1960s.”

  Of course there were distortions – as the Deng drive produced a de facto capitalist economy presided by a bureaucratic bourgeoisie: “As has been true of the histories of all capitalist economies, the power of the state was very much involved in establishing China’s labor market. Indeed, in China a highly repressive state apparatus played a particularly direct and coercive role in the commodification of labor, a process that has proceeded with a rapidity and on a scale that is historically unprecedented.”

  It remains an inextinguishable source of debate to what extent this fabulous economic Great Leap Forward under Deng generated calamitous social consequences.

  The Empire of kakistocracy

  As the Xi era definitely tackles – and tries to solve – the drama, what makes it even more complicated is the constant interference of the notorious “structural contradictions” between China and the Hegemon.

  China-bashing is the number one politically correct game across the Beltway – and that’s bound to go out of control in 2024. Assuming a Democratic debacle next November, there are few doubts a Republican presidency – Trump or no Trump – will unleash Cold War 3.0 or 4.0, with China, not Russia, as the top threat.

  Then there is the upcoming Taiwan election. If pro-independence candidates win it, incandescence will exponentially rise. Now imagine that compounded with a rabid Sinophobe occupant of the White House.

  Even when China was militarily weak, the Hegemon could not defeat it, either in Korea or in Vietnam. There is less than zero chance Washington would defeat Beijing on a South China Sea battlefield now.

  The American problem is encapsulated in a Perfect Storm.

  Hegemon hard and soft power have been hurled down a black void with the imminent, cosmic NATO humiliation in Ukraine, compounded with complicity with the Gaza genocide.

  Simultaneously, Hegemon global financial power is about to take a very hard hit as the Russia-China strategic partnership leading BRICS 10 starts offering quite viable alternatives to the Global South.

  Chinese scholars, in priceless exchanges, always remind their Western interlocutors that History has been a consistent playground pitting aristocratic and or/plutocratic oligarchies against each other. The collective West now happens to be “led” by the most toxic variety of plutocracy: kakistocracy.

  What Chinese qualify, correctly, as “crusader nations” are now significantly exhausted – economically, socially, and militarily. Worse: nearly totally de-industrialized. Those with a functioning brain among the crusaders at least have understood that “decoupling” from China will be a major disaster.

  None of that eliminates their arrogant/ignorant drive for a war on China – even as Beijing has exercised immense restraint by not giving them any excuse to start another Forever War.

  Instead, Beijing is reversing Hegemon tactics – as in sanctioning the Hegemon and assorted vassals (Japan, South Korea) on rare earth imports. Even more effective is the concerted Russia-China drive to bypass the U.S. dollar and weaken the euro – with full support of BRICS 10 members, Opec+ members, EAEU members and most SCO members.

  The Taiwan riddle

  The Chinese masterplan, in a nutshell, is a thing of beauty: to finish off the “rules-based international order” without firing a shot.

  Taiwan will remain the prime not-yet-engaged battlefield. Roughly, it’s fair to argue that the majority of the population of Taiwan does not want unification; at the same time, they don’t want an American-engineered war.

  They want, essentially, the current status quo. China is not in a hurry: Deng’s master plan pointed to reunification sometime before 2049.

  The Hegemon, on the other hand, is in a tremendous hurry: it’s all about Divide and Rule, all over again, promoting chaos and destabilizing China’s inexorable rise.

  Beijing tracks literally anything that moves in Taiwan – via monumental, meticulous dossiers. Beijing knows that for Taipei to thrive in a peaceful environment, it needs to negotiate while it still has something to negotiate with.

  Every Taiwanese with a brain – and there are plenty of first-class scientific brains in the island – knows they can’t expect Americans to die fighting for them. First of all because they know the Hegemon won’t dare fighting a conventional war with China, because the Hegemon will lose – badly (the Pentagon gamed all options). And there won’t be a nuclear war either.

  Chinese scholars are fond of reminding us that when the Middle Kingdom was totally fragmented in the 19th century under the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), “the Sino-Manchu ruling class was incapable of relinquishing their self-image and of taking the draconian necessary steps.”

  The same applies to the Exceptionalists now – even as they go on serial somersaults trying to preserve their own, mythological self-image: Narcissus drowned in a pool of his own making.

  It’s possible to advance that the Year of the Dragon will be a year where Sovereignty reigns. Hegemon fits of Hybrid War rage and collaborationist comprador elites will be obstacles constantly hampering the Global South. Yet at least there will be three poles with the spine, the resources, the organization, the vision and the sense of Universal History to take the fight towards a more equal and just system to the next level: China, Russia and Iran.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 23:20

• Australia Shows Why Americans Should Not Give Another Inch On Gun Rights
  Australia Shows Why Americans Should Not Give Another Inch On Gun Rights

  In 1996 in the Tazmanian city of Port Arthur a man by the name of Martin Bryant killed 35 people using semi-automatic rifles in what would later be known as the Port Arthur Massacre.  This singular event was quickly used as a rationale for the banning of most firearms for Australian civilians, but the new regulations were not a product of Port Arthur.  Rather, anti-gun politicians had been pushing for restrictions and confiscation for many years prior; Port Arthur simply gave them enough public panic to get their legislation passed.

  This is the modus operandi of the typical anti-gun lobby – Wait for a tragedy and then exploit it to punish all law abiding citizens for the crimes of a handful of deranged people.  It doesn’t make much sense unless you realize that gun control laws are not meant to thwart criminals, they are meant to thwart good people who might object to government trespasses.

  

  The difference between Australia and America is, of course, that the right to arms and the right to self defense are codified in the US Constitution.  There is no legal right to guns in Australia, it is treated as a privilege subject to the whims of authorities.  However, regardless of the laws of men or constitutional protections, self defense is also a natural right.  Anyone trying to take it away is in violation of natural law.     

  Outside of the perfect timing of a Port Arthur scenario, most anti-gun measures are incremental as a means to trick good citizens into believing their rights are not being diminished.  Once these rights are sufficiently whittled down and the public has been conditioned to give ground to the government over time, the violations will never stop.  Give them an inch and they will take a mile.  

  They will argue that there’s no need for civilians to have semi-automatic rifles, then they will come for the pistols, then they will come for the lever action rifles, the bolt action rifles, the shotguns, until there is nothing left.  Gun grabbers deny this agenda at every turn, but all we have to do is look at countries where gun rights have been cut down to see what the overall strategy is.  The end game is total confiscation.

  In Australia, the few firearms that are allowed in civilian hands are being scrutinized once again.  This time around, pump action rifles that would be considered a joke or a novelty in the US are being portrayed as potential tools for mass shooters.  The Australian government has sought to squeeze the Port Arthur attack for every last drop of anti-gun sympathy, even though it happened almost 30 years ago.

  One could argue it was the lack of firearms owners in places like Australia that made it possible for the national government to enforce insane and draconian measures during the covid pandemic.  These measures included threats of mandatory vaccination, mandatory reporting of vaccination, denying people the right to travel more than 3 miles from their homes, the use of official intimidation and arrest to silence contrary information online, and the installation of “covid camps” which were used for everyone, not just people traveling from overseas.

  It makes sense that governments with this level of disrespect for the civil rights of the populace would want to erode whatever means of protection citizens have left, if only to ensure full compliance during the next manufactured crisis.  They are doing it in Australia and they desperately want to do it in the US. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 22:45

• "It Just Sort Of Appeared" – Fauci Comes Clean Over 'Science-less' Six-Foot-Distancing Rule
  “It Just Sort Of Appeared” – Fauci Comes Clean Over ‘Science-less’ Six-Foot-Distancing Rule

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

  You still bump into the stickers from time to time: “Six Feet of Distance.” It’s weird and anachronistic at this point. No one pays any attention anymore. Still it would be nice to know where this came from. Oddly, we don’t really know.

  

  Anthony Fauci was asked this question this week in U.S. House hearings on the COVID response.

  Incredibly, he didn’t really know how this came about.

  “It just sort of appeared,” he told the subcommittee, which was an unusual answer since he otherwise said 100 times that he could not remember anything. Here, however, he admits there was never any science behind it.

  That’s extremely peculiar.

  This rule governed all social interaction for two years and more.

  It wrecked every manner of things, made people feel diseased and isolated, made meetings impossible, and gave rise to a whole ritual of interaction that was utterly alien to the normal human way, including elbow bumps and water-gun baptisms.

  It was why schools were so delayed in reopening. They could not guarantee that students would stay apart. It’s why airports were so crowded. Everyone was trying to avoid everyone else. It’s why park benches were roped off, why restroom stalls were operating at 50 percent, and why you could not hold weddings and funerals. This stuff was enforced at all levels of society.

  And yet here is the “nation’s leading infectious disease scientist” who took charge of the pandemic response saying that he has no idea where this idea came from.

  Back in March 2021, the New York Times, of all egregious venues, got curious about this too. Reporter Emily Anthes asked around the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the mandate and the science behind it.

  She quotes Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

  “It never struck me that six feet was particularly sensical in the context of mitigation. I wish the C.D.C. would just come out and say this is not a major issue.”

  She wrote that the origin of the six-foot distancing recommendation is something of a mystery.

  “It’s almost like it was pulled out of thin air,” said Linsey Marr, an expert on viral transmission at Virginia Tech University.

  The journal Clinical and Infectious Diseases even did a large study comparing six feet and three feet of distance. It was published in March 2021. The authors found no statistically significant difference in infection rates. None. They concluded:

  “Lower physical distancing requirements can be adopted in school settings with masking mandates without negatively affecting student or staff safety.”

  Nothing happened. We were stuck with six feet.

  Once it became an enforced ritual, nothing mattered.

  Now we know that not even Anthony Fauci knows where it came from.

  But come on. Someone had to order this. Who did it? Some low-level bureaucrat? Someone yet unnamed? Whoever it is knows who he or she is. Lots of people know. But no one is speaking up. It seems like there should be a way to get to the bottom of this.

  Most likely, it resulted from nothing but irrational germophobia and a made-up way to satiate that impulse. But consider this: one person’s personal eccentricity thus became a rule for the whole nation and world, without a single study to say nothing of a vote or opinion poll. It was just cray cray on mega-steroids, and yet some vendors became very rich printing signs and stickers for millions of businesses, churches, airports, and schools around the country.

  It probably happened like the sudden mask mandate in St. Louis, Missouri, last week. Some low-level bureaucrat said it should be done and it was done. There was outrage all around, which is very good news. Beautifully, the whole thing was repealed in 24 hours, and the person who caused all this to happen was ridiculed and denounced. How dare she presume to tell everyone else what to do?

  Well, that kind of thing ruled us for two years and longer, just bureaucrats making stuff up. Some of it was impractical but it was also very expensive and damaging. For example, the Plexiglas that suddenly went up everywhere actually trapped pathogens into smaller spaces and inhibited ventilation, in contradiction to their other mandates. Arguably, this mandate made the spread worse. It certainly didn’t mitigate the virus.

  It seems as if all these edicts were sort of busy work to keep us alarmed and occupied with stupid antics until the virus arrived. That’s why Fauci didn’t care about them. It’s why the CDC wasn’t particularly interested in the supposed science behind any of this stuff. There never was any science. It was nothing but the imposition of irrational capers on the population to mark time until the great shot arrived. To top it off, the shot didn’t work!

  Looking back—and many people don’t want to look back because it is too painful—it seems as if the whole of the public was sold a bill of goods in the name of science. It was baloney no matter which way you slice it. Some of us knew it at the time and called it out. We were denounced, attacked, and censored for saying so.

  Is it any wonder that government, media, and science generally are in complete disrepute today, across the whole population and all over the world?

  This is why there needs to be some discovery and accountability. We need to know where this stuff came from.

  It didn’t come from the air or clouds. It was a decision made by human beings, somewhere and based on something. We should know what it is.

  If Fauci doesn’t know, who does? The CDC has had three heads during this time: Robert Redfield, Rochelle Walensky, and now Mandy Cohen. They should tell all they know. If they don’t know, they should name the names of others who they think might have done this. Then Congress should ask those people and get them to say who they think it is. We should do this with every single idiotic protocol issued during that period, whether six feet, masks, sanitizer, one-way grocery isles, church closures, Plexiglas, and anything else.

  The deeper truth is that the entire paradigm is drawn from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) response to SARS-1 in 2003, which was then embraced by the World Health Organization (WHO).

  That’s its real origin: it is a communist tactic of political control using infectious disease as the excuse.

  This stuff traumatized the nation and the world. It broke everything. Now we have doors flying off airplanes only to find out later that the manufacturer had to lay off lots of mechanics during lockdowns. We have political upheaval in Ecuador, which had very hard lockdowns that demoralized everyone. We have huge absenteeism in public schools everywhere because the kids can no longer be bothered to go to class. We have a massive shortage of actual workers who know how to do stuff because they gave up and retired.

  The lockdowns and everything associated with them utterly broke the world. The COVID response set the whole of the civilized world on fire. At the very least, we are owed an explanation for all this, starting with six feet of distance. If we cannot get to the bottom of where this came from, there’s no hope for sorting out the rest of the rigamarole. The investigations have to start somewhere. They should not stop for at least 5–10 years!

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 22:10

• Where Do The World's Wealthiest People Live?
  Where Do The World’s Wealthiest People Live?

  In 2022, global household wealth stood at $454 trillion, of which half was held by millionaires.

  But where do the wealthiest people of the world live?

  From UBS and Credit Suisse’s comprehensive Global Wealth Report 2023, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes the world’s millionaire population by country.

  

  Their databook details the sources they used, including household balance sheet data from the World Bank, the World Income Inequality Database, surveys, tax data, and Forbes’ findings.

  UBS defines millionaires as individuals whose total wealth (including financial and non-financial assets, minus household debt) is at or above $1 million, using “smoothed exchange rates.” These are 2021 average currency exchange rates with the U.S. dollar, adjusted for inflation differences between the U.S. and concerned country, but not adjusted for U.S. inflation between 2021 and 2022.

  ℹ️ “Million” denoting just the number and not money has been shortened to ‘M’ in this article to avoid confusion when talking about millions of millionaires.

  With information current up to 2022, the world has almost 60M millionaires, of which 42% reside in North America.

  

  Note: UBS separates China and India from their Asia-Pacific region for better clarity

  Within that statistic is an obvious heavyweight, and we look through the per-country millionaire population in the next section.

  Ranked: Countries By Number of Millionaires

  The U.S. is home to nearly 23M millionaires, 40% of the total millionaire population in the world. Six American cities feature in the world’s wealthiest cities, led by New York City, home to 340,000 millionaires.

  As it happens, this quantity is actually lower than the 24M American millionaires in 2021, as average wealth in the category fell due to a decline in the value of financial assets.

  

  The world’s second-largest economy, China, is also home to the second-highest number of wealthy individuals, at 6M, about 10% of the total millionaire population. The number of Chinese residents with more than $1 million has grown rapidly since 2012, especially in economic hotspots like Hangzhou and Shenzhen.

  At third and fourth, France and Japan essentially have the same number of millionaires (2.8M) as do Germany and the UK who round out the top six with 2.6M millionaires each.

  The top 10 countries with the most millionaires are the 10 largest economies in the world, with the exception of India (ranked 14th) and Brazil, which is outside the top millionaire residents ranks, but grew its millionaire population by 122,000 between 2021 and 2022.

  Within this data however, UBS differentiates between the various types of millionaires.

  

  Note: Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.

  Of the last category of individuals with more than $10 million, 2.5M have assets in the $10–50 million range, leaving 243,000 ultra-high-net-worth individuals with a net worth above $50 million. This ultra-high-net-worth category has grown four times since 2008.

  UBS believes that by 2027, the world will have over 85M millionaires. This is 26M more than today, and 71M more from the year 2000.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 21:35

• First Active-Duty Air Force Officer To Compete for Miss America, Dreams Of Being A Top Gun Fighter Pilot
  First Active-Duty Air Force Officer To Compete for Miss America, Dreams Of Being A Top Gun Fighter Pilot

  Authored by SWNS via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  A potential Top Gun fighter pilot will compete for Miss America this month.

  U.S. Air Force 2nd Lt. Madison Marsh is not only the current Miss Colorado and a Harvard student but has a coveted place to train as a fighter pilot.

  On Jan. 14, the 22-year-old Arkansas native will compete for the Miss America crown in Florida—an event featuring several phases including a public interview, as well as evening gown and fitness stages.

  “Pageants are changing and one of the ways is in what being physically fit means to women,” 2nd Lt. Marsh said. “For me, it’s great because I need to stay physically fit and in the gym for the military, so it already coincides with pageant training.”

  From a young age, 2nd Lt. Marsh had a love of science and a dream to be a pilot and astronaut. Her parents encouraged her dreams, sending her to Space Camp when she was 13 years old where she met astronauts and fighter pilots.

  Around that time, she learned about the United States Air Force Academy. At 15 years old, she started flying lessons, earning her pilot’s license two years later, and then began to work towards her goal of becoming a cadet.

  She was crowned Miss Colorado in May 2023 just before graduating from the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) and commissioning as an Air Force Officer.

  

  

  While at USAFA, 2nd Lt. Marsh decided she would try competing in pageants as an extracurricular activity.

  “As a freshman at the Academy, you might have a hard time finding your identity in a very new and challenging environment,” she said. “My cousin had competed in pageants for a long time, and one of the big things about it that I love is the community service aspect and the focus on public speaking.”

  Three years later, she was crowned Miss Colorado.

  “It was very surreal. I believe I’m the first active-duty officer from any branch to represent at the national level of the Miss America organization,” she said.

  

  2nd Lt. Marsh is quick to address the many preconceived notions and stereotypes about beauty pageants and their contestants.

  “The Miss America organization that I’m a part of now is all focused on what you can provide for the community through your social impact, making sure that you have a stellar resume, that you’re good at public speaking, that you can connect with people, and are empowered to lead in other ways that’s not just about you,” she said.

  As Miss Colorado, 2nd Lt. Marsh enjoys talking with other young girls about being a pilot and serving in the military and sees it as an opportunity to dispel stereotypes that exist about military women.

  She said: “It’s an awesome experience to bring both sides of the favorite parts of my life together and hopefully make a difference for others to be able to realize that you don’t have to limit yourself. In the military, it’s an open space to really lead in the way that you want to lead—in and out of uniform. I felt like pageants, and specifically winning Miss Colorado, was a way to truly exemplify that and to set the tone to help make other people feel more comfortable finding what means most to them.”

  

  But 2nd Lt. Marsh’s future may see her as a Top Gun fighter pilot.

  Upon graduation from USAFA and commissioning into the Air Force, she received a coveted pilot slot and is currently determining the career opportunities and personal projects she wants to pursue. However, the sad loss of her mother to pancreatic cancer may see her career take in cancer research.

  She said: “I lost my mom about five years ago to pancreatic cancer, and I started a nonprofit almost immediately afterward with my family to raise money and awareness of pancreatic cancer for people in our town.

  “I’m now trying to take the next step and use my studies from the Kennedy School to learn about the inner workings and the difficulties of what policy really looks like. Issues like economic environments and other social pressures that might be inhibiting our ability to implement cancer policies that can affect all Americans.”

  

  

  In September, 2nd Lt. Marsh started a two-year master’s degree program in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School through the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Civilian Institution Programs.

  She will also work with the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and a professor from the Harvard Medical School to research early detection of pancreatic cancer.

  “Towards the end of my time at USAFA, I started to realize that my bigger passions were in policy-making and cancer research so that’s why I ended up at the Kennedy School,” she said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 21:00

• Western Brands Boycott Calls Intensify After US Jets Bomb Yemen
  Western Brands Boycott Calls Intensify After US Jets Bomb Yemen

  Social media users are pressing ahead for continued boycotts of Western brands as the US and its allies pound Yemen with air strikes and missiles to neutralize Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

  “Boycott these brands that support the invasion of Yemen,” X user Naila Ayad said in a post viewed more than 1.6 million times. 

  Boycott these brands that support the invasion of Yemen. pic.twitter.com/rYNpCmldV3

  — Naila Ayad🇵🇸 (@Naila_Ayad) January 12, 2024

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

  And this. 

  Calls for boycott of top German brands are spreading on social media after Germany announced that it would join Israel at the ICJ as a third party https://t.co/BpTjUb40Bn

  — Dima Khatib (@Dima_Khatib) January 13, 2024

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

  Let’s not forget. 

  🚨🇾🇪OFFICIAL HOUTHI STATEMENT: BOYCOTT AMERICAN AND ISRAEL PRODUCTS

  Abdul Malik: “The West talks about freedoms and rights, but their position on Gaza is like a scandal

  The Palestinian people have the right to confront injustice and liberate their homeland

  We must take action… https://t.co/Squ2ajCVHU pic.twitter.com/r3hjaw5Gfq

  — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 11, 2024

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

  One X user pointed out, “None of these brands have anything to with Yemen and the US didn’t invade Yemen, also why is their idea of a boycott just targeting snacks.” 

  “Actually, boycotting these brands will improve your health, too,” another X user said. 

  These calls come as boycotts across the Middle East have battered Western brands following the deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7. 

  McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski wrote a LinkedIn post earlier this month that explained the Middle East boycotts have had a “meaningful business impact.” He said the boycotts were “due to the war and associated misinformation.” 

  “I also recognize that several markets in the Middle East and some outside the region are experiencing a meaningful business impact due to the war and associated misinformation that is affecting brands like McDonald’s. This is disheartening and ill-founded. In every country where we operate, including in Muslim countries, McDonald’s is proudly represented by local owner operators who work tirelessly to serve and support their communities while employing thousands of their fellow citizens. That local community connection is the genius of the McDonald’s System.” 

  Last week, Papa John’s International Inc. blamed “lower-than-anticipated net unit openings” on “unanticipated international restaurant closures in the fourth quarter including 10 UK franchised restaurants; 12 international units that were re-classified as closed locations in the fourth quarter through a review of temporary restaurant closures; restaurant openings moved into 2024; and restaurant opening delays due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.” 

  It’s not just McDonald’s. Reuters said other Western brands, such as Starbucks and KFC, have been boycotted. 

  It remains to be seen if boycotts will intensify since the US bombing campaign in Yemen began on Wednesday. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 20:25

• Voter Fraud Convictions Challenge Narrative Of Secure Elections
  Voter Fraud Convictions Challenge Narrative Of Secure Elections

  Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times,

  Superior Court Judge William Clark nullified the results of a Democrat mayoral primary in November 2023 and ordered a new election. The ruling was based on hours of video evidence showing hundreds of illegally harvested absentee ballots being stuffed into drop boxes in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

  “The videos are shocking to the court and should be shocking to all the parties,” Judge Clark wrote in his ruling.

  A California judge overturned the result in a 2021 Compton City Council run-off race that was initially decided by one vote.

  The judge tossed four fraudulent ballots cast by people not legally registered in the jurisdiction. Five people pleaded either guilty or no contest to conspiring to commit election fraud.

  After discovering that 66 of the 84 absentee ballots cast in a 2021 Democrat primary for alderman in Aberdeen, Mississippi, were invalid and shouldn’t have been counted, a judge ordered a new runoff election.

   Police arrested a notary for notarizing ballots without watching voters sign them or checking their identification.

  The court also found evidence of intimidation at the polls involving candidate Nicholas Holliday, Mayor Maurice Howard, and Henry Randal, the town’s police chief.

  The above examples of election fraud have occurred since the contentious 2020 presidential election that President Donald Trump alleged was marred with fraud.

  

  Democrats, meanwhile, have cast the former president’s assertions about the 2020 election as the “big lie” and generally contend that election fraud is extremely rare and inconsequential.

  In a June 2023 Congressional hearing, Rep. Joe Morelli (D-N.Y.) called Republican members’ attitudes about widespread voter fraud “cynical” and the series of election integrity hearings they were conducting in the House “tedious” and “redundant.”

  Mr. Morelli said Republicans are fixated on an “unproven lack of integrity” that they claim exists.

  However, an ongoing study by the Heritage Foundation details widespread instances of election fraud across the United States and shows that the illicit activity has resulted in election results being overturned in at least a dozen races.

  In a number of cases, the abuse of the system is well-calculated and organized, but in most instances violations appear to have been committed by individuals acting independently.

  Case studies show that some perpetrators exploit the aged, mentally infirm, and homeless in order to garner a few more votes for their preferred candidate.

  

  Gwinnett County workers begin their ballot recount in Lawrenceville, Ga., on Nov. 13, 2020. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)

  Heritage’s findings were bolstered by a Rasmussen Reports and Heartland Institute poll of 1,085 likely voters published in December 2023.

  The poll found that 21 percent of those who voted by absentee or mail-in ballot in 2020 admitted to filling out a ballot “in part or in full” for someone else, which is illegal.

  Of the 30 percent who said they voted by mail or absentee ballot in 2020, 19 percent said a friend or family member filled out their ballot, in part or in full, on their behalf. One-fifth said they signed a ballot or ballot envelope “on behalf of a friend or family member, with or without their permission,” the poll results state.

  Seventeen percent of those who voted by mail in 2020 said they cast a ballot in a state where they’re no longer a permanent resident, which is illegal.

  Among the 1,085 voters questioned, 8 percent said that a friend, family member, political party, or organization offered “to pay or reward them for voting in the 2020 election,” according to the poll.

  Respondents were surveyed by telephone and online from Nov. 30 through Dec. 6, 2023. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus three percent with a 95 percent level of confidence.

  “The results of this survey are nothing short of stunning,” said Justin Haskins of the Heartland Institute in a statement.

  “For the past three years, Americans have repeatedly been told that the 2020 election was the most secure in history. But if this poll’s findings are reflective of reality, the exact opposite is true.”

  

  Patrick Colbeck, a former Michigan state senator, an aerospace engineer, and a poll challenger, in Detroit, Mich., on Nov. 27, 2020. (Bowen Xiao/The Epoch Times)

  Mr. Haskins blames election laws.

  “A democratic Republic cannot survive if election laws allow voters to commit fraud easily,” he said.

  He said despite some progress being made to eliminate election fraud in a number of states since 2020, “much more work is needed in most regions of the United States.”

  In two separate polls, one conducted by the Washington Post/University of Maryland in late 2023 and another conducted by CNN earlier in the year, between 36 and 38 percent of Americans surveyed believe the election of President Joe Biden was illegitimate.

  A Sampling

  The Heritage Foundation says its election project consists of a “sampling” of election integrity issues and is by no means “comprehensive” or “exhaustive.”

  The instances of election fraud cataloged by Heritage are confirmed cases that were investigated by law enforcement and referred to prosecutors. The subjects were indicted and either confessed in a plea deal or were convicted in the courts.

  At least half a dozen of the cases documented by Heritage are still pending.

  Sentences have varied from small fines and community service to hefty fines and years of incarceration.

  Despite assurances that U.S. elections are safe and secure, the Heritage study chronicles nearly 1,500 “proven instances of election fraud” resulting in almost 1,300 criminal convictions going back two decades. 

  A voter carries an election ballot to the voting machine at a polling station in Miami on Nov. 2, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

  Here, we highlight several cases that occurred in local, state, and federal primary and general elections by Democrats and Republicans.

  The perpetrators included ordinary citizens, campaign workers, consultants, candidates, incumbent politicians, and active and former election officials.

  One well-known case involved Domenick Demuro, a judge of elections for south Philadelphia, who is a known Democrat activist.

  Mr. Demuro was prosecuted for accepting bribes ranging from between $300 to $5,000 per election to add votes to voting machines for certain Democrat candidates and then certifying the results, during the primary election cycles in 2014, 2015, and 2016. He pleaded guilty to depriving Philadelphia voters of their rights and violating the federal Hatch Act.

  A 2022 case involved former Democrat U.S. Congressman Michael Myers who is a longtime, well-connected, political operative from Philadelphia. He was charged with conspiring with election judges, including Mr. Demuro, and bribing them to add votes to voting machines and stuff ballot boxes on behalf of Democrat candidates that he preferred or had represented as a political consultant. 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 Pennsylvania elections.

  Mr. Myers pleaded guilty to depriving persons of civil rights, bribery, falsification of voting records, and conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election.

  Kris Jurski, a cyber security expert and a founder of the Florida-based The People’s Audit, said he’s not confident with the administration of elections going into 2024.

  “There have only been a few surface-level attempts to make the appearance of reforms, but the major problems that appeared in the 2020 election still exist,” he said.

  “In 2020, we were pushed without consent and, in some cases without legislation, into universal mail-in ballots.”

  Mr. Jurski was appointed to the state’s Committee for Voter Integrity at the Florida Republican Assembly in 2022.

  “Mail-in ballots are where we see a majority of the abuse in our elections. For example, you can still request and submit a mail-in ballot without any proof of your identity and eligibility,” he said.

  Mr. Jurski is an advocate of voting methods of the past.

  “We have to go back to single-day elections with paper ballots and citizens hand-counting locally in their precincts,” he said.

  “All we hear is ‘Trust us!’”

  Officials Cheating

  The result of a Paterson, New Jersey, city council election in May 2020 was overturned by a Superior Court judge because hundreds of absentee ballots—24 percent of them—were found to have signatures that did not match those on record. The judge ordered a new special election, which was held in November 2020.

  Four individuals, including two running for city council, were charged with felonies. The charges against Shelim Khalique, the brother of a city councilman, have since been dropped and expunged, while the charges against Paterson council members Michael Jackson and Alex Mendez are moving toward possible trials, according to a local New Jersey news site.

  Jason Schofield, a Republican elections commissioner, Rensselaer County Board of Elections in Troy, New York, used the State Board of Elections website to illegally obtain absentee ballots on behalf of other people without their knowledge during the 2021 primary and general elections. He pleaded guilty to 12 felony counts, resigned from his position, and his sentencing is set for May.

  

  Poll workers check in a box of absentee ballots in the gym at Sun Prairie High School in Sun Prairie, Wis., on Nov. 3, 2020. (Andy Manis/Getty Images)

  In Texas, Gregg County Commissioner Shannon Brown, a Democrat, pleaded guilty in 2021 to misdemeanor election fraud and record tampering in connection with the 2018 Gregg County Democrat primary. Mr. Brown and his wife Marlena Jackson were sentenced to one year of probation and a fine of $2,000 each. Mr. Brown continued to represent his district. He and his wife had initially been charged with dozens of felonies related to ballot harvesting.

  In Michigan, Flint Township clerk and Flint County election supervisor, Kathy Funk, was charged with ballot tampering and misconduct of office during a local 2020 primary election in which she was a candidate. She won by 79 votes and “purposely broke a seal on a ballot container so that the votes inside, under Michigan Election Law, could not be counted in an anticipated recount,” according to the Michigan attorney general’s office.

  To avoid a possible prison sentence, Ms. Funk pleaded no contest to one count of misconduct in office and she was fired from her county position in 2022. In April 2023, Ms. Funk was sentenced to 2 years probation, 6 months of house arrest, and $2,000 in fines.

  Jerry Trabona, the former police chief of Amite City, Louisiana, and Kristian Hart, a city council member, worked together in a complicated vote-buying scheme where individuals were paid various small sums for their votes, and vote-buying agents were paid $20 for each vote they purchased in the 2016 elections.

  Mr. Trabona pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit vote-buying. Mr. Hart pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit vote-buying and three counts of vote-buying and aiding and abetting. The crimes took place in 2016 and 2020. Both were sentenced in November 2022, with each receiving one year in prison, according to the Department of Justice. Mr. Trabona was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

  In Hoboken, New Jersey, a man pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to use the mail to promote a voter bribery scheme during a 2015 municipal election. William Rojas attempted to bribe voters with $50 to send in mail-in ballots to support a Hoboken City Council candidate.

  In 2020, four Californians pleaded no contest to a scheme where they offered cigarettes and money to homeless people on Skid Row for fake signatures on voter registration forms and ballot initiative petitions. The plot netted hundreds of bogus ballots. The four were given penalties ranging from suspended sentences to probation.

  Nancy Williams registered to vote 26 legally incapacitated residents under her care at a nursing care facility; then requested absentee ballots in their names, without their consent, and had them sent to her. In 2023, the Wayne County, Michigan, woman accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to seven counts of receiving a payment to influence a vote. She was sentenced to one year of probation and fined $3,500. She faces similar charges in Oakland County.

  Another employee at an assisted living facility in Michigan filled out 24 absentee ballot applications and forged residents’ signatures during the 2020 general election. Trenae Myesha Rainey pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of making a false statement on an absentee ballot application. She was sentenced to two years’ probation; the first 45 days of which were to be spent in the county jail.

  

  Residents wait in line to vote early outside a polling station in Atlanta on Nov. 29, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

  Unusual Election Fraud Capers

  A Pennsylvania man, a registered Republican, cast his ballot in person in the 2020 election. The man, Ralph Holloway Thurman, later returned to the polling place wearing a hat and sunglasses and voted again while pretending to be his deceased son, a registered Democrat. He was recognized by election workers, but had left before they could confront him. Mr. Thurman pleaded guilty to one felony count of repeat voting and was sentenced to three years’ probation.

  In a scheme that prosecutors allege was funded by violent street gang MS-13, mayoral candidate Carlos Antonio De Montenegro was accused of submitting more than 8,000 fraudulent voter registration applications on behalf of homeless people prior to the 2020 election, as well as falsifying names, addresses and signatures on nomination papers for him to run for mayor in Hawthorne, California.

  Mr. Montenegro pleaded no contest to charges of false registration, registering non-existent voters, and perjury and was sentenced to 60 days in jail, two years of probation, and 30 days community labor.

  To dissuade voters from voting by mail in 2020, two men ran a robocall scam that warned tens of thousands of voters not to do so. The reason—they falsely said it could lead to the government, law enforcement, and debt collectors obtaining their personal information. The bogus calls went out to people from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania. 

  The men, John “Jack” Burkman and Jacob Wahl, each pleaded guilty to one count of telecommunications fraud in exchange for the dismissal of all other charges. They were both sentenced to six months of house arrest and ordered to complete 500 hours of community service in a voter registration drive aimed at low and middle income individuals in the Washington D.C. area.

  In 2020, a Nebraska man was found guilty by a jury and fined $10,000 after he voted against members of the Richland Village Board that he didn’t like. The man, Larry Divis, falsely claimed that he resided in the town even though he only owned property there.

  

  People vote at a polling location at a church on Election Day in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 8, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

  Forgery and More

  Some representative examples of election forgery, illegal ballot harvesting, ineligible felons voting, dead people voting, and people voting in more than one state are listed below.

  In West Virginia, a man pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge for voting in two states in the 2020 election. Richard Fox voted by absentee ballot in both West Virginia and Florida. He was sentenced to one year probation and fined $1,000.

  An elderly man in Wisconsin similarly voted in the New Hampshire general election in 2018 as well as cast an in-person vote in Massachusetts.

  Seven North Carolinians pleaded guilty to multiple felony charges for their role in an elaborate illegal absentee ballot trafficking scheme to benefit Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris during the 2016 general and 2018 primary elections.

  North Carolina’s elections board on Feb. 21, 2019, ordered a new election in the disputed race; which Mr. Harris ultimately lost. Mr. Harris, who denied knowledge of the scheme, is running for North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District seat in 2024.

  In 2020, a Florida judge overturned the result of a close election for Eatonville town council that was ultimately decided by one vote. The court threw out one absentee ballot that was not cast by the actual voter and one vote that was determined to be coerced by an elected official, prompting the court to flip the outcome.

  On Dec. 19, 2023, a Queens, New York, man was arraigned in relation to a 140-count indictment, including charges for submitting fraudulent absentee ballot applications, falsifying business records, and criminal possession of forged instruments in connection with the August 2022 Democrat primary. His case is still pending.

  During a post-election felon audit conducted by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, it was discovered that an ineligible voter, a woman who was on probation after a felony conviction, illegally voted in the 2020 election.

  An elderly New Hampshire man pleaded guilty to knowingly voting twice in the 2016 general election, once under his own name and once by impersonating a woman under a false name he had registered.

  John Mallozzi, a former chairman of the Stamford Democratic City Committee in Connecticut, was convicted of 14 counts of forgery and making false statements in connection with 26 absentee ballots and 31 fraudulent applications in local elections in 2015.

  Mr. Mallozzi was sentenced on Nov. 14, 2022, to two years probation and ordered to pay $35,000 in fines.

  Voter Rolls

  Many states don’t regularly clean their voter rolls to remove ineligible voters, including those who have died, moved to another state, or were erroneously added in the first place. 

  A 70-year-old Arizona woman pleaded guilty to submitting an absentee ballot that was sent to her deceased father in the 2018 November general election. The man died in 2012 and his name was never removed from the voter rolls. She was sentenced to one year of probation and a small fine.

  

  Maricopa County election workers remove ballots from a drop box in Mesa, Ariz., on Nov. 8, 2022. (John Moore/Getty Images)

  A registered Republican in Pennsylvania was convicted of using his deceased mother’s name to cast an absentee ballot in the 2020 presidential election.

  A Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, woman pleaded guilty to forging and destroying ballots in the May 2022 primary after she filled out and submitted an absentee ballot on behalf of her deceased mother.

  In 2020, Lauren Peabody, a Virginia woman who worked on a campaign for a GOP congressional candidate, pleaded guilty to participating in a plot in which signatures on the candidate’s nominating petitions were forged using the names of deceased people and former residents.

  Lauren Bowman Bis, a spokesperson for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a national election integrity watchdog organization, said outdated voter rolls are a concern.

  “Michigan still has more than 20,000 deceased people registered to vote,” she told The Epoch Times. “We have to ensure that voter rolls are accurate before the 2024 election. Every error on voter rolls presents an opportunity for fraud.”

  Former Michigan state senator Patrick Colbeck said he’s also concerned about 2024.

  “Until we address the election fraud which occurred during the 2020 election, we cannot have confidence that the 2024 election will be conducted in a fair and lawful manner,” he told The Epoch Times.

  His low confidence is due, in part, to Michigan’s retention of most of the same officials that conducted the 2020 elections.

  Mr. Colbeck said an overarching worry is the delegation of “more and more of our election processes” to unaccountable non-governmental entities that are not subject to Freedom of Information requests.

  “The key to fair elections is equal access. If the general public had the same level of access to sensitive election records, such as voter rolls, voter history, poll books, and vote tallies that NGOs have, it would be much more difficult for anyone to subvert the integrity of our elections,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 19:50

• FBI Stonewalls Over Seth Rich Laptop Production
  FBI Stonewalls Over Seth Rich Laptop Production

  The FBI has asked a federal court for a second delay after being ordered to produce information from Seth Rich’s computer to a Texas resident, Brian Huddleston who has sued the bureau.

  

  Huddleston says that the court should force the agency to produce the information before the 2024 presidential election, as it may show that Rich, not Russians, was Wikileaks’ source of leaked emails which were damaging to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US election.

  On Thursday, the FBI asked Obama-appointed US District Judge Amos Mazzant to reconsider their request not to produce the documents, and should be withheld under exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The filing was a response to Mazzant’s Nov. 2023 order to hand over images of Mr. Rich’s personal computer, as well as an index of his work computer.

  It gets better; the FBI initially claimed that they didn’t have said records – only to later admit to being in possession of Rich’s personal and work computers, along with other items.

  As if it wasn’t suspicious enough that the FBI is stonewalling on information related to a ‘mugging gone wrong.’

  

  According to Ty Clevenger, Huddleston’s attorney, the judge should deny the FBI’s latest bid for a production delay.

  “A presidential election is fast approaching, and voters have the right to know (1) whether the FBI knowingly framed one of the frontrunners, i.e., former President Trump; and (2) whether the FBI is still trying to cover up its partisan political activities,” he wrote.

  “It is bad enough that FBI personnel took opposition research from the Hillary Clinton campaign and used it to open a bad-faith investigation of Mr. Trump, thereby sabotaging him for more than two years,” Clevenger added. “It would be considerably worse and considerably more scandalous, however, if FBI personnel knew all along that Seth Rich—not Russian hackers—was responsible for leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks.“

  Many believe that Rich was indeed the source of the leaked DNC emails provided to WikiLeaks – a rumor which was fueled by the odd circumstances surrounding his death, the sudden retirement of D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier five weeks after the murder, and an email John Podesta sent to Hillary’s inner circle about ‘making an example’ of a suspected leaker, written more than a year before Rich’s death.

  Troves of emails were published by Wikileaks giving insight into the corrupt inner machination of the Democratic National Committee. While Rich was never officially revealed as the source of the leaked emails, it has been heavily suggested. Julian Assange was one key figure who made that suggestion when he highlighted Rich’s murder during a 2016 interview in which he was asked about the risks that come with operating WikiLeaks. Megavideo founder and entrepeneur Kim Dotcom said in May of 2017 that he worked with Rich to connect him with Assange.

  I knew Seth Rich. I know he was the @Wikileaks source. I was involved. https://t.co/MbGQteHhZM

  — Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 20, 2017

  At one point, Assange heavily implied Rich was his source for the DNC emails. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks offered a $130,000 reward for information leading to the murderer of Rich.  

  Julian Assange on Seth Rich
  h/t @KristinaDawn7 pic.twitter.com/mfoIolR7c8

  — Te𝕏asLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) November 29, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 19:15

• ATF Says The Quiet Part Out Loud
  ATF Says The Quiet Part Out Loud

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  Recently while responding to criticism on X, formally known as Twitter, the Los Angeles branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tweeted that the $200 tax stamp on firearms and accessories regulated by the National Firearms Act was “quite prohibitive at the time, which was the goal of the NFA.”

  The National Firearms Act (NFA) introduced in 1934 requires NFA firearms to be registered & taxed. The $200 tax was quite prohibitive at the time, which was the goal of the NFA. All taxes collected for NFA go to the general fund of the U.S. Treasury Dept.

  — ATF Los Angeles (@LosAngelesATF) January 8, 2024

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

  Did the ATF just admit that the goal of the National Firearms Act was to prohibit gun ownership by making it too expensive for regular people? For reference, $200 in 1934 is equivalent to $4,688 today.

  OOPS! @LosAngelesATF said the quiet part out loud. 🤯

  “The $200 tax was quite prohibitive at the time, which was the goal of the NFA.”

  The NFA was never about safety—it was always about restricting Second Amendment rights and limiting access to firearms and accessories.🔥 https://t.co/y3zEoqKDXU

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) January 10, 2024

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

  And for that matter, why is the Second Amendment treated as a second-class right? Imagine if the United States put a $200 tax on the First Amendment for the use of “dangerous” words.

  Is it the position of the ATF that the $200 tax in place since 1934 should be adjusted for inflation?

  — Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) January 9, 2024

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

  We at Gun Owners of America have been saying for years that the 1934 National Firearms Act is an unconstitutional law that is incompatible with the Second Amendment. Over the years, ATF has proven that it will continue to use its power to widen the reach of the NFA to cover more and more firearms.

  Recently, ATF expanded its definition of a Short-Barreled Rifle (SBR) to cover pistols equipped with a stabilizing brace. Estimates put the number of firearms affected by this rule change at up to 40 million. ATF will likely continue to expand its definitions of regulated items to cover as many firearms as possible as time goes on and gun control proposals continue to fail in Congress.

  This is evidenced by the growing relationship between gun control groups and ATF. With the recently established office of gun violence prevention in the Biden administration, gun control groups now have a direct line from the White House, right to the Department of Justice.

  Gun Owners of America is working to fight back against these and other examples of massive government overreach. Our lawsuit, GOA & Texas v. ATF, currently has the aforementioned ATF pistol brace rule stalled with an injunction for our members, and another case Britto v. ATF has been granted a nationwide injunction. In Congress, we’re working with our allies to pass the SHORT Act, which would remove short-barreled rifles entirely from the NFA.

  This is where we’ll need your help. Please call your elected representatives and tell them to pass the SHORT Act and help stop the ATF from harassing law-abiding gun owners.

  *   *   *

  We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 18:40

• Houthis Vow "Strong Response" After 2nd Round Of US-UK Strikes On Yemen
  Houthis Vow “Strong Response” After 2nd Round Of US-UK Strikes On Yemen

  On Friday night (US time) it was revealed that the Pentagon conducted a second round of strikes against the Houthis in Yemen early Saturday morning (local), a full day following an initial operation that saw large-scale US and UK missile strikes against some 60 Houthi targets.

  The follow-up strikes have been widely described as smaller in scope than the prior day’s more significant operation. The White House has simultaneously tried present that it is seeking to avoid escalation.

  

  “We will make sure we respond to the Houthis if they continue this outrageous behavior along with our allies,” President Biden said on Friday. And his national security council spokesman John Kirby sought to emphasize, “Everything we’re doing, everything we’re trying to do is to prevent any further escalation.

  These newest strikes reportedly targeted a radar facility among other locations with Houthi military infrastructure. Interestingly, the Houthis starting Thursday, along with aligned regional media, claimed that it hit Western navy assets in the Red Sea – but the US and UK have not reported or disclosed any such attack or damage.

  According to details from CENTCOM:

  The guided missile destroyer Carney used Tomahawk missiles in the early Saturday strike “to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack maritime vessels, including commercial vessels,” the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.

  These two rounds of attacks, which included Tomahawk missiles and even submarine launched missiles, have done nothing to deter the Iran-linked Houthis.

  They are now threatening “strong and effective response” as regional waters remain on edge for what comes next. The Houthis have repeatedly said they are not scared of US and UK threats. The reality too is that the Houthis have been battling Saudi-UAE-US airpower going all the way back to 2015, amid an ongoing war for control of the country.

  The Houthis have published a video of an exercise simulating the takeover of an “Israeli settlement”…

  המורדים החות’ים בתימן פרסמו תיעוד מתוך אימון שקיימו – בו הם מדמים השתלטות על יישוב ישראלי, לקיחת בני ערובה ותקיפה של יעדים ישראליים מהאוויר ומהקרקע@kaisos1987 pic.twitter.com/IWCHd4w0Bp

  — כאן חדשות (@kann_news) January 13, 2024

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

  The Houthis can continue bleeding Western navies given they use $20,000 drones to draw a response from $1 million anti-air interceptor missiles, which sets up a ‘win-win’ situation for them while keeping up pressure on Washington too chose among multiple ‘bad options’.

  The Guardian underscores that for this reason it’s “hard to see the emboldened Houthis stopping their campaign, given their access to relatively cheap missiles and drones and desire to show resistance to the west.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 18:05

• Democrats Bring Bill To Prohibit Armed Citizen Militias
  Democrats Bring Bill To Prohibit Armed Citizen Militias

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

  Democrat lawmakers are advancing legislation intended to prevent privately organized paramilitary and militia group activities within the United States.

  

  Introduced by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Thursday, the bill dubbed the “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act” would prohibit privately organized groups from “publicly patrolling, drilling, or engaging in harmful or deadly paramilitary techniques,” “interfering with or interrupting government proceedings,” or “interfering with the exercise of someone else’s constitutional rights,” according to Mr. Markey.

  Their bills defines a “private paramilitary organization” as “any group of 3 or more persons associating under a command structure for the purpose of functioning in public or training to function in public as a combat, combat support, law enforcement, or security services unit.” The bill states acting with or on behalf of such a private paramilitary organization while armed with a firearm, explosive, incendiary device, or other dangerous weapon, and engaging in patrolling, training, interfering with government or constitutional rights, or assuming the functions of law enforcement without official authority.

  The bill makes exceptions for members of the National Guard and other military reserve components, state guard forces, and members of other federal or state-organized groups to train in and apply paramilitary, law enforcement, and security service activity. The bill also allows for the organization of groups formed solely to conduct military reenactments, “bona-fide veterans organization with no intent to engage” in the aforementioned prohibited activities, and students in government or state-authorized educational institutions that teach military science.

  Lawmakers Bring Bill in Response to Capitol Breach

  Mr. Markey and Mr. Raskin introduced their legislation just days after the three-year anniversary of the breach at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a point they repeatedly referenced in a press release announcing the bill.

  “Patrolling neighborhoods, impeding law enforcement and storming the U.S. Capitol, private paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys are using political violence to intimidate our people and threaten democratic government and the rule of law,” Mr. Raskin said. “Our legislation makes the obvious but essential clarification that these domestic extremists’ paramilitary operations are in no way protected by our Constitution.”

  Though rioters and demonstrators did not use firearms or other deadly weapons during the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, many did use blunt objects and pepper spray in clashes with police officers that day. Some individuals have also been charged for having firearms and other deadly weapons on their person while on Capitol grounds that day. In trials against members of the Oath Keepers and other defendants, prosecutors made note of members of the group moving through the crowds in an apparent practiced and organized fashion frequently described as a “stack” formation, as well as wearing tactical gear, and using portable communication devices to stay in contact and coordinate their actions.

  “Three years ago, white supremacists affiliated with paramilitary organizations stormed the U.S. Capitol, shattering windows, walls, and the families of five U.S. Capitol police officers,” said Mr. Markey. “Private paramilitary actors, such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, pose a serious threat to democracy and the rule of law, and we must create new prohibitions on their unauthorized activities that interfere with the exercise of people’s constitutional rights. The forces of bigotry, hatred, and violent extremism must be stopped for the sake of our democracy.”

  Prior to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, members of the Proud Boys had organized at conservative and right-leaning gatherings and demonstrations and clashed with violent counter-demonstrators—often members of the Antifa extremist group—intent on disrupting those gatherings.

  Other Armed Organizations and Incidents

  Following the death of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis police custody in 2020, many left-wing groups organized in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and engaged in protests and riots throughout the summer of 2020. At various demonstrations, members of these groups often clashed with police officers. For weeks, rioters also threw fireworks, incendiary devices, and rocks at federal officers guarding a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon.

  During a political rally in support of President Donald Trump in Portland on Aug. 29, 2020, Trump supporters were met with violent counterprotesters. Trump supporter Aaron Danielson was shot and killed while walking to a parking garage following the event. In an interview with Vice News while evading law enforcement, self-described Antifa activist Michael Reinhoel described shooting Danielson while claiming he acted in self-defense. Reinhoel was charged with murder but was shot and killed during a confrontation with federal law enforcement officers attempting his arrest.

  Mr. Markey and Mr. Raskin made no mention of any left-leaning organizations while announcing their bill on Thursday. Mr. Raskin told The Washington Times that the legislation was not written with a particular ideological viewpoint in mind.

  During the civil unrest in the summer of 2020, some armed groups organized to protect private property from looting and vandalism. Several armed individuals organized to prevent property destruction at a gas station and used car lot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid rioting and arson in the city in August of 2020. It was during that incident that an individual who had joined the armed organized group, then-17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, shot and killed two people and wounded a third. Mr. Rittenhouse was charged with murder, but was acquitted after arguing he had acted in self-defense after he had been attacked by several individuals who‘d targeted private property and who’d chased after him, struck him, and pointed a firearm at him.

  Individuals have also engaged in non-violent protest events while exercising their rights to carry firearms in public under relevant state and local laws.

  NTD News reached out for comment from Mr. Markey and Mr. Raskin, with questions as to whether their legislation would impact organized groups of individuals guarding private property, participating in neighborhood watch groups, or attending nonviolent public demonstrations while armed. They did not respond by press time.

  This week, U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan, an appointee of President Joe Biden, raised the hypothetical scenario of a president ordering the military to assassinate political rivals. NTD News asked Mr. Markey’s office whether groups that organize and train to respond to that scenario and other hypothetical scenarios involving tyrannical government action would be punished under his proposed legislation.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 17:30

• Haley Campaign Demands Iowa Station Stop Airing Attack Ad
  Haley Campaign Demands Iowa Station Stop Airing Attack Ad

  Authored by Austin Alonzo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Haley campaign sent a warning letter to at least one Iowa television station demanding the removal of an attack ad funded by a group tied to the DeSantis campaign.

  

  The Jan. 8 letter obtained by The Epoch Times requests Sioux City, Iowa, ABC affiliate KCAU to stop broadcasting an attack ad purchased by Fight Right Inc.

  The letter, signed by Michael Adams of Atlanta-based law firm Chalmers, Adams, Backer & Kaufman LLC, is addressed to station managers and says airing an advertisement containing “blatantly false and misleading statements” about former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley violates the station’s public trust and could result in loss of a station’s license.

  “Your station cannot violate the public trust you are federally mandated to uphold.” Mr. Adams wrote in the letter. “If you do, you can expect to be held accountable.”

  Mr. Adams was deputy chief privacy and civil liberties officer at the U.S. Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration. He served as the general counsel to the Republican Governor’s Association from 2007 to 2019.

  It is not clear whether the letter was sent to just KCAU or all stations in Iowa that accepted a contract with Fight Right. The Epoch Times reached out to Mr. Adams and representatives of the Haley campaign but did not receive a reply by press time.

  An official at KCAU confirmed the station received the letter.

  Fight Right is a super PAC linked to Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. According to its Jan. 6 disclosure statement with the Federal Election Commission, it has spent more than $9.1 million on media placements since its formation on Nov. 16, 2023. Most of the material concerns Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis, and former President Donald Trump.

  The Epoch Times previously reported that Fight Right works in concert with Never Back Down Inc. Never Back Down is Mr. DeSantis’ main super PAC. Fight Right, according to Federal Communications Commission disclosures, has ordered about $642,000 worth of ads with KCAU.

  Across Iowa, Fight Right purchased about $8 million worth of advertising time on the affiliates of the four major networks—ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC—since November, according to federal records.

  The letter alleges the ad is making statements that are “demonstrably false” about Ms. Haley’s stances on transgender issues. Mr. Adams said the Fight Right ad uses “deceptive, selective editing” to intentionally mischaracterize Ms. Haley’s past remarks on the subject.

  Mr. Adams said the ad represents a “substantial and immediate harm” to Ms. Haley and her campaign for the Republican party’s presidential nomination.

  “With the Republican presidential caucus just a week away, we further ask that you act on this promptly,” Mr. Adams wrote.

  Battling For Second Place

  Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis are stepping up attacks against each other ahead of the Jan. 15 Republican Party of Iowa’s caucus. On Jan 10, the pair squared off in a testy debate where they both accused each other of lying.

  Both Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis trail President Trump by a wide margin in Iowa polling. Two polls published on Jan. 11 found them both well behind President Trump.

  An Iowa State University and Civiqs poll found 55 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers intended to vote for President Trump. Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis were tied at 14 percent. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy had 8 percent support.

  A Suffolk University poll determined that 54 percent of Iowans who will likely participate in the primary contest plan to back President Trump. Trailing him were Ms. Haley with 22 percent support, Mr. DeSantis with 13 percent, and Mr. Ramaswamy with 6 percent.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 16:20

• Data Don’t Show Clear Link Between Weight-Loss Drugs And Suicidal Ideation: FDA
  Data Don’t Show Clear Link Between Weight-Loss Drugs And Suicidal Ideation: FDA

  Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  There is no evidence weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic are tied to suicidal ideation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in its preliminary review released Thursday, Jan. 11.

  “We determined that the information in these reports did not demonstrate a clear relationship with the use of GLP-1 RAs,” the FDA wrote.

  However, the FDA stopped short of giving the medications a completely clean bill of health. While the data so far doesn’t demonstrate a link, the agency said it couldn’t definitively rule out a small risk either.

  

  Adverse Event Reports Drive FDA Probe

  The FDA’s investigation follows months of adverse event reports linking suicidal ideation to GLP-1 agonists, a class of medications used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity.

  According to the agency’s Adverse Events Reporting System database, known as FAERS, there have been nearly 17,000 reports of adverse events associated with Ozempic. Of those, 108 involved suicidal ideation, including nine suicide attempts and six completed suicides. Wegovy was reported for suicidal ideation 14 times.

  However, the FDA said the information provided in these reports was too limited to draw conclusions. The agency noted suicidal thoughts could be attributed to other factors unrelated to the medications themselves.

  Once niche diabetes treatments, GLP-1 agonists like semaglutides (Ozempic, Wegovy) and tirzepatides (Mounjaro) have surged in popularity for weight loss in recent years, partly driven by social media influencers. These drugs mimic the hormone GLP-1, which stimulates insulin release and reduces blood glucose after eating. This effect makes a person feel fuller for long.

  The first GLP-1 was approved in 2005, for treatment of type 2 diabetes, but the class now includes multiple options. Wegovy, specifically approved for weight management for adults with obesity or overweight with at least one weight-related condition, is the only one that warns healthcare professionals to monitor for suicidal thoughts.

  Too Soon to Draw Firm Conclusions

  The FDA also reviewed clinical trials and studies of GLP-1 agonists. Their analysis did not uncover a clear connection between the medications and suicidal behavior or thoughts. However, the agency said it could not definitively rule out a small risk, as some suicidal behavior was observed in some people.

  In all, the FDA is investigating 13 different GLP-1 receptor agonists. The Jan. 11 findings represent the first batch of results; reviews for the remaining 11 drugs are forthcoming. To reach its final conclusions, the agency plans to thoroughly analyze insurance claims data and patient health records. Recommendations will be announced once this comprehensive review is complete.

  In the meantime, the FDA advised patients currently taking GLP-1 agonists not to stop without first consulting their healthcare provider. It is critical to report any new or worsening conditions, mood changes, or suicidal thoughts. Those experiencing suicidal crisis can call 988 or visit 988Lifeline.org, which provides free support for people in distress, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

  Prescribing physicians are also being instructed to monitor for signs of depression, suicidal ideation, and unusual behavioral changes in patients on GLP-1 agonists.

  The FDA is also investigating whether these drugs cause alopecia, more commonly known as sudden hair loss, as well as aspiration. Aspiration occurs when you inhale water or food into the windpipe instead of down the esophagus.

  The FDA is also investigating potential links between these medications and sudden hair loss (alopecia) and aspiration. Nearly 420 alopecia cases and 20 aspiration events have been reported, including food particles found in one patient’s lungs during surgery.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 15:10

• Two Weeks After "Hottest Year" Ever, NFL's Bills-Steelers Game Postponed For Snow
  Two Weeks After “Hottest Year” Ever, NFL’s Bills-Steelers Game Postponed For Snow

  Legacy media spent the last week fearmongering Americans into believing the Earth was on fire with “hottest year” ever on record headlines. 

  

  Firstly, these headlines are coming out in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere winter, just as a polar vortex is set to plunge temperatures across the Lower 48 states.

  

  Riddle us this: How can it be, less than two weeks after the hottest year ever on record, that the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers game this afternoon was postponed because of snow? 

  Stay safe Bills Mafia. We’ll see you Monday.#PITvsBUF game update: https://t.co/doHQL3bOEn pic.twitter.com/sGxSCIeESY

  — Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) January 13, 2024

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

  Darn that global warming! 

  We’re going to need some shovelers to get @HighmarkStadm ready for Sunday!

  How you can help: https://t.co/Wvx1Pa1ILo pic.twitter.com/G6WcRiYofJ

  — Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) January 12, 2024

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

  Snow has started! Expect deteriorating conditions this afternoon and evening!! pic.twitter.com/WBx714tf3g

  — BuffaloWeather (@weather_buffalo) January 13, 2024

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

  Steelers-Bills has been moved to Monday at 4:30 PM ET due to weather conditions in Buffalo. pic.twitter.com/VSGST0Cd2E

  — Action Network (@ActionNetworkHQ) January 13, 2024

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

  The NFL’s Wild Card playoff matchup between the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers has been postponed from Sunday to Monday evening due to extreme winter weather 🏈

  — Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) January 13, 2024

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

  “Trust the science,” they say. 

  

  * * *

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 14:35

• Fani Spanked: Jim Jordan Launches Investigation Into DA's Alleged Lover As Trump-Georgia Case Goes Off The Rails
  Fani Spanked: Jim Jordan Launches Investigation Into DA’s Alleged Lover As Trump-Georgia Case Goes Off The Rails

  Update (1523ET): House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has launched an investigation into Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor in the Trump-Georgia case who has been accused of making more than $650,000 off the case – during which he and Willis took lavish vacations together.

  

  “According to a recent court filing, you have been paid more than $650,000—at the rate of $250 per hour—to serve as an ‘Attorney Consultant’ and later a ‘Special Assistant District Attorney’ in the unprecedented investigation and prosecution of the former President and other former federal officials,” wrote Jordan in a Friday letter reported by Just the News.

  “This filing also alleges that while receiving a substantial amount of money from Fulton County, you spent extravagantly on lavish vacations with your boss, Ms. Willis.”

  “The Committee has information that the FCDAO [Fulton County District Attorney’s Office] received approximately $14.6 million in grant funds from the Department of Justice between 2020 and 2023 and, given the enormous legal fees you have billed to the FCDAO, there are open questions about whether federal funds were used by the FCDAO to finance your prosecution,” the letter continues.

  Wade has until January 26th to reply with documents related to the case.

  *  *  *

  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis – who has charged Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants with trying to change the outcome of the 2020 US election in Georgia – has become the main attraction in a major prong of the left’s 2024 election lawfare operation.

  

  On Tuesday we noted that Willis had hired Nathan Wade (without proper approval), a private attorney in the midst of a divorce who “has little to no experience trying felony cases, much less complex RICO actions,” according to the 127-page filing.

  Wade ended up pocketing nearly $700,000 from Fulton county taxpayers – with which he allegedly took Willis on lavish vacations.

  Now, Wade’s wife has alleged in divorce documents that he failed to disclose over $700,000 in earnings from the county, and has continued to draw from her bank account, leaving it “routinely overdrawn” despite “the clear inequity in financial circumstances,” the Daily Caller reports.

  Wade filed to divorce his stay-at-home wife of 20 years on November 2nd, 2021, the day after Fani hired him as a Special Prosecutor in the Trump case. He had his divorce sealed on February 10th, 2022, according to the 127-page filing by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman.

  Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sent a criminal referral Wednesday to Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr asking for an investigation into Willis and expressing “serious concerns” about the allegations. Greene suggested Willis could have violated a number of Georgia statutes, including violations of public oath, bribery, improper influence of a government official and more.

  The Monday motion did not cite hard evidence that Willis and Wade were romantically involved but referenced “sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney” who confirmed their ongoing relationship. -Daily Caller

  Oh, and let’s not forget – Wade billed taxpayers $2,000 to talk to the Biden White House about prosecuting Biden’s political opponent.

  It literally says “conf with White House Counsel” in May of 2022

  This is Fulton DA Fani Willis lead prosecutor in the Trump case billing taxpayers $2000 to talk to Joe Biden’s White House about prosecuting Biden’s political opponent pic.twitter.com/oCGjx7j3bA

  — Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) January 9, 2024

  Looks like someone didn’t run their schemes past Marc Elias… 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 14:23

• Republicans Score Major Win Against DEI In A 'Purple' State
  Republicans Score Major Win Against DEI In A ‘Purple’ State

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

  In the 2000 movie “Gladiator,” the soldier Maximus understands the strategic advantage of sticking with allies and refusing to back down during an iconic fight scene in the Roman Colosseum.

  With the odds stacked against them, Maximus—played by Russell Crowe—and fellow gladiators hold their ground against opponents to win their battle despite long odds.

  

  It’s a lesson not lost on at least one Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin, who wielded legislation to slash Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in the University of Wisconsin (UW) system. He finally claimed victory in December after a seven-month battle.

  Wisconsin is considered a “purple” state politically—a mix of blue, with its Democratic governor, and red, with the Republican-controlled state assembly and senate.

  That’s why some are saying Assembly Speaker Robin Vos pulled off such a major victory for conservatives despite a challenging political climate. His prize: getting the state’s university system to remove many DEI positions and practices.

  In response to Mr. Vos’s maneuvers in negotiating the passage of the state budget in May, UW leaders agreed to remove a third of the system’s 188 DEI positions.

  Additionally, UW officials also said they‘d freeze DEI hiring for three years. They said they’d eliminate DEI loyalty statements for new hires. The pledges require new employees to promise to support DEI ideology and give preference to minority or identity groups said to have been oppressed.

  UW trustees also voted to phase out minority-focused recruitment and replace it with recruitment based on accomplishment. They promised to incorporate merit in student admissions, automatically accepting the top 10 percent of students in high schools based on grades and class rank. And they agreed to add an endowed chair to focus on conservative political thought.

  In exchange, UW got money for salary raises and new buildings.

  “The one thing that I have learned, the more I’ve done this, is that I have total respect for people who fight for the conservative cause,” Mr. Vos told The Epoch Times, after persuading UW trustees to make the changes, an effort that took months of negotiations and was initially voted down.  

  “But I have a lot more respect for people who win.”

  Decimating Campus DEI

  Critics contend DEI is a form of Marxism that divides people into identity groups of oppressors and their victims.

  Supporters of DEI policies say they’re needed to right the wrongs of what they believe to be systemic racism in America by giving preferential treatment to minority groups.

  Mr. Vos, who has been the speaker for about 12 years, said some people scoffed when he told them DEI was the top issue for his state. He’s felt that DEI policies in the university system led to students being “indoctrinated,” rather than educated.

  “People also don’t fully appreciate how this is like a cancer,” Mr. Vos said of DEI, which has spread to universities around the country. “It’s the worst possible thing for our democracy.”

  

  Mr. Vos and fellow GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin used a carrot-and-stick approach to getting the two-year state budget passed, including measures that would mean doom for DEI on university campuses in the state.

  During budget negotiations, Republicans slashed $32 million from the university system’s budget, about what they calculated was the funding needed to support DEI programs.

  Gov. Tony Evers threatened to veto the entire state budget because of the cuts to DEI. But that would mean no raises for any state employees.

  He called Republicans’ efforts “really obnoxious” and “B.S.” He signed the budget in July.

  But a Republican-controlled committee still needed to approve the raises before going into effect. Mr. Vos warned that the committee would not approve pay raises for UW employees until receiving assurance that DEI would be cut from the university system.

  That left the decision up to UW officials. If they wanted to secure the pay raises, they’d have to agree to eliminate DEI.

  Mr. Vos recalled telling the UW leadership, “I am dead serious. We are not giving you one nickel until we negotiate and make changes to DEI.”

  After months of wrangling, university system leaders were forced to choose—pay raises for their employees or the preservation of DEI on campuses.

  They chose to boost salaries for employees in exchange for axing much of DEI.

  Lawmakers of the Black Caucus issued a statement saying they were “appalled and ashamed” at the diversity changes and questioned whether racial minorities were involved in the negotiations.

  

  Conservatives point to Mr. Vos’s tactics as a blueprint for how Republicans should unite and use the so-called “power of the purse” to eliminate what they see as divisive policies from public institutions.

  The process showed Mr. Vos is a “master” legislator, said GianCarlo Canaparo, a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

  “He just played the levels of power in that state like a fiddle,” Mr. Canaparo told The Epoch Times.

  “I think what happened in Wisconsin shows why Republican legislators need to use the powers they have more than they are [using them currently], even if they don’t completely control state government,” said William Jacobson, a Cornell law school professor.

  Mr. Jacobson formed EqualProtect.org in response to DEI-fueled discrimination in education against whites and others. DEI is a form of “racial discrimination,” supported by a small group of activists, he said.

  It’s not a popular idea with most people, Mr. Jacobson said. And in his view, cutting off funding for campus DEI programs is the best way to dismantle them.

  “Because when push comes to shove, college administrators and college professors and university systems care more about the money than they care about DEI,” Mr. Jacobson said.

  ‘Stand for What You Believe’

  The Wisconsin speaker’s plan to take down DEI in his state’s university system began forming when he heard troubling stories about how hallmarks of the ideology were affecting constituents, he said.

  One told him that students had to write essays on politically left-wing topics to get into the state’s colleges. Another informed him that the universities no longer required scores from entrance exams for admission.

  Mr. Vos bristled when he learned that some high schools in his state were removing acknowledgments of merit by doing away with grades or class rankings for students.

  Concerns about DEI at the state’s universities had been growing, he said.

  And a recent survey showed a worrisome lack of free speech on one of the campuses.

  Yet, when he raised concerns about those issues with university system leadership, they ignored him, he said.

  “And frankly,” he said, “they kind of were arrogant and thought they could just go around me.”

  Meanwhile, he said, university leaders began making their wish list known to his colleagues. Namely, they wanted raises and new buildings, especially a new engineering building at the system’s flagship campus in Madison, he said.

  

  But Mr. Vos rallied Republicans, urging them to stand firm, as they hatched a plan.

  Mr. Vos wanted to negotiate for legislative control over the creation of positions within the state universities. And he wanted to require universities to base student admissions on scores from standardized entrance exams again.

  It was then that university leaders “realized that things were going to have to be different if they were going to have any chance to get the money that they wanted” for pay raises and new buildings, Mr. Vos said.

  That made conditions right for negotiating.

  In December, UW officials agreed to cut DEI policies, and Republicans agreed to fund the wanted pay raises and release the money needed for building projects within the UW system. That included money for the new engineering building initially rejected by the GOP.

  Republicans also agreed to authorize $32 million for workforce development within the UW system.

  They didn’t get standardized test scores returned to the admissions process.

  But they did maneuver to get merit back into education.

  School systems in Wisconsin and across the country have attempted to eliminate the awarding of letter grades to students and have, in many cases, eliminated testing.

  Those traditions that elevate individuals based on their achievements don’t fit the DEI concepts. Acknowledging merit is seen by proponents of DEI as part of an oppressive system that hurts minorities.

  As part of the deal-making in Wisconsin, the university system agreed to automatically admit the top 5 percent of graduating high school seniors to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Students in the top 10 percent of their graduating class would be admitted automatically to any of the other 12 college campuses in the system.

  “We want the smartest, best people on the front lines of everything from science to technology,” Mr. Vos said. It should not, he said, be “based on your race.”

  

  As a result of those victories, parents of high school students will be empowered to demand a return to the awarding of grades and the assigning of class rankings, Mr. Vos said.

  The outcomes illustrate that “you just have to be tenacious,” he said. “You have to stand for what you believe in and accept the fact that you’re not going to get everything.

  “But if you play it right, you have the ability to get more than they want to give.”

  For Republicans, the “more” was the promise to create an endowed chair at the flagship university in Madison. The position will focus on conservative political thought, classical economic theory, or classical liberalism.

  Additionally, university system leaders agreed to develop and implement on all campuses a module to teach entering undergraduate students about freedom of expression.

  Mr. Vos—who views himself as being on the “hard right” politically—said Republicans need to understand that in successful negotiations, getting much of what you want is better than getting nothing.

  Florida and Texas have passed legislation banning DEI positions at universities.

  But DEI is entrenched on most college campuses, Mr. Jacobson said.

  So there’s still the possibility that DEI positions and programs that were supposed to be eliminated actually will be preserved, just with new names that sound different but represent the same purpose, he said.

  But those who feel DEI is wrong for America must stand strong.

  “It is the start of the fight against DEI,” Mr. Jacobson said. “It is not the end of the fight against it.”

  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 14:00

• Lloyd Austin Remains Hospitalized – And Should Absolutely Be Fired For Hiding Condition
  Lloyd Austin Remains Hospitalized – And Should Absolutely Be Fired For Hiding Condition

  On Saturday, the Pentagon announced that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is still hospitalized following a prostatectomy.

  

  To recap: On January 1, President Biden and top national security aides convened on a secure call to discuss ways to intensify pressure on Houthi militants in Yemen. Nobody present, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top aides, noticed anything wrong with Austin.

  Hours later, however, he was being raced across the DC suburbs in an ambulance, and told nobody about his health crisis for days.

  Not even Austin’s most senior aides at the Pentagon, top officials at the White House, or Biden himself had any idea of his whereabouts and the threats to his health. Kathleen Hicks, the Pentagon No. 2 who could step in for Austin if needed, was vacationing in the Caribbean.

  Four days passed before Austin’s medical crisis was disclosed publicly. The uproar unleashed by the news that the Pentagon chief had undergone two hospitalizations and a surgery following a prostate cancer diagnosis without notifying the White House or Pentagon staff has threatened to overshadow his tenure leading America’s sprawling military enterprise, and created a potentially damaging distraction for Biden as he intensifies his reelection campaign. –WaPo

  And as Roger L. Simon writes in the Epoch Times, Austin should be fired…

  *  *  *

  I consider myself something of an expert on prostatectomies because I had one not long ago—November 2022.

  Of course, I was asleep through most of it, so factor that in. I’ve also written about it in my new book in a chapter entitled “Farewell, My Prostate”—a nod to the great detective novel by Raymond Chandler, “Farewell, My Lovely.”

  If you read it, I predict you’ll agree that I’ve been more transparent about the event than the Pentagon or the White House, although that’s, as the cliché goes, a low bar.

  In fact, the obfuscation, denial, and misinformation on all ends of this, given the wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and, potentially, the Pacific, is almost the most dangerous incompetence imaginable on a global scale.

  It makes you wonder who’s minding the store here in the land that’s supposedly the guardian of the free world. Since the disastrous departure from Afghanistan, we have more than an inkling of that. The craziness and extraordinary lack of transparency in the matter of the secretary of defense’s prostate operation only hammers it home.

  In my case, the operation was a big deal to my family and me, but not, needless to say, to the country.

  All it did was delay my columns here at The Epoch Times for a few days, something I’m reasonably sure almost no one noticed.

  

  Unlike Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, I had notified the company sometime before, in the person of Editor-in-Chief Jasper Fakkert, that I would be having the operation. He was gracious about it.

  Such things are almost always scheduled far in advance. Mine was. (Was Mr. Austin’s?)

  Most people who have prostatectomies have known about their cancers for a considerable amount of time. They’re slow growing. In my case, it was diagnosed when I still lived in Los Angeles seven or eight years before the actual operation. I was under what’s called “active surveillance” until a biopsy told me action was needed.

  Even then, I waited several months and consulted several physicians.

  It would be interesting, actually imperative, to know Mr. Austin’s history in this regard. Just how long did he know he had prostate cancer, and who else knew it?

  The recovery, too, is tricky. I went home from the hospital, as did the secretary of defense, the day after the operation. This is conventional. But I went home with the also conventional pain medications (hydrocodone) and antibiotics—to avoid the urinary infection that Mr. Austin apparently got.

  Further, and also conventionally, I was catheterized. If you’ve been there and done that, you know that that doesn’t exactly put you “on your game.” (You probably know it, even if you haven’t been.)

  You remain that way for a week, sometimes more if the doctor advises. For me, it was by far the most unpleasant part of the entire procedure.

  I wouldn’t have been qualified to, say, monitor the activities of the Houthis in the Red Sea and make decisions about a response—not that I am normally.

  But there are reasons to believe Mr. Austin isn’t all that qualified either, normally—and not just because of the prevarications surrounding his operation.

  Mr. Austin has overseen, and been a prominent spokesman for, our new woke military that has turned our once-revered fighting forces into free, taxpayer-sponsored mills for transgender surgery—thus leaving our enemies in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea scratching their heads in bewilderment, but nevertheless, we can assume, smiling and laughing at the same time at our idiocy.

  And there’s the matter of the aforementioned flight from Afghanistan that left the Taliban one of the most heavily armed fighting forces in the world and a net exporter of weapons on a grand scale with the huge Bagram airbase in its hands, while, after a very short time, women are back to being as oppressed as they always were under their rule.

  Good job, Secretary of Defense Austin.

  Scratch that, terrible job, one of the worst ever.

  Whether it was shame over an operation that’s exclusively male or whatever excuse he has, his behavior in his crucial position was unconscionable in the extreme, and that of the White House scarcely better.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 13:25

• George Carlin's Daughter Denounces AI Simulation Of His Comedy
  George Carlin’s Daughter Denounces AI Simulation Of His Comedy

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

  George Carlin’s daughter has criticized an artificial intelligence-generated voice of her comedian father used for an hourlong standup comedy special based on his catalog of work.

  “My dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his very human life, brain and imagination,” Kelly Carlin said on X. “No machine will ever replace his genius. These AI-generated products are clever attempts at trying to recreate a mind that will never exist again.”

  

  She added that his work should “speak for itself.”

  “Humans are so afraid of the void that we can’t let what has fallen into it stay there,” she said.

  ZERO PERMISSION GRANTED. https://t.co/BAm62WrWSU

  — Kelly Carlin (@kelly_carlin) January 11, 2024

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

  The artificial intelligence platform called Dudesy generated the simulation of how the comedian might address contemporary issues.

  “I just want to let you know very clearly that what you’re about to hear is not George Carlin. It’s my impersonation of George Carlin that I developed in the exact same way a human impressionist would,” the AI-generated voice of Dudesy said at the beginning of the special. “I listened to all of George Carlin’s material and did my best to imitate his voice, cadence, and attitude as well as the subject matter I think would have interested him today.”

  Anti-Establishment Themes

  Mr. Carlin, who died of heart failure in 2008, often spoke of anti-establishment themes throughout the body of his comedic work.

  “Think of it like Andy Kaufman impersonating Elvis, or like Will Ferrell impersonating George W. Bush,” the AI voice said.

  Upon introducing itself, the AI voice of Mr. Carlin apologized for taking so long to come out with new material.

  “But I had a pretty good excuse,” it said. “I was dead.”

  AI has resurrected George Carlin to make us laugh once more.
  And it’s terrifying. pic.twitter.com/I4TlMT6KYd

  — Vanessa Harris (@technologypoet) January 12, 2024

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

  The voice went on to criticize religion and the gun rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, blaming mass shootings on the ability of Americans to be able to purchase guns easily.

  “Things are starting to come apart at the seams so they’re taking as much of your money as they can, while they still can,” the voice said. “Make no mistake, guns ain’t nothing but a federally sanctioned cash grab, plain and simple. You give your money to Smith & Wesson and Smith & Wesson gives it to the politicians. The politicians write laws to make guns easier to sell so you can give even more of your money to Smith & Wesson.”

  In addition, the voice criticized American preoccupation with pop culture such as reality television.

  “Film and television used to be art by artists that wanted to challenge us about the world and our place in it,” it said. “Now it’s content made by corporations that don’t want anyone thinking about anything.”

  The voice said it was glad it was dead because the country elected a reality television star as its president, pointing to former President Donald Trump’s competition reality show “The Apprentice.”

  “And at this point, the election is just another [expletive] reality show on one of their overpriced streaming services,” it said. “If you don’t believe me, take a look at your two, I repeat, two choices in this next election. Shouldn’t a country of 300 million ethnically and ideologically diverse people have more options than two rich, senile, dishonest, out-of-touch, 80-year-old white guys?”

  The voice added, in Mr. Carlin’s style, that the country has a two-party system because it’s cheaper for billionaires to monopolize.

  “You think you are voting for the lesser of two evils, but you are always voting for the same evil: money,” it said.

  AI-Generated Carlin Supports Woke Culture

  The voice criticized the conservative stance on several issues in relation to the culture wars and defended LGBT rights. It celebrated the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 while criticizing the protests at the U.S. Capitol.

  “Every major city in the country was on fire,” the voice said. “People were openly fighting cops in the streets,” it said, later adding that “getting rid of the cops” is a step closer to “building a better society.”

  The voice referred to itself as an AI-generated entity and ridiculed the public’s fear of losing their jobs to this technology.

  “Seems that many of you are scared of AI, and I’ll be honest, I don’t really get why,” it said. “You all think it’s going to replace your jobs and you somehow think that’s a bad thing. When did everybody all of a sudden start liking their jobs? When I was alive people hated their [expletive] jobs. They complained about them all the time.”

  If there were one profession that was threatened by AI, it would be standup comedy, the voice said.

  “I might be the first standup comic to be brought back from the dead by AI but I’m certainly not the last,” it said before alluding to a future of streaming services for deceased comedians to comment on current affairs.

  Instead of listening to the AI-generated voice of her father, Ms. Carlin said it would be better to give living comedians a try.

  “But if you want to listen to the genuine George Carlin, he has 14 specials that you can find anywhere,” she said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 12:50

• Polar Blast Sends Power Prices Soaring, Spot NatGas Ripping, And Risk Of "Freeze-Offs"
  Polar Blast Sends Power Prices Soaring, Spot NatGas Ripping, And Risk Of “Freeze-Offs”

  The polar vortex split has spread dangerously cold air across the Pacific Northwest to the Midwest and is expected to reach the eastern half of the United States this weekend and into next week. Power grid operators are on high alert and have prepared generators before heating demand surges. There is also a major threat of freeze-offs that could curtail oil and gas production. 

  Around 0700 ET, the average temperature across Montana was -30F, and about a quarter of the Lower 48 recorded temperatures below zero, according to Ryan Maue, a meteorologist and former NOAA chief scientist. 

  “That cold air is slowly but surely plunging into the Plains and Great Lakes,” Maue said. 

  

  The Arctic blast has sent next-day power prices at the Mid Columbia hub in the Pacific Northwest to a record high of $1,075 per megawatt hour, according to Reuters, citing LSEG data. The grid’s average power prices range from $81 in 2023 to $52 between 2018 and 2022.  

  “Generator owners must take extra care to maintain equipment so that it doesn’t freeze in the cold … particularly as natural gas pipelines may become constrained as the cold spell progresses,” PJM Interconnection wrote in a press release.

  PJM is the largest grid operator in the US and supplies power to 13 states, from Illinois to New Jersey. It recently warned that state and federal decarbonization policies had caused reliability concerns in extreme weather conditions. 

  

  Other grid operators, including Southwest Power Pool and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, have issued weather alerts as the cold blast begins this weekend. 

  According to Bloomberg data, Lower 48 average temperatures have already plunged and will stay well below a 30-year trend for at least the next ten days. 

  

  According to Bloomberg, cold weather has skyrocketed spot prices at the US Henry Hub in Louisiana by 300% to as high as $17 per million British thermal units. That compared to $3.31 for the Feb NatGas contract on Friday. 

  The catalyst for soaring spot prices is the mounting risk of so-called freeze-offs, which can bring NatGas production offline, thus curbing supplies. 

  X user Celsius Energy expects “NatGas production freeze-offs will ramp up. Output will fall to 101.4 BCF, up just +0.8 BCF vs last year & 5 BCF below record highs. Most of these losses are from the Rockies. Look for further losses as arctic air reaches Texas & the Appalachians.:

  I’m now projecting a -304 BCF #natgas storage withdrawal for Jan 13-19, only the 3rd -300 BCF drawdown on record, after 2018’s -359 BCF & 2021’s -338 BCF. W/ arctic air now a given, whether the draw ultimately tops -300 BCF will depend on freeze-offs & disruptions to LNG exports. pic.twitter.com/HA2fAy6xSJ

  — Celsius Energy (@CelsiusEnergyFM) January 12, 2024

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

  More signs of freeze-offs. 

  Rockies gas production continued to decline as freeze offs impacted the region, cutting production from early-January rates of 11.45 Bcf/d to a current seasonal low of 10.46 Bcf/d. We should see a further decline this weekend – for our full production analysis, ping us at… pic.twitter.com/2dXfHs3QaP

  — Criterion Research (@PipelineFlows) January 12, 2024

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

  On Thursday, Goldman analysts Daniel Moreno and Samantha Dart said the 23% year-to-date gains for NatGas prices have largely been due to “forecasts for much-colder-than-average temperatures in the second half of January.” 

  US natural gas prices have gained 23% year-to-date to $3.10/mmBtu on the back of forecasts for much-colder-than average temperatures in the second half of January. Importantly, freezing temperatures are expected in several producing regions over the next ten days, implying interruptions to production due to freeze-offs.

  

  However, the analysts pointed out: “Once we move past this spell of cold weather, we expect market focus to return to managing oversupply. We estimate this will require prices to realize somewhat lower than current forwards to incentivize more coal-to-gas switching and disincentivize production. Accordingly, we maintain our Sum24 forecast of $2.55/mmBtu vs. current forwards at $2.77/mmBtu.” 

  To sum up, early impacts of the polar vortex split are increased power prices on grids due to a surge in heating demand and early reports of freeze-offs of NatGas equipment and or pipelines that curtail production and send spot prices higher. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 01/13/2024 – 12:15

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• After 20 Years, It's Time For American To Leave Iraq
  After 20 Years, It’s Time For American To Leave Iraq

  Authored by James Durso, op-ed via The Hill,

  It seemed like a good idea at the time… 

  On Jan. 4, 2024, the U.S. assassinated Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, a commander in an Iran-linked Iraqi militia. The Pentagon press release called the militia a “terrorist group” and claimed the strike was in “self-defense.” But it neglected to mention the militia was also part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi government body that falls under the Ministry of Defense.  

  Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, criticized the killing and announced that Iraqi and U.S. representatives would soon meet to discuss the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying the justifications for the existence of the coalition “have ended.” 

  In 2020, Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution demanding the expulsion of U.S. troops after the U.S. killed Iran Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and PMF leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.  

  

  In 2024, will Sudani deliver on that demand? 

  Jawari’s death comes just weeks after Israel’s counterattack on Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip. The region is enraged over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian civilians; the killing of an Iraqi official, in the city of Baghdad, no less, will undoubtably worsen relations between Baghdad and Washington at a time when the U.S. is busy in Gaza and the Red Sea. 

  U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria have been attacked over 100 times since October 2023. Retaliation by the Americans is fair enough, but killing a senior Iraqi commander near the anniversary of the assassinations of Soleimani and Muhandis is professional malpractice, as it looks like the killing was approved with no concern for the consequences (though some may think it was a clever warning to others). 

  The Pentagon produced no “ticking bomb” rationale for the killing and would have shouted it from the rooftops if it existed. The Pentagon killed Jawari because it could. 

  America’s action will increase pressure inside Iraq’s government, as it must deal with popular outrage over Israel’s destruction of the Gaza Strip and the afront to its sovereignty by the Jawari killing.  

  So, will the Americans finally leave Iraq? 

  If the two sides eventually do talk, the Americans will very likely delay and delay — and then threaten Baghdad by increasing restrictions on Iraq’s foreign currency reserves held by the U.S. Federal Reserve. The Iraqis may push past that and demand a publicly announced schedule, though Washington will want to keep the details secret for “operational security” (i.e., to avoid mocking TikTok videos of the evacuation).

  Evacuating Iraq will threaten support for the U.S. troops in Syria, which the Pentagon claims are there to ensure the “enduring defeat” of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In reality, with ISIS being defeated in 2019, the troops are really there to someday support a coup against the Bashar al-Assad government in Damascus, and to provide security for the extraction of oil, natural gas and wheat from Syria’s northeast. The American looting of Syria’s wealth – what the Bolsheviks called “expropriation” – recalls Gen. Smedley Butler: “I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism.”  

  Thank you for your service, indeed. 

  If the Americans refuse to leave, the Iraqis cannot do much to force them out, other than declare the U.S. forces are in the country illegally and that it has no host nation obligation to protect them. The militias will attack the American bases, but the real threat may come from patriotic Iraqi truckers who will refuse to deliver food, water and fuel to the U.S. outposts. If the U.S. attempts resupply by air, Baghdad can close the airspace to foreign military aircraft. The Kurds may try to cooperate with the U.S., as there is an American facility at Erbil airport, but they were brought to heel by a previous airspace closure and will be again. 

  If the supply line to the U.S. bases in Iraq is severed, the U.S. presence in Syria is threatened; this will please Damascus, Tehran and Baghdad, as the U.S. troops there are the cause of local instability, not a preventative. Washington will carp about increased Iranian influence in the region, but it was the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq that handed Iraq to Iran on a salver.  

  U.S. restraint would have kept Jawari alive, and may have allowed troops to stay in the country a little longer, but his killing will likely strengthen Sudani, as he will claim he was the Iraqi leader who saw the Americans off. He won’t show any gratitude as he does so. 

  Removing troops from Iraq won’t save much money but will reduce tensions, as they are there as justification for American intervention when they inevitably draw fire. Washington’s dream of a coup in Damascus will hopefully vanish; a coup would invite intervention by Russia, Turkey, Iran and Islamist forces, which would then increase pressure on Washington’s client, Israel.  

  It has been 20 years since America disrupted the region by attacking Iraq based on lies: that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraq was cooperating with al-Qaeda. America is still respected in the region for its many achievements, even though it brings violence and chaos in its wake — but in this case, its absence may help local hearts grow fonder. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 23:40

• These Are America's Worst Drivers (By Car Brand)
  These Are America’s Worst Drivers (By Car Brand)

  Car insurance costs are up 30% since the pandemic but some drivers are getting hit with even higher premiums because of bad, or reckless, driving.

  But who are America’s worst drivers? And what do they drive?

  LendingTree analyzed “tens of millions” of insurance quotes between November 14, 2022 and 2023 in a bid to answer these polarizing questions.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu shows below, the researchers calculated the number of driving incidents (accidents, speeding tickets, DUIs, citations) per 1,000 drivers sorted by vehicle brand in every state.

  

  The Top Car Brands With America’s Worst Drivers

  LendingTree’s logic is simple: The higher the incident count per brand, the more bad drivers behind the wheel of said brand.

  At the top of the list, drivers of Rams (formerly Dodge Ram, spun off on its own since 2009) had 33 driving incidents per 1,000 drivers, making them the worst drivers in America.

  A quick google search reveals the internet feels the same way, and LendingTree’s category analysis reveals that Ram drivers had the most speeding tickets, and second-most accidents and DUIs of all 30 brands in the dataset.

  Here’s the full list of analyzed U.S. car brands, ranked from worst to best drivers.

  Rank	Car Brand	Driving Incidents/ 1,000 Drivers
  1	Ram	33
  2	Tesla	31
  3	Subaru	30
  4	Volkswagen	28
  5	Mazda	28
  6	BMW	27
  7	Lexus	27
  8	Infiniti	27
  9	Hyundai	25
  10	Toyota	25
  11	Jeep	25
  12	Kia	25
  13	Honda	25
  14	Audi	24
  15	Nissan	24
  16	Mercedes-Benz	24
  17	Chevrolet	23
  18	Ford	22
  19	Mitsubishi	22
  20	Volvo	22
  21	GMC	22
  22	Dodge	21
  23	Acura	20
  24	Chrysler	19
  25	Lincoln	19
  26	Buick	19
  27	Cadillac	18
  28	Saturn	17
  29	Pontiac	16
  30	Mercury	16

  But what makes Ram drivers so bad? There’s a mix of factors here, which may not necessarily be the drivers themselves. Rams are the cheapest entry for pickup truck enthusiasts, and modern pickup trucks are one of the most dangerous vehicles to drive because of their design. They’re taller than most other vehicles on the road, creating blindspots for the driver, heavier, making them more likely to injure and kill, and generally bigger, making them harder to handle.

  It is interesting to note however that drivers of other famous pickup truck brands, Chevrolet, Ford and GMC—which together with Rams, account for the best-selling vehicle in nearly every U.S. state—rank somewhere at the bottom of the top 20, far below Ram drivers.

  Tesla and Subaru Also Have Some of America’s Worst Drivers

  Only two other car brands, Tesla, and Subaru joined Ram in having 30 or more incidents per 1,000 drivers in the year.

  Incidentally, Tesla drivers also had the highest accident rate (23.5/1000) in the analysis period. Last month the company announced a massive recall in the U.S. following a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report that said the use of Autosteer, a driving assistance software, may lead to “increased risk of collision.”

  Meanwhile, BMW drivers (6th in worst drivers overall) had the highest DUI count (3.13/1,000) amongst the lot.

  On the other hand, Pontiac and Mercury drivers were some of the best on the road registering only 16 incidents per 1,000 drivers, about half of their Ram counterparts.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 23:20

• US Officials Concerned About Tense Split Between Zelensky & Military Chief
  US Officials Concerned About Tense Split Between Zelensky & Military Chief

  Via The Libertarian Institute, 

  As the Ukrainian war effort has faltered, fractures have begun to emerge in Kiev between top officials. The most significant is the division between President Zelensky and the head of Ukraine’s military, General Valery Zaluzhny. The split is alarming US officials. 

  “Officials in Washington are concerned differences between Zelensky and his army chief, Zaluzhny, are slowing efforts to crystallize a new strategy,” Bloomberg reports.

  

  “With a decisive breakthrough unlikely in the coming months, Kiev’s allies say designing a clear military strategy for how to defend current positions and then break through Russian lines is crucial,” the report continues.

  The fractures emerged between Zaluzhny and Zelensky late last year when the general said that the war had become a stalemate. The admission means that Zelensky’s stated goal of reconquering Ukraine is impossible. 

  The president and his military are also at odds over Ukraine’s conscription policy. Zaluzhny is unhappy with the slow pace at which Zelensky has expanded Kiev’s draft. 

  The conflict between Zelensky and the Ukrainian armed forces has been brewing for some time. In October, Time Magazine reported that troops had ignored orders to advance even when those orders came from Zelensky. 

  Videos of Ukrainians kidnapped on the streets by military recruiters are all over Ukrainian telegram channels.
  – As the public becomes increasingly angry with the government, Zelensky will become cautious about arming the angry masses pic.twitter.com/Ggp90jzm2v

  — Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) January 6, 2024

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

  The military personnel are not the only Ukrainians to break with their president. Last year, an aide to Zelensnky said the president was deluding himself into thinking the war was winnable. The mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, has warned that Zelensky is turning Ukraine into an authoritarian state. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 23:00

• Visualizing The Top Global Risks In 2024
  Visualizing The Top Global Risks In 2024

  What is the global risk landscape in 2024?

  Record global temperatures are leading to increasingly harmful impacts, a cost-of living crisis is making everyday life harder for people around the world, and escalating tensions in the Middle East have the potential to widen into a broader regional conflict.

  Meanwhile, in 2024 it’s expected to be the world’s biggest election year ever with 4 billion people casting a vote across 60 countries. Will threats such as misinformation and polarization loom large as people head to the polls?

  Visual Capitalist’s Dorthy Neufeld created the visualization below to show the biggest risks for 2024, based on the World Economic Forum’s annual survey of leaders around the globe.

  

  Global Risk Profile in 2024

  Here are the top 20 risks to the global economy, based on a survey of 1,490 leaders.

  Leaders were asked to choose up to five risks that are likely to present a material crisis on a global scale in 2024:\

  

  Extreme weather poses the biggest risk according to leaders surveyed. It also ranks second overall in terms of severity over the next two years.

  Global economies are widely unprepared for the consequences of acute weather, from shocks to food systems to large-scale infrastructure damage. In fact, some research shows that potentially irreversible changes to the planet could be reached by the 2030s if temperatures continue to rise.

  Misinformation and disinformation is the second-biggest risk, which could diminish trust and deepen political divides. It also has the potential to undermine global elections, which are slated across the U.S., Russia, India, Mexico, and dozens of other countries.

  The threat of misinformation is especially clear given advancements in AI-generated content. It ranks first overall in terms of risk severity across the list.

  Interlinked with misinformation is the risk of societal polarization. In the post-pandemic era, political divides have worsened, and these have been exacerbated by economic hardship and a lack of economic opportunity.

  Additionally, the conflict in the Middle East is severely impacting the livelihood of millions of people, and the recent attack in Lebanon raises questions about the outbreak of a wider war. The escalation of interstate armed conflicts ranks as the eighth-highest risk for the global economy in 2024, and the fifth-most severe.

  Future Global Risks

  How will global risks transform over the next decade?

  By 2034, leaders surveyed believe that environmental risks will be most concerning, making up five of the top 10 risks, by severity:

  

  We can see that technological risks of misinformation and the adverse outcomes of AI technologies also remain fairly dominant.

  AI has the potential to be highly destabilizing to society, presenting some existential risks due to its role as a “force multiplier”, which means that it can increase the effect of a country’s military systems, data analytics, and other capabilities.

  From a broader perspective, key structural forces are influencing global risks looking ahead. They include technological acceleration, climate change, shifts in geopolitical power, and a widening demographic divide.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 22:40

• The Orwellian Assault On The Past Continues
  The Orwellian Assault On The Past Continues

  Authored by Roger Kimball via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

  

  That line from George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” might serve as a sort of motto for the woke apparatchiks who run our lives today.

  Perhaps it’s because they have, as one wag put it, mistaken Orwell’s stern admonition about the dangers of totalitarianism for a how-to manual.

  In any event, the present’s attack on the past by those holding the reins of power continues apace.

  And the goal, just as in Orwell’s novel, is to revamp the future by redefining the past.

  John Calhoun was an apologist for slavery, so the college named for him at Yale must be renamed.

  Never mind that he was valedictorian at Yale, a member of the House of Representatives, a senator, Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and vice president.

  Never mind, too, that he was one of the most powerful minds and greatest orators of his day.

  He had beliefs that the beautiful, pampered people of today find objectionable.

  So he had to go.

  It was the same with the great mining magnate Cecil Rhodes.

  He made a stupendous fortune in what’s now South Africa, endowed Oriel College, Oxford, with part of his fortune, and established the Rhodes scholarship program.

  He too was insufficiently enlightened, so a campaign to besmirch his memory and remove all traces of his presence from Oriel College has been underway for years.

  From 1924 to 2021, a large equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee stood in a place of honor in Charlottesville, Virginia.

  In the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots, the statue was removed. Last fall, in a sort of pyromaniacal ritual, it was cut apart with a blow torch and then melted down.

  Last month, President Joe Biden had the 109-year-old Reconciliation Monument removed from Arlington National Cemetery.

  Just a few days ago, the Biden administration announced that it was removing a statue of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, from a park that had been his home.

  That spot will undergo a “rehabilitation” and, in place of Penn, the administration will place a statute of an American Indian in order, to provide a more “inclusive … interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia.”

  The attack on the past is proceeding apace.

  Its goal is to efface the contributions of white Europeans, especially white male Europeans, to the formation of Western civilization.

  Over the past several years, we have seen a rising tide of assaults on statues and other works of art representing our nation’s history by those who are eager to squeeze that complex story into a box defined by the evolving rules of political correctness.

  A vocal minority, claiming victim status, demands the destruction, removal, or concealment of some object of which they disapprove.

  Usually, the official response is instant capitulation.

  It’s worth noting that the monument controversy signifies something much larger than the attacks on the Old South.

  Indeed, the attack involves not just artworks or commemorative objects.

  Rather, it encompasses the resources of the past writ large.

  It’s an attack on the past for failing to live up to our contemporary notions of virtue.

  In the background is the conviction that we, blessed members of the most enlightened cohort ever to grace the earth with its presence, occupy a moral plane superior to all who came before us.

  Consequently, the defacement of murals of Christopher Columbus—and statues of later historical figures such as Teddy Roosevelt—is perfectly virtuous and above criticism since human beings in the past were by definition so much less enlightened than we.

  The psychopathology behind these occurrences is a subject unto itself.

  What has happened in our culture and educational institutions that so many students jump from their feelings of being offended—and how delicate they are, how quick to take offense!—to self-righteous demands to repudiate the thing that offends them?

  The more expensive education becomes, the more it seems to lead, not to broader understanding, but to narrower horizons.

  The iconoclasm that accompanies this existential narrowing takes different forms.

  The disgusting attacks on the past and other religious cultures carried out by the Taliban, for example, are quite different from the toppling of statues of Saddam Hussein by liberated Iraqis after the Gulf War.

  Different again was the action of America’s own Sons of Liberty in 1776, who toppled a statue of the hated George III and melted down its lead to make 40,000 musket balls.

  It’s easy to sympathize with that pragmatic response to what the Declaration of Independence called “a long train of abuses and usurpations.”

  It’s worth noting, however, that George Washington censured even this action for “having much the appearance of a riot and a want of discipline.”

  While such attacks on the past depend upon a reservoir of iconoclastic feeling, they represent not the blunt expression of power or destructiveness but rather the rancorous, self-despising triumph of political correctness.

  The exhibition of wounded virtue, of what we now call “virtue-signaling,” is key.

  Of course, impermissible attitudes and images are never in short supply once the itch to stamp out history gets going.

  At Charlottesville it was a statue of Robert E. Lee.

  But why stop there?

  Why not erase the entire history of the Confederacy?

  There are apparently some 1,500 monuments and memorials to the Confederacy in public spaces across the United States.

  According to one study, a majority of them were “commissioned by white women, in hope of preserving a positive vision of antebellum life.”

  A noble aspiration, inasmuch as the country had recently fought a civil war that devastated the South and left more than 700,000 Americans dead.

  These memorials were part of an effort to knit the broken country back together.

  As at Arlington, our leaders have set about obliterating them in earnest.

  What they want isn’t reconciliation but capitulation.

  Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and James Madison have all been queued up for “rehabilitation” if not ostracism.

  After all, they all owned slaves, as did 41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

  As I say, many of our politically correct culture warriors seem to regard “Nineteen Eighty-Four” as a how-to manual.

  Orwell saw clearly where it ends.

  “Every record has been destroyed or falsified,” Orwell wrote, “every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.”

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 22:20

• Where Cocaine Is Produced (And Where It's Consumed)
  Where Cocaine Is Produced (And Where It’s Consumed)

  Although cocaine is consumed in every part of the world, its base, the coca plant, is mainly cultivated in three Latin American countries: Peru, Bolivia and Colombia.

  

  The latter made headlines in the fall of 2023 due to a report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) claiming that the area used for coca crop in 2022 grew to 230,000 hectares, a 13 percent increase compared to 2021, according to Reuters reporting.

  As Statista’s Flrian Zandt shows in the chart below, this further cements Colombia’s spot as the top coca producer in the world.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  According to figures by UNODC and the Peruvian government, Colombia was responsible for almost two thirds of the total coca cultivation area in 2022. Peru came in second with 95,000 hectares, while Bolivia ranked third with 30,000 hectares. To combat the increase of land dedicated to coca plantations, Colombian President Gustavo Petro advocated for the recognition of drugs as a “health problem for society” instead of it being viewed as a “military problem” at the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Drugs this past September.

  Following the conference, Petro presented a new national anti-drug plan in October 2023. Reuters summarized the underlying policies of the ten-year plan as aiming to “reduce the size of coca crops, cut potential cocaine output and prevent deforestation linked to drug trafficking, while helping transition small farmers to the legal economy.”

  When looking at the cocaine market from the users’ perspective, the Americas, excluding the United States, also have the highest estimated share of people claiming to have consumed cocaine in 2021, with 6.6 million or 30 percent of total global users of the drug.

  The United States, whose government has continued putting pressure on the leaders of the countries mentioned above to step up their efforts to combat coca cultivation for decades, saw 4.8 million people using the drug in the corresponding year, according to data aggregated in the UNODC’s World Drug Report.

  Overall, the Americas made up around half of estimated cocaine users worldwide.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 22:00

• The Homeless Camps' Disease Trifecta
  The Homeless Camps’ Disease Trifecta

  Authored by Charlotte Allen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Portland, Oregon, area is currently experiencing an explosion of shigellosis, a highly infectious, often antibiotic-resistant intestinal disease caused by contact with human feces.

  

  Most of the outbreak—at least 218 cases in 2023, 45 of them reported in December—has taken place in Old Town, a once-lively restaurant and shopping destination near downtown Portland that’s now the site of numerous homeless encampments whose residents often use sidewalks as restrooms.

  The Portland City Council, alarmed at a surge in the area’s homeless population, now estimated at about 6,000, in June 2023 passed severe restrictions on camping in public places. Tents and campsites are now technically banned during daytime hours and limited to certain designated areas at night. But no one in famously progressive Portland tried to enforce the legislation until the fall, when this latest infestation of shigella bacteria (there had been a similar outbreak among the homeless in 2021) began to generate headlines.

  No sooner did Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announce that the city would begin limited enforcement of the camping ban on Nov. 13 than homeless advocates rushed to court and obtained a preliminary injunction that keeps the disease-infested tent cities in place pending a full trial that could take place years from now. Their lawyers had argued that the daytime camping ban was impossible to comply with and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment of people who couldn’t afford permanent housing.

  So now, what’s Portland supposed to do about a nasty infection directly spread by the filthy and unsanitary conditions that prevail in homeless encampments?

  Already, tourists and locals alike have been shunning Old Town over public drug use, aggressive panhandling, used needles, trash, and feces littering the sidewalks, and rampant street crime, including a spate of homicides. Now, it’s also a disease vector—a disease vector that Portland can do little to control.

  Welcome to the homeless encampment disease trifecta: the unhygienic sidewalk camps themselves, the infectious illnesses they spawn and spread, and the rulings from liberal judges at the behest of homeless advocates that prevent local officials from taking basic steps to halt the diseases, such as getting rid of the camps and cleaning the sidewalks—all in the name of solicitude for the homeless themselves.

  Portland is far from the only city to be cursed by the homeless disease trifecta. Minneapolis is another. On Dec. 7, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously passed a resolution declaring unsheltered homelessness to be a public health hazard. The resolution noted recent outbreaks of such “preventable” diseases as hepatitis A, typhus, tuberculosis, influenza, pneumonia, and diphtheria. Hepatitis A, a liver infection that spreads through fecal contamination, has afflicted Minneapolis’s homeless camps for years.

  But when the city made repeated efforts to close down one of the most noxious of the tent cities, Camp Nenookaasi, as it was called, housing about 150 people without running water or sewage control, and plagued by alleged drug use, trafficking, and at least one fatal shooting as well as the death of a newborn infant, activists fought back. On Jan. 2, they filed a class action suit in federal court against Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to block an eviction scheduled for Jan. 4.

  This time, though, the judge, Eric Tostrud, declined to accept the activists’ argument that the residents of Camp Nenookaasi had been denied due process of law or subjected to cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Constitution. The camp-clearing proceeded apace, although many of the residents simply moved to other encampments.

  And then there’s San Francisco, whose downtown has become a homeless mecca abandoned by once-flourishing retailers and tech companies. In 2018, an infectious disease expert at the University of California–Berkeley deemed San Francisco’s filthy and needle-contaminated streets potentially worse health hazards than those of some of the world’s poorest Third World countries.

  More recently, an October 2023 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine reported that homeless San Franciscans were 16 times more likely to die suddenly than their housed counterparts. Causes included infectious diseases as well as drug overdoses and cardiac arrest.

  Yet city officials are mired in federal litigation over whether it can legally conduct sweeps that would clear out the tents and disinfect the sidewalks. In December 2022, a judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the clean-up efforts on the grounds that San Francisco’s ordinances barring lying and sitting on public streets conflicted with a 2018 ruling from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that localities can’t criminalize street-camping unless they can offer sufficient shelter beds to the “involuntarily” homeless. (The Ninth Circuit encompasses the nine Western states, where 42 percent of the nation’s homeless live.)

  Since then, San Francisco has struggled to work out a compromise with homeless advocates over whether “involuntarily” includes people who refuse shelter offers. It has joined about 50 other cities, including such liberal enclaves as Los Angeles and Seattle, in asking the Supreme Court to review a 2020 decision by a federal judge in Medford, Oregon, that a local anti-camping ordinance amounted to “criminalizing the underlying status of being homeless.” A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling in 2022, and in July 2023, a full Ninth Circuit declined to reconsider.

  Advocates for the homeless use such words as “cruel” and “barbaric” to describe municipalities’ efforts to demolish homeless encampments in urban public spaces. But who is actually being cruel and barbaric? Public health officials have described the crowded, unsanitary conditions in the tent clusters as a “crisis” marked by the return of such “medieval” diseases as typhus and bubonic plague, both spread by rats sharing living spaces with humans. These are diseases that abated in the West only during the 19th century, when cities became able to provide clean running water and sewage disposal.

  When living quarters are allowed to turn into disease vectors, the chief victims aren’t tourists or even locals, who can usually avoid contaminated parks and sidewalks with relative ease. The chief victims are the homeless themselves, sick and dying. True compassion would recognize this. But instead we have the homeless disease trifecta. Its most deadly component is the courts that let this public health disaster continue.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 21:40

• "If Truth Shall Prevail, Here Is How History Will Remember 'January 6'…"
  “If Truth Shall Prevail, Here Is How History Will Remember ‘January 6’…”

  Authored by Paul Ingrassia via American Greatness,

  The following commentary was adapted from remarks I delivered at an event held in Toms River, New Jersey, by the Patriot Freedom Project, an organization, founded by Cynthia Hughes, committed to shedding light on the plight of January 6 defendants and their families.

  Today we commemorate the third anniversary of one of the darkest days in our country’s recent history—though not for the reasons the Left believes.

  The tragedy of January 6, 2021, was not that it was an “attack on our democracy,” let alone an “insurrection.”

  But rather, it was an opportunity for the deep state to finally remove its mask and begin the persecution and imprisonment of American citizens, innocent patriots labeled domestic terrorists merely for exercising their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble on public property, the vast majority of whom did not commit any acts of violence on Capitol grounds. As we later found out, through the disclosures of footage from Capitol grounds that day, many of these peaceful demonstrators only entered the Capitol after being waved on by Capitol police, who actively enabled them to make the alleged breach, only to later turn around and scapegoat them as trespassers and insurrectionists when it became politically convenient to do so.

  

  As we have also found out in the months and years since that fateful day, federal agents were seeded throughout the crowds, both outside and within the Capitol, tasked with openly inciting the demonstrators to violence. Despite that irrefutable fact, an exceptionally small number of them did commit any violence. Absolutely zero engaged in the act of insurrection, which is a legal term of art with a very specific meaning: namely, the Framers of the 14th Amendment, from where that term originates, had in mind preventing Confederate War Generals from returning to government, who took up arms and literally waged war against the Union. Nobody who showed up on the Capitol steps on January 6 engaged in a rebellion—hardly any of them were even armed, and those who were armed were, at most, carrying around pepper spray. Show me an example in the entire history of the world of a successful armed insurrection done with pepper spray.

  The tragedy of January 6 continues through the present moment, on the third anniversary, and will remain a tragedy so long as innocent Americans remain locked up, every single one of them denied due process of law. This will likely continue until Donald Trump is reelected this November. As you all know, many January 6 prisoners continue to languish behind bars—many still in the DC Gulag, and some in the most horrific conditions of solitary confinement. The media has constantly demonized these political prisoners (which President Trump refers to as “hostages” of our government) as domestic terrorists. And the treatment they are currently getting is, unsurprisingly, that of a domestic terrorist: cruel and inhumane, deprived of fundamental rights, including the right to meaningful legal assistance, food in some cases, and the bare minimum necessities to stay alive. All for merely showing up on the Capitol, a public forum on which Americans have long enjoyed their rights to assemble and speak for centuries, to contest an election whose results were tainted by the stain of illegitimacy—something that history has vindicated, overwhelmingly, in the months and years since that day.

  If the truth shall prevail, here is how history will remember January 6: peaceful demonstrators were finally fed up with a government that had become outwardly tyrannical (and I’m not talking about President Trump).

  They saw violence all throughout the previous summer, committed by rogue, militant left-wing organizations such as BLM and ANTIFA. These organizations were allowed to commit untold billions of dollars of damage to public and private property, but the entire regime, including both party establishments and the mainstream media, excused them for every action and even designated them as “peaceful protests,” asking television audiences to deny observable reality, as churches were broadcast literally burning to the ground while businesses were looted and ransacked, and anarchy was unleashed in virtually every major city from coast to coast. This again was the backdrop against which, on January 6, a comparatively tame counter-response took place.

  The 2020 presidential election observed all sorts of unprecedented rule changes, late-night ballot drop-offs, conveniently timed “water main” breakages that obstructed the electioneering process, not to mention rampant, government-instigated, top-down censorship of both stories like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal that would have been outcome-determining on the results of the general election, and political candidates, like the President of the United States himself, who was forced off every major social media platform—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it—thereby censoring his voice in the weeks before he left office.

  So, the regime took away the President’s First Amendment right to speak and the people’s First Amendment right to peacefully demonstrate. The people who arrived at the Capitol on January 6 did so not out of retribution towards their government but out of desperation for their political situation—what felt like a last-ditch effort to have their voices heard.

  The cause of January 6 is therefore ultimately the cause of the American republic: will it survive or will it too be relegated to the dustbin of history? That cause will be determined, ultimately, by whether President Trump is re-elected this November. So far, we have reason to be cautiously optimistic. He has never polled this well before in his entire political career. The momentum behind him seems to be growing stronger by the day, even as the weaponized justice system gets more and more belligerent, a sign of desperation for sure, with each successive indictment.

  We are living through truly historic times, not just for the history of America but for the history of the world, because the 2024 presidential election will have world-historic consequences, for where America goes, so goes Western civilization.

  Whether that dwindling light of freedom, which America long stood for, ever gets rekindled will largely come down to what happens in several months from now. It is our duty to continue to spread the truth, the perennial enemy of tyranny, in the lead-up to the election. We need to continue to expose the utterly fake narrative about J6, which was completely discredited for the garbage propaganda it always was by the (partial) release of January 6 footage.

  We need to keep the momentum going strong behind President Trump and remain vigilant of left-wing fraud and scheming, which will surely get more desperate as they lose control of the narrative and see all their lawfare prove ineffective.

  We must pray for the country, for the President, and for each other—and especially for the victims, including those still locked up—and for the wives and children of many victims, who continue to endure unspeakable hardship—financially and emotionally—each and every day.

  We must also, and this is important, remain unified as a movement. Together, we are much stronger than if we merely proceeded individually. A strong, happy, and united front is what the Left fears most about President Trump and his supporters, which is why they are doing everything in their power that they possibly can to bring him down once and for all.

  Let us send a clear and unwavering message to them that they cannot break our resolve whatsoever. We are stronger than ever before. They will be met with resistance unlike anything they have ever experienced if they so much as dare attempt to stop our momentum or strike any one of us down. We should accept nothing less than victory, because out of that victory will come true justice—the justice all these political hostages and their families have long waited for and so much deserve.

  Thank you.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 21:00

• Yellen Boasts About Clean Energy Tax Break Success Despite $1.7T Deficit And $34T In Debt
  Yellen Boasts About Clean Energy Tax Break Success Despite $1.7T Deficit And $34T In Debt

  Despite the fact that the country is running record deficits, has just passed $34 trillion in debt and is, for all intents and purposes, on the precipice of a debt spiral “point of no return”, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen still seems awfully cavalier about spending.

  This past week Yellen said that she “welcomed” larger than expected uptake of tax breaks under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, despite the fact that the country doesn’t have any way to pay for it, according to Bloomberg.

  Yellen said this week: “What that reflects is the effectiveness, the tremendous response rate, that we’re seeing from the private sector, from cities and states, to these incentives. So you’re clearly having a very major effect on take-up for clean energy investments.”

  

  The 2022 IRA aims to boost clean energy, including electric vehicles, mainly via unlimited tax incentives, ironically producing the opposite result of “inflation reduction”.

  While the Congressional Budget Office projected a $238 billion deficit reduction over 10 years, the Brookings Institution warns costs could reach $1 trillion due to higher demand, the Bloomberg article noted. 

  Since this is a topic we have covered more or less daily for our 15 year existence, we don’t need to say much suffice to show a chart of total US debt since Zero Hedge launched in Jan 2009, when total US debt was only $10.6 trillion. We sure have come a long way since then.

  

  As we noted a couple of days ago, at this point everyone knows how this ends – certainly the CBO does…

  

  As we wrote about a week ago, at best, one may only prepare for the inevitable hyperinflationary outcome, which would be good news to what is now over $1 trillion in interest expense: after all, someone has to devalue the currency all that interest is payable in.

  

  And since there is no longer a way out, we may as well joke about it so consider this: in the third quarter when US GDP supposedly grew at a 4.9% annualized rate – hardly the stuff of recessions – rising $547 billion in nominal (not real) dollars, the US budget deficit increased by a whopping $622 billion.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 20:40

• O, Wonder! Take A Moment To Smell The Roses
  O, Wonder! Take A Moment To Smell The Roses

  Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClear Wire,

  Ever since Henry Ford worked his wonders, most Americans have been able to afford a car, but chauffeured rides long remained the exclusive province of the uber-rich. “Jeeves, have the car ready at 6 to take me to the club.”

  

  Over the holidays I was a regular Rockefeller. Using a handheld computer that astrophysicists could only dream about a few decades ago, I summoned Ubers and Lyfts that arrived lickety-split to take me anywhere I desired. One stop was the airport, where I was whisked across the empyrean like a Greek god (or Santa Claus).

  High in the sky, I recalled the late great Tom Wolfe’s observation that the average American enjoys material comforts that would be the envy of the Sun King himself, Louis XIV.

  Gen X, Y, and Zers may find it hard to believe, but a mere century ago, there was no air conditioning or television, let alone smartphones. Boomers who are shocked when anybody dies before their 90^th birthday – what happened? – may vaguely recall that the few people who made it to a ripe old age in the olden days were often confined to wheelchairs because they couldn’t swap out their hips and knees. Obesity was not a crisis because few people had too much to eat. And they didn’t smile in pictures because their teeth were a horror show. Worst of all, almost everyone had to drink bad coffee.

  And yet, even as I marveled in the blue yonder, annoyance seeped into my bean. I was stuck on an older plane that didn’t offer Wi-Fi service and figured dollars to donuts I’d have to wait a half hour for my checked bag to hit the carousel – assuming it hadn’t been shanghaied to Oshkosh. The pretzels were stale, of course.

  Like most people, I am often an ingrate. God or nature seems to have wired us to take the good things for granted. We’re like squirrels who spend less energy appreciating our fat store of nuts than worrying about threats to the stash. This instinct has an immense upside. Dissatisfaction drives far more progress than contentment. Concern is more likely to keep us alive than complacency.

  But it also comes at a cost. It engenders a lack of gratitude and a sense of entitlement, which has only grown with our prosperity. The more we have, the more we expect.

  Our world is, of course, far from perfect. Everyone suffers, many are in need. Even billionaires have problems. But if our ancestors could see us now they would be confounded by our disgruntlement. They would say: You are living at the apex of human achievement; you enjoy food, shelter and clothing, devices and doo-dads given to you like manna from the heavens. Our lives were short, nasty, and brutish – we ate squirrels and dandelions for goodness sake – while even the poorest among you have comforts our rulers would have envied.

  We are not the greatest generation, but we are certainly the most fortunate. We stand on the shoulders of the giants who created the plenty that defines modern American life. As much as we harp on inequality, the history of the last century has largely seen the erasure of the truly consequential differences between rich and poor in this country – who can travel, see a doctor, get enough food, and have sufficient shelter. Gone, too, are most of the legal constraints placed on minorities and women.

  As we enter another ugly election year, focus will be placed on the many forces fueling our rampant pessimism and anger, including the rise of political tribalism, demagogic leaders, and the media’s divisive partisanship. But as we dissect the estranging forces that lead us to demonize our fellow citizens, we should not ignore the mindset that makes so many of us susceptible to darkness: a lack of appreciation.

  Right, center, and left, few of us ever take a step back and give thanks for our dumb luck. All of us are getting our one go-round in the halcyon days of human history. It might have been cool to live at the time of Plato, Jesus, or Ben Franklin, but I think I’d rather have clean water, antibiotics, and Starbucks. Our inability to acknowledge and actuate this reality has almost become a form of psychosis, as the way we see the world is light years away from the facts on the ground.

  Human beings, of course, do not live by bread alone. In many ways we are in the grip of a spiritual and moral poverty. We have plenty of things, but many of us are searching for meaning. The roots of this malaise are deep. During the 19^th century, Nietzsche linked it to the death of God. In the 1950s Norman Mailer wrote about the “psychic havoc of the concentration camps and the atom bomb upon the unconscious mind of almost everyone alive in these years.”

  For us, today, more recent events have played havoc with our minds: The collapse of Soviet-style communism stripped America of much of its Cold War moral standing, the belief that the United States was a force for good in the world. The 9/11 attacks and 21^st century crises ranging from the economic meltdown of 2007-2009 to the plethora of mass shootings reinforced our collective sense of vulnerability, introducing the abiding fear that we can lose all in an instant. This is a prime driver of the mental health crisis exploding across the country.

  These feelings are real, but they do not reflect reality. Our pessimism and unease are not hard facts, but reflections of how we choose to see things – through a glass, darkly. Part of this stems from our growing sense of entitlement.

  The bold opening words of the Declaration of Independence notwithstanding, a democratic society does not, as totalitarian regimes claim to do, bear responsibility for our psychic happiness. It is up to each of us – through family, friends, faith, pastimes, work, and our own inner resources – to find meaning in our lives. Yet, we, who have been given so much, believe this should be somehow handed to us as well.

  We cannot solve all our problems with a change of mind. But we can begin to become a happy, healthier people if each of us works to be a little more grateful. Even as we struggle with our own very real challenges and suffering, let’s each of us, each day, intentionally recall, through a sacred (or secular) prayer, all that we have to be thankful for. It can start healing our broken world and ourselves.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 20:20

• Turkey, Russia Condemn Strikes On Yemen: West Turning Red Sea "Into A Bloodbath"
  Turkey, Russia Condemn Strikes On Yemen: West Turning Red Sea “Into A Bloodbath”

  The international reaction to the Thursday night US-UK coalition bombing of Houthi positions in Yemen continues to come in, with the more interesting of the statements being issued by Turkey.

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Friday statements to the press in Istanbul said that the attack would turn the Red Sea into a “bloodbath”. He also condemned the Western coalition operation as “disproportionate” despite the previous over two dozen attacks on commercial shipping of the last months by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

  “First of all, they are not proportional. All of these constitute disproportionate use of force,” Erdoğan told journalists. “It is as if they aspire to turn the Red Sea into a bloodbath.”

  The Turkish leader has lately been outspoken in support of Gaza, and condemnation of Israel’s military operation, but it remains somewhat surprising that the man who leads the second largest military within the NATO alliance would say things that are actually supportive of the Houthi side. Watch: 

  BREAKING — Erdogan says US and UK strikes in Yemen targeting the Houthis are disproportionate uses of force.

  “They are eager to turn the Red Sea into a bloodbath. We see that the Houthis are making very successful defenses against the strikes”

  pic.twitter.com/AtKolAXdI9

  — Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) January 12, 2024

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

  He also praised South Africa for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), underscoring that Turkey is assisting with this as well: “All the documents we have given are seriously working in The Hague and we will continue to provide these documents… I believe Israel will be found guilty,” he said. “Netanyahu no longer has a hole to run to, no means to defend.”

  More predictably, Russia too condemned the strikes on Yemen, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying Friday, “We strongly condemn these irresponsible actions by the United States and its allies.” She further told reporters that Moscow has called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

  “A large-scale military escalation in the Red Sea region could strike out the positive trends that have emerged recently in the Yemeni settlement process, as well as provoke a destabilization of the situation throughout the Middle East,” she warned.

  Notably, Russia and China had on Wednesday abstained from a UNSC resolution demanding that the Houthis immediately halt all attacks on international shipping.

  

  Below is a round-up of the Middle East regional reaction to the major Thursday night strikes on Yemen, as cited in various sources including Al Jazeera,, Daily Mail, and Reuters…

  Iran’s Foreign Ministry:

  “These attacks are a clear violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a breach of international laws. These attacks will only contribute to insecurity and instability in the region.”

  Lebanese Hezbollah:

  “The American aggression confirms once again that the U.S. is a full partner in the tragedies and massacres committed by the Zionist enemy in Gaza and the region.”

  “Hezbollah strongly condemns the blatant American-British aggression against brotherly Yemen, its security and sovereignty, and its free and honorable people, which stood with all strength, courage and responsibility alongside the Palestinian people and their valiant resistance, and did their utmost to break the siege on it by all available means and capabilities.”

  Iraq’s Shia militias:

  “Today’s aggression against Yemen has doubled the solidarity of the peoples with the Axis of Resistance and the right of its sacred cause to stand against tyranny.”

  Saudi Arabia

  “The Kingdom is following with great concern the military operations in the Red Sea region and the raids on sites in Yemen. We stress the importance of maintaining the security and stability of the Red Sea region and call for restraint and avoiding escalation.”

  * * *

  And China is urging calm, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning saying, “China is concerned about the escalation of tensions in the Red Sea.” She added: “We urge the relevant parties to keep calm and exercise restraint, to prevent the conflict from expanding.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 20:00

• Wisconsin Judge Rules Use Of Mobile Vans In Absentee Voting Violates State Election Law
  Wisconsin Judge Rules Use Of Mobile Vans In Absentee Voting Violates State Election Law

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Wisconsin judge ruled this week that the use of a mobile van to facilitate absentee voting violates state election laws, marking a win for Republicans who had challenged the city of Racine after the vehicle drove to various locations throughout the city and collected absentee ballots in 2022.

  

  Racine County Circuit Court Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz said in his ruling that the city’s use of a mobile van for absentee voting not only violated state law but also unfairly benefited Democrats in a primary election in August 2022.

  In his 17-page ruling, the judge noted that while no statute of state law expressly prohibits the use of mobile voting vans, it also does not explicitly authorize their use.

  “The absence of an express prohibition, however, does not mean mobile absentee ballot sites comport to procedures specified in the election laws,” the judge wrote.

  “Nothing in the statutory language detailing the procedures by which absentee ballots may be cast mentions mobile van absentee ballot sites or anything like them. Such an interpretation was and is contrary to law.”

  The judge further noted that state law “clearly and unequivocally indicates that chosen alternate absentee balloting sites ‘cannot afford an advantage to any political party’” but that the filings in the case “clearly indicated that the alternate sites chosen clearly favored members of the Democratic Party or those with known Democratic Party leanings.”

  Van Granted ‘Advantage’ to Democrats

  Judge Gasiorkiewicz’s ruling centered on a lawsuit bought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a nonprofit conservative law firm based in Milwaukee, on behalf of Racine County Republican Party Chairman Ken Brown, following the 2022 primary.

  The lawsuit listed Racine City Clerk Tara McMenamin and the Wisconsin Elections Commission as defendants.

  In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argued that using the “election van” as an alternate absentee ballot site violated state law and that the locations the van visited afforded an advantage to citizens who are members of the Democratic Party or have a history of voting Democratic.

  The van was purchased with grant money the city of Racine received from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, the nonprofit funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, according to The Associated Press.

  It was sent to nearly two dozen sites in the two weeks before the primary, where it would stop by for several hours of in-person absentee voting before moving to another site over the course of two weeks.

  However, plaintiffs argued the van was only sent to Democratic areas in the city and claimed it increased the chances of voter fraud.

  They further claimed that the locations the van visited were not as close as possible to the City Clerk’s office and violated the “shall be located as near as practicable to the office of the municipal clerk or board of election,” clause of state law.

  

  Ruling Bolsters Election Security

  Additionally, the plaintiffs claimed city officials had further violated state law by allowing absentee voting in the same physical building (City Hall) where the Office of the City Clerk is located and failed to have alternate site designations in effect for the requisite mandatory statutory time period.

  The judge, however, rejected claims that in-person absentee ballot sites should be located as near as possible to the office of the municipal clerk or board of election commissioners, noting that the term “as near as practicable” encompasses “consideration beyond a pure geographic standard.”

  “In fact, treating this legal term of art as purely distance-based would be an ‘erroneous concept of law,’” the judge wrote.

  The Democratic National Committee, Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, and Black Leaders Organizing for Communities had all joined in seeking to rebuke the claims in the lawsuit and defend the legality of the van, arguing there was no cause shown to believe the law had been broken and no specific prohibition against using it.

  In a statement following the ruling, WILL deputy counsel, Lucas Vebber, said the ruling ensures government actors are held accountable to the rule of law at all levels.

  “Wisconsin voters should know that their elections are secure, and that election administration does not favor one political party over another. This decision does just that,” he said.

  WILL research director, Will Flanders, added, “Every citizen should have an equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process. We are grateful the Court recognized that the City of Racine broke the law. WILL is proud to provide sound research and to help ensure fair elections for all.”

  The Epoch Times has contacted the Wisconsin Elections

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 19:40

• Houthis Undeterred After US Coalition Pummels Over 60 Targets With Tomahawk Missiles, Airstrikes
  Houthis Undeterred After US Coalition Pummels Over 60 Targets With Tomahawk Missiles, Airstrikes

  The Thursday night US and UK-led major strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, while posing a significant risk for escalating the Gaza war into a regional conflict, still apparently have not deterred the Iran-backed rebel group’s resolve to attack Red Sea shipping and even Western naval vessels.

  Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree released a videotaped address saying “The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for its criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished.” Houthi sources have tallied over 70 strikes across five regions of Yemen, indicating that at least five people died in the attacks. The Pentagon indicated over 100 missiles of a variety of types were used.

  The US Air Force’s Mideast command said in a statement that a combination of jets, destroyers, and a submarine were used, hitting Houthi “command-and-control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, production facilities and air defense radar systems” in the operation which followed repeat Houthi attacks on Red Sea vessels. “I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary,” President Biden had said in a written statement.

  

  “These strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea—including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history,” the US Commander-in-Chief had added.

  According go more details of the variety of weapons systems and platforms used: 

  More than 15 F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighters operating from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower were involved, according to Fox News, citing unnamed Pentagon sources. Unspecified Air Force fighters operating from a base in the Middle East were also part of the attack. Newsweek has yet to verify these reports.

  The USS Florida guided missile submarine and U.S. surface ships launched Tomahawk cruise missiles. It is not clear what other vessels took part in the bombardment, but American Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers have been operating in the Red Sea in recent months.

  But though intense, it was a relatively brief attack, likely lasting not more than 30 minutes, or definitely less than an hour. Videos of large fireballs lighting up the night sky flooded social media as key cities like Saana and the port city of Hodeidah were hit, where there also remain large population centers.

  But again, the key takeaway here is that after these brief fireworks which many officials have complained comes much too belatedly (though some US lawmakers have already highlighted there was no Congressional approval), the Houthis are likely soon to resume their attacks. Also likely is that there will eventually be more rounds of coalition strikes on Yemen as the crisis endures. Thursday night’s attack is likely to actually result in further reduced commercial shipping traffic in Red Sea waters now visited by war:

  • MILITARY ADVISES SHIPS TO AVOID BAB EL-MANDEB: INTERTANKO NOTE
  • OIL TANKER FIRM HALTS RED SEA TRIPS AFTER US STRIKES: BBG
  • Hafnia has stopped all southern Red Sea shipping, according to a statement from a spokeswoman for the company.
  • Tanker Carrying Saudi Crude to Suez U-Turns Before Gulf of Aden: BBG

  Videos (unverified) of large fireballs on the horizon have been widely circulating…

  🚨🇬🇧🇺🇸🇾🇪#BREAKING: The scenes in Yemen CURRENTLY. pic.twitter.com/aOtc0dQMx1

  — Censored Men (@CensoredMen) January 12, 2024

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

  A Foreign Ministry statement by a Houthi spokesman, Hussein al-Ezzi, acknowledged “a massive aggressive attack by American and British ships, submarines and warplanes” before going on to say that “America and Britain will undoubtedly have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences of this blatant aggression.”

  Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the Houthis’ chief negotiator and spokesperson, additionally said the Western powers have “committed foolishness with this treacherous aggression.”

  “They were wrong if they thought that they would deter Yemen from supporting Palestine and Gaza,” he said in an online statement, vowing further that “targeting will continue to affect Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine.”

  Yemenis remain defiant, attending large Friday anti-US demonstrations…

  Massive protest in Yemen after Biden and the Brits conducted air strikes. pic.twitter.com/7dmJ9SeXGV

  — Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 12, 2024

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

  The Pentagon has said that it has no plans to send more troops or assets to the region for now, and will monitor the situation, also as all eyes are on US bases in Iraq and Syria, as American forces brace for potential retaliatory attacks from Iran-backed militias.

  Importantly, CENTCOM had called out the Iranians specifically. “We hold the Houthi militants and their destabilizing Iranian sponsors responsible for the illegal, indiscriminate, and reckless attacks on international shipping that have impacted 55 nations so far, including endangering the lives of hundreds of mariners, including the United States,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, USCENTCOM Commander.

  The strikes in Yemen (🇾🇪) were carried out or supported by (at least) the following aircraft:

  🇺🇸 RC-135 Rivet Joint
  🇺🇸 P-8 Poseidon
  🇺🇸 E-2C Hawkeye
  🇺🇸 15+ F/A-18 Super Hornets

  🇬🇧 Voyager tanker
  🇬🇧 4 Typhoons

  (Thread will be updated with photos/videos)

  1/x pic.twitter.com/G50YROcD3z

  — Aerospace Intelligence (@space_osint) January 12, 2024

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

  Meanwhile, Dave DeCamp at AntiWar.com provides the following brief backgrounder of the history of the war which raged in Yemen going back to 2015. Interestingly, Saudi Arabia was quick to distance itself from Thursday night’s major Western coalition operation…

  * * * 

  The US and its allies have a history of killing civilians in Yemen, as the UN estimated in 2021 that about 377,000 people were killed by the US-backed Saudi/UAE war against the Houthis that started in 2015. More than half died of starvation and disease caused by the blockade and the coalition’s brutal bombing campaign.

  The strikes risk shattering a fragile truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition that’s held since April 2022, although the Saudis have distanced themselves from the US anti-Houthi activity in the Red Sea.

  Some members of Congress have criticized President Biden for launching the strikes in Yemen without congressional authorization. “The President needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle east conflict. That is Article I of the Constitution,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) wrote on X.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 19:35

• "Disinformation Doomsday Scenario": AI-Powered Propaganda Is The Latest Threat To Humanity (That Must Be Censored)
  “Disinformation Doomsday Scenario”: AI-Powered Propaganda Is The Latest Threat To Humanity (That Must Be Censored)

  The Trump-Russia hoax was one of the most notable disinformation operations in modern history. A major component of the hoax was the notion that Russia had influenced the 2016 US election through disinformation, and tricked the American public into electing Donald Trump.

  

  In the fullness of time of course, it was revealed that the Clinton campaign, Obama administration, and their allies in corporate media had peddled fabricated information themselves. Yet, the threat of ‘disinformation’ has blossomed into an entire ecosystem of collaboration between governments and private think tanks which has been used to censor free speech around the globe. 

  To that end, the World Economic Forum from has now declared “Disinformation” to be the world’s greatest threat according to their 2024 “Global Risks Report,” which will obviously require more control over free speech.

  

  As Jonathan Turley writes in a Friday note;

  The report shows just how engrained this anti-free speech movement has become among the world elite from media to business to politics.

  The absurd finding is consistent with the warning of other international figures and groups. We previously discussed how WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has supported censorship to combat what he calls the “infodemic.”

  So “1,490 experts across academia, business, government, the international community and civil society” looked at all of the world’s military, economic, and environmental threats and concluded that the greatest threat to humanity is too much free speech. A “global risk” is defined as “the possibility of the occurrence of an event or condition which, if it occurs, would negatively impact a significant proportion of global GDP, population or natural resources.”

  Turley points to how “experts” supported censorship and blacklisting (ahem) during the Covid crisis, and points to several examples.

  Yet, we’ve now gone beyond simple ‘disinformation.’ The world is now under threat from ‘AI-Powered’ Disinformation!

  According to the Financial Times, disinformation created via artificial intelligence is on the horizon. The outlet points to an incident during the September elections in Slovokia – in which a mysterious recording of the liberal opposition candidate, Michal Šimečka, could be heard plotting with a journalist to buy votes and rig the result. Yet, the recording was fake. The Slovokian police warned voters to be cautious online of nefarious actors with “vested interests.”

  

  Šimečka lost the election to a populist “pro-Russia rival,” which of course the FT uses to imply Russia was behind the recording, and the threat to democracy is greater than ever before!

  Online disinformation has been a factor in elections for many years. But recent, rapid advances in AI technology mean that it is cheaper and easier than ever to manipulate media, thanks to a brisk new market of powerful tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, AI art start-up Midjourney or other text, audio and video generators. At the same time, manipulated or synthetic media is becoming increasingly hard to spot.

  Already, realistic deepfakes have become a new front in the disinformation landscape around the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine conflicts. Now, they are poised to muddy the waters in electoral processes already tarnished by dwindling public trust in governments, institutions and democracy, together with sweeping illiberalism and political polarisation.

  “The technologies reached this perfect trifecta of realism, efficiency and accessibility,” said Henry Ajder, an expert on AI and deepfakes and adviser to Adobe, Meta and EY. “Concerns about the electoral impact were overblown until this year. And then things happened at a speed which I don’t think anyone was anticipating.”

  Authorities warn

  In November, UK officials raised the prospect of “AI-created hyper-realistic bots” and increasingly advanced deepfake campaigns that could influence the country’s election. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of US Senators recently proposed legislation which would ban “materially deceptive AI-generated” political ads.

  This has put pressure on social media platforms, including Meta, Google’s YouTube, TikTok and X, to censor deepfakes and ramp up ‘moderation’ (censorship) when it comes to ambiguous media.

  The report then warns that said social media giants are ‘less equipped to do so than in previous big elections.’

  Some, including Meta, trimmed their investment in teams dedicated to maintaining safe elections after the tech stock downturn in early 2023. In the case of Elon Musk’s X, content moderation resources have been cut back drastically as he vows to restore what he dubs free speech absolutism.

  The efforts of the US-based tech groups to invest in fact-checking and tackling misinformation have also become politicised, as rightwing US politicians accuse them of colluding with the government and academics to censor conservative views. -FT

  So – to recap, big tech is now afraid to censor because conservatives have accused them of censorship, and “Multiple left-leaning disinformation experts and academics warn this dynamic is forcing the platforms, universities and government agencies to pull away from election integrity initiatives and collaborations globally for fear of retribution.”

  Now, with the ‘rising threat of AI deepfakes,’ the Financial Times warns of a ‘disinformation doomsday scenario’ (not kidding, their words), in which “a viral undetectable deepfake will have a catastrophic impact on the democratic process — is no longer merely theoretical.”

  “I think that the combination of the chaos that the generative AI tools will enable and the drawback of the programmes that the platforms had in place to ensure election integrity is this unfolding disaster in front of our eyes,” says one anonymous head of a digital research non-profit. “I’m extremely concerned that the victim will be democracy itself.“

  FT then goes on for thousands of words, describing examples and scenarios of the digital scourge and what we should do to stop it.

  Bottom line, censorship isn’t going away anytime soon.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 19:20

• State AGs Blast Biden, Wall Street Plan To Sell Rights To America's Public Lands
  State AGs Blast Biden, Wall Street Plan To Sell Rights To America’s Public Lands

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

  The current plan by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to create Natural Asset Companies (NACs), which would buy up land rights throughout America, faced heavy criticism from 25 state attorneys general, who in a Jan. 9 letter urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reject the concept.

  “What is happening here is clear,” the AGs wrote. “The Commission and the NYSE are seeking to implement a radical environmental agenda through the rulemaking process (and outside the legislative process).”

  “This type of decision, particularly given its vast economic consequences, must be left to Congress and not the Commission or the NYSE,” they stated.

  

  The idea for NACs was developed by an activist eco-organization called the Intrinsic Exchange Group (IEG), funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation, in partnership with the NYSE. NACs would pool investors’ money from around the world to buy the rights to public and private land in the United States and limit its use to “sustainable” endeavors.

  Currently, much of the land under federal control is intended for public use, which includes farming, ranching, hunting, fishing, drilling, mining, hiking, and camping, according to its designation by Congress. In many western states, including Idaho, Alaska, and Utah, more than 60 percent of the land is government owned. About 85 percent of the land in Nevada is government owned.

  “On the spectrum of serious ESG threats, this is one of the most concerning, and least understood,” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who co-authored the letter, told The Epoch Times. “I don’t think most people in America even know about it; it was done very quietly.

  “There are a number of interests—big government, extreme environmental activism,” he said. “It’s about power, money, and who controls what can happen on these lands.”

  The proposal to alter the NYSE’s governing rules to allow this new type of company on the exchange currently sits with the SEC, awaiting approval. The original public comment period was set at an unusually short 21 days, running through the Christmas holiday until Jan. 2.

  After protests from 32 Republicans in Congress and 22 red-state financial officers, the SEC extended the comment period until Jan. 18. Anyone wishing to comment can do so at https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/sr-nyse-2023-09.

  $100 Trillion Per Year

  

  In its SEC filing, the NYSE explained the concept of monetizing the value of America’s natural assets.

  “Healthy ecosystems produce clean air and water, foster biodiversity, regulate the climate, and provide the food on which our existence depends,” the NYSE stated. “These and other benefits derived from ecosystems are called ecosystem services, and in the aggregate, economists estimate their value at more than US$100 trillion dollars per year.”

  According to a statement from IEG CEO Douglas Eger, cited in a Rockefeller Foundation press release, “this new asset class on the NYSE will create a virtuous cycle of investment in nature that will help finance sustainable development for communities, companies, and countries.

  “Together, IEG and the NYSE will enable investors to access nature’s store of wealth and transform our industrial economy into one that is more equitable,” Mr. Eger said.

  The NACs would require accounting and reporting systems regarding the assets they possess, which would be provided by IEG under license. The NYSE would acquire a stake in IEG as part of the agreement to establish NACs on the exchange.

  According to the NYSE filing, the intention of the NACs is to buy land management rights, including farming rights, mineral rights, water rights, and air rights, and that “NACs are expected to license these rights from sovereign nations or private landowners.” The question remains, however, how the federal government would sell such rights to a private company.

  According to state AGs, the answer lies in a current effort within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to sell “conservation leases” on public lands.

  

  “The proposed [NYSE] rule plainly is intended to serve as the funding mechanism for the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) recent proposed rule, ‘Conservation and Landscape Health,’ which would authorize BLM to grant ‘conservation leases’ for public lands,” the letter states. “The BLM rule provides that ‘once the BLM has issued a conservation lease, the BLM shall not authorize any other uses of the leased lands that are inconsistent with the authorized conservation use.’

  “This means that once BLM issues a conservation lease, productive economic uses such as grazing, logging, or mining will no longer be allowed unless they are consistent with the lease’s environmental purposes,” the AGs wrote.

  “Now you have a seller—BLM created that,” Mr. Reyes said. “And now you have a buyer, or a vehicle to use private money to buy what the BLM couldn’t do through proper legislation and couldn’t do at the ballot box.

  “They’re quietly, almost secretly, trying to bypass all of that,” he said, “and funnel the money directly into owning these sovereign lands and imposing their own political agenda on them.”

  Biden’s 30×30 Plan

  The plan to create NACs coincides with efforts by the Biden administration to block access to public lands by farmers, ranchers, hunters, and most particularly, oil and mining companies. President Biden’s 30×30 plan, according to which 30 percent of the United States’ land and freshwater areas and 30 percent of U.S. ocean areas would be set aside for conservation by 2030, was announced in a January 2021 executive order.

  

  One of the issues facing the NACs is how their assets would be valued, given that for the most part the requirement of “sustainability” would preclude many economically productive uses. One of the reasons the NYSE is seeking an exception to its rules from the SEC is that NACs would not use standard audited GAAP accounting for their investors, but rather see the American institution adopt the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.

  Coincidentally, in January 2023, the Biden administration created its U.S. System of Natural Capital Accounting, which adopts the same U.N. environmental accounting standards. The Biden administration says that this effort is a “system to account for natural assets—from the minerals that power our tech economy and are driving the electric-vehicle revolution, to the ocean and rivers that support our fishing industry, to the forests that clean our air—and quantify the immense value this natural capital provides.”

  Critics of this effort say that it violates the Constitution because only elected officials in Congress have the authority to transfer rights for public lands.

  

  “The attorneys general are absolutely correct when they say that the SEC and the NYSE are trying to implement a radical environmental agenda outside of the legislative process,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumer’s Research, said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times. “This is the great scam of ESG that is being foisted on the American people, regardless of the harm it does to consumers or entire sectors of the economy.”

  The Epoch Times requested comment from the SEC, the NYSE, and the Intrinsic Exchange Group regarding this article. The NYSE declined to comment. The SEC and IEG did not respond as of press time.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 19:00

• Zelensky Hails 'Unprecedented' $3BN+ Arms Deal With UK As US Supplies Have Stopped
  Zelensky Hails ‘Unprecedented’ $3BN+ Arms Deal With UK As US Supplies Have Stopped

  White House national security spokesman John Kirby in a Thursday briefing confirmed that at this point US military supplies to Ukraine have stopped. The aid dried up after the very final aid package of $250 million was authorized by President Biden at the end of December based on the Presidential Drawdown Authority, and as Congress blocked his $100 billion supplemental budget request.

  Kirby explained in a press briefing Thursday, “We have issued the last drawdown package that we had funding to support, and that’s why it’s critical that Congress move on that national security supplemental request.” That’s when he confirmed the reporters for the first time: “the assistance that [the US had] provided has now ground to a halt.”

  

  Ukraine’s Zelensky has this week been touring Baltic countries to shore up support while urging that things like advanced anti-air missiles are desperately needed. 

  More importantly, on Friday Ukraine and Britain have announced a breakthrough deal that will see the UK provide over $3 billion in new military assistance amid the war with Russia. Sunak was in the Ukrainian capital for the big announcement. 

  “Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain visited Kyiv on Friday to announce that he would send more than $3 billion in military assistance to Ukraine in the next financial year, his country’s largest annual commitment since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion,” reports the NY Times.

  According Sunak’s statement:

  The British aid for the coming year represents an increase of 200 million pounds, about $255 million, compared with the country’s annual commitment for the past two years. Much of the increase will go toward the production and procurement of thousands of military drones that are crucial for Ukraine. Britain will also deliver long-range missiles, air defenses and artillery ammunition.

  “For two years, Ukraine has fought with great courage to repel a brutal Russian invasion. They are still fighting, unfaltering in their determination to defend their country,” Mr. Sunak said in the statement. “I am here today with one message: The U.K. will also not falter. We will stand with Ukraine, in their darkest hours and in the better times to come.”

  This marks a continuation and expansion of prior British PM Boris Johnson’s policy, given also London was among the first and biggest supporters of Kiev, flying cargo planes full of aid there even within the opening weeks of the war.

  In this video posted on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Telegram channel on Jan. 12, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is seen arriving in Kyiv for a meeting. “Today we stand side by side as friends and allies,” reads the post. “This is a signal to the world: Ukraine is not alone.” pic.twitter.com/o1BjaH64mf

  — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) January 12, 2024

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

  The Biden administration will certainly welcome this unprecedented UK aid deal, given Washington has been urging Europe to pick up the slack after Biden’s massive defense supplement budget request was blocked by GOP Congressional holdouts.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 18:40

• Watch: Bill O'Reilly's Epic "Get Out Of My House" Rant Goes Viral
  Watch: Bill O’Reilly’s Epic “Get Out Of My House” Rant Goes Viral

  Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

  A rant about the state of Joe Biden’s America by Bill O’Reilly has gained massive traction online, as everyday people relate to the former Fox News host’s admission that he has ditched all his left leaning friends, telling them to “get out of my house” for tolerating the destruction of the country.

  

  “These other progressive things, we’ve got to stop this NOW,” the rant begins, as O’Reilly adds “I’m telling you, I don’t have any progressive friends anymore. They’re GONE because I can’t stomach them.”

  “Criminals running wild murdering people?” O’Reilly continues, adding “progressive DAs funded by George Soros don’t want to punish the violent criminals.”

  “That’s what you’re giving me? You support that? GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. OUT. I’ve had it.” the host booms.

  He further explains “Biden is not going to get any better, and the Democratic party has to get DESTROYED next November. I don’t care whether you like Trump or not, Trump governed this nation in a responsible way where everybody prospered. And if you don’t believe that you’re a moron.”

  “Every single indicator was on positive territory. All the working people, no matter what colour they were, were making more money and there were more jobs,” O’Reilly continues, adding “We didn’t have inflation or supply problems, we didn’t have any of it and now we got all of it, in addition to an open border.”

  Epic.

  O’Reilly: “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE.” This is up there with the “F*CK IT, WE’LL DO IT LIVE” clip! https://t.co/8KsBnJJTv9 pic.twitter.com/OJgp07YPpq

  — m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) January 12, 2024

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

  As far as viral moments go, it’s definitely up there with this alpha meltdown where the teleprompter breaks as O’Reilly is trying to intro “a new cut” from Sting in the 1980s. Glorious stuff.

  The funniest part of this previous viral Bill O’Reilly meltdown is when he intros the “new cut” from Sting’s latest album. https://t.co/8KsBnJJTv9 pic.twitter.com/xd22x4rU9D

  — m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) January 12, 2024

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

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 18:20

• SETI Overtaken By Woke Ideologues More Interested In Debating Transphobia & Whiteness Than Searching The Stars
  SETI Overtaken By Woke Ideologues More Interested In Debating Transphobia & Whiteness Than Searching The Stars

  Authored by Steven Tucker via DailySceptic.org,

  Last time around, we considered NASA’s recent attempts to build outer space communications systems, and the strange belief of contemporary Left-leaning scientists and academics affiliated with astronomical organisations like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) that any aliens we did manage one day to contact would inevitably talk in a language every bit as impeccably woke as they themselves do.

  A classic illustration of such delusion came in the newly ideologically-captured journal Scientific American in 2022. Under the headline ‘Cultural Bias Distorts the Search for Alien Life’ appeared an interview with Rebecca Charbonneau, a young SETI-linked cultural historian whose paper ‘Imaginative Cosmos: The Impact of Colonial Heritage in Radio Astronomy and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ had brought her to the attention of the editors.

  

  Rebecca Charboneau

  According to Charbonneau, within sci-fi shows like Star Trek, space being “the final frontier” demonstrated how space exploration itself was filled with innate colonialist assumptions, with “first contact with aliens [acting] as a stand-in for [Western] first contact with Indigenous peoples”. 

  Weren’t these ideas just fictional literary metaphors upon behalf of the scriptwriters, though? No, because according to the doctrine of Critical Theory that contemporary young pseuds like Rebecca all slavishly subscribe to, words create reality: “Words and socially constructed things are real because we are a verbal, social species. Things that are socially created still have a real-world impact; they’re not imaginary.”

  Two particularly damaging social constructs are the words “intelligence” and “civilisation”, these being mere fictional Western concepts which were “tightly bound with the histories of racism, genocide and colonialism”. When Westerners made contact with metaphorically ‘alien’ beings like Australian Aborigines in the past, they just enslaved or wiped them out, Charbonneau argued. “Intelligence”, she warned, is “certainly a dangerous word”, hence her principled complete lack of any such quality herself. 

  Un-Scientific American

  Rebecca was deeply worried. What if SETI found some E.T.s who didn’t seem terribly civilised or intelligent to us, and just treated them like the British once had the Aborigines? Yet the traditional accepted mission of SETI was indisputably to search for alien intelligence, or alien civilisations. This very idea was dangerous and laden with “intellectual colonial baggage” too, so could easily be “weaponised” by genocidal astronauts, feared the oversensitive academic: she seems to have confused NASA with NSDAP. 

  For Charbonneau, it was disappointing that so many of her fellow exobiologists “start their research from a technical search perspective” rather than by asking random Andaman Islanders what they think about all this. Some more traditional SETI scientists objected to her criticism, pointing out that the only off-planet lifeforms humans are likely to discover locally are bacteria and “you can’t offend a germ” by talk of ‘colonising’ Mars – a protestation she dismisses by saying that particular harmful word “might not hurt an alien, but using [it] will hurt people on Earth”. She even appears to disapprove of an old NASA space-shuttle being called Columbus; doesn’t Mission Control know he was an evil genocidal white maniac?

  Henceforth, the whole point of SETI should be completely reformed, from listening to unknown groups on Mars, to listening to marginalised groups here on Earth instead: “SETI is designed to listen outward, but… it’s not always so great at listening inward.” It would be hard to imagine a statement better illustrating the levels of self-indulgent solipsism that have now successfully been imposed upon hitherto politically neutral sciences like astronomy. Where would Rebecca like SETI scientists to begin pointing their space-antennae instead, exactly? Up their own arseholes, like where she lives?  

  Game, SETI and Match?

  According to science writer Lawrence M. Krauss, Dr. Charbonneau’s ilk now dominate SETI every bit as much as Daleks now dominate the Planet Skaro. He points out that she is a Jansky Fellow at the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a fellowship supposed to fund “the most promising researchers in radio astronomy”, not woke witch-hunting ideologues. Recent SETI conferences, Krauss observes, have been dominated not by actual science, but endless debates about transphobia, homosexuality and whiteness. 

  Krauss has been told many proper SETI scientists despair that it is consequently growing “harder and harder to actually carry out [meaningful] SETI research”, and they fear being pushed out due to being politically incorrect. What’s more, Charbonneau seems to have got her wish, with the very word “intelligence” now allegedly banned by SETI, as it is “a white construct”. Here’s an angry Richard Dawkins, tweeting about it:

  

  Why hasn’t it changed its name to SET, then? 

  Safe-Space Invaders

  The American Association for Science (AAAS – soon to be renamed ASSS, ‘Astrophysicists Subverting Science Systematically’) has also been captured. During a March 2023 conference concerning “the ethics of space exploration”, a Dr. Pamela Copeland stated that future Western astronauts should endeavour to become “gentle explorers” as, thanks to our worthless colonial history, the very word “exploration” was now “almost synonymous with exploitation”. 

  Another conference attendee, Dr. Hilding Neilson, a Mi’kmaq Indian scientist, said that, before landing on the moon, white astro-Nazis should first consult indigenous Canadian Indians, as the moon played an important role in native folklore, and Indians possessed “other ways of knowing” about it than purely scientific ones. Already, light pollution from streetlamps originally facilitated by the Industrial Revolution of the West had blotted out the night stars which played such a crucial role in many native mythologies, something some academics claim is a form of “cultural genocide” – see this academic abstract:

  Whitening the Sky: light pollution as a form of cultural genocide

  Duane W. Hamacher, Krystal de Napoli, Bon Mott

  Light pollution is actively destroying our ability to see the stars. Many indigenous traditions and knowledge systems around the world are based on the stars, and the peoples’ ability to observe and interpret stellar positions and properties is of critical importance for daily life and cultural continuity. The erasure of the night sky acts to erase indigenous connection to the stars, acting as a form of ongoing cultural and ecological genocide. Efforts to reduce, minimise or eliminate light pollution are being achieved with varying degrees of success, but urban expansion, poor lighting design,and the increased use of blue-light emitting LEDs as a cost-effective solution is worsening problems related to human health, wildlife,and astronomical heritage for the benefit of capitalistic economic growth. We provide a brief overview of the issue, illustrating some of the important connections that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia maintain with the stars, as well as the impact growing light pollution has on this ancient knowledge. We propose a transdisciplinary approach to solving these issues, using a foundation based on indigenous philosophies and decolonising methodologies.

  Was man landing on the moon not just yet another manifestation of this same unthinkingly destructive mindset? Dr. Neilson furthermore explained that various tracts of so-called “treaty land” in North America truly belonged to his indigenous kin thanks to legal agreements signed with the Canadian Government. Such property-deeds may have delineated their land’s limits in length and breadth, but had been carelessly drafted with the “absence of a height limit”, meaning the Mi’kmaq actually owned everything directly above their treaty lands, including outer space and the moon, at least imaginatively speaking. Therefore, if NASA or anyone else Western and colonialist ever decided to go up there and start rocket-raping it, this would be technically illegal.

  Today, the West’s chief geopolitical rivals in China and Russia are making serious plans to begin mining vast areas of the moon in search of rare minerals to help them achieve global domination down here on terra firma. Meanwhile, NASA and the European Space Agency appear much more concerned with self-righteously landing the first woman on the moon, sending disabled people spinning out of their wheelchairs into orbit and celebrating lesbian astronauts on stamps (Jeremy Corbyn once wanted to put this last highly pressing issue on the U.K. National Curriculum). Which side do you think most likely to end up dominating tomorrow’s globe?

  Blank Space

  To be fair to the likes of Rebecca Charbonneau, I do agree with them on one thing; in her interview, the SETI-woman called outer space “a mirror” which reflects human observers’ pre-existing beliefs straight back down at them. 

  I once wrote a book called Space Oddities which makes this very same argument; a large portion of it was about communist humans who expected one day to meet communist aliens. Later, I wrote another book, The Saucer and the Swastika, about white supremacist Nazi humans who expected one day to meet white supremacist Nazi aliens. Now, my latest book, Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science, features a section about contemporary black supremacist humans who likewise expect one day to meet black supremacist aliens. And so it goes, as I believe they say on Tralfamadore. 

  So, I do think Ms. Charbonneau and her woke crowd are sort of correct in one specific limited aspect of what they are saying: namely, that ideologically biased humans often treat outer space as a blank canvas upon which to project their own personal political neuroses. The only question I would ask is: why on Earth do they think this exact same principle doesn’t also apply to them?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 17:40

• Journalist Gonzalo Lira Reported Dead In Ukrainian Custody
  Journalist Gonzalo Lira Reported Dead In Ukrainian Custody

  Journalist Gonzalo Lira has died while in Ukrainian custody, according to his father.

  

  “Gonzalo Lira, Sr. says his son has died at 55 in a Ukrainian prison, where he was being held for the crime of criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments,” wrote Tucker Carlson on X. “Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture.”

  Gonzalo Lira, Sr. says his son has died at 55 in a Ukrainian prison, where he was being held for the crime of criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments. Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several… https://t.co/F0nOG9qGvv

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 12, 2024

  In May, Lira was arrested by Ukrainian authorities because he “publicly justified” the Russian invasion, according to a press release by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

  The statement from Kiev said that Lira “has the citizenship of one of the countries of Latin America” but omitted that he is also California-born U.S. citizen, as ZeroHedge contributor Space Worm reported at the time.

  Gonzalo’s final video before attempting to legally cross the border — there is some irony in that, speaks to the type of man he was. pic.twitter.com/T6rXLnpsxV

  — The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) January 12, 2024

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

  Following his release, Lira said he was tortured in a Ukrainian prison, explaining that “two thugs held my head and used a toothpick to scratch the whites of my left eye, while asking me if I could still read if I had just one.” Lira informed followers that he was making a mad-dash via motorcycle towards the Hungarian border:

  Right now, I’m about to try to get out of Ukraine, and seek political asylum in Hungary.

  Either I’ll cross the border and make it to safety, or I’ll be disappeared by the Kiev regime.

  This is what’s happened to me over the past three months.

  1/25

  — Gonzalo Lira (@GonzaloLira1968) July 31, 2023

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

  According to journalist Alex Rubernstein, Lira said that he had double pneumonia (both lungs), which was ignored by the Ukrainian prison holding him.

  “I have had double pneumonia (both lungs) as well as pneumothorax and a very severe case of edema (swelling of the body). All this started in mid-October, but was ignored by the prison. They only admitted I had pneumonia at a Dec. 22 hearing,” reads the letter. “I am about to have a procedure to reduce the edema pressure in my lungs, which is causing me extreme shortness of breath, to the point of passing out after minimal activity, or even just talking for 2 minutes.”

  In response to Lira’s reported death, his father allegedly wrote: “I cannot accept the way my son has died. He was tortured, extorted, incommunicado for 8 months and 11 days and the US Embassy did nothing to help my son. The responsibility of this tragedy is the dictator Zelensky with the concurrence of a senile American President, Joe Biden.”

  BREAKING: It is with great sadness I must announce that Gonzalo Lira @GonzaloLira1968, passed away in a hospital according to his father, who has been fighting to get his son much-needed medical attention for the past weeks.

  Here is a hand-written note from Gonzalo which I… pic.twitter.com/jY8Mh0xQV3

  — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) January 12, 2024

  We’re sure this asshole is happy.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 01/12/2024 – 17:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Criminality In The White House: The Rise Of The Political Psychopath
  Criminality In The White House: The Rise Of The Political Psychopath

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

  – Richard Nixon

  Many years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “What’s the difference between a politician and a psychopath?”

  The answer, then and now, remains the same: None.

  There is no difference between psychopaths and politicians.

  Nor is there much of a difference between the havoc wreaked on innocent lives by uncaring, unfeeling, selfish, irresponsible, parasitic criminals and elected officials who lie to their constituents, trade political favors for campaign contributions, turn a blind eye to the wishes of the electorate, cheat taxpayers out of hard-earned dollars, favor the corporate elite, entrench the military industrial complex, and spare little thought for the impact their thoughtless actions and hastily passed legislation might have on defenseless citizens.

  Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.

  Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.

  It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.

  

  Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. Such leaders eventually create pathocracies: totalitarian societies bent on power, control, and destruction of both freedom in general and those who exercise their freedoms.

  Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. “At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,” author James G. Long notes. “We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.”

  In other words, electing a psychopath to public office is tantamount to national hara-kiri, the ritualized act of self-annihilation, self-destruction and suicide. It signals the demise of democratic government and lays the groundwork for a totalitarian regime that is legalistic, militaristic, inflexible, intolerant and inhuman.

  Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence.

  Indeed, a study from Southern Methodist University found that Washington, DC—our nation’s capital and the seat of power for our so-called representatives—ranks highest on the list of regions that are populated by psychopaths.

  According to investigative journalist Zack Beauchamp, “In 2012, a group of psychologists evaluated every President from Washington to Bush II using ‘psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president.’ They found that presidents tended to have the psychopath’s characteristic fearlessness and low anxiety levels — traits that appear to help Presidents, but also might cause them to make reckless decisions that hurt other people’s lives.”

  The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.

  When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.

  Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.”

  Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virus among the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, “[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

  People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.

  Much depends on how leaders “cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,” says Professor Alex Haslam. “I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’”

  The goal of the modern corporate state is obvious: to promote, cultivate, and embed a sense of shared identification among its citizens. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”

  We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions.

  Any resistance to such regimes depends on the strength of opinions in the minds of those who choose to fight back. What this means is that we the citizenry must be very careful that we are not manipulated into marching in lockstep with an oppressive regime.

  Writing for ThinkProgress, Beauchamp suggests that “one of the best cures to bad leaders may very well be political democracy.”

  But what does this really mean in practical terms?

  It means holding politicians accountable for their actions and the actions of their staff using every available means at our disposal: through investigative journalism (what used to be referred to as the Fourth Estate) that enlightens and informs, through whistleblower complaints that expose corruption, through lawsuits that challenge misconduct, and through protests and mass political action that remind the powers-that-be that “we the people” are the ones that call the shots.

  Remember, education precedes action. Citizens need to the do the hard work of educating themselves about what the government is doing and how to hold it accountable. Don’t allow yourselves to exist exclusively in an echo chamber that is restricted to views with which you agree. Expose yourself to multiple media sources, independent and mainstream, and think for yourself.

  For that matter, no matter what your political leanings might be, don’t allow your partisan bias to trump the principles that serve as the basis for our constitutional republic. As Beauchamp notes, “A system that actually holds people accountable to the broader conscience of society may be one of the best ways to keep conscienceless people in check.”

  That said, if we allow the ballot box to become our only means of pushing back against the police state, the battle is already lost.

  Resistance will require a citizenry willing to be active at the local level.

  Yet if you wait to act until the SWAT team is crashing through your door, until your name is placed on a terror watch list, until you are reported for such outlawed activities as collecting rainwater or letting your children play outside unsupervised, then it will be too late.

  This much I know: we are not faceless numbers.

  We are not cogs in the machine.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are not slaves.

  We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.

  The Founders understood that our freedoms do not flow from the government. They were not given to us only to be taken away by the will of the State. They are inherently ours. In the same way, the government’s appointed purpose is not to threaten or undermine our freedoms, but to safeguard them.

  Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 23:40

• Why Are "Hottest Year" Ever Headlines Spiking Right Before A Polar Vortex?
  Why Are “Hottest Year” Ever Headlines Spiking Right Before A Polar Vortex?

  This week, legacy media outlets such as Politico, BBC, Reuters, and The Hill, among others, all of a sudden pumped out ‘climate-doomsday’ headlines, fearmongering their readers in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere winter about how 2023 was the hottest year on record.

  The surge in “hottest year” on record headlines was seen immediately after the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service released a report detailing how 2023’s average temperature was 2.66 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average temperature between 1850 and 1900. Of course, these media outlets blamed fossil fuel-induced climate change, while some left out the warming effects of El Nino. 

  We are no strangers to corporate media pushing climate misinformation. Remember this from July: “Even NOAA “Runs Away” From ‘Hottest Day Ever’ Claim After Media Hysteria.” 

  NOAA runs away from ‘hottest day’ claim.https://t.co/BQv0VpuE5r pic.twitter.com/IaeOIGj5xE

  — Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) July 7, 2023

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

  What’s intriguing is the timing of the Copernicus report and eruption of climate doom headlines right before weather models show a polar vortex split is about to send parts of the Lower 48 into a deep chill. 

  

  Cold weather is an inconvenient truth for the climate-change industrial complex, with their talking heads Al Gore and Greta spewing climate propaganda. 

  Next-level extreme cold is headed for the U.S. 🎚️ 🥶

  This map highlights all of the states where the temperature will dip *below 0˚F* (🟣) at some point in the next 10 days.

  The 1st round of frigid air will arrive in the Rockies, Plains & Midwest this weekend into next week… pic.twitter.com/defQT8robf

  — Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) January 11, 2024

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

  Whether corporate media deliberately blasted “hottest year” headlines right before the polar vortex remains to be seen. But considering these media outlets wage an info war on ordinary folks, nothing surprises us. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 23:20

• Advanced Prostate Cancer Cases On The Rise After Years Of Decline
  Advanced Prostate Cancer Cases On The Rise After Years Of Decline

  Authored by Cara Michelle Miller via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was recently diagnosed and is being treated for prostate cancer. He is one of the nearly 290,000 American men who will be diagnosed with the condition this year.

  

  Nearly all types of cancer have become less deadly over the last 30 years, with one notable exception: advanced-stage prostate cancer, according to a recent report from the American Cancer Society (ACS).

  “We have had more men diagnosed with more advanced prostate cancer over the last decade,” Dr. Sam S. Chang, the Chief Surgical Officer at the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, told The Epoch Times in an email. “The good news, many men with prostate cancer can be monitored safely and never require treatment.”

  Survival Rates Are High, But Concerns Grow Over Advanced Cases

  One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer—the second leading cause of cancer death among men in the U.S. after lung cancer—in their lifetime, according to ACS.

  While concerning, the vast majority do not die from it. In fact, this type of cancer has one of the highest survival rates. The 5-year relative survival rate, which refers to the percentage of people with a prostate cancer who will still be alive five years after diagnosis, compared to people without that cancer, is over 90 percent.

  However, advanced prostate cancer rates, after declining for decades, are rising again.

  The Debate Around PSA Screenings for Prostate Cancer

  Overall prostate cancer rates grew 3 percent annually between 2014-2019, per the ACS report. Meanwhile, advanced cases have increased 4-5 percent yearly since 2011, likely due to decreased screenings, according to Dr. Chan.

  “The American Urology Association (AUA) guidelines recommend screening people for prostate cancer through bloodwork, which is obtained with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test,” Dr. Adnan Dervishi, a urologist with Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital specializing in urologic cancers, told The Epoch Times. Elevated PSA levels can be an indicator of potential prostate cancer. A “biopsy is needed to look at specimens under a microscope to get an accurate diagnosis,” he added.

  In the past, PSA screenings posed health risks, yielding false positives or prompting unnecessary, potentially harmful procedures. This is why, in 2008 the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force advised against routine PSA testing for men 70 years and older.

  False positives are when the test indicates high PSA levels, but there is no prostate cancer. Because some men with prostate cancer live for decades without any problems, there are concerns about over treatment. Cancer treatments, like surgery or radiation, may result in other health issues, including loss of bladder and bowel control, and erectile dysfunction.

  “My standard practice is to recommend getting an MRI prior to proceeding with a biopsy,”  Dr. Dervishi said. “It is more comprehensive.” A 2017 study in The Lancet suggests that 27 percent of men at low risk who get a prostate MRI may be able to avoid a biopsy.

  Still, screenings can prevent advanced disease and death, which is why the AUA recommends them for men ages 55-69 on a case-by-case basis.

  Researchers attribute rising advanced cancer rates to multiple factors, including improved diagnostic tools, more screenings, an expanding and aging population.

  Risk of Developing Prostate Cancer

  The risk factors for developing prostate cancer vary based on a man’s age and ethnicity. For example, men with obesity, older men, and African American men, as well as Caribbean men of African ancestry, are more prone to prostate cancer. Men of this ethnic background have a 70 percent higher likelihood of developing prostate cancer compared to white men.

  The National Comprehensive Cancer Network recommends that patients in this higher risk ethnic group or anyone with a family history of prostate cancer receive bloodwork testing beginning at age 40.

  The risk of prostate cancer starts to increase significantly after the age of 55 and reaches its highest point between the ages of 70 and 74. Prostate cancer is still rare in men under 40. The average age for a first diagnosis is about 67.

  With patients who are categorized as low-risk prostate cancer, doctors use a wait and see approach called “active surveillance.” It delays treatment until there are indications that the cancer has progressed.

  What to Know About Prostate Health

  The prostate, a small walnut-sized gland in the male reproductive system situated below the bladder, surrounds the urethra—the tube carrying urine from the bladder. With age, the prostate may enlarge, exerting pressure on the urethra and causing a slower urine flow. This “benign enlargement of the prostate is very common and results in urinary symptoms such as hesitance, frequency, nocturia (waking up at night to void) and urgency to void,” Dr. Chan said.

  The most prevalent form of prostate cancer is adenocarcinoma, where cells in the gland lining grow uncontrollably, Dr. Chan added. Prostate cancer often goes unnoticed in its early stages, lacking symptoms. Currently, an estimated 2.9 million men are living with prostate cancer.

  At later stages, prostate cancer can obstruct the kidneys and the bladder. Advanced prostate cancer spreads to the bone which can be very painful and even cause bone fractures, Dr. Chan noted.

  When symptoms are serious, surgery is recommended to remove the section of prostate tissue causing the most harm. However, he stresses that while “many men live without sequala (complications that exist from a pre-existing illness) it is important to remember that there is no cure for prostate cancer once it has become metastatic and spread to the bones.”

  While there are no clinically proven dietary methods to reduce prostate cancer risk, men from Asian countries exhibit lower incidences compared to their Western counterparts—attributed to genetic and dietary differences, according to some research.

  Natural Ways to Keep the Prostate Healthy

  Some scientific evidence has shown several natural methods for maintaining prostate health, promoting overall well-being, and preventing potential complications.

  Eat a nutritious diet

  Eating nutritious foods with healthy fats, antioxidants, and good quality proteins is beneficial for one’s overall health. In a 2009 study, scientists found that consuming a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids (found in salmon, nuts and plant-based oils) was associated with a decreased risk of aggressive prostate cancer. 

  Additionally, studies indicate that regular consumption of lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomato and watermelon, can contribute to lowering the risk of prostate cancer.

  Maintain vitamin D levels

  Some studies have shown that vitamin D may be effective with more aggressive forms of prostate cancer.

  Vitamin D plays a role in regulating cell growth and preventing the formation of abnormal cells. Adequate levels of vitamin D may help control the growth of prostate cells, reducing the risk of cancer.

  Exercise regularly

  A sedentary lifestyle, such as prolonged periods spent working at a computer, can be detrimental and may contribute to inflammation in the prostate. To counteract this, incorporating regular exercise is essential to mitigate the negative effects of extended sitting.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 23:00

• Second-Largest Foreign Owner Of US Land Is Member Of The CCP
  Second-Largest Foreign Owner Of US Land Is Member Of The CCP

  A member of the Chinese Communist Party is the second-largest foreign owner of US land, according to the Daily Caller.

  

  Billionaire Chen Tianqiao, founder, chairman and CEO of Shanda Group, owns around 200,000 acres of land in Oregon, according to Land Report. His involvement with the CCP ranges from membership to executive roles in CCP-linked organizations, the DCNF reports following a review of Chinese-language media reports.

  In 2015, Chen acquired 198,000 acres in Oregon, according to Land Report. The $85 million purchase made the Chinese national the 82nd-largest property owner in the U.S. and the second-largest foreign U.S. land owner, Bloomberg reported, second only to a Canadian family who owns over 1 million acres of Maine.

  Oregon’s Bull Springs Skyline Forest accounts for approximately 33,000 of Chen’s acreage, according to Land Report. The forest is located west of Bend, Oregon, and is home to springs, creeks, timberland and wildlife, according to the Bull Springs Skyline Forest website.

  Oregon Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer said she was “deeply concerned that individuals tied to the  Chinese Communist Party are buying up timberland, which is one of our most precious and finite resources.” -Daily Caller

  “Foreign ownership of United States lands is a serious problem that has rightfully sparked unease among farmers, ranchers and foresters across the country,” said Chavez-DeRemer.

  In addition to the farmland, Chen also owns various urban properties throughout America, including the Vanderbilt mansion in Manhattan and the Seely Mudd Estate near Los Angeles. He also owns a 150,000 sqft. research facility at Caltech – the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience.

  “One of the Chinese Communist Party’s goals is to undermine and weaken America,” Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) told the Caller. “This includes instances where our greatest adversary continues to buy land — whether its farmland or near our installations.”

  

  According to a translation of a 2005 press release from Chen’s alma mater, Fudan University in Shanghai, “In 1990, Chen enrolled in Fudan University to major in economics, the following year he joined the Chinese Communist Party, and, in 1993, he won the title of ‘Shanghai Municipal Outstanding Model Cadre Student.”

  According to a 2007 article from Communist Youth Daily, Chen was 18-years-old when he joined the CCP, and has since been identified repeatedly as a CCP member by various Chinese media outlets.

  A 2016 Sohu.com article identified Chen and several other Chinese CEOs as CCP members. Likewise, Chen’s profile on the Chinese financial portal Sina, which was last updated in November 2023, identifies him as a CCP member.

  The state-run Beijing Review describes Chen as an admirer of Mao Zedong, first chairman of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Several Chinese-language outlets have also reported that Chen’s corporate office prominently displays Mao’s written works.

  Chen even has a favorite Mao Zedong quote, according to state-run media outlet China News Service: “Strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously.”

  Mao delivered the remarks in a speech denouncing American imperialism during a visit to Moscow in November 1957, according to the University of Dayton Review. -Daily Caller

  “The increase in PRC-affiliated U.S. land purchases in recent years is a growing cause for concern,” a House Select Committee on the CCP aide told the DCNF. “We can start with adding a presumption of denial for entities affiliated with the PRC when it comes to land acquisitions near national security sites such as military bases that the CCP could use for intelligence collection or worse.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 22:40

• Ecuador Needs A Second Amendment After Days Of Narcoterrorism
  Ecuador Needs A Second Amendment After Days Of Narcoterrorism

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  Ecuador is experiencing a wave of violence over the past year that has finally reached a boiling point.

  In the past few days, leaders of Ecuadorian cartels were broken out of prison, and violence quickly followed. Most recently, gunmen stormed a news station during a live broadcast and took hostages.

  🇪🇨 | URGENTE: Delincuentes irrumpieron en TC Televisión y secuestran a todos en vivo y directo en Guayaquil, Ecuador. pic.twitter.com/ob1yleusOc

  — Alerta Mundial (@AlertaMundoNews) January 9, 2024

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

  In addition, footage from the University of Guayaquil showed the armed gang members’ attempt to kidnap students.

  The only people disarmed by gun free zones are law-abiding citizens! https://t.co/4cjpvsO9wh

  — Aidan Johnston (@RealGunLobbyist) January 10, 2024

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

  In response to this takeover and the high levels of violence, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency, designated the cartels as terrorist organizations, and called in the military.

  But the military isn’t alone in their fight. Citizens of Ecuador have taken up arms to fight with the army against the gangs. Videos on X show citizens riding with the police and military on motorcycles and in the back of pickup trucks prepared to combat the rising narcoterrorism.

  More proof that an armed citizenry is necessary to the security of a free state ⤵️ https://t.co/GjfYWfoa0S

  — Aidan Johnston (@RealGunLobbyist) January 10, 2024

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

  While Ecuador recently loosened restrictions on civilians carrying firearms, it has done very little to make it easier for them to own. Citizens must submit to a lengthy permitting process that includes a certificate of skill in handling and using firearms, along with a drug test and psychological evaluation. To make matters worse, according to those familiar with the process, the issuance of a gun license could take anywhere from a few months to a year.

  Even after all that, civilians are limited to very specific types of pistols, revolvers, and shotguns.

  Meanwhile, videos out of Ecuador appear to show the use of a rocket launcher.

  Gun control in Ecuador seems to be going about as well as expected… https://t.co/zYbpB9veB6

  — Aidan Johnston (@RealGunLobbyist) January 10, 2024

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

  These scenes of violence perpetrated by drug gangs are so foreign to the United States because even if the US military did nothing, law-abiding, gun-toting Americans could immediately mobilize to stop the threat.

  Ecuador recently loosened its gun laws to help civilians protect themselves. Now armed citizens are reportedly fighting alongside law enforcement AGAINST crime and tyranny.

  This is why our Second Amendment rights are worth protecting and fighting for.👏 https://t.co/RhL3NY2mmb

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) January 10, 2024

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

  The videos of violence and chaos coming out of Ecuador are evidence that an armed citizenry is necessary for the security of a free state.

  *   *   *

  We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

  *   *   *

  A comment from ZH staff: 

  

  GOA’s note from earlier this week: Did Loosening Gun Control Cause A Nationwide Drop In Homicides?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 22:20

• Even Insured Americans Can't Afford Medical Bills
  Even Insured Americans Can’t Afford Medical Bills

  Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Millions of Americans are struggling under the crushing weight of rapidly rising health care costs that now force them to choose between putting food on the table or taking care of their health.

  

  Even with insurance, medical bills have become backbreaking as health care expenditures devoured more than 17 percent of the U.S. GDP, an increase of 4.1 percent from the year before.

  Runaway Growth of Health Costs

  Over the past few decades, health care expenditures in the United States have skyrocketed.

  Costs rocketed to nearly $4.5 trillion in 2022 despite reduced services during the pandemic, data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that administers the Medicare program, show. The agency predicts national health expenditures will soar to nearly $7 trillion by 2030.

  Out-of-pocket costs will also increase by an average of 4.6 percent annually through 2030 to reach 9 percent of total spending.

  Deductibles also show a worrying trend, with the average deductible doubling from $1,025 in 2010 to $2,004 in 2021, according to the Center for American Progress, a public policy research and advocacy organization. In the same time frame, the percentage of plans mandating a deductible rose from 78 percent to about 89 percent.

  As a result, even those with insurance often cannot afford the out-of-pocket expenses associated with needed care. The problem is especially acute because incomes have failed to keep pace with rapidly rising costs.

  Who’s to Blame?

  Why are people with health insurance increasingly faced with high medical debt? Is it a problem with health insurers or health care providers?

  It’s both, according to Pavani Rangachari, a professor of health care administration and public health director of the Master of Healthcare Administration program at the University of New Haven in Connecticut.

  The root cause is a broken health care system, “the way it is designed, unfortunately,” she told The Epoch Times. Federal policymakers must fix it to ensure affordability, “They have a big role to play in modifying the system to ensure that it works well for people who are insured.”

  Unaffordable Costs Forcing Patients to Skip or Delay Care

  A Federal Reserve survey found that, in 2022, about one-third of U.S. adults recently skipped or postponed medical care due to cost. The most frequently delayed care was dental, with 21 percent skipping dentist visits, followed by a visit to a specialist, with 16 percent saying they did not go.

  Other care avoided due to costs include the following:

  • 10 percent did not fill prescribed medication.
  • 10 percent skipped follow-up appointments.
  • 10 percent did not pursue needed mental health care.

  Lower-income patients suffered most: 38 percent of those earning under $25,000 went without some care due to expense, versus 11 percent of those earning at least $100,000.

  Data from The Commonwealth Fund, a health care policy-focused private foundation, reveal nearly half of lower- and middle-income adults reported at least one affordability issue accessing care in the past year.

  Why Is It Becoming Unaffordable?

  One factor contributing to the increasing unaffordability of care is due to the equation “price times quantity,” Ms. Rangachari said.

  Price

  Providers can charge substantially higher rates for the same services to private insurers versus public plans like Medicaid, Ms. Rangachari said. This allows them to negotiate selectively. For example, they may deny care for lower-paying Medicaid patients if reimbursements are deemed insufficient. This leaves uninsured and lower-income patients with fewer affordable options.

  “You have all of these different market segmentations, so the people who are able to afford it and might not really need that kind of preventive health care are benefiting from it,” Ms. Rangachari said. Additionally, those most in need of care face coverage denials.

  Quantity

  The quantity side of the affordability equation involves overused services, Ms. Rangachari said. Much unnecessary testing stems from fee-for-service models compensating volume over value. Each test, procedure, or patient visit triggers a separate payment.

  This has led payments to be based on volume rather than value, incentivizing unnecessary services over preventative care, she added. This has driven health care spending to nearly 20 percent of GDP according to the CMS, an economically unstable trajectory signaling a need for health system reform, Ms. Rangachari noted.

  Value-Based Care as a Solution

  Value-based care is one solution for repairing issues in the system, according to Ms. Rangachari. This model emphasizes patient outcomes over fee-for-service.

  “One big example is bundled payments for episodes of care, rather than just focusing on encounter-based care and paying for every service delivered,” she said.

  Programs like CMS’ bundled payments for joint replacements focus spending on total 90-day care rather than single encounters. This prevents emergency readmissions from fragmented or poor care, Ms. Rangachari added, noting this approach could extend to prescription drugs.

  Pharmaceuticals also bear the blame for health care’s cost spikes.

  A 2023 AARP analysis found list prices had more than tripled since their introduction to the market. To fight these price hikes, the Inflation Reduction Act enables Medicare to negotiate lower prices and limit out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries. (The act’s provisions don’t extend to the private health insurance market.)

  Applying value-based purchasing here could control pricing and supply issues, Ms. Rangachari said. CMS will increasingly scrutinize what value is delivered to justify cost, comparative efficacy, therapeutic advances, and research and development investments.

  “And this is an initiative that’s now underway as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Ms. Rangachari said. “Ultimately, it’s really tackling the p’s and the q’s of the equation through delivery system reform.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 21:40

• Video Shows IDF Shooting Unarmed, Loitering West Bank Palestinians, Killing One
  Video Shows IDF Shooting Unarmed, Loitering West Bank Palestinians, Killing One

  In the latest in an ongoing stream of disturbing shootings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers caught on video, images captured last week show the IDF shooting three seemingly unarmed men — killing one — as they loitered in the West Bank village of Beit Rima.  

  The IDF says soldiers were in the village for a “counter-terrorism operation,” and claimed they shot at men who threw firebombs and explosives. An Israeli military spokesman who reviewed the video doubled down on the claim, saying a man who is seen kneeling in the video was in the act of lighting a Molotov cocktail when he was shot. 

  However, an Associated Press examination of multiple videos of the 2am incident found the evidence sharply contradicts the Israeli claims. Indeed, the IDF didn’t even shoot the kneeling man first. 

  Video that starts 20 minutes before the shooting shows various men casually loitering and walking around near a town square. Rather than lighting a Molotov cocktail, one of the wounded survivors say 17-year-old Osaid Rimawi was lighting a stack of cardboard boxes and paper he’d assembled to build a fire to keep the group warm. Video shot from across the street corroborates his version: 

  

  The IDF first shot 29-year-old Nader Ramawi in the left leg. The others initially scattered. When Ramawi’s 25-year-old brother Mohammed ran to aid his brother, he too was shot, with the bullet hitting his hip. Next, Osaid darts toward the victims, and is shot, fatally. The high school student was studying to be a barber. 

  The video gets worse. As Nader stands up and tries to hop away on his one good leg, the IDF shot him in that leg too. It bears emphasis that Nader wasn’t brandishing any weapons, and this incident didn’t take place in Gaza, but the West Bank.

  Soldiers approached the downed Palestinians a couple minutes later. One prodded the dying Osaid with his foot, and after hovering around the wounded, the soldiers leave without taking interest in the stack of boxes that the IDF spokesperson said was a Molotov cocktail, according to AP‘s review of the videos. 

  pic.twitter.com/yuYFs4G3Kn

  ⚡️🇮🇱IDF shoots young Palestinian boy and his friends trying to help him. drives up to them to takes pictures then drives off leaving them to bleed out. IDF are a bunch of blood thirsty terrorist.

  Found out the first boy who got shot died at the hospital…

  — The Engineer (@iEngineerNews) January 5, 2024

  Thus far, Israel’s response to this latest claim of murderous misconduct by its soldiers follows a familiar pattern. First comes a denial of wrongdoing, then a false claim about the nature of the incident, followed by the announcement of a probe to be conducted by the IDF itself. 

  That pattern most prominently played out in the IDF’s fatal shooting of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022, which eventually ended in a mere apology and no charges against soldiers. Dror Sadot, spokeswoman for Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, tells AP that justice is unlikely to result from this new episode either:

  “Cases like these happen quite regularly, but no one’s hearing about them. The military will say that it is opening an investigation. And this investigation will last for years, probably without any media covering it. And then it will be washed down the drain.”

  Last month, IDF soldiers in Gaza shot and killed three Israeli hostages, all of whom were shirtless and one of whom was waving a white surrender flag. That incident lent credence to critics’ claims that the IDF has been demonstrating a reckless disregard for Palestinian life. 

  Also in December, we reported on the IDF fatally shooting these two men to death – one incapacitated and the other seemingly unarmed – in the Israeli-occupied West Bank:

  Original security camera footage obtained by B’Tselem captures two short-range executions of Palestinians in al-Far’ah R.C. on 8 December 2023. pic.twitter.com/gyDztMXIww

  — B’Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) December 15, 2023

  The United States has been reluctant to admonish the Israeli government over such incidents. However, amid a surging global outcry over the high civilian casualty count in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at a press briefing in Israel on Tuesday, said the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high.” 

  “Those who dare to accuse our soldiers of war crimes are people imbued with hypocrisy and lies who do not have a single drop of morality,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October. “The [IDF] is the most moral army in the world.” 

  Here’s the AP’s full video breakdown and report on last week’s West Bank shooting:   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 21:20

• The Root Cause Of Academic Groupthink
  The Root Cause Of Academic Groupthink

  Authored by Bruce Abramson via RealClear Wire,

  The shroud is coming off elite academia and America is not pleased with what it’s seeing. Its leaders have told us that genocidal antisemitism is too complex to recognize and that plagiarism is a problem for students, perhaps for junior faculty, but not for the president of Harvard. DEI policies elevated demographic considerations far above merit at our most prestigious institutions.

  

  How did this happen? What can be done to fix it?

  Those are tough questions. Major institutions don’t become corrupt overnight. The process is long, slow, and methodical. The solutions go far beyond the removal of a few high-profile officials. In academia, the egregious examples that gain sudden visibility are merely manifestations of a corrupt core.

  That corrupt core stems from the inherent difficulty of assessing the quality of knowledge work. Suppose that there are multiple competing theories to explain some phenomenon—freakish weather, persistent crime, disparate outcomes, reactions to a vaccine, the variance of election results from poll predictions, etc. How can anyone know which theory to believe?

  Most people turn to one of two heuristics. The first is personal, and few people like to admit it openly: They accept whichever theory comes closest to what they’d like to believe. The second is societal, and most people who advocate it do so with pride: They ask the experts.

  Academic institutions—built by experts and for experts—have enshrined this second approach, using mechanisms that sound unassailable, like “peer review” and “faculty governance.” Success in academia flows to those who most impress the key decision-makers. Many students encountered this phenomenon in classes known for handing the highest grades to those best adept at parroting the professor’s views.

  What few students appreciate is how powerful that approach remains throughout the academic hierarchy. Graduate students seeking faculty positions maximize their chances by embracing and building upon the work of their faculty interviewers. Assistant professors are most likely to gain tenure and promotion if they anchor their work to that of their senior colleagues. Authors seeking publication in prestigious journals cite the previous publications of the editors and reviewers. The same is true for those seeking research grants.

  In other words, the safest, surest, most common path to success in academia involves telling those already designated experts precisely what they most want to hear: That their own work had been so groundbreaking that the most interesting and exciting path forward is to build upon it.

  Suppose you’re part of the senior faculty of a department committed to the phlogiston theory (i.e., debunked 18^th c. chemistry). Two candidates compete for a junior slot. The first presents a marginal tweak on phlogiston citing your own work and that of several colleagues. The second presents groundbreaking proof that phlogiston is wrong.

  Who gets the job? The candidate whose work flatters you and your colleague? Or the candidate who’s shown that you’ve dedicated your career to nonsense? Now ask the question about climate change instead of phlogiston. Then ask it about DEI. The answer is always the same. Experts who’ve staked their careers and prestige on the validity of a theory will always hire, promote, and reward those who burnish that theory.

  The net result is a reinforcement of orthodox thinking and a field committed to moving further along whatever path it was already taking. I’ve termed this phenomenon “incremental outrageousness.” It defines the basic incentive structure of academia—and of our entire credentialed class.

  Decades ago, when WASP men (to use the acronym of the time) held almost all positions of influence, it was hard to argue with the proposition that casting a far broader net might yield superior candidates. Once our institutions had committed to moving in that direction, however, autopilot took over. The edict was clear: Whatever you may have done vis-à-vis hiring and promotion last year, increase the consideration given to minority candidates.

  That instruction did two things: It entrenched a bureaucracy charged with moving incrementally forward in the same direction and it guaranteed that we could never reach an appropriate balance. It thus elevates an idiosyncratic view of cosmic justice over the challenge of placing the best qualified people in jobs. That’s incremental outrageousness in action. It’s a necessary consequence of a system whose sole determinant of quality is the collective opinion of those who’ve already navigated that system most successfully.

  America is chafing beneath the leadership of an expert class motivated to elevate the experts who flatter the egos of the expert class. That’s hardly a prescription for good governance. It does, however, explain fully what Americans are learning about our most prestigious academic institutions: The only way to make sense of their performance is to understand that their sole motivation is the promotion of their own grandeur.

  Removing a few poorly chosen, underperforming college Presidents is a start. Dismantling a bureaucracy that is committed to engaging in current discrimination to remedy past discrimination would help also. But the only way to truly fix the problem is to alter the incentives.

  We need to broaden the base of decision-makers: Bring back those who’ve been cast to the periphery of their fields for challenging the orthodoxy. Include those too productive to worry about credentials. Embrace those who’ve retained their common sense rather than chasing the next incremental outrage. Meritocracy can never be better than those who define merit. Never confuse the finest contributions to orthodox thinking with the finest contributions to society—or science.

  Unless we do that, today’s elite consensus will always point academics in a direction that, given time, leads to some form of groupthink that is just as damaging—and just as divorced from reality—as that we find in our institutions today.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 21:00

• Maersk Boss Warns Red Sea Chaos Could Last Months
  Maersk Boss Warns Red Sea Chaos Could Last Months

  President Biden’s efforts to stop Iran-backed Houti attacks on commercial shipping routes in the Red Sea continue to face significant challenges. The boss of shipping giant AP Møller-Maersk disclosed to the Financial Times in an interview that reopening the critical waterway could take months instead of weeks. 

  Vincent Clerc, Maersk’s chief executive, said the weekly drone and missile attacks on container ships have been “brutal and dramatic.” He said vessels have been rerouted to the Cape of Good Hope as this 1- 2 week detour adds higher shipping costs because of reduced container capacity and increased fuel usage. 

  “It’s unclear to us if we are talking about re-establishing safe passage into the Red Sea in a matter of days, weeks or months . . . It could potentially have quite significant consequences on global growth,” he said.

  As of Thursday morning, AIS vessel tracking data via Bloomberg shows two container ships in the highly contested Red Sea waters, with destinations for Europe and North America. Most of these vessels have been rerouted to the Cape of Good Hope. 

  

  Last week, Maersk said it would divert ships from the Red Sea around Africa “for the foreseeable future.” The shipper has failed to restart operations in the critical waterway that links Europe and Asia after its vessels were attacked last month. 

  Clerc said Cape of Good Hope adds about 8,000 miles in distance for an Asia-Europe route on a round trip basis. He said the extra distance has made Maersk’s fuel bill 50% higher. He warned that if the Red Sea route is not restored soon, it could threaten “logistics and global supply chains.” 

  “We are urging the international community to mobilize and do what it needs to do to reopen the [Bab-el-Mandeb] strait. It is one of the main arteries of the global economy, and it is clogged right now,” he said. 

  He added: “It could have wider-ranging consequences not only for the industry but for end consumers, product availability, and the global economy as a whole.” 

  Maersk’s inability to restart the Red Sea route directly reflects Biden’s faltering Operation Prosperity Guardian mission to safeguard commercial vessels in the region with US warships. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 20:40

• Biden "Saves" Democracy By Destroying It; VDH
  Biden “Saves” Democracy By Destroying It; VDH

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  When faced with the possible return of President Donald Trump, the current agenda of the Democratic Party is summed up simply as “We had to destroy democracy to save it.”

  

  The effort shares a common theme: any means necessary are justified to prevent the people from choosing their own president, given the fear that a majority might vote to elect Donald Trump.

  Sometimes the anti-democratic paranoia has been outsourced to state and local officials and prosecutors to erase Trump from the primary and likely general election ballots as well.

  One unelected official in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, is a Democrat, an official never elected by the people, and a non-lawyer rendering a legal edict. Yet she has judged Trump guilty of “insurrection.”

  And presto, she erased his name from the state’s ballot.

  Yet Trump was never charged, much less convicted, of “insurrection.”

  The statute Bellows cites is a post-Civil War clause of the 14th Amendment. It was passed over a century and a half ago. It was never intended to be used in an election year by an opposition party to disbar a rival presidential candidate.

  In the earlier case of Colorado, the all-Democrat Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, took Trump off the ballot.

  In sum, just five officials in two states have taken away the rights of some 7 million Americans to vote for the president of their choice.

  Note that Trump continues to lead incumbent Joe Biden in the polls.

  Sometimes, indictments are preferred to prevent Americans from voting for or against Trump.

  Currently, four leftist prosecutors—three state and one federal—have indicted Trump.

  They are petitioning courts to accelerate the usually lethargic legal process to ensure Trump is tied up in Atlanta, Miami, New York, and Washington, D.C., courtrooms nonstop during the 2024 election cycle.

  Their aim is to keep Trump from campaigning, as he faces four left-wing prosecutors, four liberal judges, and four or five overwhelmingly Democratic jury pools.

  Yet all the indictments are increasingly clouded in controversy, if not outright scandal.

  Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis campaigned on promises to get Trump. She now faces allegations that she outsourced the prosecution to an unqualified personal injury lawyer—her current stealth boyfriend who was paid handsomely by Willis’s office and traveled on pricey junkets with her.

  New York partisan attorney general Letitia James likewise sought office on promises to destroy Trump.

  She preposterously claims Trump overvalued his real estate collateral to a bank. Yet it eagerly made the loan, profited from it, and had no complaints given that Trump paid off the principle and interest as required.

  Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg is even more desperate. He is now prosecuting Trump for campaign finance violations from nearly a decade ago, claiming a nondisclosure agreement with a purported sexual liaison somehow counts as a campaign violation.

  Federal special prosecutor Jack Smith claims Trump should be convicted of improperly removing classified documents after leaving office. In the past, such disagreements over presidential papers were resolved bureaucratically.

  Joe Biden, for example, improperly took out classified files after leaving the Senate and vice presidency and stored them in unsecure locations for over a decade.

  All of these prosecutors are unapologetic anti-Trump progressives.

  Some have communicated with the White House legal eagles, even though Joe Biden is likely to face Trump in the November election.

  Some prosecutors are themselves facing controversies, if not scandals. Some wish to synchronize their drawn-out investigations and indictments to hinder the Trump reelection effort.

  At other times, the effort to neuter Trump is waged by his rival Biden himself.

  He has hammered Trump as an insurrectionist and guilty of a number of egregious crimes against democracy—even as Biden’s own Attorney General has appointed a special counsel to try Trump on just those federal charges concerning the January 6 demonstrations, a dead horse that Biden periodically still beats to death to scare voters.

  Biden periodically smears half of America who supported or voted for Trump as “ultra-Maga” extremists and “semi-fascists” who would destroy democracy.

  Yet the more Biden and the Left weaponize the judicial system to prevent Trump from running, and the more Biden screams and yells that Trump supporters are anti-American and anti-democratic, the more Trump soars in the polls while Biden sinks.

  The left privately knows that its historically unprecedented strangulation of democracy is increasing Trump’s popularity. But like an addict, it cannot quit its Trump fix.

  In sum, the Left is creating historic, anti-democratic precedents that will someday boomerang on Democrats should Republicans win the November election and follow the new Democrat model of extra-legal politics.

  Democrats are tearing apart the country in a manner not seen since the Civil War era—apparently convinced democracy cannot be trusted and so itself must be sacrificed as the price of destroying Donald Trump.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 20:20

• Is A Tech Layoff Wave Slated For 2024?
  Is A Tech Layoff Wave Slated For 2024?

  There have been a number of layoff announcements by big tech firms at the start of the new year, signaling a potentially weakening labor market that could accelerate into 2024. Yet, the recent pivot by the Federal Reserve might stave off a spike in the unemployment rate and a resulting recession, should Chair Powell create a soft landing in the economy. If the Fed fails and ushers in a hard landing, brace for a layoff surge. 

  Let’s begin with a Resume Builder survey released at the end of last year, which said nearly 40% of 900 companies surveyed warned they would have to announce layoffs this year. About half of companies said they would implement a hiring freeze. 

  Shock Number: 38% Of US Companies Anticipate That They Will Conduct Layoffs In 2024 https://t.co/AC2UTfROyJ

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 9, 2024

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

  When respondents were asked about the rationale for layoffs, half cited an impending recession as the reason. 

  “Massive layoffs are coming” in 2024.

  Survey of 900 companies says 4 in 10 are planning layoffs — citing the coming recession. And more than half are freezing hires.

  This comes after a brutal 2023, with layoffs doubling on the year.

  Worst hit are Big Tech, construction and… pic.twitter.com/fno8072O2y

  — Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@profstonge) January 10, 2024

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

  In a separate report, Bloomberg detailed the latest big tech layoffs layoffs: 

  Amazon.com Inc. is cutting hundreds of workers across content-creation units, including Prime Video and live-streaming site Twitch. Alphabet Inc.’s Google is also nixing hundreds of positions in hardware and its Assistant unit. Unity Software Inc., which makes the tech that underpins popular mobile games like Pokemon Go, said it would reduce its workforce by 25%, eliminating about 1,800 jobs. 

  Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Poonam Goyal said the job cuts at Amazon were “likely just a move to further streamline costs and improve efficiency to increase earnings.” 

  Despite signs of an economic downturn, the job tracking website Layoffs.fyi showed the job market could be stabilizing after 1,186 tech companies cut 262,600 jobs last year. Since the first of the year, 18 tech companies have laid off nearly 3,000 workers. 

  

  “I’d say the dust is settling — you’re starting to see companies gear up to say the worst is behind us,” said Bert Bean, chief executive officer of Insight Global, a staffing company.

  However, Citi analysts told clients this last week: “While layoffs are still low, these early signs of a weakening labor market could still accelerate into 2024.” 

  

  The analysts continued: “On the other hand, the recent Fed-induced loosening in financial conditions may also be successful in delaying a 2024 recession. Labor market data in early 2024 (after the volatile holiday period through January) will be particularly important to watch.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 20:00

• China Says It Cracked Apple's AirDrop Encryption To Track Senders
  China Says It Cracked Apple’s AirDrop Encryption To Track Senders

  Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Chinese authorities have claimed that they can identify individuals who use Apple’s wireless file-sharing tool to spread content that Beijing considers “inappropriate.”

  

  Experts had managed to identify the phone number and email address of an AirDrop sending device using logs found on the receiving device, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice said in an article published on Jan. 8. That allows local police to find “several suspects” who use the iPhone feature to transmit files containing what authorities have referred to as “inappropriate remarks,” according to the agency.

  AirDrop, designed to function over short distances, was created as a program reliant on direct connections between phones. By forming a local network of devices without relying on the internet to communicate, AirDrop makes it hard for authorities to regulate “through conventional network monitoring methods,” according to the article.

  The file-sharing feature, which is available on iPhones and other Apple devices, has been a critical tool for protesters in both mainland China and Hong Kong to evade censorship and maintain communication. Users can’t review the transmission history, and the recipient’s device may only show the user-defined name of the sender.

  The Beijing judicial agency stated in the article that experts extracted AirDrop’s encrypted records by analyzing the iPhone’s logs. They praised experts from Beijing Wangshendongjian Technology Co. Ltd., a local forensic appraisal institute, for assisting authorities to “break through technical difficulties of tracing anonymous AirDrops.”

  The Epoch Times contacted Apple for comment but didn’t receive a response by press time.

  iPhone Censorship

  AirDrop was used widely as a communication tool during Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2019. Demonstrators deployed the program to bypass China’s so-called Great Firewall, delivering crucial messages to the public and ensuring ongoing communication among themselves.

  In late 2022, after protests against Beijing’s draconian COVID-19 measures erupted in Shanghai and other major Chinese cities, Apple restricted the sharing feature in the mainland following reports that young demonstrators used the AirDrop function to share images and slogans denouncing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leader, Xi Jinping.

  On Nov. 9, 2022, Apple released iOS 16.1.1., a new version of its mobile operating system. The tech firm noted that the “update includes bug fixes and security updates and is recommended for all users.” However, Chinese readers of 9to5Mac, a website covering news about Apple and its products, noticed a modification in the update that was specific to iPhones sold in China.

  Following the operating system update, AirDrop on iPhones sold in China can only be configured to receive messages from “everyone” for 10 minutes before switching off. Typically, AirDrop users can choose to receive files from “everyone”—contacts and noncontacts—for an unlimited time. Before the update, the “everyone” setting could be turned on permanently on Chinese iPhones.

  Apple has stated that the feature was an effort to cut down on spam content sent in crowded areas such as malls, and it originally planned to roll out the feature globally starting in 2023.

  However, Apple hasn’t offered an explanation as to why it chose China to be the first country with AirDrop restrictions.

  China Censorship

  For years, Apple kept Chinese customers’ data locally on servers run by a state-owned company, adhering to Beijing’s request to keep information within its borders.

  Experts have pointed out that this method gives the CCP unfettered access to consumer data. Apple, in response, stated that it holds encryption keys to the data stored in those server facilities and has “never compromised the security” of its users and their data.

  This local storage means that although the United States has laws against companies sharing data with Chinese authorities, Beijing can demand the data from the server storage company rather than from Apple.

  Apple has already been subjected to restrictions in China, one of the company’s biggest markets and responsible for nearly 20 percent of the Cupertino, California-based firm’s revenue.

  Multiple media outlets reported in September 2023 that Beijing instructed state employees and officials at some government agencies to not use iPhones and other foreign cell phones for work. Local officials from three provinces previously told The Epoch Times that they had already been told to not bring iPhones and foreign cell phones to important meetings. These officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said there were no formal documents regarding that order.

  When asked about the reported iPhone ban at a briefing at the time, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official didn’t directly comment on the issue but said phone companies operating in China must adhere to its laws and regulations.

  China observers have noted that the CCP has long sought to tighten control over its people. The regime has poured massive resources into constructing a nationwide surveillance system, clamping down on both domestic and foreign businesses and penalizing individuals perceived as threats to national security. The money Chinese authorities have spent on policing the whole society has surpassed its national defense budget under Xi, according to Nikkei Asia’s analysis of official data.

  Andrew Moran, Catherine Yang, and Lear Zhou contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 19:40

• Griffin, Singer, And Schwarzman Pour Millions Into McCormick Super PAC In Hopes Of Flipping PA Senate Seat Red
  Griffin, Singer, And Schwarzman Pour Millions Into McCormick Super PAC In Hopes Of Flipping PA Senate Seat Red

  One of the most competitive 2024 Senate races is heating up, thanks in large part to nearly $18 million in billionaire donations to a super PAC supporting GOP candidate David McCormick, who hopes to unseat Democratic incumbent Senator Bob Casey in November.

  

  Citadel’s Ken Griffin, Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman and Elliott Management’s Paul Singer have heavily contributed to the super PAC, Keystone Renwal, Bloomberg reports.

  McCormick, a former chief executive officer at hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, is seen as a business-friendly Republican who could pose a formidable challenge to Democratic incumbent Senator Bob Casey in the 2024 election.

  The $18 million that Keystone Renewal raised since it was formed in August is in addition to the $6.4 million the McCormick campaign raised in the fourth quarter. -Bloomberg

  According to Ken Griffin, McCormick is a “proven business leader who understands what it takes to create jobs and grow a company,” and “America will be well served if talented patriots and leaders like David are elected to serve in Congress.”

  

  According to Keystone spokesperson, Brittany Yanick, “This shows that there is not only real excitement and momentum for McCormick’s candidacy, but also the fact that Pennsylvania is a state that McCormick will win in November.”

  In December, Paul Tudor Jones hosted a fundraiser at his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Guests included former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross; San Francisco Giants principal owner Charles Johnson; former Colorado Senator Cory Gardner; and Byron Trott, founder of merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners LLC., according to the report.

  The push behind McCormick shows that major Republican donors are serious about flipping the Senate red this year. While Democrats currently maintain a slim majority in the chamber, they face tough races in Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 19:20

• "We Need To Find Ways To Suppress Douglas Murray & Joe Rogan": Inside A Counter-Terrorism Course For UK Civil Servants
  “We Need To Find Ways To Suppress Douglas Murray & Joe Rogan”: Inside A Counter-Terrorism Course For UK Civil Servants

  Authored by Anna Stanley via FathomJournal.org,

  Scandalous Indoctrination: Inside a Kings College Counter-Terrorism Course for UK Civil Servants

  A former civil servant, Anna Stanley reports on a counter-terrorism course she attended which she found a deeply, existentially depressing experience. She argues that ‘prestigious’ educational institutions are delivering politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination and that extremism and terrorism are misunderstood by civil servants to the point of being a national security risk.

  I recently attended a Kings College course called ‘Issues in Countering Terrorism’. Organised by the Centre for Defence Studies, it was designed for civil servants and professionals in Counter Terrorism. Staff from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and Home Office attended. Facilitating this relatively new 3 day course were senior lecturers from the Security Studies Department.

  The civil servants were given presentations by Kings College lecturers while Visiting Senior Research Fellows and Professors also spoke. These included those formerly holding positions such as Permanent Secretary of the Home Office and Director of GCHQ, Defence Minister and Foreign Office Director.

  The course was a deeply, existentially depressing experience.

  ‘Prestigious’ educational institutions are delivering politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination. It confirmed my fears – that extremism and terrorism are misunderstood by civil servants to the point of being a national security risk.

  Underpinning their presentations, some of the lecturers relayed typical post-modern identity politics.

  The course began with the issue of definitions. What is Terrorism? Without anyone providing an opposing standpoint, we were taught the adage, ‘One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.’

  I posed to the room: ‘Surely we can acknowledge subjectivity while being able to come up with a collective understanding of what terrorism is?’ Some 40 civil servants looked at me blankly. No?

  I wondered why we were there.

  The danger of understanding terrorism with cultural relativism is that it breeds moral apathy; the kind that says ‘Who are we, mere democratic, liberal Westerners to impose our morality onto others? Who are we to say our culture is superior to others?’

  These are luxury attitudes.

  It is easy to be sat in Kings College London and feel that all cultures are equal, when you haven’t been anally raped at a peace festival by someone shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and held hostage. In the introduction to the course, labeling an organisation as terrorist was described as a problem because it ‘implies a moral judgment’. Nothing was said about why a moral judgment might be appropriate.

  All the civil servant participants were given a topic to research and present. One attendee said her brother had been radicalised and fought in Syria for Islamic State (ISIS). ’Phew’, I thought. At least one person here will understand the problems of extremism (!) Her presentation was about the UK’s Counter Terrorism Strategy, Prevent.  She argued Prevent is inherently racist because it focuses on Islamist extremism. The mere mention of Islamist extremism makes Muslims ‘feel uncomfortable’, she argued. Her brother would most certainly have agreed.

  I raised the point that nearly 70 per cent of terrorist attacks in the UK are Islamist. Similarly, 70 per cent of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. It would be absurd to avoid mentioning this in the study of cancer so smokers don’t feel uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, this comparison was not well received.

  Later on, we were shown an ISIS propaganda recruitment video filmed in Syria. The same attendee’s face lit up. Laughing and pointing at the Jihadi in the video, ‘He used to go to my school! I know him!’ she exclaimed. Mouth agape, I looked around the room for responses to yet another disclosure involving personal links to ISIS terrorists. I appeared to be the only one to find this extraordinary.

  There was an irony to being surrounded by civil servants who hate the concept of the State.

  As young professionals, they represented a microcosm of the views emanating from British universities: When it comes to extremism and counter terrorism, the State is not to be trusted.

  The head of Security Studies at Kings College read concernedly, ‘Problems of Definitions: Labelling a group terrorist can increase the state’s power.’ The civil servants nodded in agreement.

  The visiting speakers were political heavyweights. Possessing genuine expertise with interesting anecdotes, their past responses to crises like the ‘Northern Ireland Troubles’ were referenced frequently. Yet I couldn’t help but feel many of their insights were lost by the audience.

  One attendee provocatively asked a former head of GCHQ whether he ‘felt bad infringing on our civil liberties in the pursuit of terrorists?’ Naïve and uninformed, the questioner had highlighted mainstream opinion that security services are routinely listening to innocent, random people’s phone calls or stalking their WhatsApps. Lacking was any appreciation the UK is exemplary. Protective legislation is laborious to the point of being near obstructive and investigations pursuing criminals and terrorists are rigorously audited.

  Israel was referenced throughout the course. We were told some consider Hamas terrorists as freedom fighters whereas Israel was provided as a prime example when considering the question of whether a state can commit terrorism. In the introduction, one slide read ‘Condemning terrorism is to endorse the power of the strong over the weak’, a dangerous conclusion breeding anti-Israel positions. In this perspective, Israel is seen as a powerful aggressor and the Palestinians militarily disadvantaged in asymmetric warfare. Thus, the Palestinians are inherently oppressed an axiom that fuels the view that Israel is a terrorist state and Hamas’ atrocities are justifiably ‘contextualised’. To call Hamas terrorist – as the BBC is so pointedly resistant to doing – would be to ‘endorse the power of the strong over the weak’.

  Another slide read, ‘Terrorism is not the problem, rather the systems they oppose are terrorist,’ reflecting post-modern identity politics wrapped up as counter terrorism education. Everything was viewed through the lens of power.

  While the lecturer did not explicitly present the slides as reflecting his own beliefs, he said nothing to counter them.

  I am grateful I attended the course before the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. I have no doubt the pogrom would have been contextually justified as ‘merely the oppressed countering the oppressor’; with Israel’s response described as morally equivalent (or worse) to the atrocities.

  None of the Counter Terrorism lecturers (bar two) posted about the attacks on their otherwise informative social media platforms.

  Of these two, one Professor wrote a RUSI Think Tank commentary, saying Israeli ‘crisis meetings could be affected by a desire for revenge’ and why ‘restraint in Counterterrorism is so important’.

  During the span of the course, there was no mention of immigration being relevant to terrorism in the UK, except as a view ‘given by the right wing’.

  The course’s overriding emphasis was that Islamist extremism is exaggerated. Right-wing extremism was given more weight than is proportionate. This is in direct conflict with William Shawcross’ findings, in the latest government commissioned review of its anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent.

  One lecturer derogatively described Shawcross as ‘the type of person who would say all current counter-terrorism professionals are woke…He is of that ilk.’

  This of course discredited Shawcross to the course attendees.

  

  The lecturer further argued that Douglas Murray and Joe Rogan are both examples of the far right.

  ‘To what extent should Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray be suppressed?’ he asked.

  ‘They have millions of followers. To de-platform them would cause issues.’

  Concluding his talk, the lecturer told a room full of government professionals, ‘so, society needs to find other ways to suppress them.’

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 19:05

• Liz Cheney Vs. Stefan Passantino: The Jan. 6 Committee Fraud
  Liz Cheney Vs. Stefan Passantino: The Jan. 6 Committee Fraud

  Authored by Newt Gingrich via RealClear Wire,

  It’s becoming increasingly clear that U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney was dishonest, manipulative, and destructive while serving on the Jan. 6 Committee.

  

  A lawsuit filed by my friend and long-time attorney Stefan Passantino on Dec. 20, 2023 lays it out.

  I know both participants well. I entered Congress in 1978 with Liz Cheney’s father, Dick Cheney. I watched Liz Cheney become a competent, effective implementor of American policy around the world. Few things have made me sadder than watching her drift into an anti-Trump fanaticism – which ultimately convinced her that breaking the rules, destroying innocent people, and pandering fake news were justified behaviors.

  Years later, I got to know Stefan Passantino. Since 1998, he has been legal counsel for me and for our companies. He is a thoughtful, scholarly, and deeply ethical attorney. Passantino represents his clients with integrity and a passionate commitment to protecting them and seeing justice done.

  I was proud of Passantino when he served as Deputy White House Counsel focusing on federal compliance and government ethics. We could not have imagined how he would later be smeared and lied about by Congresswoman Liz Cheney and the Jan. 6 Committee.

  Liz Cheney and the committee’s ongoing process of dishonesty, violating attorney-client privilege, and leaking to friendly leftwing media was a total perversion of the congressional system. It was a dishonest effort to destroy innocent people of integrity with one-sided lies and smears.

  Fortunately, Chairman Barry Loudermilk, who leads the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight (on which I served for over a decade), has doggedly looked into the Jan. 6 Committee’s lies and manipulations. In the coming months, we will be shocked at the stunning dishonesty Chairman Loudermilk will reveal.

  Passantino represented several witnesses before the Jan. 6 Committee with no problems. He represented Cassidy Hutchinson with precisely the same integrity. In fact, he represented Hutchinson through multiple interviews covering about 20 hours.

  Hutchinson was a desirable witness for the Committee, because she entered the White House in her early 20s and became Special Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Legislative Affairs. She reported to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and had an office in the West Wing just a few feet from the Oval Office.

  Liz Cheney apparently decided Hutchinson would make a star witness – if only she would say the right things.

  In an amazingly inappropriate and unethical move, Liz Cheney herself (along with a small number of senior staff) approached Hutchinson after her second committee interview without informing her Passantino. Liz Cheney then called Cassidy in for a third interview, with Passantino again serving as counsel, with neither Cassidy nor Cheney ever informing Passantino that they had been speaking without his knowledge. Contacting Hutchinson without informing Passantino was clearly unethical, and it appears as if Liz Cheney instructed Cassidy not to tell Passantino they had spoken. This was a profound breach of legal ethics. Liz Cheney knew this well. She earned her law degree from the University of Chicago.

  As a senior member of Congress (and the national media’s anointed hero), Liz Cheney approached and sought to manipulate an isolated, frightened woman in her mid-20s. Does that sound appropriate? I suspect Liz Cheney knew she was doing something wrong because she apparently did not tell her fellow committee members.

  After being manipulated by Cheney, Hutchinson dismissed Passantino and hired a new lawyer who was eager to cooperate with the committee. Suddenly, Hutchinson’s testimony started changing. As Chairman Loudermilk has said:

  “Cassidy Hutchinson tried to explain her dramatic changes in testimony by blaming her initial lawyer, Stefan Passantino. Our discovery of Cassidy’s errata sheet showing just how substantially her story changed, raises serious concerns about her credibility. Until now, her version of the story was the only one.”

  As John Solomon at Just the News reported:

  “As the Jan. 6 congressional investigation rushed to a close in 2022, one of the House Democrats’ star witnesses waived her attorney-client privilege with her first lawyer in a move that could now open the door for House Republicans to question both her and her attorney, correspondence obtained by Just the News shows. Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony played a large role in shaping House Democrats’ final report sharply criticizing Donald Trump for the Capitol riot that ensued on Jan. 6, 2021, but Republicans on the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight led by Chairman Barry Loudermilk recently discovered an errata sheet she submitted to Congress that made substantial changes to her account midway through the Democrat-led inquiry. Errata sheets are routinely provided to deponents and witnesses by stenographers to allow for correction of typographic errors and dropped words.”

  The Jan. 6 Committee did everything it could to avoid being reviewed. It has not released transcripts of many interviews. It claims to have destroyed some videos of interviews. In one deliberately opaque move, the committee seems to have sent some of its documents to various other agencies, making them difficult to gather.

  Further, the committee called in thousands of witnesses to interview. Yet, it never interviewed Passantino. This is the biggest clue that Liz Cheney and the committee were interested in promoting their narrative rather than finding the truth.

  The Republican House has since brought the Jan. 6 Committee materials back from the National Archives, and they are being studied by the Committee on House Administration. Some surprisingly bad examples of rule-breaking and simply lying to the American people are beginning to emerge.

  Passantino’s courage in bringing his lawsuit will accelerate the process of learning just how bad the Jan. 6 Committee was – and reveal the depth of its most aggressive members’ dishonesty and manipulation.

  History will not grant Liz Cheney or the Jan. 6 Committee members the profile in courage they wanted. It will record a profile in deception, distortion, and vengeance.

  I have no doubt Stefan Passantino will emerge from this lawsuit with his integrity intact and reputation restored. I can’t say the same for Liz Cheney.

  For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 19:00

• The Best Bank Stock Rally In Years Raises Scrutiny
  The Best Bank Stock Rally In Years Raises Scrutiny

  By Jessica Menton, Bloomberg Earnings Watch reporter and analyst

  Fresh off their best quarter since 2021, banks stocks are set for a high-stakes earnings showdown as Wall Street’s most influential executives give investors their latest take on the US economy.

  JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. kick off the reporting cycle for Corporate America on Friday, after a gauge of US bank stocks gained 23% last quarter, trouncing the broader market.
  Bank shares were under pressure for much of 2023, and then surged starting in late October as confidence built that the Federal Reserve would end its rate-hike campaign without triggering a recession. Now the focus is on the timing of policy easing, and investors will scrutinize what that means for all corners of the lenders’ business, from the health of their loan portfolios to the outlook for deposit rates.

  “Banks are obviously not as cheap as they were, but at the same time I don’t think people believe the valuations of banks are stretched,” said Richard Ramsden, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

  If the banks are more upbeat than expected around net interest income, loan growth, capital markets and deposit pricing, “all of that is obviously going to feed through into greater earnings and probably further relative outperformance from some of the banks,” Ramsden said.

  

  On Tuesday, attention turns to earnings from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. That day also brings the first results from the regional lenders, with PNC Financial Services Group reporting, making it a bellwether for regional lenders.

  The big banks are generally expected to report downbeat results for the fourth quarter amid higher funding costs. Net interest income for the sector looks set to drop, while elevated expenses and weak trading revenue are also likely to weigh on earnings, Goldman’s Ramsden said in a report. Loan growth will probably be modest, he said.

  The companies are also expected to detail payments to the FDIC resulting from the regional bank failures that roiled financial markets early last year. Citigroup said Wednesday that it expects to incur a $1.7 billion cost to replenish the FDIC fund. Meanwhile, Bank of America said it would take a $1.6 billion charge tied to the Libor transition.

  The tide turned for bank shares last quarter as the prospect of Fed rate cuts in 2024 eased concern over areas such as net interest margins.

  There’s plenty of reason for caution. The inflation rate remains well above the Fed’s target, and markets are betting on a more aggressive path of rate cuts than the Fed is signaling. JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon this week said he remains skeptical that the Fed’s hikes will succeed in taming inflation without eventually slamming the breaks on the economy.

  Some analysts are advising investors to temper their enthusiasm.

  At BMO Capital Markets, James Fotheringham downgraded a handful of US banks and specialty-finance firms on the back of the rally, warning they appear vulnerable to an “impending” credit cycle. UBS Group AG analysts, meanwhile, flagged the risk of “wild swings in sentiment.”

  “January earnings season may present a speed bump to the sector’s recent momentum,” UBS’s Erika Najarian wrote in a note this week. Still, looking more broadly, over the past month financial companies are the only sector where the majority of analyst earnings revisions were upwards, according to Citigroup data.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 18:40

• Energy Lease Hypocrisy: Biden Uses Taxpayer Protections To Prop Up Wind, Gut Oil
  Energy Lease Hypocrisy: Biden Uses Taxpayer Protections To Prop Up Wind, Gut Oil

  Authored by Pete McGinnis via RealClear Wire,

  What constitutes a “proven technology” with “predictable income” to the Biden administration? Apparently, it isn’t the oil and gas industry that has been powering the world, raising standards of living, and making entire nations wealthy for well over a century. On the other hand, the first-ever North American ocean wind turbine installation – unpopular with people who will have to look at it and part of a flailing, not-ready-for-primetime industry – is a sure thing to the Department of the Interior.

  

  Per a recent report, on June 15, 2021, Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) waived the customary financial assurance for decommissioning on the lease of the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. Decommissioning fees are typically required for every energy lease Interior grants so that if a project fails and the lessee goes bankrupt, taxpayers aren’t stuck with cleanup costs. Vineyard first asked for a deferment in 2017 and was denied by the Trump administration, but the Biden BOEM informed Vineyard the fee was deferred for 15 years into its 20-year lease. Why?

  Well, the financial assurance fees were “unnecessarily burdensome for lessees because, at that point, they have not begun receiving project income.” Besides, Vineyard used “proven wind turbine technology,” and “guaranteed electricity sales prices that, coupled with the consistent supply of wind energy, ensure a predictable income over the life of the Project.”

  But a June 2023 Barrons report said of wind energy, “Financially, the industry is teetering, with a parade of companies planning to renegotiate or pull out of contracts, jeopardizing plans for projects that were expected to provide electricity for millions of homes.” What’s more, “At least eight multinational companies in three states have quietly started to back out of wind contracts, or ask to renegotiate deals in ways that will pass more costs to consumers.”

  That includes Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, which recently pulled out of two wind projects off the New Jersey coast. Its stock price was down some 50% in 2023, and the company had “$4 billion in write-downs,” according to Barrons.

  As for that “proven technology,” Siemens Energy shares fell almost 40% in one day in June 2023 because of serious turbine failures – failures that “might be a symptom of a wider issue for the industry,” according to CNBC.

  BOEM, it seems, was overoptimistic about Vineyard Wind. Or they just wanted to give a plucky young upstart a hand. Or they were recklessly pursuing an environmental agenda, whatever the consequences for taxpayers. The evidence points to that last option. One need only look at how BOEM has wielded federal bonding against traditional oil and gas developers.

  On June 29, 2023, BOEM published a proposal to amend bonding requirements. As the Daily Caller has explained, “The old bonding rules established supplemental bonding prices for lessees based on the net worth of that lessee, among other factors … the June 2023 proposal from BOEM would shift that calculus away from net worth and instead focus on the lessee’s credit rating.”

  That shift would impact the 76% of the oil and gas developers working in the Gulf of Mexico that don’t happen to be publicly traded oil giants. Politico’s E&E News says it “would also protect some of the biggest drillers in the country from cleaning up abandoned wells when smaller firms go bust.” In many cases, the Chevrons and Shells did the initial drilling and then sold their lease rights to smaller companies. Under the proposal, these small companies would incur $9 billion in insurance costs that even the surety industry itself claims would not be financially viable. BOEM wants to finalize the new rules by April.

  According to agency documents FGI obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, one of the reasons the BOEM proposal falls so heavily on small independent companies is because Big Oil had a seat at the table when BOEM was dreaming it up. BOEM met with The American Petroleum Institute and major oil companies about changing the surety requirements mainly in 2021. That was the same year BOEM gave Vineyard its sweetheart deal. Meanwhile, as gas prices skyrocketed, President Biden demonized those same energy giants.

  Perhaps in the hope the crocodile would eat the biggest bites last, the huge oil companies fed their smaller competitors to the Biden Administration and its appetite for shutting down domestic fossil fuel production where and when it can. The proposal would drive many companies out of the market of completely under. The administration wins. The president’s allies on the left win. Big Oil wins. And Vineyard Wind must be laughing all the way to the bank.

  If hypocrisy were combustible, we’d be paying $1 per gallon at the pump.

  Peter McGinnis is with the Functional Government Initiative. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 18:20

• Hunter Biden Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Tax Charges
  Hunter Biden Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Tax Charges

  World-renowned painting legend and crackhead hooker-connoisseur, Hunter Biden, pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars in income from foreign businesses – even though he previously agreed to settle the case in a preferential wristslap plea deal with the DOJ – in a case that Republicans hope will bolster the impeachment of his father, Joe Biden.

  In case you were wondering what he looks like with clothes on pic.twitter.com/XJHDMIVQqJ

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 10, 2024

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

  The president’s son entered his plea Thursday in Los Angeles (the case is US v. Biden, 23-cr-599, US District Court, Central District of California), where he may face trial this year as his father seeks reelection in a rematch with Donald Trump, who himself is the target of a Soviet-style witch hunt orchestrated by Biden’s activist, weaponized Department of “Justice.” Trump, who himself was arrested four times, points to the business affairs of Hunter Biden as evidence the presidential family is corrupt.

  According to Bloomberg, US District Judge Mark Scarsi said he’s considering a June 20 trial date and set a briefing schedule for the case. A federal grand jury charged Hunter Biden on Dec. 7 with failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2019 even as he spent millions of dollars on a drug-fueled lifestyle featuring escorts, fast cars and luxury hotels, much of it while he was in the grips of addiction. He could face 17 years in prison if convicted of the three felonies and six misdemeanors in his indictment.

  Hunter Biden hooker payments (not seasonally adjusted) pic.twitter.com/q2th47kBGV

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 8, 2023

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

  Hunter Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle at the same time he chose not to pay his taxes… the Defendant spent money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing.. in short, everything but his taxes.” https://t.co/CLSX3gCqkC pic.twitter.com/vvrUZvdAkj

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 8, 2023

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

  Hunter Biden’s problems extend far beyond the Los Angeles tax case. He also faces a separate trial in Delaware on federal gun charges, and House Republicans have made his overseas business dealings, especially his slush fund receipts from Ukraine and China which were split with his father, a central focus of their impeachment inquiry.

  Separately, as reported yesterday, two US House committees recommended Wednesday that the younger Biden be held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena in the impeachment inquiry into his father.  The votes, 23-14 in the Judiciary Committee and 25-21 in the Oversight Committee, came after Hunter Biden made an unannounced appearance on the US Capitol grounds to attend the proceedings.

  McConnell Dresses As Prostitute To Lure Hunter Into Congressional Hearing https://t.co/cdksrYrtai pic.twitter.com/1tSGouDpw0

  — The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 10, 2024

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

  Hunter Biden had hoped to avoid these criminal cases. In July, he agreed to plead guilty in Delaware to two misdemeanor tax counts and acknowledge a firearms violation without a conviction, receiving no jail time. But the deal imploded when a federal judge – apparently one of the few who has not been bribed by Soros – questioned its terms and refused to sign off on it.

  David Weiss, the US attorney in Delaware, came under intense criticism for offering a sweetheart deal to the president’s son. Hilariously, BIden’s pet attorney general Merrick Garland then appointed Weiss as special counsel in the case, freeing him to pursue separate criminal cases.

  The indictment alleges Hunter Biden made more than $7 million in gross income from 2016 to 2020, including from a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings, and a Chinese private equity firm, CEFC China Energy. Instead of paying his taxes, prosecutors say, he spent money on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature.”

  After the indictment, Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell assailed Weiss in a statement, saying that prosecutors engaged in selective prosecution of a man who paid his back taxes.

  “If Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought,” Lowell said. “Now, after five years of investigating with no new evidence — and two years after Hunter paid his taxes in full — the US Attorney has piled on nine new charges when he had agreed just months ago to resolve this matter with a pair of misdemeanors.”

  House Republicans had subpoenaed Hunter Biden to testify for a private Dec. 13 deposition, but Lowell has said his client will answer questions only in a public hearing or setting. Republicans have countered that Hunter Biden’s demands amount to a “request for special treatment” and an attempt to “bully” Congress.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 18:00

• Gaza War Expands As US, UK Warplanes Bomb Houthi Strongholds In Yemen
  Gaza War Expands As US, UK Warplanes Bomb Houthi Strongholds In Yemen

  Update(1840): Reuters and VOA are reporting that US and UK warplanes have begin striking Houthi targets in Yemen, in what marks the first major regional expansion of the Gaza war. According to Politico:

  The U.S. and U.K, with support from Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, and Canada, conducted joint strikes tonight against Houthi targets in Yemen, per DOD official. Strikes involved U.S. aircraft, ships and submarines.

  The Telegraph has also reported British fighters and ships are participating in the military action against the Houthis. There are incoming reports of large airstrikes in major Yemeni cities. Unverified videos have begun coming in via social media. The below video is unconfirmed at this early stage:

  WATCH: U.S. and Britain carrying out airstrikes in Yemen pic.twitter.com/FrgFnMNvEy

  — BNO News (@BNONews) January 12, 2024

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

  One Mideast correspondent remarks that “we have gone from US prioritizing an end to war in Yemen to US getting involved against rebels in control of Yemen. Regional ramifications of both Yemen and Gaza wars on full display, with heavy toll on trade, maritime navigation.”

  Al Arabiya has reported that there are “Violent air strikes on the vicinity of Hodeidah city” and Sanaa has also been bombed.

  There are emerging reports that US bases in Iraq may be coming under attack. Also, the Houthis say they are hitting back against Western warships in the Red Sea. 

  

  Like pretty much all of America’s last twenty something years of the ‘war on terror,’ Congress has been sidelined once again…

  The President needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle east conflict. That is Article I of the Constitution. I will stand up for that regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House.

  — Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) January 11, 2024

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

  Meanwhile…

  CNN host (and the wife of a Citigroup banker) @ErinBurnett is openly celebrating US strikes Yemen tonight

  “Finally!” She exclaimed to guests, as US troops hunker down for World War III pic.twitter.com/vtrruYntRY

  — Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) January 12, 2024

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

  * * * 

  Update(1730ET): It begins… and a White House statement is also expected imminently:

  UK’S SUNAK AUTHORIZES JOINT MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST HOUTHIS

  And the Times (UK) reported an hour ago:

  Britain expected to join U.S in carrying airstrikes on Houthi military positions in Yemen on Thursday night — Times

  The Houthis have said they are not scared of US and UK threats. While the US does not confirm future military operations before they happen, Reuters has the following details from the British side:

  Britain is expected to join the United States in conducting air strikes on military positions belonging to the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen “within hours”, the political editor for the Times newspaper reported on Thursday.

  British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street office did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment, while the Pentagon and the White House each declined to comment on the report.

  ⚡️An official in the military wing of Ansar Allah Houthis: American spy aircraft are currently flying south of the Red Sea

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) January 11, 2024

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

  Western coalition fighter jets reportedly airborne…

  US, UK strikes against Houthis seem imminent. Arabiya reporting on American, British fighter jets in Yemen airspace vicinity…

  — Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) January 11, 2024

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

  * * * 

  Update(1710ET): The administration is expected to imminently launch airstrikes against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis following the repeat attacks on both commercial shipping and US and coalition warships in the Red Sea.

  Breaking reports say strikes are expected “shortly” – however, there’s been some confusion and contradictory statements over whether President Biden will given an address. Choreographed statements are expected from the UK and other international allies as well.

  Yemeni military sources have warned that “Any attack carried out by the UK on Yemen, will be met with harsh & “painful strikes on all British bases, battleships, ships and navigation” a threat that’s been extended to the US as well.

  Nobody knows what the White House is doing, especially not the White House. https://t.co/eI2GmntH1o

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 11, 2024

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

  * * *

  Chatter and rumors are growing on reports that the Western coalition is cobbling together a plan to go on the offensive against continuing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea… “If approved in the emergency UK cabinet meeting tonight, the military action will be in partnership with the US against Houthi forces in Yemen,” journalist Halah Jaber, formerly of the Sunday Times, has reported on X.

  Additionally, al-Arabiya has reported Thursday afternoon that the US military is “stepping up its contingency plans for a response to Yemen’s Houthis in the near future” while also noting that Washington’s “multiple warnings” have failed to stop the attacks.

  BREAKING: #UK preparing to carry out strikes against #Yemen’s #Ansarullah

  — Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) January 11, 2024

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

  ⚡️#BREAKING Rishi Sunak is holding a full cabinet meeting at 7.45 this evening

  Ministers believe it’s about UK and US military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) January 11, 2024

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

  So far there’s been a lot of empty threats and posturing from Western defense leaders, but after at least 25 significant missile and drone attack incidents against commercial vessels and shipping lanes in the Red Sea, there’s yet to be one instance of US or UK or other coalition warships hitting back directly against Houthi launch positions.

  As predicted, the Iran-aligned Houthis have only grown bolder:

  The leader of Yemen’s Houthi militia vowed on Thursday to intensify assaults on ships in the Red Sea, Bab El-Mandab, and the Gulf of Aden, only hours after the UN Security Council passed a resolution requesting the Houthis to stop their attacks.

  The Houthis have boldly and proudly owned up to directly targeting at least one US Navy warship, and are now vowing more: 

  And he reiterated threats to attack US Navy vessels more forcefully if they targeted his forces. “The retaliation to any American strike will not only be at the level of the current operation, which included more than 24 drones and multiple missiles, but will be larger,” Al-Houthi added.

  The referenced Tuesday night attack was the biggest thus far of the war (since Oct.7), and the Houthis said they were specifically trying to hit a US warship amid the barrage of projectiles that also included drones.

  

  Meanwhile a fresh op-ed in The Guardian underscores that the Houthis have already called the West’s bluff regarding to weakness that is ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’:

  But the risks of a Houthi drone getting through are potentially worse, spurring arguments in Washington that the US should take a more active approach.

  “If we only sit there in a defensive posture, eventually one of these missiles or drones will get through and kill sailors,” said Michael Allen, a former White House national security policy specialist.

  The Houthis can continue bleeding Western navies given they use $20,000 drones to draw a response from $1 million anti-air interceptor missiles.

  The Guardian underscores that for this reason it’s “hard to see the emboldened Houthis stopping their campaign, given their access to relatively cheap missiles and drones and desire to show resistance to the west.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/11/2024 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• "Globalist Tempter Tantrum Looms": Luongo On Where Do We Go From Here In 2024, Part 2
  “Globalist Tempter Tantrum Looms”: Luongo On Where Do We Go From Here In 2024, Part 2

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  When I hit the streets back in ’81
  Found a heart in the gutter and a poet’s crown
  I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears
  Where have I been for all these years?
  I saw political intrigue, political lies
  Gonna wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from their eyes
  — Marillion, White Feather

  In my last post, Part I, I asked the question, “Where do we go from here…” knowing that we have political upheaval in the West we haven’t seen in the US since the 1860’s. Joah Bii-Den! fulfilled his promise to divide the country further with a speech commemorating the riot at The Capitol that sounded better in the original German (H/T Dennis Miller).

  The general theme of my first five observations on where things are headed in 2024 build off the basic premise that Davos et.al. would rather burn the world to the ground than give up their perception of control over it.

  

  Like in 2023’s prediction post the controlling idea of inflation returning in the second half of the year informed most of my commentary, this Globalist Temper Tantrum is central to my thinking this year.

  And believe me, I will be happy to be wrong about this. Happier than I can fully express in words.

  That temper tantrum, however, is now facing the natural opposition from, for lack of a better term, normal people. So, bound up in these predictions will be the idea of the counter-revolution as people come into their own, master their fear of the establishment, and stride forth with purpose. I’ve seen it building for years across the West. 2024 is, I believe, where these two titanic societal forces meet on the battlefield and determine humanity’s future.

  It will come down to how hard will they beat us while we decide just how ungovernable we will become. History tells me people always win over systems.

  #6 – Political Upheaval in the Heart of Globalism

  For years I’ve been developing the idea that the European Union is the model for Davos’ more perfect technocratic union. It’s built on many of the ideas put into practice in the 20th century in the USSR and China.

  It’s one of the controlling ideas of everything I write about on Gold Goats ‘n Guns. Globalism isn’t just an idea, it is a religion and a process to be methodically implemented over time. This is a multi-generational thing. It doesn’t mean that anyone is actually in charge of anything, it means that there are people pulling levers as if they are in charge of everything.

  So, what’s been building for years in Europe has been wholly predictable as there are wildly different cultures, histories of inter-tribal wars, language barriers, and differing legal constructs all embedded deeply within the DNA of the people who live there.

  Hungary is off the reservation and takes control over the European Council Presidency in July. The Netherlands held massive farmers’ protests which ended in snap elections and Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) winning. The heart of the EU is seizing at the exact moment when the EU is pushing to consolidate political and economic power.

  The European Parliamentary elections won’t likely change anything ultimately as the European People’s Party (EPP), currently the largest party in that body, will win again. There won’t be any change at the nominal top. It’s digging into the details of what is happening in Germany, however, that is the key to seeing what comes next.

  Because the EU rests on the idea of a Germany willing not only to lead the EU, in a kind of political Fourth Reich, but also spending what’s left of its soul as Germany to make that happen.

  I was expecting to write about Germany’s political woes in this post before I heard about their trucker’s revolt that’s going on as I type. The current coalition government is unwieldy. It’s polling numbers are actually worse than US Democrats’ at this point.

  Germany, INSA poll:

  CDU/CSU-EPP: 31% (-1)
  AfD-ID: 23% (+0.5)
  SPD-S&D: 16% (+1)
  GRÜNE-G/EFA: 12% (-1)
  FDP-RE: 5%
  LINKE-LEFT: 4%
  FW-RE: 3%

  +/- vs. 29 December 2023-2 January 2024

  Fieldwork: 2-5 January 2024
  Sample size: 1,204

  ➤ https://t.co/obOCVirbpF #btw25 #Bundestag… pic.twitter.com/C4qNcIdiBS

  — Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) January 7, 2024

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

  And under anything close to normal circumstances, the German government would have already collapsed. But it hasn’t because it is still under orders not to give in. The Traffic Light Coalition’s job now is to ram through what they can before state elections later this year.

  Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia all go to the polls to elect new governments in 2024. Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to sweep them, polling in the mid-30’s in those three states. Predicting an AfD win in those states is no challenge. Neither is predicting the roadblocks in front of them entering into any coalition government.

  What is hard to predict is whether those roadblocks will succeed in stopping the populist juggernaut building in the former East Germany. Because if AfD wins a big enough victory in those states then that will preclude the kind of back-stabbing that Angela Merkel engaged in after Thuringia’s vote in 2020. Review my coverage on this from 2020. The effects on the CDU were profound, causing real and deep divisions within the party. You can see that the seeds to defying Merkelism (which is just Davos’ wishes) should sprout this spring into full blown political revolt.

  This is why there is a new CDU splinter group trying to head AfD off at the electoral pass, in the hopes of draining some of its support. Meanwhile AfD are preparing thousands of meals for the farmers protesting peacefully for a saner future. Winning of hearts and minds, exactly as I exhorted them to do when they first crossed the 16% Chasm.

  If AfD enters the governments of those three states it gives them veto power over 12 of the 69 votes in the German Upper House, the Bundesrat. The Greens will still have a massive veto majority. The question then is will that translate into a collapsed coalition for Scholz and snap elections later this year.

  

  With the FDP voting last week to stay in the coalition, despite serious questions as to the vote’s legitimacy (where have we heard this before), the answer right now is no. But Mark Rutte was forced out of office in the Netherlands. Never say never.

  #7 — Japan will Strengthen the Yen, Nikkei Will Soar

  Per my last discussion with Francis Hunt, The Market Sniper, we came to the conclusion that Japan was one of the most interesting fulcra on which the global financial system rests. When former Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda shocked markets in December 2022, at his last meeting, by widening the band on the bank’s yield curve control (YCC) policy to 0.5% it was a harbinger of big changes coming.

  When the new guy, Kazuo Ueda took office he slow rolled those changes, disappointing markets that, as always, got way ahead of themselves. For most of 2023 I commented on Japan saying that the BoJ would re-enter the global game of monetary policy poker, after being the fish at the table for three decades.

  The standard analysis of Japan is that they are screwed because of their insane debt-to-GDP ratio. But, in a world where all the first world economies are running massive deficits I have to ask the question as to why Japan gets singled out?

  Japan is in the same position as the EU: an energy importer that needs to exit QE because the Fed has done so and has to contain inflation. For Japan, however, inflation burbled up slower than it did in the US and Europe. This is why Ueda has been able to slow roll his changes to monetary policy, with the YCC cap on the 10-Year JGB now a ‘soft’ 1%, up from Kuroda’s 0.5%.

  Now, you can argue, rightfully, that 3% inflation in Japan is a far more important political issue than 4% or 5% here, but the point still stands, they have a much different problem than we’ve had.

  As we enter 2024, the Q4 “Buy All the Things” Rally will attenuate across all asset classes. A stronger yen will tame inflation, especially at moderate energy prices, while also allowing the BoJ to begin shrinking its balance sheet. Japan will adopt Powell’s monetary policy.

  Once rates rise above 1% on the 10-year JGB, the breakout and consolidation we’ve seen in the Nikkei 225 will end and a new rally will begin on the rotation trade. My target for the yen to hit 125 this year, with the Nikkei following along rallying towards 45,000.

  

  #8 — Soft Secession in the US and Canada

  In Canada the two themes of Climate Change and Sovereigntism came together beautifully in the form of a good ‘ol fashioned North American tax revolt. In the US states are openly defying the Federal government on immigration (Texas) and health policy (Florida declaring the vaccines dangerous).

  Last fall in Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith invoked the Sovereignty Act to tell Ottawa to stuff their new energy grid regulations and demands up their ass. Right after that, in Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the province will stop collecting the carbon tax on both natural gas and electricity.

  Breaking…

  After declaring that he will stop collecting the Carbon Tax on Natural Gas on January 1st, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said, “our government has decided that SaskPower will also stop collecting the Carbon Tax on electric heat effective January the 1st.”

  Nice. 👍 pic.twitter.com/BUDSkIugDr

  — Paul Mitchell (@PaulMitchell_AB) November 30, 2023

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

  It will be met with indifference by Justin Tru-DOH! and the unfortunately-named (Freeland?) “Nationalist” bitch who actually runs the show there, but it won’t matter.  

  This is how you express your sovereignty. This is how you say, no. Simply just say, we’re not collecting the taxes and sending them to Ottawa. And, given that these two provinces provide the lion’s share of the tax revenue they have a lot of leverage.

  You can expect to see a lot more of this going forward; open defiance of the central government.  Number #6 is about Europe, but it’ll be expressions of state sovereignty and the return of Federalist principles that will make the difference.

  Now, that said while this is a very good thing for Canada, it may not be for the US.

  No one gives a damn about Canadian bond yields except the Canadian government.  It’s not like the loonie and CGB’s are the backbone of the global financial system.  

  A state standing up to a corrupt central government over something as important as this is a direct attack on the validity of the central government and, by extension, its government bond markets/currency. Danielle Smith understands this. It’s why she went straight to the jugular in Ottawa.

  This will put upward pressure on bond yields as Alberta takes one step after another towards financial and regulatory independence. Given the way the Bank of Canada has comported itself, Smith and Moe have more friends than you may think.  

  Expect Ottawa and Davos to strike back. But, again, like in Germany, if the attack fails and Smith wins this round, it will mark the beginning of the end of the central government in Ottawa.

  Secession from Ottawa would be devastating to the British Crown, Davos, and all these freaking globalist ghouls.

  Like Syria was to the Middle East — telling the OPEC nations someone could stand up to the US — Alberta standing up to Ottawa makes Saskatchewan stronger.  It makes, by extension states like Idaho in the US stronger as well.

  20 states in the US are organizing and introducing their versions of the Sound Money Act, making gold and silver transactional currencies. New Hampshire is first this week to present it to the legislature.

  But, on the flip side, now consider California trying the same thing during a 2nd Trump term, but this time over the exact opposite, refusing to give up their mandated insanity for anyone doing business in California and threatening to break off.  

  That achieves the WEF goal of breaking the US bond market, creating political doubt over the very markets that prevent them from running the table and consolidating power in the West under Europe’s control.

  I know I’ve made these points before but it’s important to keep tying current events to the general thesis of who’s agenda does which event serve and why.  Alberta isn’t California for a lot of reasons, but the big one is whose debt-ox is gored by their acts of rebellion.

  #9 — Removing the Putinator?

  In April, Russia goes to the polls. 2023 ended with many bangs, escalations against Russian civilians with western-supplied weapons. 2024 continues this trend. Nothing about the war in Ukraine is over, even though most people want it over, especially Ukrainians, Russians and the people paying the bills for this globalist culling of Slavs.

  Putin will win re-election. Of that there is no doubt. What also is not in doubt is the Neocon crazies continuing to degrade his position through attrition and embarrassment. Putin is no immune to political fatigue, despite what some folks may believe. Yes, he’s made a strong case to the Russian people that this is a civilizational war with the West. But everyone tires of seeing their sons come home in body bags.

  He’s fighting a war against people who do not care about anyone except themselves. They will sacrifice us all to their ends. Like Trump, they will do anything to stop him from stopping them. So, we cannot rule out the possibility of one of these assassination attempts against Putin succeeding.

  The point of the civilian bombings is to empower the hard core reactionaries in the Kremlin who feels Putin is too soft. Martin Armstrong has written extensively about this and I’m hard-pressed to disagree with him about this part of the story.

  Putin’s temperance in the face of Neocon insanity has changed a lot of hearts and minds over the past two years. I run into new people all the time who I wouldn’t expect to see this and they offer to me that we’re damn lucky he’s running Russia.

  Every crazy infrastructure attack — NS2, Kerch Bridge, supply ship in port, civilian bombing — radicalizes a few more Russians but also breaks the spell about the evil Putler for many in the West.

  Armstrong has targeted his Economic Confidence Model’s turning point as May 7th, the day of Putin’s next inauguration. Will this be the time GCHQ finally gets their man?

  Even if Putin survives and takes office, something is likely to happen surrounding Ukraine this summer that will ensure the war goes into 2025 and beyond.

  Sec. of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman to keep the Israeli/Gaza situation from metastasizing further. Is Blinken suddenly becoming anti-war after ginning up three different major conflicts in as many years?

  Hellz no. He’s a neocon through and through. Any ‘pause’ in any conflict is simply an admission that we’re not prepared for escalation today, so let’s have a ‘ceasefire’ so they can reload. Or are people still confused about what the Minsk Accords were all about?

  Putin understands that when the West, especially British-aligned US actors, offer a ceasefire that means it’s time to step up operations, not down. This is why Russia pressures Ukraine across the entire front, probing for weaknesses, degrading their capabilities.

  Ukraine will look like it’s on the back burner in 2024, but it will be the biggest poison pill for whoever is president in 2025. It will leave Putin with few options but to continue focusing his economic output on it.

  #10 — No Recession in 2024

  The hardest part of making predictions in a chaotic world isn’t just that the data is faulty, it is that the past isn’t much of a guideline beyond what you can expect from the main actors. We understand how the Fed views the economy. We know what the Globalists’ goal structure looks like. We can even know how a lot of these things meet and interact.

  What we don’t know is how the people will react to them and what their overall behavior will be. And that, ultimately, is what decides whether there will or won’t be an economic contraction. Recessions are very technically-defined things. Two consecutive quarters of contracting spending, GDP contraction.

  In the real world it’s far more complex and difficult. Last year I stuck to the technical definition of a recession and was right. GDP growth never went negative. Deficits are high, while the Fed is doing QT Congress is outspending the Fed’s balance sheet improvements. Something will give in 2024.

  Barring a six-sigma event, which so far we have avoided in the capital markets, there won’t be a recession in the US in 2024 either. We needed one of those in 2023 to set the stage for this year. We didn’t get one. We may get one this year, but that would set up for the big event in 2025.

  Think the repo event of 2007 setting up Bear Stearns, then Lehman Bros. The Repo seizure in September 2019 setting up the COVID crisis, the attack on Oil prices, the CARES Act and the return to the zero-bound in 2020.

  There needs to be that inciting incident beforehand to get the main event later, with at least a six-month lag effect. We’re still at least three months from the Reverse Repo Facility running out of money and then there will still be months of set up before the banks have a crisis of reserves.

  So, with that said, and even if fiscal ‘sanity’ begins to take root in Washington as we approach the election this November, there is too much money still floating around to see spending go negative. Sorry, folks, but in the GDP game, no ticky, no washy. You have to have the spending stop to get the recession.

  We may buy hookers, blow, and South American revolutionaries with it… wait, this isn’t the 80’s…

  We may buy Pornhub subs, Cheetos, and Ukrainian Naht-sees with it, but it’s still spending.

  The question is what will we buy that money, not Hunter Biden.

  If the Fed cuts rates a little bit (50-75 bps in 2024), begins talk of tapering QT even starting in Q3, then we’ll see things get tougher, but not so much that spending retards overall. The quality of the spending will go down the value chain, towards lower-order good (food, shelter, etc.). But the spending will still be there.

  I’m with Joseph Wang on this, per his latest interview with Blockworks. Lower rates, as we’ve seen in the mortgage markets, will improve Main St.’s balance sheets to the point where we can and will muddle through. Inflation will still be higher than anyone wants. It may suck, but from a household spending perspective, so what?

  That won’t necessitate something radical from the Fed. What will is a sovereign debt crisis from a major government collapsing. But, I still maintain that is much more likely somewhere other than the US (despite Obama’s gaslighting) first. When Reuters is running articles like this:

  Far-right rise could make Europe ungovernable – EU liberals https://t.co/88VPvoYSqN pic.twitter.com/OGomF44SAa

  — Reuters (@Reuters) January 9, 2024

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

  That’s where you should be looking. If you want your black swan event to undermine this call just think about what Europe will do to prevent Viktor Orban from running the European Council for more than the normal six-month term.

  *  *  *

  All of the trends highlighted last year are still happening this year. The US dollar is still stronger than anyone expected. De-dollarization is still happening, it’s just that De-euroization of global trade happened first (in 2023). Iraq is now openly hostile to US military presence there. US troops in Syria are coming under increasingly heavy fire in retaliation, I think, for the UK and Ukraine attacking civilians in Belgorod.

  And the Globalist soul-sucking vampires still bear their fangs, and make pronouncements of how much blood we owe them. But, the less said about Ursula Von der Leyen the better at this point.

  I will wear your white feather I will carry your white flag
  I will swear I have no nation but I’m proud to own my heart
  We don’t need no uniforms, we have no disguise
  Divided we stand, together we’ll rise

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you want to become #ungovernable

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 23:40

• How Much Of The World Is Covered By Croplands?
  How Much Of The World Is Covered By Croplands?

  Over the last 50 years, the world’s human population worldwide has grown exponentially.

  And, as Visual Capitalist’s Adam Symington details below, this population explosion brought greater food production needs with it, through livestock breeding, cropland expansion, and other increases in land use.

  But how evenly is this land distributed globally? In this graphic, Adam Symington maps global croplands as of 2019, based on a 2021 scientific paper published in Nature by Peter Potapov et al.

  

  The World’s Croplands

  Croplands are defined as land areas used to cultivate herbaceous crops for human consumption, forage, and biofuel. At the start of the 21st century, the world’s croplands spread across 1,142 million hectares (Mha) of land.

  Some of these croplands have since been abandoned, lost in natural disasters, or repurposed for housing, irrigation, and other infrastructural needs.

  Despite this, the creation of new croplands increased overall cropland cover by around 9% and the net primary (crop) production by 25%.

  Africa and South America Lead Croplands Expansion

  In 2019, croplands occupied 1,244 Mha of land worldwide, with the largest regions being Europe and North Asia and Southwest Asia at around 20% of total cover each.

  Interestingly, even though Africa (17%) and South America (9%) held lower percentages of the world’s croplands, they saw the highest expansion in croplands since 2000:

  

  South American nations including Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay witnessed a steep rise in crop production between 2000 and 2007. Agricultural growth in the region can be attributed to both modern agricultural technology adoption and the production of globally demanded crops like soybeans.

  A similar expansion in croplands within Sub-Saharan African countries at the start of the 21st century continues to persist today, as producers ramp up crop production for both exports and to try and alleviate food scarcity.

  Much of these the world’s croplands were once forests, drylands, plains, and lowlands. And this loss in green cover is clearly seen across Africa, South America, and parts of Asia.

  However, some regions have also witnessed tree plantations, orchards, and aquaculture replacing former croplands. One such example is Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, and indeed Southeast Asia was the only region that saw an overall decline in cropland cover from 2000 to 2019.

  Moving Towards Sustainable Agriculture

  The expansion of croplands has also come at a cost, destroying large stretches of forest cover, and further contributing to wildlife fragmentation and greenhouse gas emissions.

  However, hope for more sustainable development is not lost. Nations are finding ways to improve agricultural productivity in ways that free up land.

  As global demand for food continues to increase, agricultural expansion and intensification seem imminent. But innovation, and a changing climate, may elevate alternative solutions in the future.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 23:20

• Hospital Diagnostic Errors Send Nearly 1-In-4 Patients To ICU, Study Finds
  Hospital Diagnostic Errors Send Nearly 1-In-4 Patients To ICU, Study Finds

  Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Diagnostic errors in U.S. hospitals are sending nearly one in four patients to the intensive care unit, according to the results of a new study.

  

  In the cohort study conducted by a team from UC San Francisco and the University of Colorado School of Medicine, it was found that 23 percent of patients either received incorrect diagnoses or experienced delays in diagnosis. Of these cases, 17 percent resulted in temporary or permanent harm to the patient.

  The study’s results are published in the January edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

  To determine diagnostic errors, the research team looked at 2,428 records of patients who had been admitted to 29 hospitals across the United States in 2019. A little over half of the patient records were male (54 percent), and the average age of the patient was 63.9 years old. Roughly two-thirds of the patients were white.

  Patient cases were reviewed by two physicians trained in error adjudications. The physicians evaluated medical records for the presence or absence of diagnostic errors or underlying process issues or faults. Any records marked for fault were then reviewed more closely to determine what, if any, harm was caused as a result of the error.

  The physicians had to agree on their assessment of the error and harm caused before finalizing their review; a third physician resolved any disagreements.

  In total, 550 patients experienced a diagnostic error. Of these, 436 patients suffered temporary or permanent harm or death as a result of the error. Among the 1,863 patients who died, diagnostic errors were found to contribute to 121 of those deaths, accounting for nearly one in 10.

  In 116 cases, diagnostic errors resulted in extended hospital stays. The most significant risks for diagnostic error were identified as issues in patient assessment and problems related to the ordering and interpretation of tests.

  “Results from our study provide impetus for rapid exploration and testing of interventions seen to reduce diagnostic errors and harms associated with ICU transfer and deaths by targeting gaps in test selection and interpretation and physicians’ ability to debias and rethink diagnoses as high-priority areas,” the research team concluded.

  Case Studies Show How Errors Lead to Harm, Longer Hospital Stays

  In a case involving assessment error and patient monitoring, a patient with group B strep infection in their foot was admitted to the hospital. The care team primarily focused on the patient’s meningitis and did not have a plan for treating the foot infection. Consequently, the patient was transferred to the intensive care unit due to poor blood flow and underwent surgical debridement of their foot.

  In another case related to testing, a patient on long-term anticoagulation therapy was admitted to the hospital with a hematoma just days following a bone marrow biopsy. The care team resumed anticoagulation therapy on the patient’s fifth day, which exacerbated the patient’s pain and led to tachycardia, a condition characterized by a heart rate exceeding 100 beats per minute. The patient remained in this state for an additional nine hours until CT scans revealed interventional radiology was required.

  In a case involving misdiagnosis, a patient who was admitted to the hospital with severe aortic stenosis died after the care team failed to recognize that the patient was in shock. The research team observed that the hospital utilized surgical services to triage the patient, who was experiencing tachycardia, instead of opting for critical care or medical services.

  According to the study, “problems related to testing, such as choosing the correct test, ordering the test in a timely fashion, or correctly interpreting the results and problems with assessment, such as recognizing complications or revisiting a different diagnosis, appear to be the most important targets for safety improvement programs.”

  The research team noted their study failed to capture the constant pressure on hospital care teams, such as workload and staffing shortages, which likely influence the professional standard of care.

  An October 2023 report from Kaufman Hall, a health care consulting firm, confirmed that two-thirds of hospitals across the United States are operating below full capacity due to staffing shortages. Additionally, 70 percent of these hospitals report that patients remain in emergency rooms due to a lack of staffing or bed capacity.

  The report includes responses from 106 hospital and health system executives.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 23:00

• Chinese FDI Inflows Hit Multi-Year Lows
  Chinese FDI Inflows Hit Multi-Year Lows

  The Chinese economy has thrown up several red flags in 2023 and now foreign investors are losing confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.

  In the following graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao shows foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have hit multi-year lows, using data accessed via the Peterson Institute for International Economics and sourced from China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE)

  

  ℹ️ FDI occurs when an investor in one country acquires significant and lasting financial interest in a foreign enterprise. This data includes the IPO value of Chinese companies in foreign markets.

  Foreign Investors Hit “Sell” on China in 2023

  Aside from a broadly slowing economy, the Peterson Institute’s analysis highlights other key reasons why FDI inflows have scaled back so dramatically this year.

  Firstly, geopolitical tensions (in the form of an escalating chip war) between the U.S. and China are worrying foreign investors—many of them American-headquartered companies with a presence in China, holding back on investments in local companies.

  Secondly, the closure of due diligence firms (which allow foreign investors to make informed decisions on Chinese companies) along with a new national security law aimed at restricting cross-border data flows have disincentivized foreign investors from betting big if they wanted to.

  

  Meanwhile, huge spikes in FDI inflows between 2018 and 2021 indicate the success of Chinese companies listing on American securities exchanges, which SAFE includes in its data. However, crackdowns from both Chinese and U.S. securities regulators in 2022 turned the tap off briefly. Despite the restrictions being since removed, new listings have not bounced back.

  Another Red Flag for the Chinese Economy

  The Peterson Institute’s comparison of gross and net FDI flows found a nearly $100 billion shortfall—which means foreign firms are selling their Chinese investments, adding yet another red flag for the economy.

  This slowdown is now having a ripple effect across the region—for Japan, South Korea, and Thailand’s economies—whose export sectors rely on substantial Chinese demand. Nations in sub-saharan Africa will also feel the pinch as Chinese sovereign lending continues to fall, already past the lowest it’s been in two decades.

  Meanwhile, on a broader scale, Chinese growth contributes to one-third of world economic growth, which means the global economy will miss growth projections made last year—when economists had a more optimistic view of the world’s second-largest economy.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 22:40

• America's Fiat Money Gestapo: The Untold History Of The Secret Service
  America’s Fiat Money Gestapo: The Untold History Of The Secret Service

  Authored by Joshua Glawson via The Mises Institute,

  There is an untold story in American monetary history. Some are reluctant even to discuss it.

  

  I’m referring to the US Secret Service’s very own role in the destruction of sound money in America.

  As constitutional, sound money in the form of physical gold and silver coins—whether minted privately or not—became an annoying impediment to expanding the size and power of the federal government, central planners began circulating unbacked paper proxies and formed a Gestapo-like police agency to enforce the scheme.

  Founded in 1865, toward the tail end of the American Civil War, the Secret Service originated as a branch of the US Treasury Department.

  The primary job of this federal police force was to prevent others from counterfeiting the U.S. currency, which had just been nationalized through acts of Congress via the National Currency Act of 1863 and the Coinage Act of 1864.

  Together, these acts formed what are commonly known as the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864.

  These Washington, DC laws imposed taxes with a levy court system and implemented direct taxation. This led to the country’s first income tax. The government also strengthened the establishment of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which had conveniently begun operation in 1862. Conjointly, these propped up the new federal fiat currency system.

  From around 1837 through part of the Civil War, currency issuance and banking in America had been directed by a more decentralized network of states and free banking institutions. These entities issued banknotes that could be cashed in for standardized gold or silver coins or traded for goods and services.

  During the Civil War, however, both sides issued their own banknotes to help fund their respective war efforts, often unbacked by the two monetary metals.

  The Union pushed forth greenback fiat currency in Demand Notes and United States Notes. At the same time, the Confederates printed fiat greybacks in the forms of Confederate Dollars and Confederate Treasury Notes.

  The number of fiat dollars in a bank and region in the new era would be largely based on population rather than gold and silver reserves, which is one reason the Union continued to encourage immigration both for fiat monetary support and war efforts.

  The Union pushed to expand American territories through these Acts to increase population and issuance of government fiat money.

  Since the Union and Congress sought to impose a federal fiat legal tender currency system that did not rely on tangible value and voluntarism, they needed enforcement of those laws. Those supporting laws included income taxes and establishing the IRS. The war, economic strife, and competition between currencies created various types of “counterfeit” currency.

  Government officials made haughty claims that one in three fractional gold or silver coins at that time were counterfeit and did not contain their original gold or silver weight. By decreasing the amount of gold or silver in a coin, a counterfeiter could turn a profit.

  Yet, these government hypocrites had no qualms about mandating that unbacked fiat currency must be considered legally equal to gold and silver coinage. Nor did they object to the illicit profit this enabled the central government to rake in.

  Sadly, the US Supreme Court notoriously affirmed this devious scheme when deciding the “Legal Tender Cases,” considered by many legal scholars (including present-day Justices on the high court) to have been wrongly decided.

  As such, the government changed the definition of money and citizens could henceforth be compelled to accept non-redeemable paper as equal to gold or silver coins.

  On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation establishing the Secret Service to combat counterfeit money—the non-government type, that is. Later that same day, Lincoln was assassinated, and he died on April 15.

  From 1865 to 1901, the Secret Service’s main mission was to bust private counterfeiting operations. In 1881, President James Garfield was assassinated—interestingly, not too long after publicly advocating for a return to the gold standard.

  Then, in 1901, with the assassination of President William McKinley, and under the new presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the Secret Service was given the additional task of defending US presidents. (McKinley’s assassination occurred a year after he signed the Gold Standard Act of 1900, which halted bimetallism by diminishing the monetary role of silver.)

  The Secret Service grew from its original role of helping to ramrod a new fiat currency standard into a much larger police force that also protects the US presidents.

  A full 50 years before the Christmas Eve passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Congress had already set in motion a plan to rob our nation’s monetary system of its gold and silver, slip a fiat currency into circulation, promote fractional reserve banking, stamp out state and private banknotes, strengthen the IRS, and spawn the Secret Service to help enforce it all.

  The solution is to return to a free market for money—a system of competition where gold and silver are permitted to circulate alongside other forms of payment—and to remove government force from the equation.

  May the best currency win.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 22:20

• Trump Says Georgia Case "Totally Compromised" After Allegations Of DA Fani Willis' "Improper" Romantic Relationship
  Trump Says Georgia Case “Totally Compromised” After Allegations Of DA Fani Willis’ “Improper” Romantic Relationship

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday called the Georgia election interference case against him “totally compromised” and insisted it should be dropped after a bombshell court filing accused the lead prosecutor in the case—District Attorney Fani Willis— of having an “improper” romantic relationship with her top Trump prosecutor.

  

  A co-defendant in the case, former Trump attorney Michael Roman, on Monday filed a motion in court alleging that Ms. Willis had an “improper” relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor, and that she financially benefitted from their alleged relationship.

  Mr. Roman alleged that Mr. Wade, who has played a significant role in the case against President Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants, paid for vacations with Ms. Willis while using Fulton County funds that his private law firm had received.

  President Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing in the case and has called it a “witch hunt” meant to derail his 2024 White House run, said on Tuesday that Mr. Roman’s court filing revelations mean that Ms. Willis and the case are both “totally compromised” and so the case should be dropped.

  “You had a very big event yesterday as you saw in Georgia where the district attorney is totally compromised. The case has to be dropped,” President Trump said on Tuesday after a hearing in Washington over presidential immunity arguments in a separate case against him.

  “They went after 18 or 20 people … She was out of her mind. Now it turns out that case is totally compromised,” the former president continued.

  Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media at a Washington hotel, on Jan. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

  “It’s illegal. What she did is illegal. So we’ll let the state handle that, but what a sad situation it is,” President Trump added.

  Ms. Willis’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times, though a spokesperson for her office told media outlets that she would “respond through appropriate court filings.”

  ‘Improper Relationship’

  Ms. Willis brought the case against President Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a law drafted to fight organized crime.

  The indictment accuses President Trump, and 18 others, of being part of a “criminal organization” that sought to overturn the Georgia results of the 2020 presidential election by unlawful means.

  President Trump and his co-defendants have denied any wrongdoing, with the former president previously calling the case a “witch hunt” and accusing Ms. Willis of corruption.

  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference at the Fulton County Government building in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 14, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

  Mr. Roman, who faces seven charges in the Georgia election interference case, served on President Trump’s 2020 campaign as director of Election Day operations.

  In Monday’s court filing, Mr. Roman cited “discussions with individuals with knowledge” about Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade allegedly being “romantically involved” before the special prosecutor was brought onto the case by Ms. Willis.

  “Sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney have confirmed they had an ongoing, personal relationship during the pendency of the special prosecutor’s divorce proceedings,” states the filing, which also accuses Ms. Willis of bringing Mr. Wade on as a special counsel without obtaining proper government authorization.

  The filing further states that Mr. Wade allegedly had a “lack of relevant experience” although he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the county.

  More Details

  Mr. Roman’s filing also accused Ms. Willis of having potentially committed “an act to defraud the public of honest services” due to what he called an “intentional failure” to disclose her alleged relationship with Mr. Wade, which she “personally benefitted from.”

  Records obtained by a local media outlet show that Mr. Wade was paid over $650,000 in legal fees since January 2022 and that the district attorney is the one who authorizes it.

  Mr. Roman’s filing alleges that checks sent to Mr. Wade from Fulton County and vacations that he purchased with Ms. Willis could amount honest services fraud, which is a federal crime.

  “Willis has benefitted substantially and directly, and continues to benefit, from this litigation because Wade is being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to prosecute this case on her behalf,” the filing states.

  Mr. Roman’s filing states that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade could be prosecuted under a federal racketeering statute.

  Besides the public comments President Trump made on Tuesday in response to Mr. Roman’s filing, he also took to Truth Social to post that the case “should be immediately dropped” and that Ms. Willis should apologize.

  Earlier court filings by President Trump’s co-defendants have alleged that Mr. Wade’s work is “void as a matter of law” because he allegedly failed to file his oath of office paperwork in time to formally join Ms. Willis’ team.

  Ms. Willis’s office did not respond to an earlier request for comment on the circumstances of Mr. Wade’s appointment.

  Jack Phillips contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 21:40

• ISIS Kills At Least 14 Syrian Soldiers In Palmyra Bus Attack
  ISIS Kills At Least 14 Syrian Soldiers In Palmyra Bus Attack

  Via The Cradle,

  ISIS militants attacked a military bus in the Syrian desert on Tuesday, killing at least 14 Syrian army soldiers, the anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.

  “At least 14 members of the regime forces were killed” and several others wounded “in a bloody [ISIS] attack on a military bus” in the desert near the ancient city of Palmyra, SOHR said.

  

  The organization has carried out few attacks in recent months but has stepped up its activities recently. ISIS also killed nine Syrian army soldiers and allied fighters in an attack on military posts in the eastern Syrian desert last week, according to the British-based monitor.

  ISIS also claimed credit for a terror attack in Iran last week which killed 91 pilgrims visiting the grave of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general assassinated by the US in Iraq in 2020 and who spear headed the war against ISIS.

  ISIS and its spin-off, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (previously the Nusra Front), are widely viewed as Israeli-US proxies. The groups played a crucial role in sparking a war in Syria to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad and to divide Iraq for the sake of establishing an independent Kurdish state able export oil to Israel. 

  The terror attack in Iran came amid a broader US and Israeli campaign to target leaders of the Iran-aligned ‘Axis of Resistance’. 

  One day before the attack at Soleimani’s grave, Israel assassinated top Hamas leader, Saleh al-Arouri, in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut. On January 5, the US targeted Mushtaq Talib al-Saidi, a leader of Harakat al-Nujaba, which is part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). On January 8, Israel assassinated a top Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil in southern Lebanon.

  

  ISIS carried out a major attack in Iran in June 2017, targeting both the Iranian Parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, killing 16.

  In October 2022, ISIS militants opened fire on visitors to a important Shiite holy site in the city of Shiraz, killing at least 15 and wounding dozens.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 21:00

• Speaker Johnson Pledges To Stand 'Shoulder To Shoulder' For 'Defense Of Taiwan'
  Speaker Johnson Pledges To Stand ‘Shoulder To Shoulder’ For ‘Defense Of Taiwan’

  House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) met with Taiwan’s US envoy at the US Capitol on Tuesday, after which he vowed to continue supporting the Taiwanese people against Chinese aggression.

  

  “We stand shoulder to shoulder with the Taiwanese people,” Johnson told reporters, adding “We certainly want to help in the defense of Taiwan, which is very important. We want to deter the Chinese Communist Party and any military provocations. The U.S. stands with our friends.“

  Johnson met with Envoy Alexander Yui, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the United States – a meeting which undoubtedly pissed off CCP authorities in Beijing, particularly after Yui said that he looks forward to “further strengthen[ing] our rock-solid friendship,” to which Johjnson replied: “We have an important relationship, and we want to strengthen that.”

  As The Epoch Times notes, the CCP has been harassing Taiwan leading up to the democratic island’s upcoming presidential vote on Saturday – launching several balloons and a rocket containing a satellite over the island’s airspace. Taiwan’s foreign minister described the incidents as part of a larger pattern of aggression designed to sway voters ahead of the election.

  Recall in August of 2022 when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, the CCP launched several missiles around Taiwan and cut off all military communications with the United States.

  The Chinese Communist Party claims that Taiwan is a rogue province that must be united with the mainland by any means necessary. The regime has never actually controlled any part of the island, however.

  For its part, Taiwan is self-governed by a democratic government and oversees one of the world’s most successful market economies. Out of respect for China’s position, the United States does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The United States and Taiwan do share robust informal ties, however, including economically and militarily.

  It is unclear at this time what the response will be from Beijing concerning Mr. Johnson’s meeting with Mr. Yui.

  “It sure does raise interesting questions about what their intentions are; what their goals are,” said White House National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby, who added that the Biden administration remains committed to supporting free and fair elections in Taiwan.

  

  “We want to see a free and fair and transparent election, and we’re willing to stand by and work with whoever the people of Taiwan elect to their government.”

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 20:40

• Congress Takes Step To Hold Hunter Biden In Contempt
  Congress Takes Step To Hold Hunter Biden In Contempt

  By Zachary Stieber of Epoch Times

  Members of Congress on Jan. 10 approved a report and resolution that recommends holding President Joe Biden’s son in contempt.

  

  A U.S. House of Representatives panel voted approve the report and resolution, which says that Hunter Biden, 53, violated federal law by refusing to appear for a deposition behind closed doors.

  The vote was along party lines. No Republicans voted no and no Democrats voted yes. Republicans currently control the lower chamber, so have more members on each panel. The full House is set to take up the matter at some point in the future.

  Mr. Biden declined to sit for a transcribed interview in December 2023, insisting he would only answer questions in public.

  Federal law states that when people who are subpoenaed by Congress refuse to testify or provide requested documents, Congress shall refer the matter to U.S. prosecutors. The people who defy congressional subpoenas can land a prison term of one to 12 months and a fine or $1,000.

  Two former advisers to ex-President Donald Trump have been convicted by juries of violating the law for refusing to comply with subpoenas.

  The House Judiciary Committee voted to approve the report. The House Oversight Committee was also scheduled to hold a vote, but lawmakers were still marking its report and resolution up more than six hours after its markup started.

  Markups involve discussing proposed legislation, proposing amendments, and voting on amendments.

  Mr. Biden “blatantly defied two lawful subpoenas,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said earlier on Wednesday.

  “What we’re doing here today is showing the country that Hunter will not receive special treatment due to his last name. It’s very, very simple. And he will be held to the same standard that every other American citizen would be expected to do,” added Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.).

  Democrats spent much of the hearings talking about President Trump. Some said they supported Mr. Biden refusing to testify in private, pointing to comments Mr. Comer made that invited witnesses to choose whether to testify in public or private.

  Mr. Comer said the votes were about the subpoena and that Mr. Biden could speak in a public hearing after testifying behind closed doors.

  Mr. Biden made a surprise appearance during one of the hearings, sitting briefly with his lawyers before departing.

  Republicans are seeking to speak to Mr. Biden regarding his business dealings and his father’s involvement with them. They’ve obtained evidence showing bank transfers between one of Mr. Biden’s companies and the president, among other records.

  

  “Our investigation has produced significant evidence suggesting President Biden knew of, participated in, and benefited from his family’s cashing in on the Biden name,” Mr. Comer said.

  Mr. Biden told reporters in late 2023 that “my father was not financially involved in my business.” He sat in on part of one of the hearings on Wednesday, but did not attempt to speak.

  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week that Mr. Biden makes his own choices.

  “We don’t have anything else to share beyond that,“ she said. ”He’s a private citizen, and he makes his own decisions.”

  She declined to say whether President Biden spoke with his son before or after his appearance in Congress.

  Mr. Biden’s appearance sparked anger.

  “You are the epitome of white privilege, coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) told Mr. Biden. “What are you afraid of?”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 20:20

• US Beef Output Slides As Blizzard Disrupts Midwest Meat Plants
  US Beef Output Slides As Blizzard Disrupts Midwest Meat Plants

  A powerful winter storm swept across the country’s midsection on Monday, dumping more than a foot of snow in some areas and shutting down highways in several Midwest states. Adverse weather conditions also closed major meatpacking plants.

  Bloomberg reports two major beef packers idled operations in Kansas this week as blizzard conditions left workers unable to traverse roadways. 

  

  Cargill Inc.’s Dodge City, Kansas plant suffered a power outage, and 50 workers were stranded on a nearby highway due to road closures. 

  “We realize that some employees got stuck on the road outside the plant. We are working with local authorities and have hired tow truck drivers to assist them and other motorists,” Cargill said in a statement.

  Tyson Foods meatpacking plant in Holcomb, Kansas, canceled shifts on Tuesday, the company said in a statement. On Monday, employees were given hot meals and shelter because roadways were too dangerous for travel. 

  Fierce winter weather likely impacted the number of cattle slaughtered in the US on Tuesday, coming in at 94,000, compared with figures one year ago of 128,000, according to US Department of Agriculture data. This is also the lowest slaughter number of the new year. 

  “When meat plants close, protein prices can start surging if supplies run thin. Meanwhile, farmers may face lower prices for their livestock with demand for the animals disrupted,” Bloomberg noted. 

  This week’s disruption at some major beef plants in Heartland appears to be short-lived. However, a massive shortage of the nation’s cattle herd has driven retail beef prices to record highs. 

  

  The beef industry is facing persistent challenges. It may be time for automated plants.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 20:00

• Canadian Police Arrest Conservative Journalist On Trumped-Up Charge Of Assault
  Canadian Police Arrest Conservative Journalist On Trumped-Up Charge Of Assault

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  We have been discussing the rapid decline of free speech protections in Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

  A vivid example of the increasing authoritarian approach was evident this week with the arrest of David Menzies, a reporter for Canada’s conservative Rebel News Network. Menzies was attempting to interview Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland when her security clearly manufactured a criminal charge in front of cameras.

  

  Menzies was attempting to ask Freeland about Canada’s refusal to label Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) as a terrorist organization.

  Freeland continues to walk as Menzies attempts get an answer by walking backwards.

  As he stays with Freeland, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) stands in his way and the result is a slight bump. The officer then immediately carries out an arrest with an eventual charge that Menzies assaulted him.

  BREAKING: Rebel News reporter David Menzies (@TheMenzoid) was brutally arrested by police after he tried to ask Chrystia Freeland questions.

  Visit Rebel News for more on this story: https://t.co/J42ReU1MjY pic.twitter.com/5vgNotnjyy

  — Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) January 8, 2024

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

  Trudeau has had a long running feud with Rebel News.

  Last week, we discussed the irony of how a Russian dissident was denied Canadian citizenship due to a conviction in Russia for speaking against the Ukrainian war (from Canada). Since Canada has the same criminalization of speech laws, Maria Kartasheva was pulled from her ceremony pending further investigation into whether she is a criminal practitioner of free speech.

  The arrest of Menzies raises the same comparison to the approach of governments like Putin’s to critics.

  Note in the video below how the officer positions himself directly in the path of Menzies as he walks back with his back to the officer.

  You can judge for yourself on what countries come to mind:

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 19:40

• White House Backs Legislation To Seize Frozen Russian Assets For Ukraine Reconstruction
  White House Backs Legislation To Seize Frozen Russian Assets For Ukraine Reconstruction

  It seems this is how President Joe Biden hopes to circumvent the Congressional hold-up and get badly needed funds to Ukraine, at a moment Zelensky is berating allies and warning that Western ‘hesitation’ will embolden Putin…

  “President Joe Biden’s administration is backing legislation that would let it seize some of $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to help pay for reconstruction of Ukraine, a shift as the White House seeks to rally support in Congress to further fund the war against Vladimir Putin’s forces,” Bloomberg reports Wednesday. The hope is that this would help keep the lights on and salaries paid in the war-ravaged country, as well as help with post-war reconstruction.

  

  This follows a memo by Biden’s National Security Council being sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee back in November which indicated the administration would welcome “in principle” legislation allowing it to confiscate the funds.

  If approved the plan would funnel Russia’s seized central bank and other sovereign assets (such as some oligarchs’ superyachts) which have been “immobilized” in Western nations to hand over to Keiv.

  The Financial Times previously aptly described the potential drastic move as constituting “a radical step that would open a new chapter in the west’s financial warfare against Moscow” – also as certainly Moscow will see it as an act of brazen theft.

  Thus it seems the general atmosphere of war fatigue and the sudden drop-off in funding for Kiev has clearly prompted Washington and G7 partners to “get creative.”

  The controversy over the potential move along with potential blowback was highlighted by The New York Times last month:

  Until recently, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen had argued that without action by Congress, seizing the funds was “not something that is legally permissible in the United States.”

  There has also been concern among some top American officials that nations around the world would hesitate to keep their funds at the New York Federal Reserve, or in dollars, if the United States established a precedent for seizing the money.

  

  Along with pressing defense needs, Ukraine reportedly is severely struggling to keep basic state services afloat, including paying teachers, civic workers, and maintaining pensions – among other things.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 19:20

• Some House Republicans Willing To Force Government Shutdown After Eagle Pass Border Visit
  Some House Republicans Willing To Force Government Shutdown After Eagle Pass Border Visit

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

  Following a visit to the southern border last week, some House Republicans urged their colleagues to treat the situation at the border as a major national security risk and to be willing to force a government shutdown to get Democrats and the Biden administration to accept stricter immigration policies and border security measures.

  

  Around 60 House Republicans visited the west Texas border town of Eagle Pass last week. Speaking with NTD’s “Capitol Report” on Tuesday, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said that the trip marked his fourth visit to the U.S. southern border and that he agreed to go once again to see “how bad the conditions had evolved over the last year.”

  “We have major, major problems and I continue to say this is an imminent national security threat,” he said.

  Mr. Rosendale noted reported preliminary estimates that U.S. border personnel recorded about 302,000 encounters along the U.S. southern border in December, which would represent the busiest month on record for border officials.

  Mr. Rosendale said that upon arriving in Eagle Pass, he also learned that border officials in that sector were working to process about 10,000 illegal immigrants, of whom 200 were deemed individuals of special interest “meaning that they weren’t sure exactly where they were from, they weren’t sure what exactly their intentions were when they arrived here.” He said these 200 special interest individuals and the broader group of 10,000 illegal immigrants were ultimately “whisked off and distributed around the country” before border officials could perform additional vetting efforts.

  The Montana Republican said he learned border officials have identified members of up to 168 nationalities who’ve attempted border crossings, including Chinese nationals and people from Middle Eastern countries. Even more concerning, he said, is the approximately 2 million “gotaways” that border officials have estimated have been able to cross into the United States without being stopped. Mr. Rosendale said some of these “gotaways” have even been observed wearing sophisticated camouflage suits to avoid being detected.

  “If it is so easy to cross the Rio Grande and Eagle Pass Texas and get a new pair of shoes, clean underwear, and a basically a bus ticket or a flight ticket to go anywhere in the country that you want, why would you go through all the work to sneak in under the cover of night? How bad of a criminal do you have to be?” Mr. Rosendale wondered.

  Mr. Rosendale said that if even a fraction of the 2 million gotaways intend to cause harm to the United States “they can wreak havoc across the nation with our national security.”

  Looking beyond the national security concerns, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said the influx of people at the southern border still puts a strain on the United States and border communities in particular.

  “People are trying to understand why, if you’re a resident of Eagle Pass, you might be waiting in the waiting room of the ER, because illegal aliens, who aren’t supposed to be in your community, are going ahead of you in line. You may be wondering why there’s five ambulances in Eagle Pass, but one of them is dedicated solely to dealing with the illegal aliens who are coming across the border,” Mr. Biggs said. “And people are fed up with it in that community.”

  Republicans Weigh Shutdown Fight

  Mr. Rosendale said the various official Republican visits to the southern border may indicate that Republican awareness of border security concerns is rising, but expressed doubts about whether they are willing to take a stand on the issue.

  “I think when Jan. 19 rolls on, and we are faced with funding government or doing something about securing our southern border, at that point, that’s where I’m drawing the line and say ‘until we can see the numbers reduce that are crossing into our country illegally from the southern border, I’m not willing to fund the balance of the federal government,” he said.

  Mr. Rosendale said Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans benefits would continue to be funded in a partial government shutdown, while about 15 percent of the government budget would go unfunded if Congress doesn’t agree to a new budget or continuing resolution by Jan. 19 when the current round of government funding runs out.

  “That is a small price to pay, and if we can use that as leverage to secure our nation’s borders, I think that we absolutely should be doing so,” he said.

  Mr. Biggs said several officials and advocates Republicans had met with during their visit to Eagle Pass had “begged” Republicans in Congress not to fund the federal government until the Biden administration commits to greater efforts to enforce existing border security policies.

  “If you’re going to get this administration to actually enforce the law, you’re going to have to reduce their funding in the programs that they want to have funded, which is a twofer because we spent way too much money as it is. But the second thing is they would be incentivized to actually enforce the law,” Mr. Biggs told “Capitol Report.”

  In a letter to colleagues last week, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said Republicans had the opportunity to tie their border security demands to a measure to temporarily fund the government last fall, but said his “more conservative” colleagues in Congress “were instrumental in shooting down” the effort.

  Mr. Roy said the decision not to tie border security to that earlier government funding measure was a “disastrous mistake, and as equally tiresome and problematic as the excuses Republicans typically give about fearing ’shutdown.’ Thus, this letter is directed to all of us, for while Democrats own the crisis and abuse of our laws, we Republicans own the failure to force a response to that crisis.”

  Asked to respond to Mr. Roy’s letter last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Ala.) told CBS News that Republicans aren’t threatening to shut down the government over their border security demands, but that House Republicans “understand this is a critical issue.”

  Republicans in both the House and the Senate have already attached their demands for border security to a more than $100 billion supplemental spending request submitted by President Biden this fall. The president’s supplemental spending proposal linked several billion in new border and immigration funding to his other spending priorities, like continuing to fund Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.

  Mayorkas: Border Crisis is on Congress to Resolve

  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas paid his own visit to Eagle Pass on Monday, during which he placed the responsibility on Congress to alleviate the “tremendous stress on our broken immigration system” and fund “our under-resourced facilities.”

  Mr. Mayorkas argued that lawmakers should approve President Biden’s spending supplemental, arguing that money will allow the Department of Homeland Security to hire more Border Patrol agents, as well as asylum officers and immigration judges to adjudicate a backlog of more than 3 million immigration cases that has built up over the years, and to fund new facilities to detain people arriving at the border.

  “We will continue to do everything we can, and we will continue to enforce the law, but we need Congress to make the legislative changes and provide the funding that our frontline officers so desperately need,” he said.

  The DHS secretary’s remarks come as the Republican-led House Committee on Homeland Security is set to consider whether he should be impeached.

  Mr. Rosendale suggested the Mr. Mayorkas had simply made his visit to Eagle Pass in order to win support in the oncoming impeachment deliberations.

  “He was trying to deploy a PR stunt to try and generate a little bit of support so that his impeachment wouldn’t move forward,” Mr. Rosendale said. “The problem is that he has demonstrated that he has no regard for the law whatsoever. He has not only violated our laws and allowed the southern border to be in the state of an invasion by anybody’s description, but he’s also stopped [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] from doing their job once all these illegals do arrive in our country, keeping them from performing raids and removing and deporting the illegals once they come upon them.”

  During his Monday press remarks, Mr. Mayorkas rejected allegations that the DHS is not enforcing the existing immigration laws. He claimed the DHS has removed, returned, or expelled the majority of people it has encountered at the southern border over the course of the Biden administration, and that more noncitizens without a basis to remain in the United States were removed in the five-month period since May of 2023 than in any other five-month period in the last decade.

  “We are doing everything we can, within a broken system, to incentivize noncitizens to use lawful pathways, to impose consequences on those who do not, and to reduce irregular migration,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 19:00

• Is Honda's New EV A Copy Of The 1980s Lamborghini Countach?
  Is Honda’s New EV A Copy Of The 1980s Lamborghini Countach?

  It could be just us, but Honda’s new electric vehicle, called “Saloon,” unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday, seems to mirror the designs of the Lamborghini Countach from the mid-1980s. 

  

  With that aside, Honda’s new EV will feature “new advancements in design, automated driving, connected technologies, performance, and battery efficiency,” according to a Honda press release. 

  

  The Japanese company expects the Saloon to be released in North America in 2026. Autoblog Autocar quoted the designer Toshinobu Minami as saying the new EV would keep “90% of this appearance,” including gullwing doors, for the production model.  

  

  Honda has previously laid out plans for EVs and fuel-cell vehicles, which will comprise 40% of its new vehicle sales by 2030, 80% by 2035, and 100% by 2040. 

  As of January, Honda does not offer full EVs in the US (only hybrids). The move into full EVs comes as US EV sales for the fourth quarter of 2023 slowed, growing by only 1.3%. The slowdown comes after 5% gains in the third quarter and 15% in the April-through-June period. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 18:40

• The White House's Infrastructure Goals Risk Disruption… By The White House
  The White House’s Infrastructure Goals Risk Disruption… By The White House

  Authored by Michael Ireland & Michael Johnson, Michael Philipps via RealClear Wire,

  For Americans to start seeing evidence of the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) taking shape in their hometowns, the construction industry will need the building materials to do the work. But should a newly proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) particulate matter (PM) standard take effect in the next few weeks, those materials might not be readily available over the course of the next few years. 

  

  The actual proposed reduction may seem small, but it would be an enormous change if put into practice. Meeting this change would not only hurt local communities, but it would also thwart the Biden Administration’s flagship IIJA goals.

  To comply with the lower standard, U.S. manufacturers may have to cut back hours of operation, which would lead to fewer construction materials being produced, potential layoffs at manufacturing plants and inevitable delays in construction.

  In other words, if the Administration chooses to move forward with the new EPA standard, it could be hindering its own plan to revamp the nation’s infrastructurea $550 billion agenda — and the opportunities to provide building materials would be punted to the U.S. construction industry’s competitors overseas. The supplies in other countries would likely be ready and in abundance, as the U.S. enforces some of the strictest emissions regulations in the world, and America’s manufacturers follow them or are shut down.

  Those in the nation’s construction industry do care and continue to take action to improve the environment and the air we breathe. For decades, the U.S. cement, concrete, and aggregates industries have spent millions on state-of-the-art technologies to adhere to EPA standards and yield more sustainable products.  

  Currently, the U.S. cement industry contributes only a 0.1% share of the PM emissions being targeted, and through the efforts of regulated industry and government officials, PM emissions have been reduced by 37% during the last two decades. This downward trend will continue through programs already on the books, including the PM standards EPA retained in 2020.  

  Our industries have invested heavily in efforts to make our products more sustainable because of one simple truth: we are aware of how much society depends on these materials essential in construction, and we know life would be completely disrupted without them. These materials are not frivolous or luxury items that only accommodate some of the population. They are not a fleeting architectural fad that is in vogue today and outdated tomorrow. They are likely the foundation of the home or building where you currently sit, the sidewalk under your feet, and the roads and bridges you rely on to get you where you need to go. 

  For centuries, U.S. construction materials have proven to be resilient, reliable, and strong. We checked those boxes long ago. This is why our industries are focusing now, more than ever, on making them more sustainable. 

  The IIJA promises $550 billion in construction projects by 2026, which means manufacturers will need to supply tens of millions of tons of their products for those projects to happen. If anything, there is a need for greater investment in U.S. building material production capabilities.

  The nation’s manufacturers are well-regulated. They have been for decades. Costly new regulations would negatively impact the U.S. construction industry, ramp up sales in the U.S. for foreign competitors, and we would all witness the same presidential administration that worked so steadfastly to champion the IIJA become the very administration to stifle it.

  ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ ­­­­Michael Ireland is President and CEO, Portland Cement Association. 

  Michael Johnson is President and CEO, National Stone Sand and Gravel Association. 

  Michael Philipps is President, National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 18:20

• Don Lemon Announces Launch Of New Show On X
  Don Lemon Announces Launch Of New Show On X

  It’s funny how after you’re fired for being an authoritarian left-wing lunatic, it’s only then that you’re proud to fall back on the first amendment to pull yourself up by your bootstraps…

  Speaking of which, disgraced former CNN host Don Lemon looks like he’s going to be getting his own show back, this time on X. 

  In a post published on Tuesday, Lemon wrote on his X account: “I’ve heard you … and today I am back bigger, bolder, freer! My new media company’s first project is The Don Lemon Show.”

  Clearly, he hasn’t heard us, because he wouldn’t be launching a new show in the first place if he had. 

  

  “It will be available to everyone, easily, whenever you want it, streaming on the platforms where the conversations are happening,” he wrote, suggesting his show would likely follow the same model as Tucker Carlson’s show on X. 

  Lemon praised X in his comments, saying his show would be “first on X, the biggest space for free speech in the world.”

  Recall, back in April of last year, Lemon was fired from CNN. He said on Twitter at the time: “I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN.”

  We’re delighted to announce a new content partnership with @DonLemon for his new project, The Don Lemon Show. The award winning TV journalist will share his unique and honest voice in 30 minute episodes, three times a week, covering politics, culture, sports and entertainment.…

  — Business (@XBusiness) January 9, 2024

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

  He added: “I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network.”

  For a review of his rocky (to put it mildly) controversies at his former network and largely failed morning show, here’s a trip down ZH headline memory lane:

  • Don Lemon’s New Morning Show Debuts, Immediately Bombs In Ratings
  • Don Lemon’s Co-Hosts “Stormed Off The Set” After His Comments About Nikki Haley Being Past Her Prime
  • Don Lemon Off Air (Again) Monday Following Growing Fallout From His Sexist Comments About Nikki Haley
  • Watch: 2023 Don Lemon Would Accuse 2013 Don Lemon Of Being A White Supremacist

  How long before the rest of the journalists that have been dragging Elon Musk’s name through the mud and taking every shot possible at X come crawling back to the billionaire and the platform to launch their next projects? Paging Brian Stelter…

  Welcome to 𝕏! https://t.co/r9c67EUMEG

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 9, 2024

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 18:00

• "Politics Is So Confusing Right Now" – Dems & Reps Have Switched Sides & Now Half Of Voters Identify 'Independent'
  “Politics Is So Confusing Right Now” – Dems & Reps Have Switched Sides & Now Half Of Voters Identify ‘Independent’

  Authored by Peter Savodnik via The Free Press,

  The Great Scramble

  Democrats and Republicans have switched sides—and nearly half of voters now call themselves independent. Peter Savodnik meets the politically homeless…

  

  In 2016, Shelle Lichti voted for Donald Trump. She got tons of blowback from other gay people who thought she’d betrayed them.

  She was 45 at the time, and she’d been doing things her own way since she was 11, since she was adopted by the big Mennonite family in Missouri, and ran away, and came out, and became a trucker, hauling beef and pork across the American hinterland in a rainbow-painted eighteen-wheeler. 

  It had been tough being a woman. And a lesbian.

  But she’d forged a new life for herself. 

  She had built a portable home in the back of her truck—with the kitchenette, the curtains, the warm little lights, the generator, and her bed on the lower bunk, and all her clothes, first-aid gear, and dry goods in the top bunk—and she’d traversed an array of politics and religions. (She was into Buddhism—the calm, the focus. “I choose to say I have faith, but I’m not religious,” Lichti said.) She liked to listen to audiobooks—she was into Nora Roberts, the romance novelist—and she loved to turn up Sia when she was “laying down some miles,” which meant going for hours and hours, not stopping, pushing on to wherever she was going.

  

  “Everybody is on their own ride,” Lichti tells The Free Press. “We have to respect that.” (Jamie Kelter Davis for The Free Press)

  What she had learned from riding around the country in her little home in her big rig was you never knew as much as you thought you did about other people. “Everybody is on their own ride,” she said. “We have to respect that.”

  Over the years, she noticed the homophobia had waned, but it had gotten harder to make a living, mostly because of the influx of truckers, most of whom were from Somalia and the Middle East.

  “I don’t have a problem with them—they’re out here making a living for their families,” Lichti said. But with the new truckers, it was harder to get a raise. “When I started”—in 1993—“I made 19 cents a mile. Now, I barely make double that.”

  

  Shelle Lichti works on her truck, The Rainbow Rider, on December 10, 2023 in Joliet, IL. (Jamie Kelter Davis for The Free Press)

  It wasn’t just Lichti who was struggling. It seemed to her like the country was falling apart. “A lot of roadside motels and hotels look like crack houses,” she said. “Not enough people coming through.” On top of that, she said, Main Streets everywhere had been devoured by Walmart, Costco, Amazon. “The billboards on Route 66”—the 2,500-mile highway connecting Chicago and Los Angeles—“are mostly gone.” 

  Then, in June 2015, Trump announced his presidential bid, and the bluster, the fireworks, the who-gives-a-fuck about sticking to your talking points—that was refreshing in the face of all the decline.

  A lot of her gay and lesbian friends thought she’d gone crazy. “I was like, ‘If you want to unfriend me because of my beliefs, then you’re no better than the people that hate on us,’ ” Lichti said.

  But after Trump got into office, Lichti started to see the world differently yet again. Trump seemed too nasty in his rhetoric, like a “toddler,” she said. 

  Then, she learned her son was transgender, and it seemed like a dangerous time to be trans or Muslim or Mexican. “My son’s own twin brother has blown him off,” she said.

  Then came Covid, George Floyd, the riots. And Trump didn’t seem to make life any better for truckers, Lichti said. “It got even worse.” 

  By Election Day 2020, she said, “I wanted anybody but Trump.” Lichti voted for Joe Biden.

  More than three years later, she doesn’t know what to believe. She says she feels unmoored. She considers Biden a “seat-filler.” She doesn’t care for Democrats. She kind of cares about climate change, and she’s pro-choice, and she’s heartbroken about the people dying in Ukraine and Gaza, but she doesn’t think it’s America’s problem, and she can’t stand the kids in the LGBTQ+ movement with their “20 zillion acronyms.”

  She said she isn’t a “conservative” or “progressive,” and definitely not a Democrat or Republican. 

  “Our society has made it to where we’re supposed to fit in a certain mold,” she said. “A lot of us, you know, well, it’s like taking a plus-size girl and trying to squeeze me into a size 2. Just not gonna work.”

  

  Lichti rejects labels like “Democrat,” “Republican,” “progressive,” and “conservative.” “Our society has made it to where we’re supposed to fit in a certain mold,” she said. “It’s like taking a plus-size girl and trying to squeeze me into a size 2. Just not gonna work.” (Jamie Kelter Davis for The Free Press)

  Shelle Lichti is hardly alone. 

  Nearly half of Americans now identify as independent—not necessarily because they’re centrists, or moderates, but because neither party reflects their views.

  That’s because, over the past several decades, the parties have switched places, leaving tens of millions of voters unsure about what they stand for or where they belong, Yuval Levin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of A Time to Build, about reviving the American Dream, told me.

  Levin described two axes in American political life—one right-left, and the other insider-outsider. Traditionally, the party of the right has been the party of the inside—the establishment—and the left has fought for those on the outside—the poor, the disenfranchised.

  “But in the twenty-first century, they’ve switched sides,” he said. “Democrats are the elites, and Republicans feel like they’re fighting the establishment.”

  One way to think about it, said Michael Lind, author of The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite, was geographic: “From Lincoln to Reagan, New England, the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes, and the western states were the Republicans, and now they’re the Democrats—while the interior was all the Democrats, and now they’re the Republicans.” 

  This switch has “created a huge amount of confusion, because it’s happened without either party recognizing it,” Levin added. “Republicans have gotten pretty comfortable with it, while Democrats are very uncomfortable being the insider party.”

  That’s because it’s “political suicide” to acknowledge you’re the party of the elite, Thomas Edsall, a New York Times columnist who has reported on national politics for a half-century, told me. 

  “Democrats are elite, but they can’t say it,” Edsall said.

  Consider that, in 2016, the median home price of a Hillary Clinton voter was $640,000, while that of a Trump voter was $474,000. In 2018, Democrats took control of the 10 wealthiest congressional districts in the country—all of them on the coasts, mostly in New York and California. Of the top 50, they held 41. 

  And, increasingly, Democrats recruit their future leaders—their ideas—from a handful of universities that cater to the American elite.

  From 2004 to 2016, 20 percent of all Democratic campaign staffers came from seven universities: Harvard, Stanford, New York University, Berkeley, Georgetown, Columbia, and Yale. By contrast, the University of Texas, Austin; Ohio State University; and University of Wisconsin–Madison provided the most Republican staffers.

  The reasons for the Great Scramble are legion and stretch back decades, if not longer: the breakup of the Democrats’ New Deal coalition, the end of the Cold War, globalization, the internet, the decline of organized religion and the two-parent family, the forever wars, the opioid and fentanyl crises. 

  “Things are definitely in flux,” Michael Lind said.

  *  *  *

  What I know for sure is that I first glimpsed it on Election Night 2022, at a “victory party” in Phoenix for Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

  Lake’s supporters seemed to fall outside the old left-right construct. Racially, economically, ideologically—they didn’t fit the preconceived categories. 

  My surprise was obvious when I interviewed a Latina in her fifties in an Iron Maiden t-shirt. 

  How was it, I asked, that she supported a candidate who had run against more Latinos coming to America? Had she not seen Lake’s campaign manager’s “racist tweet” a few weeks before? 

  That’s when she started lecturing me about “gangbangers coming here” and then “Big Tech” and “Big Pharma,” but also her friend’s biracial daughter and Martin Luther King Jr., and why Washington should “pump trillions” into the rural parts of the country decimated by fentanyl and cheap overseas labor. 

  Our conversation wasn’t that dissimilar to a conversation I had several months later with a Democratic bundler in Brentwood—he’s worth, I’m told, about $400 million—who was going on about how “the climate and AI are everything” (he thought the former was the end of us, and the latter was our salvation), and how he was “scared shitless about the gender stuff.” When I asked him whether he’d be supporting Biden in 2024, he said, “Of course,” but then he added, “As for the other fucktards”—he meant younger, more progressive, down-ballot Democrats—“no way, no can do.”

  There were other weird signs: the Democratic poll, in November, showing that the base of the party—including blacks, Latinos, college women, and millennials—prefers Trump to Biden; GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley saying government shouldn’t bar minors from transitioning; Senator John Fetterman, once lionized by progressives, insisting “I’m not a progressive,” while touting his support for Israel and calling for tougher border controls—prompting Helen Qiu, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for New York City Council, to call Fetterman a “Christmas Miracle.”

  Compounding our confusions about the Great Scramble is the language we use to talk about politics—to describe the country we want to live in.

  “Our language is impoverished, left over from the French Revolution, with us just saying ‘right’ and ‘left’ and what we think we mean by that,” Oklahoma City attorney Jason Reese, who has spent 25 years in GOP politics, told me. 

  In the 1980s, when he was a kid, Reese was a Reagan Republican. He believed in capitalism, and thought the Soviet Union was evil, and the unions, like liberals and high taxes, were a relic. His mom called him “Alex P. Keaton,” after the Family Ties character.

  But in 1992, just as conservatives were triumphing over everyone—with the USSR now dead, and China and India embracing market economics, and the Democrats, under Bill Clinton, morphing into moderate Republicans—the movement suffered its first shock. So did Reese.

  “Ross Perot was the catalyst for this,” he said, referring to the third-party candidate blamed by many Republicans for President George H.W. Bush’s loss to Clinton. “He broke up that old Republican coalition.”

  It was Perot who suggested there was a contradiction baked into Reagan’s GOP: while the party embraced free trade and free markets, he argued those policies threatened working-class voters who had recently flocked to it. 

  Perot was especially upset about the North American Free Trade Agreement, which, he said, would lead to a “giant sucking sound going south”—as blue-collar jobs moved from the United States to Mexico.

  That proved prophetic.

  Reese saw the political shift happen in his own extended family, in Kentucky and Texas. In the early 1990s, he said, they cared a lot about abortion. By the 2010s, they were talking nonstop about jobs and immigration.

  That colored his own thinking. Today, Reese said, he’s an “economic nationalist” who backs tariffs and a higher minimum wage, and a “foreign policy realist” (meaning, no more wars unless they must be fought), and he’s skeptical of capital punishment. 

  This confusion also extends to the left, which includes “liberals” and “progressives” and people who believe in minimizing economic disparity and people who think talking about economic disparity is racist. 

  Obama was the “perfect distillation of liberalism,” Tyler Harper, a comparative literature professor at Bates College who has written on politics and identity, and supported Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid, told me. 

  “Progressives,” Harper said, are the people who think racial identity reigns supreme and have no serious objection to capitalism.

  “I don’t think they’re left-wing in any substantive sense at all,” Harper said of progressives. He saw progressivism and “corporatism” as “natural allies.”

  Exhibit A: the $8 billion U.S. companies spend yearly on DEI training. 

  “We desperately need a new vocabulary,” he said.

  That is how Priyanka Wolan feels—unsure of how to describe herself or what she believes. 

  She had immigrated to the United States from India with her family when she was eight, and she had always leaned Democratic. 

  It’s not that she doesn’t know what she believes. She is definitely pro-choice, but she also wants to curb “unauthorized immigration.” She thinks the new gender politics is insane, but she believes strongly in defending civil liberties. And she’s giving her four daughters a traditional homeschool education that includes Latin and classical music. 

  

  Priyanka Wolan first realized she wasn’t on the left when she started homeschooling her daughters. (Jenna Schoenefeld for The Free Press)

  The trouble is that all of these things do not fit together into one party or camp or label.

  We were having dinner at the house in the hills of Los Angeles that she and her husband, Alan, share with their daughters. My 9-year-old and hers had become friends in an after-school math program.

  “The present-day conservative movement doesn’t align with my life experience in the way I used to think the Democratic platform did, but the Democratic Party no longer aligns with that either,” Wolan said. 

  “The first time I realized I wasn’t on the left was when I started homeschooling, and people were like, ‘This isn’t supporting public education, what’s wrong with public education?’ ” she said. “That’s when I started to see, ‘Oh, I’m not falling into line.’ ”

  But then, in 2019, she started to feel the tug of identity politics, and it was like a whirlpool. She and Alan, who is Jewish and 18 years older, had always been “sparring partners.” Now, it felt more personal, as if she, a “brown woman,” were facing off against whiteness and the patriarchy.

  During the summer of 2020, “it became really difficult for us to have a conversation,” she said. He thought defunding the police was idiotic, and worried about illegal immigration and crime. “I remember saying at one point,” she continued, “ ‘You know what, let’s not talk politics. You’re never going to understand me, because you’re white, a man, privileged’—all the jargon.”

  

  Priyanka Wolan at her home in Los Angeles, CA. (Jenna Schoenefeld for The Free Press)

  She added: “At one point, I remember my dad saying, ‘You’re not doing a service to yourself or your kids when you’re constantly thinking in terms of your identity. We didn’t come to America for you to think this way.’ ”

  It was other moms who made her rethink things, albeit unwittingly. They didn’t approve of what she was teaching her girls: Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, the poetry of Robert Frost, Mozart sonatas.

  “At the height of the decolonization narrative, people would say, ‘Why are you teaching them this? This is the Western canon,’ ” Wolan, 42, said. She was surprised. She wanted her daughters, as she said, to “have it all”—the most rigorous liberal-arts education that would not only get them into a top college but enable them to think critically.

  It wasn’t that her views had changed. She mostly believed in the same things she always had. “I’m liberal in the old sense of the word—the not believing whatever you’re told to believe,” Wolan said. 

  When I asked Wolan whether it was hard being politically homeless, whether it would be easier to join one of the available tribes, she half-smiled and said it wasn’t so tough fending off criticisms of homeschooling or deciding who to vote for. (She can’t vote for Biden again; she’d probably vote for Vivek Ramaswamy, if he wins the GOP nomination.) The hard thing was getting comfortable with people knowing her husband supported a candidate who everyone she knew thought was evil.

  “I didn’t want people knowing he was for Trump,” Wolan said of Alan. “It took me a while to get to the point where I thought, ‘You know what, he’s allowed to have whatever opinions he wants.’ ”

  *  *  *

  Brian Lasher, a retired Navy commander and high-school history teacher in Erie, Pennsylvania, could not care less whether people know he plans to vote for Trump. Not that he’s excited about it. He thinks Trump’s “an asshole.” 

  But he has to vote—he hasn’t missed an election since he first voted, in 1980—and he doesn’t believe in voting for protest candidates. He wants his vote to count. (In 1992, he voted for Ross Perot. “That’s a vote I regret,” Lasher said. “Clinton is the best Democratic president of my lifetime.”)

  His father came from a family of Calvin Coolidge Republicans—“He refused to have an FDR dime in his pocket”—and his mother was religious and liberal. 

  He was raised Lutheran, and he is pro-life, but he thinks there need to be exceptions, and he is worried about inflation, and he thinks we have to stop illegal immigration—“human trafficking is grotesque”—but he supports legal immigration—“some of the best students I’ve had were immigrants”—and it is obvious the poles are warming, but it is also obvious we shouldn’t do away with oil and gas. “That’s just suicidal,” Lasher, 62, told me. 

  During the lockdowns, he’d watched his students disappear into their screens. The school couldn’t make them turn on their cameras, so almost all turned them off. Usually, he had no idea whether they were even there.

  Anyway, the “institutional rot” was everywhere, he said, and everything that came out of D.C. reflected as much—not only the Covid protocols and deficit spending, but Russiagate, which he called “bullshit,” and the corruption. He meant the Clinton emails, the Hunter Biden pay-to-play thing, all of it.

  If it looks like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now running for the White House as an independent, might win Pennsylvania, he’ll vote for him.

  But generally he’s pessimistic about things. “We’re seeing extremes in both parties drive America toward an abyss,” Lasher said. 

  He recalled Christmas 2007. He was in Baghdad with the Navy, and he was at dinner in the mess hall at Saddam Hussein’s old Republican Guard Palace, and General David Petraeus’s chief chaplain was talking about the new “religious reconciliation initiative.”

  Lasher was asked to be the chaplain’s note-taker, and the two of them spent the next six months hopscotching around Baghdad meeting Shiite and Sunni religious leaders talking about why they hated each other, and what could be done to stem the violence. 

  “We were at the house of a sheik, he was a Shiite, and he was explaining the differences between the Iranian Shiites and the Iraqi Shiites.” The sheik said he was going to Iran in three weeks, and he asked, “Is there some message you want me to deliver to the Iranians?” 

  After a moment, Lasher recalls saying, “I told him to tell the Iranians that our symbol is the American eagle. In its talon are either arrows or the olive branch. The choice is theirs. ‘Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.’ He responded, ‘Yes! Yes! This is what I have been preaching all my life. I will tell them this.’ ”

  Later, after Iraq, after he came home, after the polarization and anger in America seemed to billow out of control, he would often remember that night in Baghdad, the competing forces. 

  “We have far more that brings us together than separates us,” he said. 

  Sometimes that’s hard to remember. He wants to be hopeful. He’s a big fan of Catherine Bowen’s Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention. George Washington’s “Farewell Address” is his favorite speech.

  But those stories, those pieces of the sacred American past, feel far away. People no longer listen to each other, he said. “We’ve tuned each other out.” It’s like everyone is shouting into a Tower of Babel, unaware of who they’re shouting at, or what they’re angry about. 

  “A lot of that, I fault the media for,” he said. “They’re not being honest about the people they report on.”

  

  Rory Fleming, 23, is majoring in history at Yale University. He said college and Covid have pushed him politically to the right. (Christopher Capozziello for The Free Press)

  Rory Fleming, a 23-year-old senior at Yale, agreed that no one really knows who they’re screaming at.

  “Ever since 2016, it’s been like whiplash,” he told me. 

  In 2016, he was in high school, and he knew a lot of kids from Guatemala and Venezuela and Paraguay, and he understood why they felt targeted. He found Trump noxious.

  But then he got to Yale, which “has been the opposite experience,” Fleming said. “It’s pushed me to the right.”

  The big thing was Covid, the lockdowns, how the university went all in with masking and shutting down campus life. 

  For Fleming, just like Shelle Lichti, everything came into focus in the summer of 2020. That was when the upside-downness revealed itself.

  “I really felt that for the first time in July 2020, when my friend and I took this 45-day, cross-country road trip,” he said.

  “New York was shut down, and I remember getting to North Dakota, where there were ‘no mask’ signs everywhere. They were reacting against what they felt was authoritarianism, and they weren’t wrong. There was something about the Democratic reaction that was authoritarian.”

  

  Rory Fleming thinks the United States needs to be strong, and he respected that Trump “carried a big stick.” (Christopher Capozziello for The Free Press)

  Post-whiplash, it was hard to know where he belonged. 

  Fleming believes the government should be spearheading the “green revolution”—starting with renewable projects in places like West Virginia—and he is pro-choice, and pro-civil liberties, and he thinks the United States needs to be strong. “That was something I did respect about Trump’s presidency,” Fleming said. “He carried a big stick. We shouldn’t have Houthi rebels with drones firing missiles in the Red Sea. Terrorists should fear the United States, and I don’t think they are right now.” 

  He recalled his semester abroad, in Dublin, and being at a pub with friends, all foreigners, and someone making fun of the United States. “I remember saying, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are that it’s us, and not China or Russia running the world,” he said. 

  No one argued with that.

  What’s confusing, Fleming said, is that so many Americans don’t get this. 

  Lichti agrees.

  “Politics is so confusing right now,” she said. “The people that stay in their camps, that pretend or don’t know it’s not confusing—they’re the ones who are really confused. For me, saying you’re confused is being honest.”

  *  *  *

  Peter Savodnik is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Read his last article, “I Was Wrong About John Fetterman,” and ​​follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @petersavodnik.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 17:40

• Blinken Slams South Africa's Genocide Case Against Israel As 'Meritless' & 'Galling'
  Blinken Slams South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel As ‘Meritless’ & ‘Galling’

  A key aspect of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit and press conference in Israel on Tuesday was to make a strong show of condemning South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, set to start at The Hague this week.

  The US top diplomat blasted the case filed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as “meritless” and described the whole initiative as “galling” – also saying that it will be a distraction while world powers need to be focused on achieving lasting peace in Gaza.

  

  “The charge of genocide is meritless,” he said. But then in the same press conference he admitted that the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high.”

  The first hearing in the case will be held Thursday, focused on South Africa’s 84-page application to the ICJ , which describes Israel’s military campaign as “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinian population of Gaza.

  White House national security spokesperson John Kirby last week said initially, “We find this submission meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact, whatsoever.”

  Israel has gone on a full-court diplomatic press pushing back against the case. There’s not much that the court can enforce in terms of action regardless, but a ruling against Israel would be a huge reputational black eye.

  Starting last month, Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a blistering rebuke in response, rejecting the filing “with disgust” and called Pretoria’s accusations a “blood libel” – essentially saying the South African government’s charge is being fueled by antisemitism.

  Israel had also blasted Pretoria for sympathizing with terrorists who massacred civilians:

  “South Africa’s claim has no factual and judicial basis and is a despicable and cheap exploitation of the court,” the ministry says in a statement. “South Africa is collaborating with a terror group that calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.”

  The ministry blames Hamas for the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by attempting “to carry out genocide” on October 7, when terrorists from the Strip killed some 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages after invading southern Israel.

  “We call on the International Court of Justice and the international community to reject the baseless claims of South Africa out of hand,” the response statement said further.

  Below: Israel is now tailoring its messaging in response to growing outrage and pressure…

  Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza

  IDF Spokesperson explains the steps that we’re taking to help international organizations distribute humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/0T71gRkUQi

  — Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 9, 2024

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

  But Global South countries in particular are likely to support the case. Russia and China too have been deeply critical of Israel’s large-scale bombardment of densely populated civilian areas of the Gaza Strip. The death toll has soared past 23,000 killed, according to Palestinian sources.

  * * * 

  Below is a note and review on the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) long-running ties with the PLO…

  South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has deep ties to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), stretching back to its former leader and South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela. The ANC aligned itself with the PLO and other revolutionary causes while Mandela was in prison; after his release, Mandela was a vocal supporter of the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat, saying in 1990 that “we identify with the PLO because, just like ourselves, they are fighting for the right of self-determination.”

  Decades later, that sentiment remains in the South African government, and for many ordinary South Africans who see their struggle against colonialism and apartheid in the Palestinians’ plight and decades-long struggle for self-determination. That’s particularly salient in an election year for South Africa as the ANC and its leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, struggle to stay the dominant power there.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 17:20

• The First Amendment, Brought To You By Pfizer
  The First Amendment, Brought To You By Pfizer

  Via The Brownstone Institute,

  Pfizer now claims the right of a corporate sovereign, arguing that states have “no legitimate interest in regulating” the company’s commercial speech while demanding the power to censor Americans’ newsfeeds.

  

  The call for pharmaceutical supremacy came in Pfizer’s response to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s suit alleging that Pfizer committed fraud and “conspired to censor public discourse.”

  Pfizer embraces its merger with the state when convenient, arguing that it cannot be held liable for misleading the public on its Covid vaccine because the company “acted pursuant to its contract with the United States Government.”

  The court documents insist that the PREP Act, invoked by President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, provides complete immunity for Pfizer’s Covid products.

  While the PREP Act prevents citizens injured by the company’s vaccines from recovering money damages in court, it does not nullify state laws concerning fraud.

  Pfizer’s affinity for the state is reserved for the expansive legal favoritism awarded to Big Pharma, achieved through decades and billions of dollars in lobbying efforts.

  The company insists that “The State of Texas has no legitimate interest in regulating Pfizer’s truthful, non-misleading speech concerning the benefits of receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.” Further, the brief calls Paxton’s suit an “attempt to punish Pfizer for spreading truthful, FDA-approved information educating the public regarding the Covid-19 vaccine.”

  At no point, however, does Pfizer respond to Paxton’s detailed allegations that the company’s information was not truthful, but was instead a lucrative marketing campaign designed to “deceive the public.”

  The filing does not deny Paxton’s detailed allegations that Pfizer “coerced social media platforms to silence prominent truth-tellers,” including a former FDA Director, and “conspired to censor the vaccine’s critics.”

  Pfizer Board Member Scott Gottlieb “persistently contacted senior persons at Twitter and…other social media platforms, in a clandestine effort to silence challengers to Pfizer’s deceptive scheme to promote sales and use of its vaccine products,” including targeting doctors who touted natural immunity, according to Paxton’s suit.

  Further, Paxton alleges that Pfizer, led by CEO Albert Bourla, “affirmatively intimidated vaccine skeptics to perpetuate its scheme to confuse and deceive the public.”

  The company makes no attempt to refute these allegations. Instead, the brief cites its government contracts as carte blanche to take any actions related to Covid.

  Pfizer thus not only claims to work in tandem with the State, but it asserts a sovereign power unshackled from the restraints of constitutional law. The First Amendment allows its executives to usurp citizens’ freedom of speech but prevents prosecution of the company’s lies, according to this theory.

  This is an attempt to close one of the few existing (possible) legal avenues to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable. No doubt that the Biden administration, and all the kept federal agencies, will agree with this.

  When the courts stop working to hold the powerful accountable, where are the victims to turn next? How can we claim to live in a representative democracy when its citizens’ paths for the redress of wrongs are deliberately closed for the benefit of its most powerful institutions?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/10/2024 – 17:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• The Perpetual War On Free Speech
  The Perpetual War On Free Speech

  Authored by Donald Jeffries via “I Protest” substack,

  The Founding Fathers made the Constitution palatable by including a Bill of Rights.

  Without the First 10 Amendments, the Constitution is just what its early critics, including Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, said it was; a dangerous consolidation of power far less representative of liberty than the Articles of Confederation.

  The First Amendment was always a huge concern with statists of every era.

  

  Those who thirst for power, and will compromise themselves in order to attain it, have never looked favorably upon those critical of them.

  John Adams, the second president of the United States, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts for just this reason.

  He bristled at criticism.

  Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson succeeded him in office and scrapped this tyrannical concept.

  But the notion reared itself again in 1860, with the election of Abraham Lincoln. Adams was a civil libertarian compared to Lincoln. “Honest” Abe didn’t pass any new Alien and Sedition Acts; he just shut down over two hundred newspapers that opposed any of his unconstitutional actions.

  Woodrow Wilson revived these odious acts during World War I. Eugene Debs and others were imprisoned for opposing the pointless shedding of blood, and America’s participation in it. The Supreme Court, in perhaps its worst ruling ever, upheld Wilson’s right to jail antiwar protesters. Great “liberal” justice Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the phrase “yelling fire in a crowded theater” to justify such heinous oppression, placing an ugly asterisk on free speech. Apparently no concerned American asked at the time, just how protesting a war could be construed as yelling fire in a crowded theater. This expression gained great renown across the land, and is forever on the lips of those who seek to censor dissent.

  Franklin Roosevelt built upon the actions of Wilson, who was inspired by the maniacal despot Lincoln. One of the countless unconstitutional agencies created under the New Deal, the Federal Communications Commission was in effect a national Alien and Sedition Act for the radio stations, and would go on to control content in Hollywood and on every television network. It banned selling advertising that discussed “controversial issues.” Vulgarity and “extremist” opinions were strictly forbidden. FDR pushed several inquisitions in Congress, most notably the one chaired by then Senator Hugo Black. You know, the former KKK member who went on to become a “liberal” Supreme Court justice and arbitrarily awarded the 1948 Senate election to “Landslide” Lyndon Johnson, who was the first to court the dead vote.

  The Black Committee and other inquiries attempted to severely curtail the ability of journalists to criticize the New Deal. FDR himself is documented to have personally tried to ruin the careers of his political opponents. And all of this was years before the Pearl Harbor false flag. Once America entered the war, FDR went after draft evaders, and memorably incarcerated American citizens in concentration camps. Not just Japanese Americans, but German and Italian Americans, too. The Roosevelt administration also stole billions in personal property from these poor souls. Much as Lincoln had locked up any northern antiwar voices without any due process, FDR imprisoned those opposed to his war. In 1945, his successor Harry Truman had antiwar poet Ezra Pound arrested, and he spent a decade in a mental institution.

  We must consider today’s “Woke” authoritarianism in its historical context. The precedents are all there.

  

  Cancel culture was born when Lincoln “canceled” his critics in the press, and threw thousands of uncharged citizens into makeshift prisons. Wilson followed this precedent, but FDR expanded it into a totalitarian art form. His administration “canceled” its critics in a variety of ways. FDR used J. Edgar Hoover to target some of them. His administration confiscated millions of telegrams to and from Roosevelt opponents. Long before Richard Nixon’s laughable efforts to use the IRS to monitor his critics, FDR had the fledgling agency audit almost everyone who opposed him. Indeed, FDR led a veritable crusade against free speech.

  The Social Justice Warriors might look different. Tattooed. Pink or purple hair. Transitioned into countless new “genders.” Utterly addicted to name-calling. But they are the logical descendants of those who supported the Alien and Sedition Acts. Who threw citizens into jail that objected to our involvement in faraway wars. Who wanted to use the IRS, and the FBI, to “cancel” critics of the political elite. Not enough tried to stop this onerous censorship in 1860. Or 1918. Or 1939. And too few are trying to stop it now. The January 6 political prisoners are a testament to that, subjected to the cruel and unjust punishment explicitly prohibited by the Constitution, which was inflicted on northern “Copperheads” during the Civil War, and anarchists and “Reds” during World War I, and “Nazi sympathizers” during World War II.

  The crazed adherents of Identity Politics are hardly the first to want to silence their critics. Get them fired from their job, and rendered unemployable. And increasingly, prosecuted for their Thought Crimes. Those opposing Lincoln’s mad war and suppression of civil liberties were the Thought Criminals of their time, long before Orwell gave a name to them. Everyone reading this little missive is a modern day Thought Criminal. There are millions of us. Is there room in their overcrowded prisons for all of us? As Lord Acton, the great lover of liberty who was friends with Robert E. Lee, not Ulysses S. Grant, reminded us; power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those in power in America 2.0 are absolutely corrupt.

  How many of us truly believe in free speech? Almost everyone has a big “but,” to quote the late Pee Wee Herman. Sure, I’m for free speech but…not for “Holocaust denial.” Disbelievers in the Apollo moon landings. Or their even more extreme bedfellows, the flat earthers. Those who think mass shootings were a hoax, or “fake news.” White people outraged by the Great Replacement. Just referring to the Great Replacement can get you canceled, unless you’re supporting such a thing. Which all of our horrific leaders do. Try mentioning how the average American woman today weighs what the average American man did sixty years ago, and see what happens. There are a lot of caveats to the mainstream ideal of “free speech.”

  The symbolic prosecutions, these figurative “fire in a crowded theater” abridgements of free speech, are in full swing. Alex Jones supposedly owes nearly a billion dollars to selective Sandy Hook parents. And now any mention of Sandy Hook is even more anathema to public discourse than the Great Replacement is. Jones also apologized for “Pizzagate.” Which was ridiculous; look at those disturbing pictures on Instagram, and the Podesta emails published by Wikileaks. If Donald Trump had paintings of children with freshly spanked bottoms on the walls of Mar-a-Lago, do you think it might be reacted to differently than it was in the case of Podesta’s brother? Now Rudy Giuliani owes almost $150 million to two particular “offended” election poll workers?

  The only acknowledged exceptions to free speech at one point were overtly slanderous or libelous comments. This is understandable; people do have a right to protect their reputation. But it’s a slippery slope, and obviously applied in a wildly unfair manner. There’s a fine line between libel and justified criticism. Donald Trump, think whatever you want to think of him, has been the object of slander from numerous national figures. This includes physical and even death threats. But if Trump ever brought a slander suit against the Fake Media he rages against, it would be laughed out of every courtroom. Because it’s Trump, not because it isn’t slander. Obama, Clinton, Biden- they’d all be treated much more respectfully by this hopelessly corrupt, Tik Tok “justice” system of ours. Some slander is more equal than others.

  But slander and libel have been supplanted now by the Orwellian term “hate speech.” Which has been accepted by almost everyone, even though the very term immediately destroys any concept of free speech. And now “disinformation” and “misinformation,” entirely subjective terms (like “hate speech”), are being bandied about as potential “crimes.” This is essentially what Jones and Trump are being prosecuted for; the notion that they are misleading others with speech that the State finds “offensive,” or “racist,” or “disinformation/misinformation.” Trump is being tried in court for contesting the results of an election. And for exaggerating the value of his assets. That doesn’t seem to worry most Americans. They need to remember that whole, “First they came for the Communists” thing. Don’t think they won’t come after you.

  If we were really protected by the First Amendment, then there would be no possibility of being prosecuted for our views on an election. Or a virus. Or a vaccine. Or any historical event. Every opinion is protected under the First Amendment. Well, theoretically. If you say something “offensive” to any of the groups and individuals that are allowed to be perpetually “offended,” then you are now subject to a politicized prosecution. No one should want to go anywhere near one of our Orwellian courtrooms. They’re nearly as dangerous as hospitals. Thought Criminals, by definition, are not being pursued for their actions. They aren’t robbers. Or rapists. Or murderers. It’s a difficult task to prosecute the thoughts of others. But our authoritarian leaders are up to that task. And millions are complicit by their silence.

  Today, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube ban, suspend and “cancel” those users who have unwelcome views. First Amendment be damned. As the “conservative” defenders of the cancel culture remind us, “They’re private companies! They have a right to ban people!” As I would respond, you mean like restaurants, for instance? So did business owners in the segregated south have a right to deny service to certain people? They don’t need a reason, right? After all, they’re private companies! What exactly is the difference between denying admission to a restaurant, or a store, or a neighborhood, on the basis of skin color, or on the basis of political philosophy? Or even simply wearing a MAGA hat? It’s a selective discrimination thing, you wouldn’t understand.

  It isn’t easy being a true supporter of free speech, in a society that doesn’t value it. Where more people than not are fine with stipulations on it. “The First Amendment doesn’t protect hate speech,” their nauseating mouthpieces in our state controlled media will bleat, as effortlessly as they will bleat “Oswald killed Kennedy” or “Diversity is our Strength.” The word “hate” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bill of Rights, or the Constitution itself. But there is no one there to counter them when they make these statements, which are disinformation if anything is. I’ll be waiting for someone, perhaps a member of the loyal “opposition,” to point that out. But fewer people have probably read the Constitution than have read the Bible.

  I thought the internet was beyond their control. They let us have unfettered access to true diversity of thought for a few decades. But the social media conglomerates gave them their opening. FDR “canceled” the editors and radio commentators of his day. Now, the “Woke” leftists can get big tech to deny access to crucial internet platforms to those who write or say discouraging words. Many in the alt media cheered the de-platforming of Alex Jones. YouTube and Facebook are shells of their former selves. Many like me are “shadow banned.” They restrict our access to a larger audience. That’s one way to control the competition. FDR and Lincoln would have loved it. What they ideally want is an FCC to control internet content. Millions of Americans don’t believe in God. So they don’t value rights that the Founders said come from God.

  The Right, though victimized by politicized prosecutions in America 2.0, hardly believe in true free speech. Witness their reaction to the mostly nonwhite students on college campuses, protesting Israel’s brutal retaliation against the Palestinians. At Harvard, these students were “doxxed,” just like so many right-wingers have been. Their names were published, and powerful Jewish businessmen tried to blacklist them from employment. Most conservatives, being Zionist defenders of Israel, applauded this particular “canceling” on campus. It was educational to watch the Ben Shapiros and Meghan Kellys of the world display such obvious hypocrisy. Everyone seems fine with suppressing some speech. Who supports all speech?

  We are at war. I’m not referring to the continuous interventionism in other, smaller sovereign nations, which is the foundation of our disastrous “bipartisan” foreign policy. Our leaders are at odds with the concept of free speech. They hate it more than they supposedly hated any foreign bogeyman. I don’t know why they just don’t treat the Bill of Rights like a troublesome Confederate memorial, and remove it from the Constitution. All they’d have to do is declare it’s “racist,” and the majority of White people would start cucking and jiving. If sleep, and birds, and proper grammar, are “racist,” why not free speech? If you don’t have free speech, you don’t have a free country. No one to “hate us for our freedom.” Democracy isn’t threatened by any speech.

  But we are threatened by those who don’t believe in freedom of speech.

  

  Maybe we can start up a new American Civil Liberties Union. One that is, you know, actually concerned about the protection of civil liberties. Civil liberties begins with free speech. If you can’t say what you want, it’s obvious you can’t do what you want. The mass arrests after the truly mostly peaceful January 6 protest demonstrated that we don’t have the right to peacefully assemble, as is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Well, some do. BLM, for instance. It’s not about protest, or speech, itself. It’s about what the speakers and protesters are speaking or protesting.

  Abridged speech is not free speech. If you don’t support speech you disagree with, you don’t support free speech. Some speech is not more equal than others.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 23:40

• Cyberattack Hits Second Largest US-Non Bank Mortgage Lender
  Cyberattack Hits Second Largest US-Non Bank Mortgage Lender

  US mortgage lender loanDepot confirmed in an 8k filing on Monday that it is the latest victim of a cyberattack that has brought critical systems offline. 

  

  California-based loanDepot, which is the second-largest non-bank mortgage lender behind Rocket Mortgage, wrote in a filing that it “recently identified a cybersecurity incident affecting certain of the Company’s systems.” 

  “Upon detecting unauthorized activity, the Company promptly took steps to contain and respond to the incident, including launching an investigation with assistance from leading cybersecurity experts, and began the process of notifying applicable regulators and law enforcement.

  “Though our investigation is ongoing, at this time, the Company has determined that the unauthorized third party activity included access to certain Company systems and the encryption of data. In response, the Company shut down certain systems and continues to implement measures to secure its business operations, bring systems back online and respond to the incident.” 

  Shares of loanDepot are down 5% in premarket trading in New York. 

  

  The lender noted it will “continue to assess the impact of the incident and whether the incident may have a material impact on the Company.” 

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 23:20

• Plastic Chemicals Causing Infertility, Diabetes Found 'Widespread' In Common Food Items: Report
  Plastic Chemicals Causing Infertility, Diabetes Found ‘Widespread’ In Common Food Items: Report

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Many of the foods consumed by Americans are contaminated with harmful plastic chemicals that contribute to health complications like diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and infertility, said a recent report by the nonprofit group Consumer Reports (CR).

  

  CR tested 85 food items from 11 categories—beverages, canned beans, condiments, dairy, fast food, grains, infant food, meat and poultry, packaged fruits and vegetables, prepared meals, and seafood, according to the Jan. 4 report. Researchers examined the presence of plasticizers—a chemical used to boost the durability of plastics. The group analyzed two to three samples from each food item, looking for two types of common plasticizers—bisphenols and phthalates—as well as some of their substitutes.

  They found that these chemicals remained “widespread” in our food products despite “growing evidence” of health risks. CR discovered that 79 percent of tested samples had bisphenols while 84 out of 85 items had phthalates.

  Exposure to such plasticizers can cause severe health issues, like for example in children, bisphenol A (BPA) exposure can negatively affect the brain and prostate glands as well as their behavior. BPA has also been linked with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and high blood pressure.

  Phthalates have been associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, lower sperm motility and concentration, early puberty in girls, and cancer.

  Both bisphenols and phthalates have been shown to be endocrine disruptors, meaning they can interfere with the generation and regulation of hormones. Disruptions to hormone levels can lead to cardiovascular disease, infertility, diabetes, and neurodevelopmental disorders.

  Exposure to these chemicals can come from the environment, food, and packaging, right from dust in the house to the printed receipt from a grocery store.

  CR found that the levels of BPA and other bisphenols were “notably lower” compared to when the group last tested for BPA in 2009. This suggested that “we are at least moving in the right direction on bisphenols,” said James E. Rogers, who oversees product safety testing at the organization.

  However, there wasn’t “any good news” on phthalates. Not only were they present in almost all foods, but their levels were also “much higher” compared to bisphenols.

  Some of the top food items with the highest level of phthalate contamination as discovered by CR’s tests are as follows:

  • Beverages: Brisk Iced Tea Lemon, Coca-Cola Original, Lipton Diet Green Tea Citrus, and Poland Spring 100 percent natural spring water.
  • Canned Beans: Hormel Chili with Beans, Bush’s Chili Red Beans Mild Chili Sauce, and Great Value (Walmart) Baked Beans Original.
  • Condiments: Mrs. Butterworth’s Syrup Original and Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup.
  • Dairy: Fairlife Core Power High Protein Milk Shake Chocolate, SlimFast High Protein Meal Replacement Shake Creamy Chocolate, Yoplait Original Low Fat Yogurt, and Tuscan Dairy Farms Whole Milk.
  • Fast Food: Wendy’s Crispy Chicken Nuggets, Moe’s Southwest Grill Chicken Burrito, Chipotle Chicken Burrito, Burger King Whopper With Cheese, Burger King Chicken Nuggets, and Wendy’s Dave’s Single With Cheese.
  • Grains: General Mills Cheerios Original and Success 10 Minute Boil-in-Bag White Rice.
  • Infant Food: Gerber Mealtime for Baby Harvest Turkey Dinner, Similac Advance Infant Milk-Based Powder Formula, Beech-Nut Fruities Pouch Pear, Banana & Raspberries, and Gerber Cereal for Baby Rice.
  • Meat and Poultry: Perdue Ground Chicken Breast, Trader Joe’s Ground Pork 80% Lean 20% Fat, Premio Foods Sweet Italian Sausage, and Libby’s Corned Beef.
  • Packaged Fruits and Vegetables: Del Monte Sliced Peaches in 100% Fruit Juice, Green Giant Cream Style Sweet Corn, and Del Monte Fresh Cut Italian Green Beans.
  • Prepared Meals: Annie’s Organic Cheesy Ravioli, Chef Boyardee Beefaroni Pasta in Tomato and Meat Sauce, Banquet Chicken Pot Pie, Campbell’s Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle Soup, and Chef Boyardee Big Bowl Beefaroni Pasta in Meat Sauce.
  • Seafood: Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon in Water Skinless Boneless, King Oscar Wild Caught Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and Snow’s Chopped Clams.

  Some of these foods had far higher levels of phthalates compared to others.

  For instance, Annie’s Organic Cheesy Ravioli had 53,579 nanograms of phthalates per serving, which is more than double what was found in Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon in Water Skinless Boneless, Moe’s Southwest Grill Chicken Burrito, Burger King Whopper With Cheese, and Fairlife Core Power High Protein Milk Shake Chocolate.

  Dangerous Chemicals, Autism

  CR pointed out that regulators from the European Union and the United States have set a threshold for BPA and some of the phthalates. None of the 85 food items exceeded these limits. However, this doesn’t mean that the tested foods are safe for consumption.

  “Many of these thresholds do not reflect the most current scientific knowledge, and may not protect against all the potential health effects,” said Tunde Akinleye, the CR scientist who oversaw the tests. “We don’t feel comfortable saying these levels are okay. … They’re not.”

  For instance, some studies have associated high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and reproductive issues with phthalates even when the level of the plasticizer was below the thresholds set by European and American authorities, CR noted.

  Because people can be exposed in a wide range of ways, it can be difficult to quantify a safe limit for the chemicals in any single food.

  “The more we learn about these chemicals, including how widespread they are, the more it seems clear that they can harm us even at very low levels,” said Mr. Akinleye.

  A study published in September found that BPA was directly linked to two key disorders during childhood—autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In children with these conditions, the body’s ability to detoxify BPA was found to be reduced.

  Bisphenol-S (BPS), a BPA substitute, was found to potentially increase the risk of cardiovascular disease according to a 2022 study. “Although BPA, BPS, and BPF share similar chemical properties, BPS and BPF are not safe alternatives for BPA,” it warned.

  A study published at the National Library of Medicine in June 2022 found that phthalates in high concentrations in certain medications could raise the risk of childhood cancer.

  Overall, childhood phthalate exposure was associated with a 20 percent higher risk of childhood cancer. The risk of developing lymphoma or blood cancer doubled while the risk of developing osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, rose by almost three times.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 23:00

• UAE President Tells Netanyahu: "Ask Zelensky For Money"
  UAE President Tells Netanyahu: “Ask Zelensky For Money”

  Via The Cradle,

  Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) refused a request by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pay unemployment stipends to Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank and instead told his ally to go “ask Zelensky” for money during a recent phone conversation, according to informed officials who spoke with Axios.

  Since the historic attack on southern settlements by Hamas in Gaza on October 7, Tel Aviv imposed a closure on the occupied West Bank and banned about 150,000 Palestinian workers from entering Israel.

  

  As concerns grew that a worsening Palestinian economy would exacerbate the violent escalation in the West Bank, Netanyahu refused calls by the defense ministry and Shin Bet to put the issue of paying unemployment stipends to a vote in the security cabinet. Instead, he turned to his allies in Abu Dhabi.

  During a phone call with MbZ a few weeks ago, Netanyahu “broadly asked for help in regards to the Palestinians,” the sources tell Axios. However, the conversation turned sour once the Israeli premier “specifically asked if the UAE would be willing to pay the Palestinian workers,” leaving the UAE leader “stunned.”

  “MbZ told Netanyahu he couldn’t do it, and then sarcastically suggested the Israeli prime minister turn to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky instead,” the sources said, adding that the Emirati leader remarked that “Zelensky gets a lot of money from many countries, so maybe he would be able to help.”

  “The notion that Arab countries will come in to rebuild and pay the bill for what’s currently happening is wishful thinking,” an Emirati official told Axios.

  In mid-December, Netanyahu reportedly told Knesset officials that Saudi Arabia and the UAE would foot the bill to rebuild Gaza.

  “The first step in Gaza will be to defeat Hamas. After that, I believe that the UAE and Saudi Arabia will support the rehabilitation of the Strip,” Netanyahu said during a closed-door testimony to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

  Remarkable.

  UAE normalized relations with Israel. Netanyahu asked UAE to pay Palestinian workers Israel kicked out > Oct 7.

  MBZ, leader of UAE said ‘Ask Zelensky.’

  # of ME countries friendly to Israel dwindling.

  Blinken can’t see ‘forest for trees.’

  https://t.co/rhVQYpjMHK

  — Dr Nazreen Kadir (@lettywho1) January 8, 2024

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

  On Tuesday, Israeli media repeated these claims, reporting that US officials seeking to revive a Saudi-Israel normalization deal believe this would secure Saudi funding to “rebuild Gaza.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 22:40

• Mega-Rich Are Forcing Out Millionaires On 'Billionaires Bunker" Island
  Mega-Rich Are Forcing Out Millionaires On ‘Billionaires Bunker” Island

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

  The mega rich are forcing out millionaires as ‘billionaire bunker’ island, Indian Creek in Miami, Florida, increasingly becomes a private enclave of the uber elite.

  

  A local historian told Bloomberg that even wealthy people can no longer afford to live on the island because they are being priced out by people like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

  “Only the very wealthy, the billionaires can afford to live in Indian Creek now. Hundreds of millions aren’t gonna cut it anymore,” said Paul George.

  Bezos already owns multiple properties on the island and is looking to buy three more, having bought two neighboring homes on the island for a total of nearly $150 million last year.

  Inside Florida’s ‘billionaires bunker’ where the ultra-rich like Jeff Bezos is pushing out millionaire locals – as the Amazon tycoon looks to snag three more properties

  Billionaires on the island of Indian Creek in Miami, Florida, are said to be forcing out previous owners… pic.twitter.com/BTUvEyfhk7

  — News News News (@NewsNew97351204) January 5, 2024

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

  Why anyone would need five or more properties on one single small island is up for debate, is it just so Bezos can avoid people or is he trying to construct something similar to Mark Zuckerberg, who keeps expanding his secretive Koolau Ranch hideout in Hawaii?

  Zuckerberg is building a 5,000-square-foot underground doomsday shelter, something that Bezos is almost certainly trying to emulate.

  The privacy of Indian Creek is a big draw for the ultra high net worth, as is the private police force, which “patrols the community around-the-clock by foot, sky, and land.”

  The island can only be accessed via a single, guarded bridge and its famous residents have included Ivanka Trump, Carl Icahn, Colombian banker Jaime Gilinski, Jay-Z and Beyoncé.

  The waterfront properties are ironically owned by many of the same people who push the narrative that man-made climate change is going to cause apocalyptic sea level rises.

  Apparently, they’re going to be just fine though.

  As we document in the video above, billionaires are busy buying up private islands in places like Hawaii, Fiji and New Zealand to prepare for what they call ‘the event’.

  ‘The event’, whatever it ultimately ends up being, will likely be driven by mass resentment towards the very world they created.

  When this earth-shattering ‘event’ happens, the billionaires will scurry away into their underground doomsday bunkers which they have been carefully preparing for years.

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 22:20

• China Dominates The Supply Of US Critical Minerals List
  China Dominates The Supply Of US Critical Minerals List

  Most countries have, for many decades, kept a record of their own critical minerals list.

  For example, the U.S., drew up a list of “war minerals” during World War I, containing important minerals which could not be found and produced in abundance domestically. They included: tin, nickel, platinum, nitrates and potash.

  Since then, as the economy has grown and innovated, critical mineral lists have expanded considerably. The Energy Act of 2020 defines a critical mineral as:

  “A non-fuel mineral or mineral material essential to the economic or national security of the U.S., whose supply chains are vulnerable to disruption.”

  – ENERGY ACT, 2020.

  Currently there are 50 entries on this list and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that China is the leading producer for 30 of them. From USGS data, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes China’s share of U.S. imports for 10 critical minerals.

  

  What Key Critical Minerals Does the U.S. Import From China?

  The U.S. is 100% import-reliant for its supply of yttrium, with China responsible for 94% of U.S. imports of the metal from 2018 to 2021.

  A soft silvery metal, yttrium is used as an additive for alloys, making microwave filters for radars, and as a catalyst in ethylene polymerization—a key process in making certain kinds of plastic.

  China is a major supplier of the following listed critical minerals to the U.S.

  

  Note: China’s share of U.S. critical minerals imports is based on average imports from 2018 to 2021.

  Meanwhile, the U.S. also imports nearly three-quarters of its rare earth compounds and metals demand from China. Rare earth elements—so called since they are not found in easily-mined, concentrated clusters—are a collection of 15 elements on the periodic table, known as the lanthanide series.

  ℹ️ Yttrium and scandium exhibit similar rare-earth properties, and are found in the same ore bodies. They are often grouped together with the lanthanide series.

  Rare earths are used in smartphones, cameras, hard disks, and LEDs but also, crucially, in the clean energy and defense industries.

  Does China’s Dominance of U.S. Critical Minerals Supply Matter?

  The USGS estimates that China could potentially disrupt the global rare earth oxide supply by cutting off 40–50% production, impacting suppliers of advanced components used in U.S. defense systems.

  A version of this sort of trade warfare is already playing out. Earlier this year, China implemented export controls on germanium and gallium. The U.S. relies on China for around 54% of its demand for both minerals, used for producing chips, solar panels, and fiber optics.

  China’s controls were seen as a retaliation against the U.S. which has restricted the supply of chips, chip design software, and lithography machines to Chinese companies.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 22:00

• Trump Allies Demand Accountability From Fauci, Not The Former President
  Trump Allies Demand Accountability From Fauci, Not The Former President

  Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

  House Republicans were eager to cross-examine Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief White House medical adviser, about his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They remained silent, however, about Donald Trump, the former president who stood by the architect of the lockdown strategy.

  “It is time for Dr. Fauci to confront the facts and address the numerous controversies that have arisen during and after the pandemic,” said Ohio Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup, who chairs the select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic that will grill the doctor behind closed doors.

  

  Nine Republicans sit on the subcommittee. All of them love to loathe Fauci. Four of them have already endorsed Trump as he seeks the presidency a third time, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has said publicly that the doctor “should be in jail.”

  Fauci was the face of the White House COVID task force, prescribing masking and school closures and lockdown measures during the pandemic, often as Trump stood at his side. The relationship was fraught. Trump frequently contradicted the doctor he deputized, occasionally even grousing about him publicly on Twitter. But in the end, Trump still awarded Fauci a presidential commendation for his work.

  The focus on the decisions Fauci made, and not on the president who empowered him, has exasperated Trump rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “Are we going to have some type of accountability?” DeSantis asked during a recent interview with RealClearPolitics. “Are we going to have a reckoning for this, or are we just going to act like everyone did such a great job?”

  Reps. Debbie Lesko of Arizona, John Joyce of Pennsylvania, and Ronny Jackson of Texas will also get a chance to cross-examine Fauci. Each has criticized the doctor. All of them still endorsed the former president who presided during his tenure. None returned RCP’s request for comment.

  “He will, once again, put America and Americans first,” Lesko said in a statement two days after Christmas to announce her endorsement of the Republican president who oversaw Fauci as he prescribed lockdowns and mask mandates from the White House podium.

  Ahead of Fauci’s testimony Monday, the Arizona Republican retweeted a post from the subcommittee calling for “serious answers” from the now-retired doctor. “It’s time,” she wrote.

  At issue is whether in 2020 Trump delegated far too much authority to Fauci, who pushed hard for extensive pandemic lockdowns. “For an executive widely known for being able to fire people,” wrote Dr. Scott Atlas, who joined the White House COVID task force that summer, “it was shocking that this president allowed the incompetence of the nation’s Task Force advisors to continue.”

  Trump has given different accounts for why he deferred to Fauci’s judgment. During remarks last summer, the former president insisted that he once listened to Fauci, but “whatever he said, I did the opposite.”

  When conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt later asked why he never removed Fauci, Trump replied that he was “not allowed to fire him” and claimed that Fauci “wasn’t a big player in my administration.”

  Pressed by Megyn Kelly on why he awarded Fauci a presidential commendation, Trump pled ignorance, saying during a September interview on Sirius XM, “I don’t know who gave him the commendation. I really don’t know who gave him the commendation. Someone probably handed him a commendation.”

  Multiple former Trump officials found that answer far-fetched and said publicly that any type of commendation would require a signature from the president. Regarding the suggestion that Fauci be fired, however, several former officials told RCP that is easier said than done. They note that the other members of the COVID task force had a “resignation pact”: If one person was fired, all would resign.

  Atlas was the single dissenting voice from that group. A neuro-radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, he publicly railed against lockdowns and called for a different strategy that was eventually adopted in large part in Florida.

  DeSantis rose to national prominence largely because of how he handled the pandemic in that state, and the governor regularly rails against “Faucism” on the campaign trail. Nonetheless, he’s lagging behind Trump by double digits in each of the early primary states, according to the RealClearPolitics Average.

  “The 21st century. The three biggest events: 9/11 and the wars that followed, the Great Recession, and then COVID,” DeSantis told RCP. The virus, he continued, “had a broader impact than the other two events combined. And yet, here we are. We’re not even discussing that.”

  Polling suggests that the Republican electorate is more concerned with current issues, such as inflation, than a pandemic that began nearly four years ago. Trump’s compounding legal trouble and his vow to deliver “retribution” upon his enemies also seem to overshadow any questions of accountability concerning his handling of the pandemic.

  The Trump campaign did not return a request for comment about Fauci’s testimony. A spokesman for the campaign previously told RCP, however, that anyone criticizing Trump’s handling of COVID “couldn’t manage a Little League baseball team let alone manage a global pandemic crisis caused by China.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 21:40

• Blinken To Israel: Number Of Civilians Killed, 'Particularly Children,' Is 'Far Too High'
  Blinken To Israel: Number Of Civilians Killed, ‘Particularly Children,’ Is ‘Far Too High’

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a press briefing from Israel on Tuesday, after meeting with Israeli leaders including PM Netanyahu and President Herzog, reportedly delivering a message urging restraint. 

  He issued the following blunt but bizarrely understated words: the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high,” Blinken said.

  

  It’s the year 2024 and the top US diplomat just asked America’s closest ally in the Middle East politely to… stop killing so many children.

  “The situation for men, women, and children in Gaza remains dire. Far too many Palestinians have been killed, especially children. Far too many remain incredibly challenged in terms of…access to food, water, medicine, the essentials of life,” the top diplomat described while in Israel.

  He did add this which seemed somewhat in justification of Israeli military actions: “We know that the enemy who hides and fires from schools and hospitals bases is an incredible challenge.”

  “As Israel’s campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF scales down its forces there, we agreed today on a plan for the U.N, to carry out an assessment mission,” Blinken said during his visit

  “It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to the north,” he added, indirectly addressing growing calls from within Israel’s government to encourage a mass migration into other countries.

  According to regional media:

  Blinken said the United States rejected any proposals advocating a resettlement of Palestinians outside Gaza and stressed that the Palestinian Authority has the responsibility to reform itself.

  He said that many countries in the Middle East are ready to invest in the future of Gaza, but only with a clear pathway to a Palestinian state.

  Meanwhile, the top U.S. diplomat also said Washington believes South Africa’s genocide submission against Israel is “meritless.”

  His comments addressing the Hamas ‘day after’ – which has been subject of disagreement between Tel Aviv and Washington of late, included the following: “Many countries in the region are prepared to invest when the conflict is over in [Gaza’s] reconstruction and security,” Blinken said. “But it is essential to them that there also be a clear pathway to the realization of a Palestinian political state.”

  

  This week the Gaza Health Ministry has estimated over 23,000 deaths, mostly civilians, as a result of the IDF air and ground operation to eradicate Hamas. International reports, citing Palestinian sources, have said that some two-thirds of these are women and children.

  Blinken highlighting the plight of Palestinian children in such an unusually frank fashion signals a change in White House messaging. After all, the reality is that children in the Gaza Strip were dying and being wounded at a high rate even from the opening week of the conflict in the wake of the Oct.7 Hamas terror attack. Thus Blinken’s words clearly represent growing albeit very belated pressure from the Biden administration. But it’s too little, too late given the astounding and tragic death toll.

  The White House has also failed to address the real elephant in the room, however: the fact that so many children are dying with American weapons, and this is all being funded by the US taxpayer. Blinken while in Tel Aviv still consistently underscored the long-running administration message, saying the US stands by Israel’s “right to prevent another October 7 from occurring.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 21:20

• FDA Commissioner Promotes Products Off Label, An Illegal Pharma Marketing Scheme Long Criticized By Democrats
  FDA Commissioner Promotes Products Off Label, An Illegal Pharma Marketing Scheme Long Criticized By Democrats

  Authored by Paul Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

  During his first stint as FDA Commissioner during the Obama administration, Dr. Robert Califf proposed allowing companies to advertise their products off-label. This marketing practice is illegal under FDA’s regulations that cover drug advertising, and Dr. Califf received pushback from Senator Ed Markey who sent him a stiff letter demanding that he address off label use of opioids.

  

  “The FDA must not become complicit in the growing prescription fentanyl problem this country is combating,” Senator Markey wrote. Indeed, Pfizer pled guilty to a U.S. criminal charge and paid a record $2.3 billion in 2009 for illegally marketing over a dozen drugs off label. Multiple federal agencies investigated Pfizer at that time, including the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI).

  “We expect this agreement to increase integrity in the marketing of pharmaceuticals,” the Justice Department claimed in the settlement’s announcement.

  When Biden chose Dr. Califf to run the FDA a second time in 2021, The New York Times reported that Obama officials had actually killed Dr. Califf’s attempt to allow increased off label promotion. “[T]he proposal, which many public health experts considered dangerous, was blocked by others in the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with it.”

  But with his critics now in the rearview mirror, Dr. Califf is speeding forward with his “dangerous” proposal. And this time, the Commissioner himself is promoting products off label. A week before the Christmas break, Commissioner Califf posted a message on X, promoting COVID vaccines off label to allegedly protect children against long COVID.

  

  “The FDA-approved and authorized coronavirus vaccines are indicated for active immunization to prevent COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),” an FDA official emailed me. “The vaccines are not approved or authorized as a treatment for long COVID.” In follow up email, FDA clarified that the COVID vaccines are also not approved or authorized to “prevent” long COVID.

  In his promotional post on X, Commissioner Califf linked to a news article in Nature Magazine as proof the vaccines prevent long COVID. And here’s where the story gets even weirder.

  Nature’s news story discusses a small, observational study that had been presented at a conference some months prior and has not been peer reviewed. Even more disturbing, Nature’s reporter supported this slim study with positive quotes sprinkled throughout the article from Dr. Jessica Snowden, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. However, Nature failed to provide readers with one rather important detail: Pfizer has disclosed paying Dr. Snowden to provide marketing talks for their COVID vaccine and she serves on the company’s advisory board. 

  “She clearly should have disclosed her Pfizer funding, especially as her commentary could contribute to increased sales of Pfizer’s vaccines,” said Dr Barbara Mintzes, a professor of evidence-based pharmaceutical policy, at the University of Sydney. “Companies choose who to fund. They don’t fund experts who highlight a product’s limited effectiveness or have serious safety concerns.”

  Science news or pharma advertising?

  The December news article in Nature reported on a presentation given last October at a medical conference and that was led by a medical officer at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study evaluated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines’ impact on children getting long COVID, but relied on self-reports of long COVID, not a physician’s diagnosis. The results that found a positive correlation with vaccination were based off 28 kids who either self-reported or were reported by a parent to have long COVID.

  “This is really important data,” Dr. Snowden told Nature in one of her many quotes littered throughout the article. “This will demonstrate to families how important it is that we protect our kids, not just from acute COVID, but from the longer-term impacts of COVID as well.”

  In a 2018 report, Nature Magazine editor Richard Monastersky stated that Nature was updating their news section’s conflict-of-interest and ethics policies to make them more comprehensive. Last week, I sent several questions to Monastersky asking why Nature had not included Dr. Snowden’s ties to Pfizer and whether Nature reporters are required to look into an experts’ financial ties before quoting them in news pieces.

  Read the rest here… (including details on payments from Pfizer)

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 21:00

• Illegal Aliens Tried Buying Guns 48,000 Times In 25 Years
  Illegal Aliens Tried Buying Guns 48,000 Times In 25 Years

  Over the past 25 years, illegal aliens have attempted to purchase firearms at gun shops just under 48,000 times – only to be denied, according to a group that monitors border security policy.

  

  The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reported on Jan. 2 that the FBI has nearly 14 million records of firearms applications that failed a national background check due to “unique prohibiting events.” Of those, 47,930 denials were issued to illegal aliens according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) between Nov. 1998 and Nov. 2023.

  “While the 13.9 million unique prohibiting events cataloged in the FBI database represent events—not individual illegal aliens—the data point to large numbers of migrants in the market for firearms. Whatever the total may be, one is one too many,” according to FAIR, which added that “the dangers posed by largely unvetted illegal aliens possessing firearms has been vastly exacerbated over the past three years, as the Biden administration has presided over record numbers of new illegal aliens entering our country.”

  “At the same time, federal policies and the proliferation of sanctuary jurisdictions that prohibit the sharing of critical law enforcement information will inevitably result in more Americans falling prey to criminal aliens.”:

  Meanwhile, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported the seizure of 547,610 illegal weapons in 2023 alone, including ammunition, gun parts, scopes, silencers and body armor, the Epoch Times reports. In 2022, there were 1,147,497 weapons seizures.

  “We’ve got plenty of laws; criminals are criminals,” Arizona gun shop owner Charlie Bollenbaugh told the outlet. “They’re going to find ways around them.”

  Mr. Bollenbaugh added that there’s “no real way of telling” who is a U.S. citizen the moment they walk through the door to purchase a gun.

  But there is a legal process to weed out the ineligible buyers, he said.

  In Arizona, as in other states, the gun buyer must first show a valid state driver’s license or government-issued photo ID along with proof of age and residency and have no felony convictions.

  Federal law requires that each buyer fill out and sign a Form 4473 national background check under penalty of perjury. The form is submitted by the gun store electronically through the NICBS, and the results are known within minutes. -Epoch Times

  “If they are legally allowed to purchase a firearm, and they’ve come here correctly, the government tells me to go ahead and proceed,” Bollenbaugh told the Times. “They can’t buy a firearm without going through a valid background check and presenting a government-issued ID.”

  

  More via the Epoch Times;

  In 2019, the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that mandated federal background checks for all legal firearms sales and transfers.

  Included in the bill was a Republican-sponsored amendment that would have required gun dealers to report to federal immigration when an illegal alien attempted to purchase a firearm.

  The provision failed passage in the Senate in a heavily partisan vote.

  “In rejecting this amendment, the Democrats have shown their true colors,” said U.S. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), sponsor of the amendment, in a written statement after the vote.

  “It is clear they are not interested in preventing gun violence or stopping the illegal purchase of firearms, but rather they are only interested in limiting the rights of law-abiding citizens to advance their political agenda.”

  In southern border states such as Texas, crime involving illegal aliens is a serious problem.

  The DHS reported more than 422,000 criminal aliens were booked into Texas jails between June 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2023, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (TDPS).

  

  Nearly 300,000 were classified as illegal aliens by DHS.

  The TDPS added that illegal aliens committed more than 509,000 criminal offenses, including homicide, burglary, drug offenses, theft, sex crimes, and kidnapping.

  In the first few days of 2024, there were 3,104 noncitizen arrests by CBP, 48 involving weapons violations. In 2023, there were 15,267 arrests, with 307 for weapons offenses, according to CBP data.

  Mr. Bollenbaugh said illegal gun purchases by criminals happen “all the time” despite serious efforts by law enforcement to track every firearm transaction and serial number in the United States.

  He said it is illegal for a U.S. citizen to purchase a firearm for a person who is not authorized to own a gun, which includes illegal aliens.

  A gun purchase by proxy is known as “straw purchase,” he said.

  “The definition of a straw purchase is you are knowingly filling out the 4473 and background check because you know the person that wants the gun can’t obtain it legally,” Mr. Bollenbaugh said.

  At MPP Guns in Phoenix, gun manager Henry Escobar said the rules are clear when purchasing a firearm.

  “Our policy here is if you come in with more than one person—two or three people—we’re going to ask everybody for ID,” he said. “Even if they come in with an ID from another state, we’re going to turn them down.”

  He said that many people enter the store simply to inquire about purchasing a gun.

  “We ask if they’re a citizen, from out of state, or a permanent resident,” Mr. Escobar told The Epoch Times.

  While federal background checks work for the most part, he said: “If they come in and lie saying they’re a U.S. citizen, and they fill out the form”—hopefully, “there’s a way for [the ATF] to catch that,” he said.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 20:40

• UMich Now Has Over 500 Jobs Dedicated To DEI, Payroll Exceeds $30 Million
  UMich Now Has Over 500 Jobs Dedicated To DEI, Payroll Exceeds $30 Million

  Authored by Jennifer Karbany via The College Fix,

  The University of Michigan continues to exponentially grow the number of staffers dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, with at least 241 paid employees now focused on DEI and payroll costs exceeding $30 million annually, according to an analysis conducted for The College Fix.

  

  The payroll costs are $23.24 million for salaries and $7.44 million for benefits, or $30.68 million, an amount that would cover in-state tuition and fees for 1,781 undergraduate students.

  Thirteen DEI staff members earn more than $200,000 and 66 earn more than $100,000 when factoring in benefits.

  In addition, 76 faculty or staff members work part-time as “DEI Unit Leads” advancing diversity efforts in one of UM’s 51 schools, colleges, and units, bringing UM’s core DEI headcount to 317, said economist Mark Perry, who conducted the analysis.

  The number of positions at Michigan’s flagship university advancing DEI exceeds more than 500 when including those who work full-time or part-time on DEI and factoring in open and unfilled positions, as well as employees who serve as “DEI Unit Leads” and others who serve on dozens of DEI committees, Perry said.

  “That brings the total number of UM employees who advance DEI on either a paid or unpaid basis to well more than 500 and possibly as high as 600,” said Perry, a paid consultant for The Fix who used public salary and website data for the analysis.

  University of Michigan disputes the findings, arguing in a statement to The College Fix they are “flawed and misleading” since they include employees whose primary duties are not solely DEI-related.

  “Diversity, equity and inclusion are core values at the University of Michigan. As such, there is not a specific budget set aside for diversity outreach and recruitment,” said Colleen Mastony, university spokesperson, in an email Monday to The College Fix.

  “Most employees working on DEI are not solely dedicated to DEI efforts but do so in addition to their other roles and responsibilities.”

  “…The university’s DEI efforts are appropriate to the size, scope, and complexity of our university – spanning the university, including 51 units over our three campuses, our academic medical center, and our over 100,000 students and employees. Although some work is done centrally, much of it is done at the unit and department level,” Mastony said.

  Today, the public university employs at least 241 paid staff members whose main duties are to provide DEI programming and services as a primary job responsibility, according to Perry.

  This list of DEI employees at the University of Michigan compiled by @Mark_J_Perry for @CollegeFix is longer than a @BillAckman tweet: https://t.co/l8Etmh3DMC pic.twitter.com/gjNdg6P2hx

  — Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) January 9, 2024

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

  As part of UM’s ambitious five-year Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) 2.0 Plan, the university’s 19 academic schools and colleges and its 32 non-academic units must now also implement DEI plans. Non-academic units include the school’s three libraries, art museum, botanical gardens, IT department, athletics, development, audit services and more.

  “UM’s five-year diversity central plans are reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s and Communist China’s five-year central plans to achieve ‘Ideal Communist Societies’ which are examples of top-down oppressive bureaucratic blueprints to socially engineer outcomes decided by the top leadership of the dictatorial regimes,” Perry said.

  “UM has become a DEI ideological complex with a university attached,” he said, referring to Warren Buffett’s comment calling GM is a health and benefits company with an auto company attached.

  The $30.68 million cost to fund the 241 DEI employees does not include indirect costs, such as computers, phones, printers, travel expenses, conference expenses and overtime.

  Perry said the full number of DEI positions likely exceeds 500 when taking into account: full-time or part-time DEI staffers at 241; employees who serve as DEI Unit Leads at 76; DEI positions currently open or unassigned, roughly 130; and employees serving on dozens of DEI committees in various departments, schools, colleges, and units at 150 or more.

  DEI staff is well compensated with salaries as high as $402,800 for the university’s chief diversity administrator, Tabbye Chavous Sellers. She is paid almost two times more than the average full professor, about 2.5 times more than the governor, and about three times more than the average assistant or associate professor.

  Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s salary is $159,300, and the average salaries for assistant, associate, and full professors at UM are $129,500, $148,300, and $206,500, respectively.

  The average DEI salary at UM is $96,400; factoring in fringe benefits, 144 DEI employees at UM receive a total compensation of more than $100,000.

  The 2023-24 totals are a huge increase from last year’s figures, which came in at 142 DEI employees at a payroll cost of $18 million annually, a spike that can in part be traced to UM’s recent and sweeping five-year Diversity 2.0 Plan, which “outlines UM’s diverse, inclusive future” over the next five years from 2023 to 2028.

  UM’s new DEI 2.0 plan comes on the heels of its first $85 million 5-year DEI 1.0 Plan from 2016 to 2021. According to the January 2023 column “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of DEI 1.0” in the Michigan Review, that plan failed miserably.

  The independent student newspaper reported that campus climate surveys conducted in 2016 and 2021 found that UM students became less happy since the beginning of DEI 1.0 on nearly every metric.

  The survey results show “DEI 1.0 has been a failure, and it is not because of a lack of resources. If the largest number of diversicrats in the country cannot improve life on campus, there is something wrong at the heart of the effort,” argued then-student Charles Hilu.

  Hilu, a former contributor to The College Fix, said last week the new figures are even more disheartening.

  “Given the program’s track record, it is unfortunate that the DEI bureaucracy is ballooning even further,” he said via email.

  “As I had pointed out before, nearly every measure of student well-being declined after DEI 1.0, and students became less likely to interact with their peers who had different backgrounds,” he said.

  “The first effort certainly did not have a lack of resources. I hope that the University of Michigan has truly assessed why DEI 1.0 yielded the poor results it did, given the amount of money and staff they are now throwing at their diversity programs.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 20:20

• Analysts See "Uranium's Third Bull Market" Through 2024
  Analysts See “Uranium’s Third Bull Market” Through 2024

  So far this week, spot prices for yellowcake – uranium concentrate used in nuclear power generation – reached a new 16-year high, climbing to $92.45 per pound. Reflecting on our December 2020 note to readers in “Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze,” yellowcake prices have risen 217%. 

  The uranium market is only getting hotter, and continued tightness could push prices over $100, analysts from Bank of America and Berenberg Bank wrote in two separate notes. 

  

  BofA’s metals and mining team said tightness in uranium markets could extend well into 2025, indicating that prices could run higher through this year. The team of analysts has increased their uranium spot price price targets to $105 per pound in 2024 and $115 in 2025. 

  They outlined three near-term catalysts that could propel prices higher:

  1. Higher electricity prices make higher uranium prices more absorbable
  2. Investment fund volumes continue to increase
  3. Inventories are lower than previously thought while production slippages also remain a risk

  

  The analysts pointed out: “Uanium’s third bull market set up for a promising 2024.” 

  On a separate note, Berenberg analysts said the requirement for some uranium users to diversify away from Russian supply could be a major price driver. They said prices will likely normalize around $70 per pound for the long term. 

  Soaring prices have buoyed stocks of mining companies like Cameco up nearly 300% since December 2020. The Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM is also up almost 300%. And supplier Uranium Energy Corp is up 416%. 

  

  According to uranium market data firm UxC, uranium demand is surging as contracts signed by utilities reached 160 million pounds last year – the highest annual volume since 2012. 

  “The uranium market is only getting tighter,” Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, told The Wall Street Journal. 

  It only took 13 years after the Fukushima disaster to put nuclear energy back into the spotlight as the world races to decarbonize power grids. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 20:00

• US Appeals Court Blocks California From Banning Guns In Most Public Places
  US Appeals Court Blocks California From Banning Guns In Most Public Places

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

  A U.S. appeals court on Jan. 6 allowed a judge’s ruling that blocked California from enforcing a new gun-control law that bans the carrying of firearms in most public places on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

  

  The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved an order by a different 9th Circuit panel from a week earlier that suspended an injunction issued by a judge who concluded that the Democrat-led state’s law violated the right of citizens to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

  “The administrative stay previously entered is dissolved,” the court wrote in May v. Bonta. “The emergency motion under Circuit Rule 27-3 for a stay pending appeal and for an interim administrative stay is denied pending further order of the court.”

  Last week’s order temporarily stayed the injunction. It allowed the law to take effect on Jan. 1. Gun rights groups then asked the 9th Circuit to reconsider, and on Jan. 6, a different panel of judges dissolved the order, suspending the injunction.

  “So the politicians’ ploy to get around the Second Amendment has been stopped for now,” C.D. Michel, a lawyer for the gun rights groups, said in a statement.

  California’s appeal of the injunction will now be heard in April. The state’s attorney general, in court papers, had argued that “tens of millions of Californians will face a heightened risk of gun violence” if the law were blocked.

  The law was enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in June 2022 that expanded gun rights nationwide. The high court, in that case, struck down New York’s strict gun permit regime and declared for the first time that the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment protects a person’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense, establishing a legal precedent for future cases.

  In December, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney handed down a preliminary injunction against the gun law after he found that it would “unconstitutionally deprive” people with carry permits because they would not then have the “constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.”

  The judge also said California, with the law, intentionally undermined and ignored the landmark 2022 Supreme Court ruling.

  “The law’s coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court,” Judge Carney, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote in his ruling. “The law designates twenty-six categories of places, such as hospitals, public transportation, places that sell liquor for on-site consumption, playgrounds, parks, casinos, stadiums, libraries, amusement parks, zoos, places of worship, and banks, as ‘sensitive places’ where concealed carry permitholders can’t carry their handguns.

  The law, known as SB2, would make “every public place in California into a ‘sensitive place,’ effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public,” he wrote.

  Kostas Moros, a lawyer for one of the plaintiffs in the case—the California Pistol and Rifle Association—told The Reload that the earlier appeals court ruling meant that the “right to carry in California was unconstitutionally eliminated for almost a week.” He hailed the court’s recent decision to block the law.

  “We are relieved the status quo has been restored, and Californians with CCW permits, who are among the most law-abiding people there are, can resume carrying as they have for years,” he said, referring to concealed carry weapon permits.

  In a statement to news outlets on Jan. 6 in response to the court order, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the move is “dangerous” and “puts the lives of Californians on the line,” adding, “We won’t stop working to defend our decades of progress on gun safety in our state.”

  The SB2 law was signed by Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, in September of last year. The 9th Circuit will hear arguments for the case in April.

  Responding to the decision, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, wrote on social media: “We’ve ensured California’s common-sense concealed carry weapons law—prohibiting concealed firearms in sensitive places like playgrounds and hospitals—takes effect tomorrow & while we appeal the lower court’s dangerous decision.”

  Reuters contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 19:40

• Office Vacancies Hit Record High Across US Cities As CRE Downturn Worsens
  Office Vacancies Hit Record High Across US Cities As CRE Downturn Worsens

  Courtesy of the Federal Reserve’s most aggressive interest rate hiking cycle in a generation, a surge in remote work in a post-Covid world, and imploding Democrat-run cities with radical progressives in City Halls who fail to enforce common sense ‘law and order,’ the office sector is reeling and faces an accelerated downturn. 

  New data from Moody’s Analytics shows that 19.6% of office space across major US metro areas was not leased as of the fourth quarter of 2023, exceeding the previous high of 19.3% in the commercial real estate downturn between 1986 and 1991. 

  

  “The bulk of the vacant space are buildings that were built in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s,” Mary Ann Tighe, chief executive of the New York tri-state region at real-estate brokerage CBRE, told The Wall Street Journal. 

  The new record directly reflects the remote and hybrid work trends that have surged since Covid as companies reduce overall corporate footprints.

  

  Kastle Systems, the gold-standard measure of office-occupancy trends via card-swipe data, has yet to recover from pre-Covid levels. 

  

  Another driver of rising office vacancy, but not mentioned in the WSJ report nor other legacy corporate media outlets covering the new Moody’s Analytics data, is that failed social justice reforms in Democrat cities have forced companies to shift operations to safer areas. This is a topic widely ignored by woke journos. 

  

  In a previous report, the Mortgage Bankers Association found that $117 billion in CRE office debt needs to be repaid or refinanced this year. This debt is concentrated in Democrat cities like New York City (Manhattan), San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. 

  

  Unless the Fed aggressively begins cutting rates in March, building owners’ ability to obtain financing for previous loans will have trouble rolling over that debt. 

  This will only mean regional banks with high exposure to the CRE space could face a tsunami of credit losses over delinquent CRE loans.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 19:20

• "We No Longer Need As Many People": Duolingo Fires 10% Of Contractors, Will Replace Them With AI
  “We No Longer Need As Many People”: Duolingo Fires 10% Of Contractors, Will Replace Them With AI

  It’s what Goldman’s head of TMT trading, Peter Callahan, calls the story of the day: almost a year after IBM said it would stop hiring for roles that can be replaced by AI, with Goldman estimating that some 300 million non-menial, highly paid workers could be made redundant thanks to AI (which will automate up to one-fourth of current work tasks)…

  

  … overnight, Bloomberg reported that Duolingo, maker of language-learning software, is cutting 10% of contracted workers while using generative artificial intelligence to create more content, the latest sign that companies are handing off tasks typically handled by (paid) workers to (largely free) AI tools. It is, according to Callahan, one of the first “efficiency gains on the back of A.I” headlines that he recall seeing (“even if this is small in scope, it is a notable datapoint for the GenAI theme.”)

  “We just no longer need as many people to do the type of work some of these contractors were doing. Part of that could be attributed to AI,” a Duolingo spokesperson said, confirming that 10% of contractors were “offboarded.”

  Chief Executive Officer Luis von Ahn said in a November letter to shareholders that the company is using generative AI to produce “new content dramatically faster,” such as the scripts to shows that help teach languages. The company also uses AI to generate voices within the app and has introduced a premium tier, Duolingo Max, with AI-generated feedback and conversations in other languages.

  Naturally, the market rewarded this announcement, pushing DUOL stock 3% higher after more than tripling in 2023. This, of course, guarantees that most publicly-traded companies will follow suit and fire all non-critical workers in coming months, sparking an avalanche of new layoffs and forcing the Fed to actively consider how the coming Universal Basic Income wave will be funded.

  As Bloomberg notes, the intense interest in generative AI has led employee groups and unions to question whether businesses will use the technology as an excuse to reduce their workforce (spoiler alert: they will). A report published in April by the World Economic Forum estimated that AI would cause “significant labor-market disruption” over the next five years, though the net impact may be positive as employers seek workers with more technical skills to navigate the use of the technology. Actually, the net impact will be catastrophic and will lead to mass riots around the world and certainly in China where labor protests just hit a 7 year high in 2023.

  

  Last month, Microsoft responded to those concerns and announced an alliance with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, which is made up of 60 unions that represent 12.5 million workers, to train people about AI and look at how the technology may affect employment.

  At an event announcing the partnership, Microsoft President Brad Smith said the goal is to bring industry and labor to the table to “enhance” the way people work.

  “I can’t sit here and say that AI will never displace a job,” Smith said the event. “I don’t think that would be honest. AI is well-designed to accelerate and eliminate some of the parts of people’s jobs that you might consider to be drudgery.”

  Translation: AI will displace millions of jobs… and since the large language models behind AI are trained using such leftist garbage as WaPo, NYT and Business Insider, the results will be nothing short of hilarious.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 19:20

• Biden Admin Vows To Hunt Down 'All' Jan. 6 Suspects – Even Those Who Weren't There That Day
  Biden Admin Vows To Hunt Down ‘All’ Jan. 6 Suspects – Even Those Who Weren’t There That Day

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration has pledged to continue to pursue and convict all people who broke the law in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incident, including those who never entered the building or who weren’t even present at the U.S. Capitol that day.

  

  Prosecutors have, to date, charged over 1,250 people with various crimes related to Jan. 6, ranging from being present on Capitol grounds without authorization, to assault of a police officer, to seditious conspiracy.

  Former President Donald Trump has said on several occasions that he thinks Jan. 6 detainees are being mistreated by the Biden administration and has vowed to issue pardons for many of them.

  President Trump rallied his base in Iowa on the eve of the Jan. 6 anniversary.

  “The J6 hostages, I call them. Nobody has been treated ever in history so badly as those people,” President Trump said at a rally in Iowa on the eve of the Jan. 6 anniversary, where he pledged to pardon a “large portion” of imprisoned Jan. 6 defendants.

  President Joe Biden, by contrast, last week celebrated the jailing of Jan. 6 defendants in a speech to mark the third anniversary of the Capitol breach.

  “Collectively, to date, they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison,” he said.

  “And what has Trump done? Instead of calling them ‘criminals,’ he’s called these … insurrectionists ‘patriots.’ And he promised to pardon them if he returns to office,” he added.

  ‘All Jan. 6 Perpetrators’ To Be Targeted

  Off the campaign trail, the country’s top prosecutor has made clear that the DOJ under President Biden has no intention of letting Jan. 6 participants off easy—including those who weren’t even there that day.

  “We have initiated prosecutions and secured convictions across a wide range of criminal conduct on January 6, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a speech on Friday.

  Prosecutors have, to date, secured over 890 convictions in connection to the Jan. 6 incident, with Mr. Garland vowing to press ahead to cast the DOJ dragnet widely.

  “Our work continues,” he said. “As I said before, the Justice Department will hold all January 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under the law—whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”

  “We are following the facts and the law, where they lead,” he added.

  

  ‘Prosecutorial Discretion’

  Nearly two-thirds of the 890-plus convicted Jan. 6 participants have received some time in prison.

  The longest prison sentence—22 years—was handed down to Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys national chairman who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for allegedly plotting with others to forcibly prevent the transfer of power between then-President Trump and then-President-elect Joe Biden.

  

  Dozens of Jan. 6 detainees are still languishing in jail awaiting trial three years after the Capitol incident.

  Matt Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who is leading the ongoing Jan. 6 prosecutions alongside special counsel Jack Smith, said last week that the DOJ had so far focused its prosecutorial efforts mostly on those who entered the Capitol or took part in violent acts in and around the building.

  “We have used our prosecutorial discretion to primarily focus on those who enter the building or those who engaged in violent or corrupt conduct on Capitol grounds,” Mr. Graves said.

  “But if a person knowingly entered a restricted area without authorization, they have already committed a federal crime,” he continued.

  “Make no mistake, thousands of people occupied an area that they were not authorized to be present in,” he added.

  

  In light of Mr. Garland’s remarks that the DOJ would continue to hunt down “all Jan. 6 perpetrators” whether or not they were at the Capitol that day, Mr. Graves’s statements reinforce the view that prosecutors intend to expand their dragnet to people who never entered the building—or weren’t even there that day.

  ‘Cast Their Net Far Too Broadly’

  But while the Biden administration seems intent on broadening its hunt of Jan. 6 suspects, a former attorney general said he thinks things have already gone too far.

  Bill Barr, who served as attorney general under President Trump, told Fox News in a recent interview that he believes some people involved in the Jan. 6 incident—like those who attacked police and broke into the Capitol building—deserve to be punished.

  However, Mr. Barr said he believes the DOJ has already cast its Jan. 6 prosecutorial net too widely.

  “There were people that should have been prosecuted,” Mr. Barr said. “But I think they cast their net far too broadly.”

  He said the DOJ under President Biden “has been hounding people that really, you know, just walked into open doors in the Capitol and hung around.”

  “I think they just took it too far,” he said. “But that being said, I don’t minimize what happened up there. While I don’t think it was an insurrection, it clearly was a shameful episode and some of the people involved should be prosecuted.”

  

  Meanwhile, on the same day that the interview with Mr. Barr aired, the FBI announced that it had arrested three “January 6 fugitives,” individuals who were indicted for various alleged crimes committed three years ago at the U.S. Capitol, including assault and resisting arrest, but failed to show up at trial.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 19:00

• Another Hezbollah Senior Commander Reportedly Taken Out In Israeli Airstrike
  Another Hezbollah Senior Commander Reportedly Taken Out In Israeli Airstrike

  Another senior Hezbollah official has been killed in a targeted Israeli drone strike, the day following the killing of elite Hezbollah special forces commander Wissam Hassan Al-Tawil. 

  Tuesday’s strike killed Ali Hussein Barji, widely described as the commander of Hezbollah’s aerial forces in southern Lebanon. He reportedly oversaw Hezbollah’s drone forces, which has sent hundreds of explosive-laden UAVs as well as drones for for the collection of surveillance over Northern Israel in the last months.

  While the death was widely reported in international media, Hezbollah later in the evening denied that Barji had been killed. According to Reuters, Hezbollah denies the Israel Defense Forces killed Ali Hussein Barji, the terror group’s drone commander in southern Lebanon, saying in a statement that “the commander was never subjected to any assassination attempt as the enemy claimed.”

  

  The attack reportedly happened in the town of Khirbet Selm, within hours before Al-Tawil’s funeral procession. Israeli media had characterized the hit as direct retaliation for an earlier drone attack on a northern Israeli base:

  Barji was killed hours after an explosives-laden drone launched by Hezbollah blew up in the IDF Northern Command headquarters in Safed. Barji was involved in the attack on the base.

  Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, which struck a major IDF command center, and said it had launched “a number of explosive attack drones” at the base in response to the alleged Israeli assassinations of al-Tawil on Monday and top Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon last week.

  An Israeli government spokesman has complained that “Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a totally unnecessary war.” The spokesman, Eylon Levy, said in a Monday press briefing, “We are now at a fork in the road.”

  Tuesday saw additional IDF airstrikes in various parts of south Lebanon. The rapid and growing pace of the tit-for-tat, with major events and assassinations now occurring daily, suggests an all-out war could be around the corner.

  But by almost all accounts of military observers and regional monitors, Hezbollah is much more formidable that Hamas, having several times the military capability to sustain a fight with the Israeli army in terms of manpower and weaponry.

  #Hezbollah claims it responded to the killing of #Hamas al-Arouri, and the killing of one of Wassim al-Tawil (one of the commanders of the Radwan force), by firing drones at the Israeli military’s northern command HQ in Tsfat.

  One impact has been reported. pic.twitter.com/ARLatCcjIb

  — Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) January 9, 2024

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

  A full Israel-Hezbollah war would be a nightmare for the whole region, and would also drag the country of Lebanon into further suffering, amid the severe economic crisis of the last few years. Iran would also likely get more deeply involved.

  If things slide to that point, among Israel’s first targets would likely be Beirut International Airport, which is precisely what happened in the 2006 war.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 18:40

• Trans Professor With 'Be Gay, Do Crimes' Tattoo Appointed To WHO Taskforce
  Trans Professor With ‘Be Gay, Do Crimes’ Tattoo Appointed To WHO Taskforce

  Authored by Micaiah Bilger via The College Fix,

  Law professor will help create health guidelines for ‘trans, gender diverse people’

  A Canadian transgender professor who sports a “be gay, do crimes” tattoo recently was appointed to a World Health Organization group tasked with developing healthcare guidelines for “trans and gender diverse people.”

  Florence Ashley, an assistant law professor at the University of Alberta, is one of 21 individuals on the new taskforce, and about half of them identify as transgender, The Post Millennial reports.

  Ashley uses “they, them, that, bitch” pronouns, according to the report.

  

  Scheduled to meet in February, their goal is to develop international guidelines that will increase “access and utilization of quality and respectful health services by trans and gender diverse people,” according to a Dec. 18 announcement from the WHO.

  The Post Millennial reports more:

  The group includes two former presidents of WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which in their latest guidelines stated there should be no age-limit on sex changes for minors.

  Ashley, a criminal law assistant professor at the University of Alberta, is on board with that, believing that “puberty blockers ought to be treated as the default option” for all minors, regardless of gender identity, so that kids can “choose” their gender instead of growing up naturally and without intervention because natural development “strongly favours cis embodiement by raising the psychological and medical toll of transitioning.”

  Ashley also has told children on TikTok to “be gay and do crime,” according to the X account Libs of TikTok.

  After the comments sparked backlash on social media, the law professor got a “be gay, do crimes” tattoo to “be gay and do crime even harder,” The Post Millennial‘s Libby Emmons wrote Sunday.

  In which a criminal law professor from Alberta who was just appointed by the World Health Organization retaliated against mean tweets from Jordan Peterson and Libs of TikTok by getting a tattoo saying “be gay, do crimes.”

  pic.twitter.com/Haj0DcRiy9

  — Libby Emmons (@libbyemmons) January 7, 2024

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

  The new WHO taskforce that Ashley serves on is a project of the WHO Departments of Gender, Rights and Equity – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Global HIV, Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections Programmes, and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research.

  When the group meets, the WHO states that they will work to develop guidelines in five areas, including the “provision of gender-affirming care,” “health workers education and training for the provision of gender-inclusive care,” and “legal recognition of self-determined gender identity.”

  According to The Post Millennial, this means “sex change surgeries for all people, including minors,” “medical staff using pronouns, encouraging sex change drugs and surgeries,” “eliminating sex-segregated domestic violence and rape crisis centers,” and more.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 18:20

• Claudine Gay Is Only Digging Deeper: Victor Davis Hanson
  Claudine Gay Is Only Digging Deeper: Victor Davis Hanson

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via RealClear Wire,

  It is understandable that Claudine Gay is furious over her forced resignation, her calamitous fall from grace, and the public consensus about the great damage done to Harvard by her presidency.

  

  But still, playing the wounded fawn is no excuse or defense.

  Thus Claudine Gay’s recent New York Times disingenuous op-ed alleging racism as the prime cause of her career demise was, to quote Talleyrand, “worse than a crime, it was a blunder.” And her blame-gaming will only hurt her cause and reinforce the public’s weariness with such boilerplate and careerist resorts to racism where it does not exist.

  Gay knows that her meteoric career trajectory through prestigious Phillips Academy, Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard was not symptomatic of systemic racism, but rather just the opposite – in large part through institutional efforts to show special concern, allowances, and deference due to her race and gender.

  And she knows well that her forced resignation was not caused by a conspiracy of conservative activists. It came at the request also of liberal op-ed writers in now embarrassed left-wing megaphones like the New York Times and the Washington Post, black intellectuals, and academics – and donors who usually identify, like the vast majority of Harvard philanthropists, as liberal Democrats.

  Gay knows, too, that in her now notorious congressional testimony, had she just offered an independent assessment of the epidemic of antisemitism on her campus and a Harvard plan to stop it (rather than joining in the finger-in-the-wind groupthink of the other two presidents), and had she not been guilty of long-standing, serial, and flagrant plagiarism, she would still have her job.

  Gay knows that other white university presidents have recently been forced to resign for far less culpable behavior than her own. Pennsylvania president Liz Magill was forced to quit after her Dec. 5 seeming inability or unwillingness to act against blatant antisemitic speech and conduct on her own campus, or Stanford’s president Marc Tessier-Lavigne for co-authoring, some decades earlier, scientific papers whose results were not always based on authenticated data.

  Again, as for Gay’s insinuations of a cabal that took her down, she also knows that such a charge is no more true or false than the public outrage, both liberal and conservative, over Magill’s obtuseness, or the largely left-wing effort to remove the white male Tessier-Lavigne.

  Gay knows that she herself has disciplined and censored lots of Harvard professors, among them preeminent black scholars, such as Roland Fryer and Ronald Sullivan, on speculative allegations far less egregious than her own serial plagiarism and inconsistent policies of addressing “hate speech.” Did anyone suggest she was then a “racist”?

  Gay knows that as president she oversaw a code of behavior that routinely severely disciplined students, staff, and professors for plagiarism of a nature far less serial and systematic than her own.

  Gay indeed knows that her plagiarism was far more serious than suggested by her half-hearted defense of her scholarship (“I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others”).

  In fact, when anyone – again and again – copies word-for-word whole paragraphs without attribution or quotation marks, or lifts entire sentences and appropriates the thoughts of another without sufficient footnotes, that is precisely “misrepresentation” and claiming “credit” where credit is not due. If a Harvard president and full professor makes such a defense of intellectual theft, what will it say in the future about Harvard?

  Gay knows that her claim of being proactive in correcting some lifted passages was not proactive at all. It was entirely reactive and came only in response to criticism of her scholarly methods.

  Gay knows that she has done irrevocable damage to Harvard; given the Harvard Corporation, its legal team, its 700 supportive faculty letter-signers, and its satellite freelancers leave to embarrass themselves further; and gravely eroded the institution’s reputation and credibility by going out of their way to defend the indefensible solely on her behalf:

  • By threatening legal action against the New York Post for airing the legitimate charges of plagiarism
  • By creating a new, ad hoc vocabulary to legitimize her plagiarism (“duplicative language”/“missteps”)
  • By also echoing her charges of racism (and in surreal fashion without any self-awareness that if such charges were true, then Harvard would not have forced her to resign or at least would have refused her resignation)
  • By claiming that anonymous complaints of her intellectual theft were somehow illegitimate by virtue of their whistleblower status
  • By absurdly insinuating that plagiarism is not plagiarism if the plagiarized does not complain

  There was one key issue that Gay neither raised nor much less resolved: Given that now Professor Gay has made no effort to explain item by item all the allegations of decades-long and habitual plagiarism, does she feel now exempt from such charges as a Harvard professor of political science?

  And if so, is her faculty exemption of the sort usually accorded other professors and students under similar suspicion of plagiarism?

  In the end, was it really asking too much of a Harvard president just to do two things? 1) Explain to Congress why there was a problem of antisemitism at Harvard, and then outline the concrete steps she would take to stop the spread of growing antisemitic speech and conduct at her campus, and 2) Don’t plagiarize the work of other scholars?

  This article originally appeared on X, formerly Twitter, Jan. 4, 2024.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 01/09/2024 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• CNN Admits All Gaza Coverage Is Run Past Team Under Israeli Military Censor
  CNN Admits All Gaza Coverage Is Run Past Team Under Israeli Military Censor

  Authored by Julia Conley via Common Dreams,

  CNN has long been criticized by media analysts and journalists for its deference to the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in its coverage of the occupied Palestinian territories, and the cable network admitted days ago that it follows a protocol that could give Israeli censors influence over its stories.

  A spokesperson for the network confirmed to The Intercept that its news coverage about Israel and Palestine is run through and reviewed by the CNN Jerusalem bureau—which is subject to the IDF’s censor.

  

  The censor restricts foreign news outlets from reporting on certain subjects of its choosing and outright censors articles or news segments if they don’t meet its guidelines.

  Other news organizations often avoid the censor by reporting certain stories about the region through their news desks outside of Israel, The Intercept reported.

  “The policy of running stories about Israel or the Palestinians past the Jerusalem bureau has been in place for years,” the spokesperson told the outlet. “It is simply down to the fact that there are many unique and complex local nuances that warrant extra scrutiny to make sure our reporting is as precise and accurate as possible.”

  The spokesperson added that CNN does not share news copy with the censor and called the network’s interactions with the IDF “minimal.” But James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, said the IDF’s approach to censoring media outlets is “Israel’s way of intimidating and controlling news.”

  A CNN staffer who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity confirmed that the network’s longtime relationship with the censor has ensured CNN’s coverage of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and attacks in the West Bank since October 7 favors Israel’s narratives.

  “Every single Israel-Palestine-related line for reporting must seek approval from the [Jerusalem] bureau—or, when the bureau is not staffed, from a select few handpicked by the bureau and senior management—from which lines are most often edited with a very specific nuance,” the staffer said.

  Jerusalem bureau chief Richard Greene announced it had expanded its review team to include editors outside of Israel, calling the new policy “Jerusalem SecondEyes.” The expanded review process was ostensibly put in place to bring “more expert eyes” to CNN’s reporting particularly when the Jerusalem news desk is not staffed.

  In practice, the staff member told The Intercept, “‘War-crime’ and ‘genocide’ are taboo words. Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as ‘blasts’ attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed.”

  Meanwhile, reporters are under intensifying pressure to question anything they learn from Palestinian sources, including casualty statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

  The Ministry of Health is run by Hamas, which controls Gaza’s government. The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said in October, as U.S. President Joe Biden was publicly questioning the accuracy of the ministry’s reporting on deaths and injuries, that its casualty statistics have “proven consistently credible in the past.”

  Despite this, CNN’s senior director of news standards and practices, David Lindsey, told journalists in a November 2 memo that “Hamas representatives are engaging in inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda… We should be careful not to give it a platform.”

  Another email sent in October suggested that the network aimed to present the Ministry of Health’s casualty figures as questionable, with the News Standards and Practices division telling staffers, “Hamas controls the government in Gaza and we should describe the Ministry of Health as ‘Hamas-controlled’ whenever we are referring to casualty statistics or other claims related to the present conflict.”

  WHETHER REPORTING FROM the Middle East, the United States, or anywhere else across the globe, every CNN journalist covering Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review by the news organization’s bureau in Jerusalem prior to publication…
  https://t.co/TmgnlXncK0

  — Alice Rothchild, MD (@AliceRothchild) January 8, 2024

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

  Newsroom employees were advised to “remind our audiences of the immediate cause of this current conflict, namely the Hamas attack and mass murder and kidnap of Israeli civilians” on October 7.

  At least 22,600 people have been confirmed killed in Gaza and 57,910 have been wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. Thousands more are feared dead under the rubble left behind by airstrikes. In Israel, the death toll from Hamas’ attack stands at 1,139.

  Jim Naureckas, editor of the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, noted that the Israeli government is controlling journalists’ reporting on Gaza as it’s been “credibly accused of singling out journalists for violent attacks in order to suppress information.”

  “To give that government a heightened role in deciding what is news and what isn’t news is really disturbing,” he told The Intercept. Meanwhile, pointed out author and academic Sunny Singh, even outside CNN, “every bit of reporting on Gaza in Western media outlets has been given unmerited weight which not granted to Palestinian reporters.”

  “Western media—not just CNN—has been pushing Israeli propaganda all through” Israel’s attacks, said Singh.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 23:40

• Secretary Of Defense Lloyd Austin Must Resign
  Secretary Of Defense Lloyd Austin Must Resign

  Authored by Joe Buccino via RealClear Wire,

  The news that the U.S. Department of Defense failed to inform the American public that its Secretary of Defense was hospitalized in Walter Reed for four days represents a stunning breach of transparency standards. It is also a measure of reputational damage from which Secretary Lloyd Austin will never recover. He must be forced to resign.

  

  The original admission – dropped at the end of a Friday to minimize exposure – that the Secretary received multi-day treatment for an unidentified elective surgery introduced immediate and intense scrutiny from national security reporters. It drew a formal admonishment from the Pentagon press.

  The issue may have died there, but the subterfuge further grew the story. Additional reporting revealed some critical details not released by the Pentagon in its Friday announcement: Austin was in in-patient intensive care, generally reserved for those in immediate danger. Meanwhile, his Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, was vacationing in Puerto Rico.

  Many questions now must be answered: Who was adjudicating the Pentagon’s support for the war in Gaza? Who was coordinating with Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant on behalf of the U.S. military? Who approved the Jan. 4 strike into Baghdad that killed a militia leader believed responsible for attacks on American troops? Who coordinated that strike and its aftermath with defense officials in the Middle East? These are the kinds of actions that require leadership from inside the Pentagon. Why did the Deputy Secretary of Defense remain on vacation with the Secretary incapacitated?

  Further, still – what is the health status of our Secretary of Defense? Only a severe condition would introduce multi-day hospitalization amidst multiple crises in the Middle East, a log-jammed war in Ukraine, and new Chinese threats against Taiwan. The statement Austin released late Saturday in an attempt to tamp down the controversy reveals he is “on the mend” – whatever that means – and looks forward to “returning to the Pentagon soon.” How long is he out? This seems much more serious than elective surgery – the line the Pentagon press officers are sticking with. What is his medical status at age 70?

  More questions still: What did the Pentagon press officers know, and when did they know it? Surely, they are aware of the protocol for publicly announcing medical procedures for cabinet officials. Who was in on the deception? The Secretary of Defense travels with an entire operations center around him at all times: note-takers, communications experts, and intelligence analysts. These people all report to defense officials, who report to other defense officials. It’s hard to believe the Pentagon’s press office was unaware that the Big Boss was in the hospital. In fact, hiding the Secretary of Defense during a tumultuous work week for the American military surely involved the collusion of multiple senior officials.

  The Pentagon could have avoided all these questions and all of this controversy with a press statement upon Austin’s entering the hospital and updates throughout. U.S. Air Force Major General Pat Ryder held two press briefings during Austin’s hospital stay – he could have provided updates on his boss’ condition from behind the podium. More importantly, he should have told us who was running the Pentagon. It’s unclear how the nation is to believe anything coming out of the Pentagon press office in the coming months.

  The American Secretary of Defense walks the earth with the most essential information any of us can have. He renders decisions on behalf of this country that kill many people in other countries. Lloyd Austin represents American power to much of the world. He runs an enterprise that costs American taxpayers north of $840 billion and employs more than three million workers. We get to know where our Secretary of Defense is at all times. We get to know when he’s on vacation. We get to know when he’s in the hospital.

  Lloyd Austin cannot recover from this breach of trust. In fact, he cannot be trusted any longer. If he wants to keep his hospital visits private, he should be allowed to do so – as a private citizen.

  ---

  Joe Buccino is a retired U.S. Army Colonel public affairs officer and the former communications director of U.S. Central Command. He also served as the spokesman for Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 23:00

• 3-In-4 Asians Expect China To Keep Slowing, & An End To Japan's NIRP In 2024
  3-In-4 Asians Expect China To Keep Slowing, & An End To Japan’s NIRP In 2024

  A survey among Nikkei Asia readers shows what events respondents from the region find most likely to occur in 2024.

  

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, in the eyes of three quarters of Asians, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is sure to extend his time in office in a year that observers have called one of the most important for elections ever.

  But respondents were even more sure that the Japanese leadership would be forced to abandon its zero interest policy after almost a decade of negative rates. While in Europe and the U.S., the legacy of the global financial crisis of 2008 has been left behind, Japan has refused to follow suit despite the global inflation crisis. The country might be an outlier in terms of consumer price increases – due to businesses’ timid growth strategies and companies and consumers rejecting price increases alike – but 2024 might be the year the facade finally cracks.

  Another three quarters of respondents to the Nikkei survey see China’s GDP growth continuing to stay behind former boom years.

  Less popular but still intriguing predictions for Asia’s 2024 include North Korea’s first nuclear test since 2017 and China debuting a 5-nanometer chip after August’s reveal of the Chinese 7-nanometer chip caused a sensation. Both events are thought likely by 57 percent of respondents.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Around half of survey takers predict that Chinese electric car maker BYD will enter the U.S. market to challenge rival Tesla. In Q4 of 2023, the company shipped more EVs than Tesla for the first time – supporting the hunch of the respondents who answered the question in December before this information was revealed in early 2024.

  Somewhat fewer – around 45 percent – of respondents expect 2024 to see more legalizations of same-sex marriage in Asia. Out of all that found this likely, half expect new laws to be passed in Thailand, while 20 percent thought they would be introduced in Japan.

  Another prediction for outside of Asia was made on the re-election of former U.S. President Donald Trump in the super election year of 2024. More than 60 percent of Asian respondents believe Trump will prevail in November.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 22:40

• Did Loosening Gun Control Cause A Nationwide Drop In Homicides?
  Did Loosening Gun Control Cause A Nationwide Drop In Homicides?

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  According to a recent study, the homicide rate in the United States plummeted in 2023. The drop was so drastic in fact, the study’s author was quoted saying that this is likely one of the fastest declines in homicides ever recorded.

  But is there a reason for the decline? We think so. It’s possible that the removal of gun control may have played a critical role in this decline.

  

  In 2022, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in the case NYSRPA v. Bruen.

  If you need to get more familiar with Bruen, the case focused on the petitioners’ struggle to obtain a concealed carry permit in New York. Obtaining a New York concealed carry permit was notoriously hard to achieve because of New York’s restrictive “may issue” system for permitting.

  In the Bruen ruling, the Supreme Court removed the State’s power to refuse concealed firearm permits to law-abiding citizens. Following this ruling, there was a massive surge in concealed carry permit applications in states known for tight regulations, like Maryland, California, and New York.

  

  With the increase in concealed carry permits, criminals no longer could have confidence that their victims would be unarmed. This may likely have contributed to the drop in homicides nationwide.

  In addition, more states like Nebraska and Alabama adopted constitutional carry laws in 2023, while Florida passed a law allowing permitless carry. This all happened while the homicide rate nationwide drastically decreased.

  Honestly, this goes to show how backwards gun control is in the first place. Violent crime fell even while gun control restrictions were being loosened!

  In contrast, in areas with very strict gun control, like Washington, D.C., we’ve seen a different trend: the homicide rate went up by 36%. Perhaps it’s time for these places to rethink their laws and give citizens a better chance to defend themselves against criminals.

  Meanwhile, California, the State that prides itself on being the most restrictive State for gun ownership in the country had the first mass shooting of 2024 according to the gun control group The Gun Violence Archive.

  

  One of our cases, May v. Bonta, focuses on California’s efforts to further restrict concealed carry. The State argued that allowing concealed firearms endangers public safety. How could this be true with millions of Americans already armed and carrying every day?

  Concealed Carry permit holders are some of the most law-abiding groups in the nation. The idea that those who have obtained government-issued permits to carry firearms would make the country less safe is not only misleading but lacks credibility.

  🚨 HUGE WIN against California gun control ⤵️ https://t.co/a6ZtcXQoYe

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) January 7, 2024

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

  Either way, we’re dedicated to ensuring that your Second Amendment right is unimpeded by the tyrants in governments like California and New York with our fights in the Courts and Congress.

  Watch: More Guns, Less Crime

  *   *   *

  We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 22:20

• IRS: Venmo, PayPal And CashApp Freelancers Face 2024 Reporting Requirements
  IRS: Venmo, PayPal And CashApp Freelancers Face 2024 Reporting Requirements

  After delaying for two years, the IRS is planning to finally start implementing its new 1099-K reporting requirement for anyone earning income via third-party payment apps such as PayPal, Venmo, Zelle or Cash App.

  

  The rule, which was originally slated to take effect in 2022 and was delayed for 2023, means that a 1099-K form “could be sent to anyone” using those services who makes over $600 per year, according to the agency.

  “We spent many months gathering feedback from third-party groups and others, and it became increasingly clear we need additional time to effectively implement the new reporting requirements,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel several weeks ago in delaying the rule again.

  Prior to the rule, third-party apps only sent 1099-K forms to people who received $20,000 or more in commercial payments across more than 200 transactions.

  The IRS has delayed this new reporting rule for two years in a row to give payment apps more time to prepare for the change. One sticking point: Distinguishing between taxable and nontaxable transactions through third-party apps isn’t always easy. For example, money your roommate sends you through Venmo for dinner is not taxable. Money received for graphic design work you tackled is. The IRS paused implementation to avoid confusion and incorrect earnings being reported. –CNET

  The IRS will begin with a phased rollout, requiring payment apps to report income by freelancers and business owners with earnings over $5,000 vs. $600 in the hopes that raising the threshold will reduce ‘noise’ from inaccuracies, while eventually working towards the $600 minimum. 

  “Taking this phased-in approach is the right thing to do for the purposes of tax administration, and it prevents unnecessary confusion,” said Werfel. “It’s clear that an additional delay for tax year 2023 will avoid problems for taxpayers, tax professionals and others in this area.”

  As the Epoch Times notes further; A provision in the American Rescue Plan requires users to report transactions through payment apps, including Venmo, Cash App and others, for goods and services meeting or exceeding $600 in a calendar year. Before that provision—and now for this year—the reporting requirement applied only to selling goods and services to taxpayers who received over $20,000 and had over 200 transactions.

  “The Form 1099-K could be sent to anyone who’s using payment apps or online marketplaces to accept payments for selling goods or providing services. This includes people with side hustles, small businesses, crafters and other sole proprietors,” the IRS said. “However, it could also include casual sellers who sold personal stuff like clothing, furniture and other household items that they paid more than they sold it for.”

  “Reporting requirements do not apply to personal transactions such as birthday or holiday gifts, sharing the cost of a car ride or meal, or paying a family member or another for a household bill. These payments are not taxable and should not be reported on Form 1099-K,” the agency added.

  There has been confusion about what taxpayers should do if they sell an item at a loss. Those scenarios shouldn’t be taxed but may still generate forms to send to taxpayers.

  “Selling items at a loss is not actually taxable income but would have generated many Forms 1099-K for many people with the $600 threshold. This complexity contributed to the IRS decision to delay the additional year to provide the agency time to update its operations to make it easier for taxpayers to report the amounts on their forms,” the agency said.

  Starting this month, the IRS will plan a phased rollout of the plan and will require third-party payment apps and services to report business and freelancer earnings of more than $5,000 rather than $600, according to the IRS.

  “This means that for 2023 and prior years, payment apps and online marketplaces are only required to send out Forms 1099-K to taxpayers who receive over $20,000 and have over 200 transactions. For tax year 2024, the IRS plans for a threshold of $5,000 to phase in reporting requirements,” said the agency.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 22:00

• Jim Bovard: Biden Says Vote For Me Or Hitler Wins
  Jim Bovard: Biden Says Vote For Me Or Hitler Wins

  Authored by Jim Bovard,

  “Endless hysteria will keep you free,” said none of the Founding Fathers. But President Joe Biden missed that message before his absurdly overheated speech last Friday near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Biden draped himself in Revolutionary War virtue as he demanded that Americans quiver in fear at the prospect of his reign ending. Biden invoked the third anniversary of the January 6 Capitol clash to effectively call for canceling the 2024 presidential election.

  At a minimum, Biden wants to turn the November election into a referendum on Adolf Hitler. Biden boasted, “We are still a nation that gives hate no safe harbor.” A few minutes before that uplifting assertion, Biden accused Donald Trump of “echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany.” CNN reported last week that Biden campaign aides plan to go “full Hitler” on Trump, making “a direct comparison to the Nazi leader rather than couching their attacks by saying Trump ‘parroted’ him.” A few weeks ago, the Biden campaign posted a graphic on Twitter comparing Trump and Hitler’s rhetoric.

  Biden continually equated democracy with freedom. And whatever is good for democracy is “close enough for government work” to freedom. Biden declared, “Democracy means having the freedom to speak your mind.” Unless Team Biden disapproves of your thoughts, of course.

  

  Biden neglected to explain why his vision of democracy justifies the near-total suppression of freedom of speech for his opponents. On July 4, Federal Judge Terry Doughty condemned the Biden administration for potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history,” and a federal appeals court condemned Team Biden for “suppressing millions of protected free-speech postings by American citizens”—mostly by conservatives and Republicans.

  “If only Uncle Joe had known about that abuse,” right? Like hell. Biden’s Justice Department is fighting tooth and nail at the Supreme Court to preserve his power to secretly censor anyone the feds claim is spouting disinformation, perhaps including denying that Biden is God’s gift to America.

  Another key to Biden’s vision of democracy is that the president is entitled to imprison peaceful protestors who opposed him. Biden proved the villainy of Trump supporters by touting case numbers from January 6: “Since that day more than 1,200 people have been charged for the assault on the capitol, and nearly 900 of them have been convicted and they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison.”

  Biden neglected to quote the bombshell Washington Post report today revealing that vast numbers of the January 6 charges have been crap cases. Federal judges have rejected Biden Justice Department sentencing demands in almost 90% of the January 6 cases—an astounding record. If those cases were not being tried by juries overstocked with federal employees and NPR devotees, the prosecutions would have crashed and burned long ago.

  The Supreme Court may obliterate many of the cases. More than 320 of the convictions against J-6 protestors hinge on a bizarre contortion of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law enacted after corporations destroyed documents sought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

  “The average sentence for those convicted of obstructing an official proceeding has been 39 months,” the Post reported. Former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi warns that the Supreme Court taking that case is a “red flag and a loud gong” because that law was the “North Star” used by prosecutors. If the Supreme Court strikes down the Biden twist of the 2002 law, that will make the January 6 prosecutions look like one of the worst witch hunts in American history.

  Yet, according to Team Biden, the real problem is that not enough lives have been ruined for sinful thoughts on January 6. Last Thursday, Matthew Graves, Biden’s chief prosecutor for the District of Columbia, issued a warning of potentially thousands of more January 6 indictments: “If a person knowingly entered a restricted area [near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021] without authorization, they already committed a federal crime. Make no mistake: Thousands of people occupied that area that they were not authorized to be present in in the first place.” Talking about hounding people who merely were in the general vicinity of the Capitol confirms that for Team Biden, “Trespassing plus thought crimes equals terrorism.”

  Actually, Biden’s FBI already classifies all the people arrested for January 6 Capitol clash offenses as domestic terrorists—even people busted for “parading without a permit.” The FBI presumes that any American suspected of supporting the January 6, 2021 protests forfeited his constitutional rights. An FBI whistleblower revealed in congressional testimony in May 2023 that FBI headquarters pressured FBI agents to treat anyone who attended the January 6 protests as a criminal suspect. Roughly 2,000 pro-Trump protestors (including an unknown number of undercover agents and informants) entered the Capitol that day. But an FBI analyst exploited the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to unjustifiably conduct warrantless searches on 23,132 Americans citizens suspected of January 6 offenses “to find evidence of possible foreign influence, although the analyst conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence,” according to FISA Chief Judge Rudolph Contreras.

  Biden assured the audience that “we still believe that no one, not even the president, is above the law.” Okay, but what if the president or the vice president uses the names Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware as email aliases to hustle business deals for a family member? Is it OK for them to slip the law then?

  The only way to assume that Biden is not “above the law” is to assume that his decrees alone are the law. The Supreme Court struck down his COVID vaccine mandate, his moratorium for evicting deadbeat renters, his $500 billion federal student loan forgiveness scheme, and numerous other Biden policies.

  Joe Biden is calling Trump a “dictator” while simultaneously supporting his chief political opponent getting kicked off the ballot pic.twitter.com/dER9htucqu

  — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 5, 2024

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

  Biden spent half an hour fearmongering and then closed by promising “freedom from fear.” This is the famous Biden two-step—demagoguing to his heart’s content and then closing with a few schmaltzy uplift lines, entitling the media to re-christen him as an idealist.

  Biden castigated Trump as the “Election Denier in Chief,” a new offense not yet been codified in the statute book. Biden endlessly warned that Trump posed a deadly threat to both freedom and democracy. Biden campaign masterminds were clever enough to permit an unknown local politician to deliver the “takeaway” from the day’s events. Biden was preceded at the podium by Dauphin County commissioner candidate Justin Douglass, who proclaimed that “Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger” to democracy. Since Trump is the ultimate enemy of the Constitution, anything that Biden and his campaign does to banish Trump from the ballot will be pro-democracy.

  Obviously, if Americans value democracy, then the presidential candidate favored by the most voters in recent polls must not be allowed on the ballot. Team Biden favors a version of “Guardian Democracy” where voters are only permitted to cast ballots for candidates that the ruling class approves. This is part and parcel with the Democratic Party’s plan to let all future elections be determined by ballot harvesting and tsunamis of unverified mail-in ballots.

  Why should we believe that democracy dies unless Biden gets four more years to violate the Constitution, censor and jail his opponents, and domineer practically every aspect of Americans’ lives (“step away from that gas stove before we have to hurt you”)?  As Thomas Jefferson declared long ago, “An elective despotism is not the government we fought for.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 21:40

• Family Of Ashli Babbitt Files $30 Million Wrongful-Death Action
  Family Of Ashli Babbitt Files $30 Million Wrongful-Death Action

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  The long-awaited tort action from the family of Ashli Babbitt has now been filed in Southern California. Babbitt was shot and killed on Jan. 6th and her family is seeking $30 million in a wrongful death action.

  Equally important, the lawsuit could force additional answers to why Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd shot and killed the unarmed protester as she attempted to climb through a window near the House Chamber.

  

  I have previously raised concerns over the shooting as conflicting with governing standards on the use of lethal force.

  I also noted contradictions in Byrd’s own statements and the government’s conclusion that this was a justified killing.

  The complaint below adds some troubling facts to these prior concerns.

  Babbitt, 35, was an Air Force veteran and Trump supporter who participated in the riot three years ago.

  She was clearly committing criminal acts of trespass, property damage, and other offenses.  However, the question is whether an officer is justified in shooting a protester when he admits that he did not see any weapon before discharging his weapon.

  Just to recap what we previously discussed in the earlier column:

  When protesters rushed to the House chamber, police barricaded the chamber’s doors; Capitol Police were on both sides, with officers standing directly behind Babbitt. Babbitt and others began to force their way through, and Babbitt started to climb through a broken window. That is when Byrd killed her.

  At the time, some of us familiar with the rules governing police use of force raised concerns over the shooting. Those concerns were heightened by the DOJ’s bizarre review and report, which stated the governing standards but then seemed to brush them aside to clear Byrd.

  The DOJ report did not read like any post-shooting review I have read as a criminal defense attorney or law professor. The DOJ statement notably does not say that the shooting was clearly justified. Instead, it stressed that “prosecutors would have to prove not only that the officer used force that was constitutionally unreasonable, but that the officer did so ‘willfully.’” It seemed simply to shrug and say that the DOJ did not believe it could prove “a bad purpose to disregard the law” and that “evidence that an officer acted out of fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or even poor judgment cannot establish the high level of intent.”

  While the Supreme Court, in cases such as Graham v. Connor, has said that courts must consider “the facts and circumstances of each particular case,” it has emphasized that lethal force must be used only against someone who is “an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and … is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Particularly with armed assailants, the standard governing “imminent harm” recognizes that these decisions must often be made in the most chaotic and brief encounters.

  Under these standards, police officers should not shoot unarmed suspects or rioters without a clear threat to themselves or fellow officers. That even applies to armed suspects who fail to obey orders. Indeed, Huntsville police officer William “Ben” Darby was convicted for killing a suicidal man holding a gun to his own head. Despite being cleared by a police review board, Darby was prosecuted, found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison, even though Darby said he feared for the safety of himself and fellow officers. Yet law professors and experts who have praised such prosecutions in the past have been conspicuously silent over the shooting of an unarmed woman who had officers in front of and behind her on Jan. 6.

  Byrd went public soon after the Capitol Police declared “no further action will be taken” in the case. He proceeded to demolish the two official reviews that cleared him.

  Byrd described how he was “trapped” with other officers as “the chants got louder” with what “sounded like hundreds of people outside of that door.” He said he yelled for all of the protesters to stop: “I tried to wait as long as I could. I hoped and prayed no one tried to enter through those doors. But their failure to comply required me to take the appropriate action to save the lives of members of Congress and myself and my fellow officers.”

  Byrd could just as well have hit the officers behind Babbitt, who was shot while struggling to squeeze through the window.

  Of all of the lines from Byrd, this one stands out: “I could not fully see her hands or what was in the backpack or what the intentions are.” So, Byrd admitted he did not see a weapon or an immediate threat from Babbitt beyond her trying to enter through the window. Nevertheless, Byrd boasted, “I know that day I saved countless lives.” He ignored that Babbitt was the one person killed during the riot. (Two protesters died of natural causes and a third from an amphetamine overdose; one police officer died the next day from natural causes, and four officers have committed suicide since then.) No other officers facing similar threats shot anyone in any other part of the Capitol, even those who were attacked by rioters armed with clubs or other objects.

  The complaint below has some interesting additional facts. For example, it alleges that Babbitt’s hands were in plain sight and empty.

  “Ashli could not have seen Lt. Byrd, who was positioned far to Ashli’s left and on the opposite side of the doors, near an opening to the Retiring Room, a distance of approximately 15 feet and an angle of approximately 160 degrees. Sgt. Timothy Lively, one of the armed officers guarding the lobby doors from the hallway, later told officials investigating the shooting, “I saw him . . . there was no way that woman would’ve seen that.” Lt. Byrd, who was not in uniform, did not identify himself as a police officer or otherwise make his presence known to Ashli. Lt. Byrd did not give Ashli any warnings or commands before shooting her dead.”

  That is significant. There were officers in front, behind, and to the sides of Babbitt but she was given no warning and likely did not see Byrd pointing his weapon at her.

  However, the most interesting allegation is this one:

  “At 2:45 p.m., or within one minute after shooting Ashli, Lt. Byrd made the following radio call: 405B. We got shots fired in the lobby. We got shots shots fired in the lobby of the House chamber. Shots are being fired at us and we’re sh, uhh, prepared to fire back at them. We have guns drawn. Please don’t leave that end. Don’t leave that end. Approximately 35 seconds later, Lt. Byrd made another radio call, stating, “405B. We got an injured person. I believe that person was shot.” In fact, no shots were fired at Lt. Byrd or his fellow officers. The only shot fired was the single shot Lt. Byrd fired at Ashli. He heard the loud noise of the gunshot. He saw her fall backwards from the window frame.”

  So Byrd allegedly gave a false report of shots being fired after he shot Babbitt.

  Here are the seven counts (the second count on negligence is the most detailed and multifaceted):

  COUNT I Assault and Battery (Intentional Shooting and Killing of Ashli by Lt. Byrd – ESTATE OF ASHLI BABBITT)

  COUNT II Negligence (Lt. Byrd – ESTATE OF ASHLI BABBITT)

  COUNT III Negligence (Timothy Lively, Kyle Yetter, Christopher Lanciano Steven Robbs, Don Smith, Brandon Sikes, Mike Brown Jason Gandolph – ESTATE OF ASHLI BABBITT)

  COUNT IV Negligent Supervision, Discipline, and Retention of Lt. Byrd (Capitol Police, Capitol Police Board, et al. – ESTATE OF ASHLI BABBITT)

  COUNT V Negligent Training (Capitol Police, Capitol Police Board, et al. – ESTATE OF ASHLI BABBITT)

  COUNT VI Survival Action (Assault and Battery; Negligence; Negligent Supervision, Discipline, and Retention; Negligent Training – ESTATE OF ASHLI BABBITT)

  COUNT VII Wrongful Death (Assault and Battery; Negligence; Negligent Supervision, Discipline, and Retention; Negligent Training – AARON BABBITT)

  The complaint, in my view, raises credible allegations that warrant serious review. The Justice Department is likely to seek threshold grounds for dismissal, but the case could offer needed answers to a number of questions. Many of us were not satisfied with the review of the government of the shooting. Discovery would allow for a new review of the underlying record.

  The family is being represented by Judicial Watch.

  Here is the complaint: Babbitt v. United States

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 21:00

• Parks Service Seeks To Remove William Penn Statue To Make Philadelphia More "Welcome And Inclusive"
  Parks Service Seeks To Remove William Penn Statue To Make Philadelphia More “Welcome And Inclusive”

  New mayor, same woke insanity. 

  The National Park Service in Philadelphia is now looking for public comment on its plans to “rehabilitate” Welcome Park in the Old City section of Philadelphia by removing the park’s statue of William Penn. In other words, we’re back to tearing down statues again…

  After all, why keep a racist, misogynistic, totally un-woke monument honoring the patriarchy of William Penn at……the park located at the site of of William Penn’s former home? It’s not like he founded the province of Pennsylvania or something…

  

  The “Welcome Park” site was completed in its current form back in 1982, according to 6ABC, who says that park officials want to “reenvision the park and expand the interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia to make it more welcoming and inclusive for visitors.”

  This initiative has involved consultation with representatives from various indigenous groups such as the Haudenosaunee, Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, Shawnee Tribe, and Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.

  The NPS is seeking public comment on the proposed plan here. “The reimagined Welcome Park maintains certain aspects of the original design such as the street grid, the rivers and the east wall while adding a new planted buffer on three sides, and a ceremonial gathering space with circular benches,” their website says.

  Most people just want to know when the insanity is going to stop…

  hey new @PhillyMayor who i am giving a chance to, isn’t it time to stop this nonsense and focus on issues that matter, like crime?

  — Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) January 7, 2024

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

  …and why the National Park Service is spending and re-spending our tax money to build and then tear down statutes…

  If @SpeakerJohnson had a backbone, rather than a collar connected to Schumer’s leash, he would have already called for defunding the @NatlParkService https://t.co/tnq48QmIkU

  — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 8, 2024

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

  Perhaps its another job for the Italians in South Philly who took mattes into their own hands defending the Christopher Columbus statue at Marconi Plaza some years back. As a refresher, here’s how they handled the complaints of the woke:

  South Philly guys are defending the Christopher Columbus statue and just slashed the bike tires of an Antifa guy who was harassing them pic.twitter.com/wsm4ijYADl

  — Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 14, 2020

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 20:40

• Shale Tycoon Harold Hamm Wants To Lure Gen Z To The Oil Industry
  Shale Tycoon Harold Hamm Wants To Lure Gen Z To The Oil Industry

  By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

  Shale tycoon Harold Hamm and U.S. and European supermajors are looking to support university courses in petroleum engineering and related disciplines in a bid to attract young talent to the industry that’s not viewed favorably by Millennials and Generation Z.   

  

  Harold Hamm, the U.S. shale pioneer who founded Continental Resources, has donated to establish the Hamm Institute for American Energy at Oklahoma State University. At the end of 2021, the Harold Hamm Foundation and Continental Resources announced a combined $50 million gift to create the Hamm Institute for American Energy.   

  “We believe in a world where every person has access to the reliable, affordable and sustainable energy they need to thrive,” says Hamm, who is chairman of the Hamm Institute for American Energy.  

  Speaking to the Financial Times last week, Hamm said that “We are going to be using oil for the next 50 years and ‘clean burning’ natural gas probably for the next 100 or 150 years.”

  “We want to get the next generation of gamechangers involved,” Hamm told FT.

  A shortage of skilled workers drove last year inflationary pressures on energy projects in the U.S. and in Texas, along with higher interest rates and higher costs of materials. Some major LNG projects in the Gulf area in Texas could struggle to find enough skilled workers to execute the projects on time and on budget.

  “Labor availability is a big issue in blue-collar areas. It is hard to find employees, and wage rate requirements continue to increase,” one executive at an oil and gas support services firm said in comments in the Dallas Fed Energy Survey for the second quarter of 2023.  

  Another executive, at an exploration and production (E&P) firm, commented,

  “Labor is hard to find. Dirty-fossil-fuels stigma drives younger talent away.”

  Some of those who are not driven away by the “dirty business” stigma are being poached by technology firms, data centers, Tesla, SpaceX, and other jobs in computing and engineering.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 20:20

• These Are The Best US Cities For Entry-Levels Jobs
  These Are The Best US Cities For Entry-Levels Jobs

  The anxieties around a first-job are immense: fear of the unknown, performance pressure, and the need to navigate new professional environments.

  But good pay can help manage these worries. Lots and more has been written on which careers are the highest-paid, but how does geography factor into the equation?

  To find the best U.S. city and state for well-paid entry-level jobs, NeoMam Studios and Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao visualize data from Resume.io showing the percentage of local entry-level job listings that offer a salary above (and below) a city or state’s median hourly wages.

  

  Ranked: 50 U.S. Cities By Entry-Level Job Pay

  This dataset covers each U.S. state, as well as Washington, D.C. and 50 major cities. Median wage data is sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the number of entry-level jobs and their pay rates from Indeed.com.

  Bozeman, Montana (nicknamed “Boz Angeles” for its constant stream of celebrity visitors) and Iowa City both have nearly 88% of their entry-level jobs promising above their state’s median pay.

  For an apples-to-apples comparison however, Iowa City’s median wage comes in slightly higher at $22.52/hour compared to Bozeman’s $20.71/hour.

  Note: Toggle the embedded table between U.S. cities and states ranked by best entry-level jobs.

  Another Midwestern urban center, Kansas City, ranked fourth, promises a high likelihood of above-media pay for first-job hunters (83.1%).

  Generally, the more populous the city, the more jobs, and the higher the likelihood of beating median pay. However larger cities that are not the state capital also seem to do well on this metric: Fort Smith, Arkansas (ranked 5th), Lexington, Kentucky (6th), New Haven, Connecticut (7th), and Oakland, California (8th).

  Ranked: U.S. States By Entry-Level Job Pay

  Click to view this graphic in a higher-resolution.

  

  In South Dakota, and Montana, ranked first and second in the state by best entry-level pay ranks, more than three-quarters of junior role listings offer pay above the state’s median wage.

  This works out more than $19.17/hour ($39,900/year) for South Dakota and $20.29/hour ($42,200/year) for Montana for their entry-level jobs.

  In fact the first nine states on the ranks, where nearly 70% of the entry-level job listings offer above-state-median pay, are from the Midwest or West.

  Kentucky, ranked 10th, has 67% of their starter job openings stating above median pay ($40,200/year), the highest from the American South.

  Predictably, states with higher median pay (California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington, New York) have lower numbers of entry-level job openings which promise pay above that level.

  However, exceptions occur. For example, Wyoming’s median pay comes in around the same as Maine ($21.80/hour) but 68% of its entry-level job listings offer median-beating pay, compared to Maine’s 57%.

  Hawaii is the worst state for a decent starting salary, with two-thirds of the analyzed listings offering below the median pay of $48,600/year. Most of the state’s jobs are concentrated in the tourism industry, part of the service sector, known for long hours, seasonal work, and low pay.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 20:00

• Former NRA Executive Pleads Guilty To Fraud, Agrees to Testify In NY Civil Trial
  Former NRA Executive Pleads Guilty To Fraud, Agrees to Testify In NY Civil Trial

  Authored by Allan Zhong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A settlement was reached on the same day as Wayne LaPierre, longtime NRA head, resigned.

  

  Joshua Powell, former operations director of the National Rifle Association (NRA), has reached a settlement with the New York attorney general’s office over civil claims of fraud and abuse.

  Mr. Powell was employed by the NRA between 2016 and January 2020.

  The lawsuit brought by Letitia James, New York attorney general, alleged that Mr. Powell breached his fiduciary duties and failed to administer the charitable assets entrusted to his care by using his powers as an officer and senior executive of the NRA to covert charitable assets for the benefit of himself and his family members.

  He admitted the alleged wrongdoing and agreed to pay $100,000 to the NRA, to not serve as an officer in a nonprofit or charitable organization, and to testify against the NRA at the demand of Ms. James’s office, according to the settlement.

  Mr. Powell’s settlement was filed on the same day as the resignation of Wayne LaPierre, the longtime head of the NRA.

  “Joshua Powell’s admission of wrongdoing and Wayne LaPierre’s resignation confirm what we have alleged for years: the NRA and its senior leaders are financially corrupt,” Ms. James said in a statement. “More than three years ago, my office sued the NRA and its senior management for financial abuse and mismanagement. These are important victories in our case, and we look forward to ensuring the NRA and the defendants face justice for their actions.”

  NRA officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

  

  Ms. James sued Mr. LaPierre and three co-defendants—NRA general counsel John Frazer, retired finance chief Wilson Phillips, and Mr. Powell—in 2020, alleging that they cost the organization tens of millions of dollars from questionable expenditures that included lucrative consulting contracts for ex-employees and gifts for friends and vendors.

  Mr. LaPierre is accused of setting himself up with a $17 million contract with the NRA if he were to exit the organization and spending NRA money on travel consultants, luxury car services, and private flights for himself and his family—including more than $500,000 on eight trips to the Bahamas over three years.

  As punishment, Ms. James is asking that Mr. LaPierre and the other defendants be ordered to reimburse the NRA and that they be banned from serving in leadership positions of any charitable organizations conducting business in New York, which would bar them from any NRA involvement.

  The trial is scheduled to start on Jan. 8.

  LaPierre Resigns

  Mr. LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president and CEO, announced on Jan. 5 that he’s resigning, just days before the start of the trial over allegations that he treated himself to millions of dollars in private jet flights, yacht trips, African safaris, and other extravagant perks at the powerful gun rights organization’s expense.

  “With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,” Mr. LaPierre said in a statement released by the organization, which he said he was exiting for health reasons. “I’ve been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom. My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.”

  Andrew Arulanandam, a top NRA lieutenant who has served as Mr. LaPierre’s spokesperson, will take on his roles on an interim basis, according to the organization.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 19:40

• Here’s Where COVID Mask Mandates Are Coming Back Across The US
  Here’s Where COVID Mask Mandates Are Coming Back Across The US

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

  Some hospitals and local governments have opted to reimpose mask mandates at health care facilities as officials have cited a rise in various respiratory illnesses such as the flu and COVID-19.

  

  The mandates have been imposed in the past week or so in New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington state, and more.

  Pennsylvania

  Over the past weekend, four hospital systems implemented masking requirements in and around the Philadelphia area. Visitors and staff at Cooper University Health Care facilities have to wear face coverings in examination rooms and patient rooms starting Jan. 5.

  On Jan. 6, Jefferson Health said that it would temporarily require all staff members in certain locations to wear masks until Jan. 29, and the University of Pennsylvania Health System has said it will require masks during all patient care and patient-facing procedures.

  “Patients who tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 10 days or who have symptoms of COVID-19—cough, fever, sore throat, nasal congestion—must wear a mask,” the hospital said in a statement, according to CBS News. “Visitors who tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 10 days or who have symptoms of COVID-19 are not allowed to enter any facility, even with a mask.”

  Main Line Health also said it would start mandating masks starting Jan. 4, including for patients and visitors, it was reported.

  California

  Los Angeles County announced last week that it will require masking in certain hospital settings when the county hits a medium level for COVID-19 hospitalizations, which it and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines as 10 to 10.9 new hospital admissions for every 100,000 people over a seven-day period.

  “Over the past week in Los Angeles County, there have been notable, yet not unexpected, increases in COVID-19 reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths,” the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a statement.

  It added, “While recent increases are significant, they remain considerably below last winter’s peak and common-sense protections are strongly recommended to help curb transmission and severe illness as the new year begins.”

  Also in California, several counties around the San Francisco Bay Area have implemented a mask mandate that started in early November because of an anticipated rise in respiratory illnesses over the winter season. That mandate will end in April, officials have said. Near Los Angeles, officials in San Luis Obispo County issued a similar mandate last year.

  New York

  New York City’s government implemented a mask mandate for all of its 11 public hospitals and various health care and long-term care centers across the five boroughs, according to an announcement several days ago.

  “What we don’t want is staffing shortages, right?” the city’s health commissioner, Ashwin Vasan, told local media outlet WABC TV on Jan. 3. “When we saw the omicron wave in 2022, the biggest issues were not only people getting sick, but that we had a lot of front-line health workers, they were out with COVID.”

  Last month and in the fall of 2023, several upstate and western New York hospitals reimplemented mask mandates during an earlier, smaller rise in COVID-19.

  Illinois

  Several hospital systems and companies also started requiring masks in recent days. And Cook County Health, which encompasses Chicago, and Endeavor Health in the Chicago area, is again requiring masks at its facilities. The requirement came after the Illinois Department of Public Health sent a letter to hospitals suggesting they reimpose masking.

  Other States

  Hospitals in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Delaware, and Washington state have imposed similar mask requirements, according to reports.

  In North Carolina, Cape Fear Valley Health said it would require masks for all patients and visitors. Meanwhile, UNC Health, Duke Health, and WakeMed started restricting young visitors from some inpatient areas last week, local media reported.

  Kaiser Permanente said last month that it would reimpose mask mandates at locations across Washington state. However, that rule affects only staff who work with patients.

  In Delaware, TidalHealth announced on Dec. 28, 2023, that it’s mandating masks for all hospital visitors in patients’ rooms. That rule was initiated in “an effort to protect the most vulnerable of our population from close contact with persons that may be contagious but not yet have symptoms,” according to the hospital.

  Several hospitals in Wisconsin also imposed face-covering requirements starting late last month.

  While officials at the hospitals have said that COVID-19 cases are on the rise, the CDC’s historical data suggest that the number of cases is smaller than a year ago. For the week ending Dec. 30, 2023, hospitalizations stood at about 34,800; on Dec. 31, 2022, the number was more than 44,500.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 19:20

• Victor Davis Hanson: A Culture In Collapse
  Victor Davis Hanson: A Culture In Collapse

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  In the last six months, we have borne witness to many iconic moments evidencing the collapse of American culture.

  The signs are everywhere and cover the gamut of politics, the economy, education, social life, popular culture, foreign policy, and the military. These symptoms of decay share common themes.

  Our descent is self-induced; it is not a symptom of a foreign attack or subterfuge. Our erosion is not the result of poverty and want, but of leisure and excess. We are not suffering from existential crises of famine, plague, or the collapse of our grid and fuel sources. Prior, far poorer, and war-torn generations now seem far better off than what we are becoming.

  What is happening to us is not due to an adherence to a too strict conservative tradition but is almost exclusively the wage of the progressive project.

  In short, we are seeing fissures that America has not experienced in our cultural history since the Civil War. The radical Left apparently feels such chaos, anarchy, and nihilism are necessary to topple past norms and customs and thereby adhere to a socialist, equity agenda that no one in normal times would stomach.

  Some of the decay is existential and fundamental; some anecdotal and illustrative. But either way, while decline came about gradually over decades, its sudden and abrupt chaos during the three years of Biden’s presidency has shocked Americans.

  

  Financial Implosion

  As long as interest rates were de facto zero, both parties ran up gargantuan debt. Now the national debt has hit $34 trillion. But two odd things have also happened under the Biden administration that are beginning to undermine the very existence of the U.S. financial system:

  1) Interest rates have soared from de facto zero and are on a trajectory to 5.5%—meaning that the interest on the debt, in theory, in the not too distant future will require 20 percent of the annual budget, squeezing out both entitlements and defense.

  2) Yet the upcoming rendezvous with economic Armageddon has not slowed a Biden administration intent on borrowing nearly $2 trillion in the current fiscal year.

  The public is baffled: is the Left playing chicken with us? Is the strategy to “gorge the beast,” thereby demanding even higher federal taxes, which, combined with many state taxes, now exceed 50 percent of one’s income?

  Is the goal massive “redistribution” by ensuring “equity” by gouging the middle class and rich? Or is the left’s goal more nihilistic: to force a remedy for insolvency by ensuring high inflation, renouncing government debt, or government appropriation of private capital?

  Military Crises

  Americans have lost deterrence abroad.

  Confusion reigns among the public over why the Biden administration fled from Afghanistan, leaving behind billions of dollars of munitions and equipment in the hands of Taliban terrorists. Why did it allow a Chinese spy balloon to traverse the continental U.S. with impunity?

  And why did Biden signal to Russia when preparing an invasion of Ukraine that our reaction would depend on the magnitude of Putin’s offensive? Why has military recruitment cratered, shorting the Pentagon of thousands of soldiers?

  Why do Iranian proxies attack almost daily U.S. installations abroad and ships in the Red Sea, apparently without fear of reprisal? Why did Hamas slaughter Israelis on October 7? What explains our indifference or ennui?

  Is the answer a deliberate effort to curb supposed American “arrogance” by once more leading from behind? Are we rebooting the Obama Administration’s bankrupt idea of empowering an Iranian crescent from Teheran to Damascus to Beirut to Gaza to ensure “creative tension” between Israel and the moderate Arabs and Persian-led theocratic Shiites?

  Why do our officer classes rotate in and out of lucrative military consultantships, lobbying billets, and board membership on corporate defense contractors—as if their innate talents rather than their lifelong contacts with current serving procurement officers earned their exorbitant fees?

  Why did our retired four stars with disdain violate the uniform code of military justice by serially and publicly trashing the commander in chief? Why has the Pentagon revolutionized the entire system of recruitment, promotions, and tenure in the armed forces by predicating them in large part on race, gender, and sexual orientation rather than merit or battlefield efficacy? Did we learn anything from the old Soviet commissariat system? Would we prefer to lose a war by promoting equity than win one by ensuring liberty?

  Why did the top brass go after supposedly “insurrectionist” white males (who died at twice their demographics during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan) in the military, only to discover from their own internal investigations that no such cabal of “domestic terrorists” existed, and only to drive out thousands more of the maligned by stupidly requiring COVID vaccinations from those with naturally acquired immunity?

  In sum, the U.S. will either undergo a post-Vietnam-like revolution in the military or, in late Roman imperial fashion, our armed forces will be unable to defend the interests or indeed, the very safety, of the U.S.

  Race

  Why, when so-called non-white ethnicities and races were achieving parity with or exceeding the majority population in per capita income and when racial intermarriage was commonplace, did we blow up the values of the civil rights movement and revert to precivilizational tribalism? Who were the sophists who convinced us that racially segregated dorms, safe spaces, and graduations, or using race as an arbiter of admissions and hiring, were not racist?

  When did we lump together an entire cadre of diverse ancestries, ethnicities, religions, politics, classes, and values and dub them all “white,” and then smear them collectively in stereotypical fashion? When did we calibrate race as the chief determinative factor in our identities? Have we become premodern tribal people—feuding clans right out of the Norse sagas, ghosts of the Balkans nursing ancient grievances and hatreds? Since when in history has a nation’s “diversity” ever been preferable to its “unity”?

  The Sexes

  Did anyone in, say, 2004 believe that in just twenty years, the Left would try to mainstream the previously rare medical malady of gender dysphoria into a transgendered civil rights issue by insisting on three rather than two sexes?

  Would anyone have believed that leftists, gays, and feminists would have done their best to destroy a half-century of female athletic achievement by allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports and thereby erase the record performances of three generations of women?

  Would anyone have believed that a feminist and accomplished swimmer like Riley Gaines would be cornered, swarmed, threatened, and barricaded in at a university for the crime of daring to state the obvious: that transgendered women are still, in terms of their musculoskeletal physiques and frames, males and thereby have no business competing in women’s sports?

  Would anyone have believed that a gay senate aide would have engaged in passive, unprotected sex in a public and hallowed Senate chamber, filmed in graphic detail his act of sodomy, had it circulated among friends and social media, and then, when outrage followed, claimed victimhood by accusing those offended of being homophobic toward him and his active homosexual partner?

  Lawlessness

  We are witnessing the steady erasure of jurisprudence, both civil and criminal. Does the law as we knew it a mere decade ago still exist? Massive looting with impunity is now largely exempt from justice in our major blue-state cities. In Compton, a van slams into a Mexican bakery as waiting crowds swarm, loot, and destroy the business. And for what? Some free pies and cakes? Or the nihilist delight in ruining the livelihood of a hardworking family business?

  Such smash-and-grabs rob stores of billions of dollars in revenue each year. Can we even comprehend that employees and security guards are now ordered to stand down, as if the apprehension of such thieves might in some way seem illiberal or racist?

  Does anyone even care that pro-Hamas protestors—many in America as guests on green cards and student visas—shouted support for the October 7 massacre of Jews, screamed for the destruction of Israel and the Jews in it, shut down the Manhattan and Golden Gate Bridges, defiled the Lincoln Memorial and White House gates, and disrupted Christmas celebrations in our major cities with complete exemption? Is storming the California legislature, and disrupting it in session, now a felony in the manner of those convicted after January 6, or do we have two sets of laws, dependent on ideology, race, and party affiliation?

  In one of the most chilling videos in memory, Las Vegas Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus was recently violently attacked by an unshackled career felon defendant (with three prior violent felony convictions and facing additional new felony counts). The assailant, Deobra Redden, leaped over the justice’s bench with ease and began beating her and pulling her hair before two bailiffs, with great difficulty, managed to restrain him. Why was Redden out on parole given his violent record, and why was he not shackled given his toxic past? His self-admitted effort to kill the judge, his ability nearly to pull it off, and the record of past leniency accorded him are a commentary on a sick society.

  But then again, in our major cities, George-Soros-subsidized prosecutors have all but destroyed civil society. They have been systematically releasing felons with violent criminal records on the same day they are arrested, freeing convicted felons early from prisons and jails, and sabotaging the law by arbitrary enforcement on the grounds that it is inherently either unfair or racist.

  The post civilization civil bookend to that precivilizational subterfuge was a systematic legal effort, for the first time in American history, to remove in an election year the leading primary and general election candidate Donald Trump from various state ballots. The Soviet-like charge was that he was guilty of “insurrection,” a crime he has never been charged with, much less convicted of. Meanwhile, three state prosecutors and one special federal counsel—all leftists and some previously bragging in their own election campaigns of their intention to destroy Trump—have charged candidate Trump with an array of felonies. The vast majority of Americans agree Trump would never have been so charged had he just not sought to seek reelection—or had been a liberal Democrat.

  Education

  In ancient times, the President of the Harvard Corporation was a signature scholar and intellectual, befitting Harvard’s own self-regard as the world’s most preeminent university. No longer.

  Now-resigned president Claudine Gay’s meteoric career was based on a flimsy record of a mere 11 articles—the majority of them plagiarized. Her entire career was fueled by the tired pretext that the privileged Gay was somehow deserving of special deference given her race and gender.

  Confronted with such corruption, the Harvard Corporation, its legal team, and 700 faculty sought to downplay Gay’s intellectual theft. Indeed, they smeared her critics as racist—only then to deal with her new billet as a professor of Political Science with a long record of plagiarism that was exempt from the sort of punishments dealt out to students and faculty for less egregious defenses.

  How did Ivy League degrees so quickly become mostly certifications of ideological and woke orthodoxy? Or is it worse than that? Does a Stanford history major or Yale literature graduate know anything, respectively, about the Civil War or Shakespeare’s plays? Do they even know that we, the public, know that they don’t know?

  Was Elizabeth Warren really Harvard’s first law professor of color? Was Claudine Gay truly an impressive and respected scholar of political science? Are the governing members of the Harvard Corporation the nation’s best and brightest?

  How in less than five years did our elite universities destroy meritocracy, abolish SAT requirements, require DEI oaths and pledges, and mirror the worst commissariat institutions of the old Warsaw Pact nations and Soviet Union? How and why these elite universities blew themselves up in a mere decade will baffle historians for decades to come.

  The End of Sovereignty

  The Biden administration has shattered federal immigration law, as some 10 million illegal entries will have crossed unlawfully and with impunity in the first Biden term—all by intent. The southern border is not merely porous; it no longer even exists.

  Did the Left want new constituents? New entitlement recipients to grow government and raise taxes on the clingers and deplorables?

  Did it want a larger DEI base to replace the steady exodus of non-whites from left-wing agendas? Does it shun sovereignty, preferring a global village without arbitrary borders? Do these utopians in Malibu and Martha’s Vineyard similarly feel their own yards and grounds need no walls, no barriers, and no boundaries to deny the underprivileged their rights to enjoy what the predatory classes possess?

  In this new America of ours, Joe Biden is hale and savvy, while Hunter did nothing wrong.

  Our heroes are Dylan Mulvaney, Gen. Rachel Levine, and the two Sams, Bankman-Fried and Brinton.

  In today’s America, Karin Jean-Pierre is truthful, while Alejandro Mayorkas is honest. An innocent and saintly George Floyd was randomly murdered; his death proof of systemic police racism. And defunding the police brought calm and quiet, in the way our border is secure and the homeless are mere victims.

  Dr. Jill is an impressive academic. Oprah and LeBron are the downtrodden and victimized. Gen. Mark Milley is a brave maverick, and so is Adam Schiff. The flight from Afghanistan marked a brilliantly organized retreat.

  The Chinese balloon really did not take too many pictures of sensitive areas. January 6 was an armed insurrection, preplanned by fiery conspirators and revolutionaries. Ashli Babbitt deserved to be blasted in the neck for entering a broken window.

  Kamala Harris is a wordsmith. Russian collusion really happened. So did Russian laptop disinformation. Christopher Steele’s dossier was mostly true, in the fashion of Claudine Gay’s dissertation and Barack Obama’s memoir. And 51 former intelligence authorities bravely came forward to offer their expertise in certifying that Hunter’s laptop was cooked up in Moscow.

  With all this, what do we think the Iranians, Putin’s Russians, the communist Chinese, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas now think of the United States?

  That we are the nation that won World War II or fled from Afghanistan? Did the eight million who broke our laws and simply walked across our border respect us, fear us, admire us, or come here to manipulate and use us? Did Hamas appreciate the hundreds of millions of dollars we gave them, in the same way Iran was friendlier after we lifted the sanctions?

  In sum, American civilization has been turned upside down, and we have a rendezvous soon with the once unthinkable and unimaginable.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 19:00

• Massive Explosion At Fort Worth Hotel Leaves 11 Injured
  Massive Explosion At Fort Worth Hotel Leaves 11 Injured

  At least 11 people were injured after a suspected natural gas explosion that blew out at least two floors of a 20-story high-rise hotel in downtown Fort Worth on Monday afternoon.

  🚨#UPDATE: The ATF says the explosion at the Sandman Signature Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas was caused by natural gas witnesses inside of the hotel said they smelt something like paint burning before the explosion occurred pic.twitter.com/Yyc9V919s0

  — R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) January 8, 2024

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

  Nine people were hospitalized – with two of the injured in serious condition, and one in critical condition.

  Authorities say witnesses smelled something like paint burning before the explosion occurred, which officials chalked up to a natural gas leak.

  

  “There is a smell of gas here in downtown. We’re not sure if the smell of gas was caused from the explosion and the fire itself or if that’s what caused the explosion. But that’s what we’re looking at,” said Fort Worth Fire Department spox, Craig Trojacek.

  MedStar said nine people were hospitalized. Four of those patients were sent to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.

  Fort Worth Fire said they have firefighters inside the building searching for survivors who may be trapped. Trojacek said they’ll assess the stability of the building after search and rescue is complete. One person reportedly remains unaccounted for.

  From Texas Sky Ranger, glass and part of the building’s facade from at least the first two floors on multiple sides of the building were visible along 8th Street and in a parking lot on the building’s west side. –NBC DFW

  One witness working at a nearby coffee shop told NBC 5 that he heard the explosion and saw debris and white smoke coming from the building. Another witness, a valet named Adam, said he was walking in the area when another valet told him to avoid 8th street.

  🚨 BREAKING: Explosion at Fort Worth, Texas hotel with mass casualty incident declared pic.twitter.com/vMZaIZ3wA5

  — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 8, 2024

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

  “The whole first floor, the Sandman Hotel, right next to the garage where we park our cars … it’s like, everything is blown up. People coming out of the building … it was kinda scary. I don’t know what to think. I was 3 to 5 seconds from turning down the street. It could have been me. I seen [sic] a lady she was walking down that street as well and she got caught up in it. It’s very sad,” he said.

  Explosion at Fort Worth hotel this afternoon, 11 injuries reported, one missing (🎥 IG/ curious.earthlings) pic.twitter.com/4uNtViheYF

  — Dallas Texas TV (@DallasTexasTV) January 8, 2024

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

  Officials cordoned off a two-block area around the hotel, while Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare directed staff at downtown county buildings to close early for the day – with the exception of jails and law enforcement.

  EXPLOSION in Fort Worth Texas at Sandman Hotel
  At least 11 people are injured – local Fox news reportpic.twitter.com/BDyYzRj469

  — Brendan (@BrendanMcInnis) January 8, 2024

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 18:40

• The AARP Just Told Its 38 Million Members To Get An 8th (Yes, Eighth!!) Shot Of mRNA
  The AARP Just Told Its 38 Million Members To Get An 8th (Yes, Eighth!!) Shot Of mRNA

  Authored by Alex Berenson via ‘Unreported Truths’ substack,

  AARP? Or AARPfizer?

  The lobbying group for older Americans just told its nearly 38 million members to “hustle” for another Covid jab, even if they have already had five boosters.

  See for yourself. The following question-and-answer column ran in the organization’s December “AARP Bulletin”:

  

  AARP is open to anyone 50 or older.

  The column does not specify a narrower or higher age range for its recommendation.

  Thus it implies that even a 50-year-old who has not already had six “Covid boosters” needs to “catch up” with another immediately.

  Keep in mind that someone who has had “five Covid boosters” has actually received seven mRNA jabs – the initial two-shot primary vaccination regimen, followed by five boosters.

  Thus AARP is suggesting its members should be taking their eighth jab of mRNA in the last three years.

  

  Yet scientists have essentially no safety data beyond a third shot, much less a fourth or more, and thus no way of knowing if the risks of repeated mRNA dosing rise with each shot.

  AARP’s unbelievably bad advice doesn’t end there.

  The column then goes on to tell members that “the most recent shot, which was released in September 2023, isn’t actually a booster. It’s a new vaccine that targets the latest variants.”

  A what-now? A new vaccine?

  Wow.

  Guess it must have gone through the randomized trials that are required in the United States for any new drug or vaccine.

  No?

  Let’s just call it a new vaccine anyway, since our elderly readers have gotten kinda suspicious of the failure of the Covid shots they’ve already taken.

  But the article ends on a happy note: Researchers are even working on a combined COVID-flu vaccine, so a few years from now, a single shot from your doctor or pharmacy may be all you need to protect yourself fully…

  

  If the side effects from the 23 mRNA jabs you’ve taken by then don’t kill you first!

  (No, you shouldn’t. REALLY.)

  *  *  *

  Subscribe to ‘Unreported Truths’ substack here

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 18:35

• Let The (Political) Games Begin
  Let The (Political) Games Begin

  Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

  “To an authoritarian ruling elite insane narratives serve as both loyalty test and humiliation ritual.”

  – Kit Knightly

  The ordeal of the holidays, and the void of action that attends it, is over. Now, history resumes its awesome out-spooling. Will it be tyranny, collapse, war, civil war, renewal? Probably some wicked combo of all that.

  The players are taking the field again. The great engine of the game comes back to life with a cough and a rumble.

  Did you notice that “Joe Biden” ceremonially kicked off his “reelection campaign” with that speech at Valley Forge, blaring the “insurrection” klaxon? Is it not astounding that half the people in our country have no idea that the joke is on them? “Joe Biden” is marking time in the oval office until the moment he must use his unique legal prerogative to pardon himself and all the members of his family for their roles in the influence-peddling racket he fronted as veep. . . and then he’ll gallantly step aside.

  The optimum play would be to hold off on that until just before the Democratic Party’s convention, where a claque of super-delegates can pick somebody else in a back room filled with estrogen vapors.

  

  It kind of depends on whether a faction of corruption-resistant Republicans will ante up for that impeachment inquiry we keep hearing about. Despite the obvious bullshit on CNN about “no evidence,” there is actually a garbage barge of evidence steaming up the Potomac to prove that “Joe Biden” sold out his country. It simply needs to be laid out with brutal decorum in the proper setting.

  The catch is that a House committee can report out a bill of impeachment – as we’ve seen before – but a trial in a Democrat-majority Senate would probably fail to bring a conviction. The additional catch is that even so, the whole country will have watched the sordid spectacle and seen enough proof of malfeasance to foul the waters for the Party of Chaos in the November election, no matter who heads the ticket.

  It must also be obvious that the party is running out of lawfare tricks for shackling Mr. Trump. Jack Smith’s J-6 case is a dog’s breakfast of erroneous supposition, misprision, and persecutorial misconduct, soon to be wrecked by the Supreme Court; the Mar-a-Lago raid case is a patent fraud; the Fulton County, GA, RICO case is a Fani Willis masturbation fantasy, and the two New York raps under DA Alvin Bragg and AG Letitia James will be laughed out of appeals courts. Anyway, Mr. Trump seems to thrive on the noxious vapors thrown off by these rancid actions. If all these genius moves fail, how else can they stop the Golden Golem of Greatness. . . and his promise of keen retribution for the serial hoaxes run on him and all the fiendish trips laid on the nation since 2016?

  They can try to kill him. Can you put it past our “intel community”? It is exactly that nucleus of the DC blob that has the most to fear from a second Trump term. Dozens of them will be charged with sedition and even treason, a hanging crime. And if they succeed in whacking Mr. Trump, that would only leave a huge opening for Bobby Kennedy, who has an even bigger axe to grind against the agency that rubbed-out his father and his uncle.

  We held a meet-up here this weekend in my little upstate New York town to make plans for the petition drive in April-May to get RFKJr on the New York ballot. I told the group that much as I would relish seeing Donald Trump mop up the floor with the people who perverted the rule of law and just about spatchcocked our country, I believe Bobby Kennedy would be a better choice to lead us through the dark defile of history that circumstance has jammed us in. He is just as determined to expunge the horrific blob corruption, but without Mr. Trump’s exasperating artifice and grandiosity. If anything, RFKJr appears unpretentiously authentic, respectful, resolute, and reverent about history’s tragic arc. You can imagine him persuading that deranged half of the country that the blob is not on their side, either.

  So far, this scenario has left out several of the other dispiriting plays that could get our country into even deeper trouble than mere domestic politics offer. The “Joe Biden” regime, its NeoCon fellow travelers, and its mysterious globalist taskmasters, appear avid to start a big war, most likely by going after Iran — only to suck in Russia, Turkey, and a host of miscellaneous Islamic maniacs against us, and not in a way that radiates a great outcome.

  The invasion of stateless mutts across the Mexican border looks like an accessory to that play, since it includes countless thousands of potential saboteurs who can wreak havoc in the homeland while our obsolete aircraft carrier groups get blown up in the Mediterranean. Even registered Democrats might finally notice that the open border is a problem.

  And, black swans aside — because they are aside and unknowable by definition — there’s the excellent prospect of a financial fiasco in the works that would wipe the smiles off the smug faces of all the remaining elite Wokesters, blob handmaidens, and news media myrmidons who depend on Wall Street to pay their mortgages. The national debt is zooming at a trillion dollars every month or so now. You know that can’t go on, don’t you? If all else fails in this era of mass formation mind-fuckery, the disappearance of a whole lot of money might finally get people’s attention.

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 18:20

• Israel Begins To Scale Back Gaza War, But Still Expects Fighting To Continue All Year
  Israel Begins To Scale Back Gaza War, But Still Expects Fighting To Continue All Year

  Israel is again welcoming US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for an official visit, but this time with a key announcement indicating its forces have “shifted” to a new, scaled-back phase of the war, in line with the Biden administration’s wishes. Blinken is in the region with a message to ‘limit’ the spread of war.

  “The war shifted a stage,” IDF spokemsan Admiral Hagari told The New York Times, describing a planned reduction in both ground troops and airstrikes. “But the transition will be with no ceremony,” he said. “It’s not about dramatic announcements.”

  

  Gaza’s Health Ministry has lately said the death toll after months of the Israeli military’s operation in response to Oct.7 has surpassed 23,000 – mostly civilian deaths. International outrage, particularly among Global South countries, has been steady. The White House has for weeks behind the scenes pressed Israeli officials to scale-back the mass killing, and to launch a more targeted campaign.

  A big part of the pressure comes from the genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. To review of hearings which are set to be held Jan.11 and 12:

  • South Africa alleges Israel’s actions in Gaza “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinian population in the enclave.
  • Israel immediately rejected the case as “baseless,” but — unlike in previous cases at international tribunals — it decided to appear in front of the court because it’s a signatory to the Genocide Convention. Israel will be represented at the ICJ by the British barrister Malcolm Shaw.

  Hagari said that operations in the northern half of the Strip have already begun to ebb, and that troop and reserve force reductions from the battlefield would continue. He also vowed the allowance of more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypt.

  But amid the mass Palestinian suffering, he emphasized, “We were the ones who were butchered,” on Oct.7 – in reference to the about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, slaughtered by Hamas.

  Meanwhile, controversy has abounded after more videos from the battlefield have been leaked, such as the following:

  Israel’s military releases footage of its soldiers detaining men from Gaza after stripping them off and forcing them to insult Hamas. pic.twitter.com/zLwHKznftm

  — Quds News Network (@QudsNen) January 8, 2024

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

  Israeli media describes: 

  Channel 12 airs a video ostensibly leaked by an IDF source showing a group of Palestinians stripped and bound after being detained by the Israeli military in northern Gaza.

  One of the detainees is heard telling the troops, “For 17 years, we’ve lived under tyranny,” ostensibly referring to Hamas.

  “When you arrived, we remained in our homes because we live in peace and love peace. If we were guilty of something, we would have left our homes and fled, but we live in our homes in peace,” he says.

  And on the other side, Palestinian Islamic Jihad has released a new hostage ‘proof of life’ video, which Israeli officials say is part of their ongoing psychological warfare efforts…

  🔴Palestinian Islamic Jihad releases proof of life video of Israeli hostage, Elad Katzir, as part of its psychological warfare pic.twitter.com/ye4M2h1NmV

  — i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) January 8, 2024

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

  On Sunday, the head of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said he foresees a fight in Gaza that will continue through the entire year.

  “The year 2024 will be challenging. We will be at war in Gaza,” IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said. “I don’t know if it will be all year long. We will be fighting in Gaza all year, that’s for sure, and this will also hold the other arenas, certainly in [the West Bank], to a certain state of alertness,” he added.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 18:00

• What Is Happening To College Sports?
  What Is Happening To College Sports?

  Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  On Monday night, January 8, the University of Michigan and the University of Washington football teams will vie for the collegiate national championship.

  While championships always bring excitement to fans and participants alike, this year’s game brings attention to major changes that have occurred in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I in the past few years involving both monetary payments and mobility for athletes.

  

  While there is excitement for the game, we are seeing undercurrents that some claim will “destroy college football” as we have known it. The major changes involve athletes being able to gain product endorsements or make money off their likeness (Name, Image, and Likeness, or NIL) as well as being able to transfer one time via the NCAA Transfer Portal with no restrictions and no waiting for a year. Lou Holtz, a Hall-of-Fame college football coach, voiced his own concerns:

  The NIL and the transfer portal are both terrible for college athletics…I think that you go to school to get an education and to have that school be part of your diploma. … Why do we have athletics as part of college? Because you learn more lessons on a football field than you ever learn in a college classroom. You learn perseverance, you learn teamwork, you learn to wait your turn, you learn improvement. When you transfer, all you do is change the address of your problems. The problem’s with you.

  Before going further, I will explain how previous rules affected collegiate athletes, having been a scholarship D-I athlete a half-century ago (track, University of Tennessee). For the most part, the rules that governed us have remained in place with some small changes here and there.

  When I signed my athletic scholarship papers in 1971, I also signed the National Letter of Intent which bound me to the UT track program as long as I was enrolled there, much like the old Reserve Clause bound major league baseball players to their teams “in perpetuity” until they either were traded or released by their teams. If I had wanted to transfer to another program elsewhere, my coach would have to release me from my letter of intent before I could leave. Furthermore, if I went elsewhere, I’d not be able to compete in collegiate track until I had waited a year. (If I wanted to go to another program in the Southeastern Conference, I would have to sit out two years.)

  While athletes did transfer even under those rules, it imposed high costs on those that left their university for another team and the terms made transferring unappealing. There was the loss of a scholarship as well as the problem of having to sit out of intercollegiate competition for a year, which for a competitive athlete is an eternity.

  There were other major controls as well, which mirrored the kinds of restrictions that one might see in a regulated industry, and especially in the kind regulation that effectively turned industries into cartels. Until about the early 1980s, for example, the NCAA permitted only one collegiate football game to be broadcast each week, quite the contrast to today in which numerous games can be seen on television. Certainly, a true championship game like what college football fans can see Monday night would not have been remotely possible in an earlier era.

  But, as Holtz and others have claimed, are the transfer portal (which essentially makes collegiate athletes one-time free agents) and the ability of athletes to now make money via endorsements or through social media threats to college sport? They certainly have not diminished interest in college football, which enjoys more television viewership today than it did a decade ago despite the fact that overall live TV viewership is down.

  Certainly, the presence of both NIL and the Transfer Portal have changed the responsibilities of the coach, at least when it comes to retaining scholarship athletes. It is not just malcontents that might want to switch programs; there are times when another program may be a better fit for an athlete’s skill set.

  Take Michael Penix, Jr., the quarterback of the University of Washington’s football team, for example. Penix played three seasons for Indiana University, much of it in futility for a lower-tier program. At Washington, he is the leader of a team playing for a national championship. The Transfer Portal made this transition possible.

  If one sees the Transfer Portal as an open market for labor, it is easier to see how it would benefit both athletes and coaches. Michael Penix is not the only success story of the Portal. For every J.T. Daniels, the quarterback who used the Portal three times trying to find a good fit, there is a Hendon Hooker, who transferred to Tennessee after languishing at Virginia Tech and was named the Southeastern Conference’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2022.

  While it is true that the Portal takes away some leverage that coaches might have over their athletes, it also helps level the recruiting playing field. Historically, teams have had to depend solely on their recruiting classes. Unlike professional sports in which championship teams get the last picks in the draft, championship collegiate teams generally get the best recruits year after year, the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia, two perennial powers, rake in top recruiting classes.

  Lane Kiffin, football coach at the University of Mississippi, knows he cannot recruit at the level that Alabama’s Nick Saban and Georgia’s Kirby Smart, but he has brought in the top-rated transfer class that likely will make Ole Miss a contended in 2024. Far from “destroying” college football, the Portal is making it more competitive and more balanced.

  In women’s sports, LSU won last year’s NCAA basketball tournament thanks in large part to transfer Angel Reese (from the University of Maryland). Since then, Reese has been able to parlay her fame into NIL deals and even appeared in the famous Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

  The NIL world might be more controversial, given the huge differences in money paid to athletes. Tennessee’s freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava is rumored to be tied to an $8 million NIL deal while most athletes at Tennessee probably will receive little to nothing. The University of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, considered the best collegiate basketball player this year, has close to a million dollars in endorsement, but most players are not going to be anywhere close to that category.

  Not surprisingly, the main objections to NIL are that they

  • Will “create an uneven playing field” that will benefit some programs more than others.

  • Some athletes will place a higher priority on their NIL deals than their academic studies and loyalty to their teams.

  • It will “blur the line” between amateur and professional sports.

  These are many of the issues brought up when I was wearing my college team’s jersey and most likely these issues were at the fore when Knute Rockne stalked the sidelines at the University of Notre Dame a century ago. But as we have seen in recent years, college sports have not undermined the mission of American higher education. Instead, the leftist capture of US colleges and universities driven by identity politics has inflicted infinitely more damage than all of the college sports scandals combined.

  Instead, we should see the opening of the Transfer Portal and the establishment of NIL as the redirection of resources and factors of production that in the long run will make college sports more interesting and more enjoyable. Contra Lou Holtz and others, the trappings of a free market will not “ruin” college sports.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 17:40

• United Finds "Loose Bolts" On 737 Max Doors After Emergency Inspection
  United Finds “Loose Bolts” On 737 Max Doors After Emergency Inspection

  Update (1722ET):

  Sources tell the aviation blog The Air Current that “loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors” have been found after inspections following the Alaska Airlines mid-air mishap when a door ripped off the plane over Portland on Friday. 

  BREAKING: United has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska jet, according to three people familiar with the findings. https://t.co/pcPx9I8Z0l (via @theaircurrent)

  — Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) January 8, 2024

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

  “The discrepant bolts and other parts on the plug doors have been found on at least five aircraft,” the source said. 

  Following @jonostrower‘s scoop on United finding 737-9s with loose door plug screws, a source sent this image of one of the door plug’s lower hinge bracket with a note that 2 screws are not screwed all the way in. https://t.co/sz1d997PdL pic.twitter.com/d6hgHAEb2u

  — Edward Russell (@ByERussell) January 8, 2024

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

  The Air Current noted, “The findings aboard the five United aircraft will likely significantly widen the fall-out from the grounding, intensifying the focus on Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems. The pair together is responsible for the assembly, installation and quality checks of the aircraft structure.”

  

  A United spokesperson confirmed the findings:

  “Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug – for example, bolts that needed additional tightening.

  “These findings will be remedied by our Tech Ops team to safely return the aircraft to service.”

  There are 215 737 Max 9s in service across 11 major airlines.

  

  “Not sure that can be attributable to just one line. Might have to ground all Boeing aircraft delivered in a given window of time?” one X user said. 

  *    *    * 

  National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chair Jennifer Homendy said cockpit recording data on the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet, which lost a fuselage panel that triggered a sudden decompression event near Portland on Friday, won’t be retrieved because the data was erased. 

  On Sunday, Homendy told reporters that after Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 made an emergency landing at Portland International Airport – the ground crew did not pull the circuit breaker on the cockpit voice recorder, or black box, to preserve the audio, which only holds two hours or data, as required by federal law. 

  “There was a lot going on, on the flight deck and on the plane. It’s a very chaotic event. The circuit breaker for the CVR (cockpit voice recorder) was not pulled. The maintenance team went out to get it, but it was right at about the two-hour mark,” Homendy said.

  She continued: “The cockpit voice recorder was completely overwritten. There was nothing on the cockpit voice recorder.” 

  Reuters noted US cockpit recorders only need to log two hours of data versus 25 hours in Europe for aircraft made after 2021. 

  The NTSB head said the audio could have shed more light on the moments leading up to the aircraft’s door ripping off the fuselage at 16,000 feet. 

  Boeing & Spirit AeroSystems Shares Plunge After Max 737-9 Max Door Blowout Incident https://t.co/8DD60MxY2I

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 8, 2024

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

  Homendy called on the “FAA to change the rulemaking” on cockpit recorders, extending the recording time from 2 to 25 hours for all aircraft.

  “If that communication is not recorded, that is unfortunately a loss for us and a loss for the FAA and a loss for safety because that information is key not just for our investigation but for improving aviation safety,” she said.

  During the decompression event, a new-generation Apple iPhone was sucked out of the plane and landed near a road in Portland. An X user named “Seanathan Bates” discovered the device, which did not appear to be damaged. 

  Found an iPhone on the side of the road… Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly in tact!

  When I called it in, Zoe at @NTSB said it was the SECOND phone to be found. No door yet😅 pic.twitter.com/CObMikpuFd

  — Seanathan Bates (@SeanSafyre) January 7, 2024

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

  In a separate report, Bloomberg Intelligence’s George Ferguson and Melissa Balzano believe the in-flight mishap “probably stems from a manufacturing oversight, a sign of deficiency at Spirit AeroSystems, Boeing’s key supplier.” 

  Diagram of a Boeing 737-9 mid-cabin door plug and components (Source: Boeing) pic.twitter.com/7qPF5MGAOX

  — NTSB Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) January 8, 2024

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

  Don’t forget the Max program is a flying disaster. 

  As a reminder, the 737 Max was “designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys”.https://t.co/Z5rt2LoI3e

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 6, 2024

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

  The FAA has previously rejected the NTSB’s call to upgrade aircraft with new cockpit voice recorders. That should be reversed since Max jets “designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys’ continue to fly around. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 01/08/2024 – 17:22

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• The Great Taking Exposes The Financial End Game
  The Great Taking Exposes The Financial End Game

  Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

  One of the very best exposés of the covert, very well-hidden, bellicose attempts to rob all of humanity – barring the miniscule number of psychotic individuals comprising the inimical opposition – of their material possessions and their ‘immaterial’ freedom, was published fairly recently. It is accurately titled The Great Taking (2023), and was written by David Webb, one of the most courageous and finance-savvy authors I have ever come across.

  

  He introduces the book on p. 1 in uncompromising terms: 

  What is this book about? It is about the taking of collateral, all of it, the end game of this globally synchronous debt accumulation super cycle. This is being executed by long-planned, intelligent design, the audacity and scope of which is difficult for the mind to encompass. Included are all financial assets, all money on deposit at banks, all stocks and bonds, and hence, all underlying property of all public corporations, including all inventories, plant and equipment, land, mineral deposits, inventions and intellectual property. Privately owned personal and real property financed with any amount of debt will be similarly taken, as will the assets of privately owned businesses, which have been financed with debt. If even partially successful, this will be the greatest conquest and subjugation in world history. 

  We are now living within a hybrid war conducted almost entirely by deception, and thus designed to achieve war aims with little energy input. It is a war of conquest directed not against other nation states but against all of humanity.

  In the Prologue of the book Webb paints a richly textured, autobiographical picture of his provenance as finance guru, obviously with exceptional intelligence and, it turned out, courage. His knowledge of finance and economics has been the result of long years of work in the field, but he recalls the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, before the start of his professional career, when he was a child, and what he calls (witnessing) the subsequent “industrial collapse” of the US in Cleveland, where the family lived, culminating in “the complete destruction of everything we had known” (p. vii). Before he gets into the details of his life, he commences the Prologue with an indirect intimation of his reasons for writing the book (p. vi): 

  Presently, as we well know, families are divided. People are experiencing a kind of isolation, perhaps not physically, but in spirit and mind. This has been made to happen through the dark magic of false news and narrative. This alone has been a great crime against humanity. The tactical purposes are many: to confuse and divide; to cause disengagement; to demoralize; to instill fears and to introduce false focal points for these fears; to manipulate the historical narrative; to create a false sense of the present reality; and ultimately, to cause people to acquiesce to what has been planned.

  It is impossible to overstate the urgency of Webb’s message – everyone who reads this article should download the book (free) at the link provided above, or at least view the documentary based on it at CHD.TV, Rumble and (I don’t know for how long) YouTube. It makes for compulsive reading – a kind of non-fictional, real-world detective story, where you, the reader, are both the victim of the crime and the one looking over the detective’s shoulder at the evidence that he is digging up.

  And is there persuasive evidence! In the ‘court of human justice’ – which should be established, if it does not exist – the primary documentary evidence adduced by Webb would be sufficient to incarcerate all of these culprits, if not condemn them to capital punishment (recalling that, etymologically, ‘capital,’ or ‘of the head’ in Latin, relates to one’s head, which was usually implicated in hanging and decapitation; it also echoes in ‘wearing a cap’). That Webb knows only too well how he has exposed himself (and his family) with this book – and earlier, in addresses where he shared his findings with audiences in Sweden and the US – is clear where he writes, against the backdrop of the two occasions where he presented his insights, together with evidence (p. xxx):

  Less than a month after speaking at that conference in the U.S., a man contacted me who asked to meet in Stockholm. He had been the Chairman of a U.S. political party, and had a long career related to the defense establishment. He stayed at a hotel within a short walking distance from my apartment. We had lunch. He suggested a pint of ale. He asked me to explain the subject of which I had spoken at the conference. I went through the evidence and implications. The odd thing is that he then asked no questions about the subject. Instead, he fixed me in the eye and said, ‘Does your family know you are doing this?’ He said nothing more; that was the end of the meeting. I paid the bill and left. Perhaps it had been a ‘courtesy call.’

  We all have to die sometime, and being assassinated must be among the most honorable ways to do it. One must have been doing something right! Made a difference! No classier way to die, really. I always wanted to be like John Lennon!

  One could easily be fooled by Webb’s debonair shrugging-off of what could indeed have been a thinly veiled death threat from his dinner guest, but the fact remains that anyone who has the courage to oppose the psychopaths trying to hijack the world runs a tremendous risk, the more high-profile such opposition becomes. This is shown in the recent death ‘by suicide’ (yeah, right!) of Janet Ossebaard, who made the series, The Fall of the Cabal, and was involved in the unmasking of a network of pedophiles. The chances that she committed suicide, as reported, are pretty slim, I would say; she was evidently a thorn in the side of the murderous cabal.

  Returning to Webb’s book, he tellingly recounts how, after 9/11, when he saw all the signs of a deteriorating US economy everywhere, concomitantly there were undeniable indications that the Bush administration was spreading disinformation on this, covering it up by disseminating spurious reports of American economic strength. 

  In reality, however, the opposite was the case, symptomatic of which was the rapid shutting down of American manufacturing capacity and outsourcing it to China (which was obviously in on the deal). Nothing less than the (planned) loss of the American industrial base was occurring, while, accompanying this, Alan Greenspan was lauding the putative “productivity miracle” resulting from technology investment and development. It was a masterly performance of pulling the wool over Americans’ eyes. 

  Simultaneously, the impression of prosperity was further solidified by projecting the illusion that there was no risk in borrowing money; the ability to repay loans was ostensibly guaranteed. Webb’s persistent, perspicacious sleuthing has uncovered the trail which reveals the steps taken years ago to prepare for the global economic collapse we are facing now. This included the 2008 financial collapse, of which he writes wryly (p. xxviii): 

  In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis it eventually became known that tens of trillions in losses in derivative positions were housed in the biggest banks, which were then bailed out with newly created money. The prime brokers would have failed, but to prevent that they were made banks and also received direct injections of created money from the Fed. No one was prosecuted. On the contrary, the perpetrators were rewarded with enormous bonuses. It was almost as if it had all gone according to plan.

  If I understand Webb correctly, this is the strategy that has been repeated several times, at least since the second half of the 19th century, resulting in the rich getting (much) richer and the poor getting (much) poorer. In brief, focusing on “Velocity of Money” (VOM) – “Velocity multiplied by Money Supply = GDP. Lower Velocity results in lower GDP” (p. 3) – Webb shows that, given the cyclical collapse of economies and empires in the 20th century, following the Great War, and the demonstrable benefit, despite all this hardship, of certain banking interests regarding control (and creation) of money, as well as of key institutions, the contemporary ‘heirs’ of all this control knew that a similar collapse would recur. They have been preparing for it. And they are determined to remain in control. Hence the supposed ‘Great Reset.’ 

  During the Dot-com bubble and bust period Webb studied the relationship between financial markets and the Federal Reserve bank, and realised that the latter was deliberately influencing the former by manipulating the money supply – that is, routinely printing more money than, correlatively, GDP growth. If money supply growth is more than GDP growth, a financial bubble develops, divorced from any real economic growth. By the end of 1999 the money supply had increased by more than 40% of GDP annually, signaling that VOM was imploding. 

  Does this sound familiar? Since the start of the plandemic trillions of US dollars have been printed, accelerating the widening of the gap between money supply and real economic productivity, and thus hastening the financial collapse. This is what the cabal wants. After all, as Webb tersely remarks (p. 4), “Crises do not occur by accident; they are induced intentionally and used to consolidate power and to put in place measures, which will be used later.” Rather apocalyptically, he continues (pp 5-6):

  VOM has now contracted to a lower level than at any point during the Great Depression and world wars. Once the ability to produce growth by printing money has been exhausted, creating more money will not help. It is pushing on a string. The phenomenon is irreversible. And so, perhaps the announcement of the ‘Great Reset’ has been motivated not by ‘Global Warming’ or by profound insights into a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution,’ but rather by certain knowledge of the collapse of this fundamental monetary phenomenon, the implications of which extend far beyond economics.

  Just how far becomes increasingly clear as one reads through this densely documented book – not a book with many pages, but a ‘big’ book as far as the importance of its theme (and its substantiation) is concerned. Given the number of reports and other sources which Webb cites, it is impossible to do justice here to all their details and their pertinence for Webb’s argument, that the so-called elites have spent years to prepare for a ‘super-cycle’ collapse that will necessitate the transition to a New World Order, with them still in control. I can therefore only lift out the salient parts of his argument. The first is neatly captured where he writes (p. 7):

  There are now no property rights to securities held in book-entry form in any jurisdiction, globally. In the grand scheme to confiscate all collateral, dematerialization of securities was the essential first step. The planning and efforts began over half a century ago.

  Not only was the CIA intimately involved in this “dematerialization” – which essentially meant moving from paper-based stock certificate archiving, to a computer-based system – but the CIA project leader was moved to a senior position in the banking sector without any banking experience. Webb raises the possibility, interrogatively, that the ensuing “paperwork crisis” was “manufactured” to justify the dematerialisation process, which paved the way for the present electronic archiving system worldwide.

  Small wonder the epigraph for this chapter is a quote from Sun Tzu (which is just as applicable to today): “All warfare is based on deception.” This also covers the topic of the next chapter: “Security Entitlement,” of which Webb writes (p. 9): “The greatest subjugation in world history will have been made possible by the invention of a construct; a subterfuge; a lie: the ‘Security Entitlement.’”

  And indeed, having informed one that, since their inception more than 400 years ago, these “tradable financial instruments” were recognised, by law, as personal property, he hits the reader with the news that this is not the case any longer. In practice, Webb explains, this implies that even if, wishing to avoid the complications of a car dealership possibly going bust after purchasing a car on an installment plan, one has bought it for cash, this will no longer work. Security entitlements have been changed legally to permit creditors of the bankrupt car dealership to seize your car as an asset that still belongs to the dealership. 

  Webb sums this legal coup up as follows (p. 10): “Essentially all securities ‘owned’ by the public in custodial accounts, pension plans and investment funds are now encumbered as collateral underpinning the derivatives complex…” The “protected class” have legally stolen all our assets from us even before the anticipated (and engineered) global financial implosion occurs (if it does). Moreover, through additional legislation, this has been ‘harmonised’ to ensure that “secured creditors” be guaranteed that their assets be protected through “cross-border mobility of legal control of such collateral” (p. 16). Furthermore, ‘safe harbour’ provisions were made timeously to protect the ruling class (p. 32): 

  In 2005, less than two years before the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, ‘safe harbor’ provisions in the U.S. Bankruptcy code were significantly changed. ‘Safe harbor’ sounds like a good thing, but again, this was about making it absolutely certain that secured creditors can take client assets, and that this cannot be challenged subsequently. This was about ‘safe harbor’ for secured creditors against demands of customers to their own assets.

  It gets worse. It turns out that, if something called Central Clearing Parties – tasked with providing “clearing and settlement for trades” in a variety of financial transactions – is insufficiently capitalised to prepare for the eventuality of failing, and such a failure occurs, “it is the secured creditors who will take the assets of the entitlement holders. This is where it is going. It is designed to happen suddenly, and on a vast scale.” Webb goes on to disabuse readers of the belief that the so-called “Bank Holiday” ended the Great Depression (Chapter VIII), and of believing Ben Bernanke’s promise, in 2002, that the Federal Reserve “won’t do it again” (i.e. make its mistakes regarding what led to the Great Depression). Instead, he cautions (p. 46):

  Is the Fed indeed ‘very sorry?’ Can one believe the promise that ‘we won’t do it again?’ They have studied the lessons of the past in detail; however, their purpose has been to prepare a new and improved global version for the spectacular end of this debt expansion super-cycle. That’s what this book is about.

  Webb’s elaboration on The Great Deflation (Chapter IX) is a salutary reminder that this kind of thing has happened before, in the 1930s, albeit not on the scale that is being planned this time. In the Conclusion (p. 64) he drives his point home by confronting readers with the stark reality of what is happening; I feel like quoting the whole of this powerful chapter, but obviously that is redundant, because the book can (and should) be downloaded free via the link provided near the beginning of this article – please read it; it is imperative to read all the detail that cannot be supplied here. Here is a smattering of citations from it:

  As a human being, should this not concern you? What part of the organized slaughter of vast numbers of innocent people can you find acceptable? Do you believe that you are special in some way, that you were being protected, or that you will be protected now?

  There has been abundant evidence of great evil at work in the world, throughout time and in our present time. Do you really wish to be ignorant of its existence and operation? (p.64.)

  To not know is bad. To not want to know is worse. 

   Willful ignorance of the existence and operation of evil is a luxury even the wealthy can no longer afford. 

  We are in the grip of the greatest evil humanity has ever faced (or refused to acknowledge, as the case may be). Hybrid war is unlimited. It has no bounds. It is global, and it is inside your head. It is never-ending. (p. 65.)

  We have witnessed designs and real attempts to exert physical control over every person’s body, globally, and this is continuing…Why is this happening? 

   I will make a startling assertion. This is not because the power to control is increasing. It is because this power is indeed collapsing. The ‘control system’ has entered collapse. 

   Their power has been based on deception. Their two great powers of deception, money and media, have been extremely energy-efficient means of control. But these powers are now in rampant collapse. This is why they have moved urgently to institute physical control measures. However, physical control is difficult, dangerous and energy-intensive. And so, they are risking all. They are risking being seen. Is this not a sign of desperation? (pp. 67-68.)

  Never before has a system benefitted so few at the great expense of so many. Is this not inherently unstable and unsustainable? Physical control, as opposed to rule by deception, requires enormous energy. Can this be sustained while destroying all economies, and abusing all people, globally? They do not know how to ‘build back better.’ Look at their footprint around the world—the destruction, the economic devastation. (p. 68.)

  Let me close with John F. Kennedy’s own words: 

  Our problems are man-made;

  therefore, they can be solved by man. (p. 70.)

  In turn, I shall conclude with the last paragraph of Webb’s Prologue; let us take this to heart, spread the link to his book far and wide, and, to quote Naomi Wolf’s recent book’s title, ‘face the beast’ bravely and resolutely:

  It is my hope that in making this unpleasantness explicit, and doing so at this time when developments are becoming more apparent, that awareness might spread, and that the worst might be averted. Perhaps this Great Taking might not be allowed to happen if we each hold up our end—even the investment bankers—and say forcefully: we will not allow this. It is a construct. It is not real.

  Amen.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 23:20

• The Argentine Peso Was NOT The Most-Devalued Currency Of 2023
  The Argentine Peso Was NOT The Most-Devalued Currency Of 2023

  According to Bloomberg’s financial monitor, the currencies of Lebanon and Argentina experienced significant devaluations against the dollar last year.

  The Lebanese pound recorded the highest loss of value against the U.S. currency, depreciating by 89.89 percent.

  Following close behind is the Argentine peso, which lost nearly 78 percent of its value.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Argentina holds the record for the highest number of years with negative GDP growth in the last half-century – a total of 21 years between 1971 and 2022, according to the World Bank.

  Furthermore, Argentina ranked as the fourth country with the highest inflation rate in the world last year, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 22:45

• Behind The West’s Collective Failure To Prepare For The Trouble We Now Face
  Behind The West’s Collective Failure To Prepare For The Trouble We Now Face

  Authored by Michael Bonner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In 1992, both writer and scholar Francis Fukuyama and Disney’s film “Aladdin” promised us “a whole new world.” Thirty-two years later, the world seems much worse than anyone expected, and 2024 may prove to be a major turning point.

  

  “Aladdin” wasn’t very specific about what new world would be like, but Fukuyama, author of “The End of History and the Last Man,” was.

  History was an evolutionary process with a goal, he wrote. That goal was liberal democracy, and we had reached it in the late 20th century. The whole world would put aside ideology, and be drawn into the promises of free trade, prosperity, and ever-expanding freedoms. Liberal democracy would not change into anything else, because all other forms of political order or ideology were so bad in comparison. The new world would not be one in which nothing new happened. It would be boring, though, because politics would be more about managing economies than competing visions of the Good Life, or mediating tribal and ideological conflicts. Nevertheless, the only challenge to liberal democracy would come from within: not everyone would want to be equal to everyone else, and some would struggle not within the liberal system but against it. Or so the argument went.

  Fukuyama’s vision was easily misinterpreted. Post-Cold War exuberance was seemingly impossible to resist. We had won, and the only serious challenge or potential alternative to Western power and culture was gone. Figuratively speaking, it was easy to sit back, relax, and enjoy the unfolding of an evolutionary process that was not only good but inevitable. This explains the West’s collective failure to predict and to prepare for the trouble we now face. We stopped taking external threats seriously, we systematically disarmed ourselves, cut military budgets, and gave up on our culture. History was over, after all.

  This was foolish. There clearly are, and always have been, malign actors in the world who do not wish us well, and who do not want liberal democracy at home. They resent it abroad too. Strongmen and autocrats of adversarial regimes have little in common except the desire to see the West humiliated or at least taken down a few pegs. But they are now working together to try to achieve exactly that. They detected weakness and acted as soon as the West was most vulnerable and distracted.

  So far, we have seen constant election interference, warfare in Ukraine, and more recently war in Gaza (initiated by Hamas and Iran’s prompting). Will these problems grow and spread? Will China seize the opportunity to invade Taiwan soon?

  Any of those possibilities may test Western, and especially American, resolve to the breaking point. Our enemies know this. They also know that the main question will not be whether Western militaries are up to the challenge—though that is definitely a question worth pondering. What we need to ask ourselves above all is whether or not the West, and especially America, has enough self-confidence to stand up for its own interests. There will be no point in continuing to defend a Western-made international system if no one believes in it and no one wants to preserve our values.

  If the West, with America at its head, is too divided or preoccupied with internal matters to police the world system that it created, and to punish those who seek to undermine it, then authoritarians and strongmen will keep pushing, taunting, and attacking us until we give up and withdraw.

  I raise these matters now, because the world in 2024 looks set to be much more dangerous and violent than it has been in a long time. The trouble is not just abroad, but also at home in the form of violent protest and hyper-polarization. Looming in the distance, drawing closer by the day, is the spectre of the U.S. presidential election in November. Whatever the outcome, it seems likely that the losing side won’t recognize the legitimacy of the winner as in 2016 and 2020. But let’s hope this isn’t how things turn out.

  In the meantime, let’s hope and pray that we can reconnect ourselves with the values that made the West great, and recover the nerve required to defend ourselves and the world that we built.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 22:10

• The AARP Just Told Its 38 Million Members To Get An 8th (Yes, Eighth!!) Shot Of mRNA
  The AARP Just Told Its 38 Million Members To Get An 8th (Yes, Eighth!!) Shot Of mRNA

  Authored by Alex Berenson via ‘Unreported Truths’ substack,

  AARP? Or AARPfizer?

  The lobbying group for older Americans just told its nearly 38 million members to “hustle” for another Covid jab, even if they have already had five boosters.

  See for yourself. The following question-and-answer column ran in the organization’s December “AARP Bulletin”:

  

  AARP is open to anyone 50 or older.

  The column does not specify a narrower or higher age range for its recommendation.

  Thus it implies that even a 50-year-old who has not already had six “Covid boosters” needs to “catch up” with another immediately.

  Keep in mind that someone who has had “five Covid boosters” has actually received seven mRNA jabs – the initial two-shot primary vaccination regimen, followed by five boosters.

  Thus AARP is suggesting its members should be taking their eighth jab of mRNA in the last three years.

  

  Yet scientists have essentially no safety data beyond a third shot, much less a fourth or more, and thus no way of knowing if the risks of repeated mRNA dosing rise with each shot.

  AARP’s unbelievably bad advice doesn’t end there.

  The column then goes on to tell members that “the most recent shot, which was released in September 2023, isn’t actually a booster. It’s a new vaccine that targets the latest variants.”

  A what-now? A new vaccine?

  Wow.

  Guess it must have gone through the randomized trials that are required in the United States for any new drug or vaccine.

  No?

  Let’s just call it a new vaccine anyway, since our elderly readers have gotten kinda suspicious of the failure of the Covid shots they’ve already taken.

  But the article ends on a happy note: Researchers are even working on a combined COVID-flu vaccine, so a few years from now, a single shot from your doctor or pharmacy may be all you need to protect yourself fully…

  

  If the side effects from the 23 mRNA jabs you’ve taken by then don’t kill you first!

  (No, you shouldn’t. REALLY.)

  *  *  *

  Subscribe to ‘Unreported Truths’ substack here

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 21:35

• Which US Cities Have The Most Million-Dollar 'Mansions'
  Which US Cities Have The Most Million-Dollar ‘Mansions’

  Nearly one-in-ten U.S. homes are now worth at least $1 million.

  Analysis from Redfin has found that 8.2% of homes in America were million-dollar homes as of June 2023, nearing the June 2022 peak of 8.6%.

  In the graphic above, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu uses Redfin and MLS data to highlight the top 15 U.S. cities by their percentage of million-dollar homes, based on June 2023 home values in metropolitan statistical areas (MSA).

  

  Top 15 U.S. Metros by Share of Million-Dollar Residences

  California has seen an exodus of residents over the last few years due to many factors, but the state still has the highest share of million-dollar homes in the country by far.

  Cities in California claimed the top six spots by share of million-dollar homes in June 2023. Here are the top 15, along with the change since June 2022 in percentage points (p.p.).

  

  First is San Francisco, where 81% of homes were worth at least $1 million. This is actually lower than the year previous, which saw 84.2% of homes cost more than one million dollars.

  Neighboring San Jose, home of Silicon Valley, was second place with million-dollar homes accounting for 80% of residences. The entire San Francisco Bay Area is the most expensive real estate market in America, with Oakland also having 49% of homes costing $1 million or more.

  Southern California also featured prominently, with Anaheim (55%) actually outranking San Diego (40%) and Los Angeles (38%). The first non-California metro to make the rankings was Hawaii’s Honolulu at 38%.

  Other regions to feature at the top of the rankings were the Western U.S. (Seattle and Salt Lake City) and the Northeast (New York City, Bridgeport, and Boston). Miami was the sole entry from the South, with far lower shares of million-dollar homes in major metros like Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Phoenix.

  Share of Million-Dollar Homes Doubled Since 2019

  One reason for the increase in housing prices is intense competition for those trying to enter the housing market.

  Many existing homeowners are opting to stay put in their current residences to retain their relatively low mortgage rates, with the U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgage reaching its highest level since 2002.

  Subsequently, the high cost of financing has also caused development to slow down. But high demand from new potential homeowners has propelled prices to new heights. According to Redfin, the share of homes worth seven figures has doubled since before the pandemic.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 20:25

• 'High On Likes': Driving Under The Influence Of Social Media At The Crossroad Of Freedom & Serfdom
  ‘High On Likes’: Driving Under The Influence Of Social Media At The Crossroad Of Freedom & Serfdom

  Authored by Thaddeus McCotter via American Greatness,

  As the New Year commences, I peeked into the rearview mirror and rediscovered an article that appeared in Lisa DePasquale’s diurnal newsletter, Bright. Published on January 3, 2023, by StudyFinds [one word], the headline was a terse red flag for the future of our free republic: “The Social Disaster: Children Who Frequently Check Social Media Face Significant Brain Changes.”

  Based upon a then recent study from the University of North Carolina, the gist of the article is in equal parts instructive and alarming:

  ‘The findings suggest that children who grow up checking social media more often are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from their peers,’ says Eva Telzer, a professor in UNC-Chapel Hill’s psychology and neuroscience department and a corresponding author, in a statement.

  ‘Social media platforms provide adolescents with unprecedented opportunities for social interactions during a critical developmental period when the brain is especially sensitive to social feedback,’ the study concludes. This longitudinal cohort study suggests that social media behaviors in early adolescence may be associated with changes in adolescents’ neural development, specifically neural sensitivity to potential social feedback.

  It is not difficult to understand Big Tech’s venal motives for catering to customers’ psychology to increase their use of social media: the corporations’ already humongous profits.

  

  But the societal dimension of hardwiring youth to become hypersensitive to “social feedback”—i.e., “peer pressure”—within their network will have an immense and deleterious impact upon a free society.

  Certainly, it is not lost upon the administrative state, who is hellbent upon controlling (often in conjunction with legacy/regime media) both the means and messages of citizens’ interactions on social media, be it censorship, pushing bogus, statist narratives, etc.

  Per the paper published in JAMA Pediatrics, “students who look at social media at least 15 times daily were the most sensitive to social feedback.”

  While these students are the most at risk, their peers are not far behind them:

  “Previous research shows that 78 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds report checking their devices at least hourly each day and 35 percent look at the top five networks ‘almost constantly.’”

  Understandably, the researchers assert that “further research examining long-term prospective associations between social media use, adolescent neural development, and psychological adjustment is needed to understand the effects of a ubiquitous influence on development for today’s adolescents.”

  Let’s give them an admittedly non-expert head start on this research by gazing back even further in our rearview mirror to March 20, 2018, where StudyFinds previously published another alarming article, “It’s Not Your Smartphone You’re Addicted to, It’s the Social Interaction.”

  It’s author, Ben Renner, succinctly lays out the findings by the researchers at McGill University:

  “[people’s] urge to socialize is actually an ingrained human need resulting from eons of evolution. For those who argue spending too much time on a smartphone makes a person anti-social, the authors say overuse is actually the product of being hyper-social.”

  McGill psychiatry professor Samuel Veissière admitted, “There is a lot of panic surrounding this topic. We’re trying to offer some good news and show that it is our desire for human interaction that is addictive – and there are fairly simple solutions to deal with this.”

  What, one may ask, is “this?”

  “Many of the most addictive smartphone apps such as Facebook or Snapchat tap into this constant search for meaning and the ingrained desire to see others and be seen by them… Veissière insists the need for social interaction is a positive instinct, but in the age of constant connectivity to the internet and the variety of social platforms it provides, that instinct can be kicked into ‘overdrive,’ leading to unhealthy addictions.”

  Okay, but what are the proposed “simple solutions?”

  “Veissière and his team recommend turning off push notifications on your phone if possible and purposefully setting aside time to check your phone to help battle these addictive impulses.”

  Yet, for a hypersocial citizenry addicted to social media and “high on likes,” these simple solutions are the hardest, as anyone experienced in treating substance abuse addictions can attest.

  And it is almost impossible when the institutions subverted by the elitist Left are colluding to use social media “approval” to compel the citizenry into compliance with the state’s directives.

  Adjusting the rearview mirror to 2020, the COVID pandemic provided the paradigm by which we can view the damaging effects of the administrative state’s coordinating with Big Tech, Big Pharma, the legacy/regime media, academia, and their shock troops of left-wing trolls (paid and otherwise) to enforce its arbitrary and capricious effects upon the populace.

  “Wear the mask” and “get the vaccination” meant you are a good citizen; if not, you are a homicidal cretin “killing people” and worthy of any punishment society wishes to inflict upon you.

  So, too, 2020 also showed how the administrative state and Big Tech could collude on election interference by denying and censoring stories about the Hunter Biden laptop.

  Anyone trying to bring the truth to light was censored and “deplatformed” from their social network and its feedback—a cyberspace shunning.

  Now, in 2024, through the deliberate, debilitating din of the Communications Revolution, we can glean the insidious aim of the administrative state, Big Tech, and a host of leftist institutions and minions: the erosion of individual liberty and the perverse inversion of subordinating sovereign citizens into subjects of the government. Doesn’t history instruct how, in attempted revolutions/coups, the cabal urgently prioritizes capturing and controlling society’s means of communication? Using social media to cajole, coerce, and inure citizens into conforming within the “collective” and its “hyper-socialism,” the Left’s first punishment for exercising non-state-sanctioned, independent thought and dissent is and will continue to be the ostracization from one’s social interactions. Other punishments, such as job loss, harassment lawsuits, etc., will follow. Frankly, what is being “cancelled” but being locked in a virtual gulag?

  Thus, while the solutions may be simple, such as dismantling the administrative state, reforming their colluding leftist infested institutions, and offering hope to those addicted to “likes,” etc. – they will be decidedly difficult. But the future of our free republic requires an intervention. Inaction is not an option, especially given the speed AI is metastasizing within an already social media addled populace.

  For those whose decisions are driven in whole or in part by social media, they may well refuse to admit the problem as they wheel and whistle past the graveyard of individuality and liberty. For those of us not driving under the influence of social media, as we peer out the windshield to the crossroad of freedom and serfdom ahead, one has the sensation of time slowing down as a collision unfolds.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 19:50

• New Hampshire House Passes Bill Banning Genital Transgender Surgery On Children
  New Hampshire House Passes Bill Banning Genital Transgender Surgery On Children

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  The New Hampshire House of Representatives has passed a bill that prohibits some transgender surgeries on minors, though the measure falls short of the initial intent of the measure that sought to ban all so-called “gender reassignment” procedures for children.

  Twelve Democrats joined nearly all Republicans to pass House Bill 619 by a vote of 199-175 on Jan. 5, in a move that came amid a series of other transgender-related bills that the House voted on earlier in the day.

  The bill that passed was a watered-down version of the original proposal, which, if passed as introduced, would have banned giving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children and would have prohibited the surgical removal of breasts in girls who identify as boys.

  The current version of the bill prohibits the carrying out of “genital gender reassignment surgery” on anyone under 18 while also banning health care workers from referring minors for such producers to out-of-state facilities.

  Genital gender reassignment surgeries are defined in the bill as surgical procedures to alter the genitalia of children who have no sex development disorders or whose genitals are not “malignant,” meaning cancerous or otherwise dangerous to their physical health.

  Banned procedures include removal of the penis and testicles or surgically creating a penis from other parts of the body, with the exception of reconstructive surgery to restore normal form and function to tissue affected by physical pathologies like malformation or trauma.

  Male circumcision is also exempt from the ban.

  The bill now heads to the GOP-controlled Senate and, if it passes there, then to the desk of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican.

  Reactions and Other Bills

  Proponents of the bill argued that children should be protected from irreversible gender reassignment surgeries—especially since there’s not much data about their impact and claimed benefits—while opponents said it goes against parental rights and medical freedom.

  Rep. Erica Layon, a Republican and co-sponsor of the bill, said that genital reassignment surgeries should be prohibited—at least until more data is available.

  “We need to wait,” she said, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin, a local news outlet.

  The text of the bill states: “Adolescent genital gender reassignment surgery generally lacks both adequate information for informed consent and involves a high risk of coercion for parental consent when parents believe that they are faced with a choice between their child committing suicide or consenting to their child’s genital gender reassignment surgeries.”

  Rep. Jonah Wheeler, a Democrat who voted with most Republicans in favor of the measure, explained his reasoning in a speech ahead of the vote.

  “This is a question of whether or not you believe children should be able to get an irreversible surgery,” Mr. Wheeler said, per the New Hampshire Bulletin.

  “Despite being a liberal who believes in human rights, I do not think that children should be able to get irreversible surgery. So I’ll take all the heat that comes from this,” he added.

  Rep. Dan Hynes, a Republican who switched to an Independent, said the bill “goes against parental rights and goes against medical freedom.”

  Passage of the genital gender reassignment surgery bill came alongside House votes on other transgender-related measures.

  Earlier on Jan. 4, the House voted in favor of House Bill 396, which would allow the state and public schools to differentiate based on sex in “places of intimate privacy” such as bathrooms, as well as in prisons and sports competitions.

  Also, the House voted against House Bill 264, which would have allowed people to get a new birth certificate reflecting the gender they identify with without having to get a court order.

  Medically Necessary?

  A number of mental health and pediatric organizations in the United States and abroad advocate for so-called gender-affirming care, saying that medically transitioning children and adults will alleviate suicidal tendencies.

  Professionals often dismiss objections to transitioning children by telling parents that a transgender son or daughter is better than a dead child.

  About a half-dozen U.S. federal courts have blocked bans on so-called gender-affirming care for children, which proponents argue is “medically necessary” to lower the likelihood that people suffering from gender dysphoria will commit suicide.

  Opponents have pushed back on the claim that transgender procedures reduce suicidality, with a research review in March that purports to be the first ever to evaluate mental health outcomes solely from the standpoint of likelihood of suicide, finding that the results are inconclusive.

  That’s in part because most of the underlying research failed to control for the time elapsed after transgender procedures, with the researchers suggesting that people who get such procedures may be subject to an initial “honeymoon period” that evaporates over time as they revert to similar levels of suicidal ideation as before.

  “There may be implications for the informed-consent process of gender-affirming treatment given the current lack of methodological robustness of the literature reviewed,” the study authors wrote.

  Meanwhile, a recent Finnish study found that mental health issues for people who medically transition continue despite “treatment.”

  The need for psychiatric care was greater both before and after medical transitioning compared to a control group, the data showed.

  The results of the peer-reviewed study also showed that more individuals are seeking help for gender dysphoria and that it is happening at ever younger ages, with a marked increase in female patients.

  Darlene McCormick Sanchez contributed to this report. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 18:40

• ZeroHedge January 6th Debate Highlights With Glenn Greenwald, Alex Jones & More
  ZeroHedge January 6th Debate Highlights With Glenn Greenwald, Alex Jones & More

  Saturday night marked the second ZeroHedge debate, which pitted Glenn Greenwald, Alex Jones and Darren Beattie against the Krassenstein brothers and Destiny – with Ian Crossland from Timcast moderating. The topic: Was January 6th a manufactured crisis?

  

  For those who lasted all three hours of this incredible debate, our hat goes off to you.

  Meanwhile, here are a few highlights in case you missed it:

  To kick off the festivities, everyone was asked the fundamental question over whether the Capitol riots of 2021 constituted an insurrection. Stephen Bonnell (a political commentator by the name of “Destiny”) succinctly made the affirmative case, while journalist Glenn Greenwald deemed it “laughable.”:

  The darkest day in American history?

  InfoWars founder Alex Jones asked panelists whether the Jan 6 riots surpassed Pearl Harbor and 9/11 in severity. Ed Krassenstein replied that “it depends” but ultimately concluded it wasn’t while Destiny answered by calling Jan 6 a “uniquely horrible event”:

  Trump’s Culpability

  On the question of whether Trump bears responsibility for the “insurrection”, Brian Krassenstein cited the high number of convicted rioters who claimed to have acted in service of the former President. Revolver News founder Darren Beattie alluded to the infamous murderer Charles Manson — who was motivated by imagined secret messages contained in The Beatles’ song Helter Skelter. “Trump is essentially Helter Skelter?” Beattie asked:

  Was the 2020 election “stolen”?

  It’s a question that lies at the heart of this debate. The answer to determines whether Trump and his supporters’ grievances and actions taken as a result were legitimate.

  Destiny — asserting the negative — raised the issue of Trump’s close advisers telling him there was insufficient evidence of widespread voter fraud, while Greenwald offered a nuanced perspective: perhaps the election was not “stolen” but “rigged” by entrenched forces within the U.S. intelligence apparatus:

  Ray Epps

  Beattie — whose outlet Revolver.news reported extensively on the mysterious Epps — answers a series of pointed questions scrutinizing his reporting from Destiny and the Krassensteins:

  Watch the full debate here and help our debate series by subscribing to ZeroHedge Premium, as well as our Rumble and YouTube channels:

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 18:15

• Speaker Johnson Announces $1.66 Trillion Bipartisan Package To Avert Shutdown
  Speaker Johnson Announces $1.66 Trillion Bipartisan Package To Avert Shutdown

  House Speaker Mike Johnson told colleagues on Sunday that Congressional negotiators have reached a topline spending figure to avert a federal government shutdown on Jan. 19 for some government agencies, and Feb. 2 for others.

  

  According to a Sunday “Dear Colleague” letter, the topline deal – which mostly adheres to a deal reached between the White House and former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), limits discretionary spending to $1.66 trillion overall. It also secures $16 billion in additional spending cuts vs. the McCarthy deal, and is around $30 billion less than what Senate Democrats wanted.

  “This represents the most favorable budget agreement Republicans have achieved in over a decade,” wrote Johnson, adding “As has been widely reported, a list of extra-statutory adjustments was agreed upon by negotiators last summer. The agreement today achieves key modifications to the June framework that will secure more than $16 billion in additional spending cuts to offset the discretionary spending levels.”

  Breaking it down, the deal sets aside $886.3 billion for defense spending, $772.7 billion in domestic discretionary spending, and rescinds $6.1 billion in coronavirus emergency spending authority. The deal also accelerates $20 billion in cuts from the $80 billion IRS funding allocated under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

  “The bipartisan funding framework congressional leaders have reached moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities,” President Biden’s staff said in a statement assigned to the 81-year-old. “It reflects the funding levels that I negotiated with both parties and signed into law last spring. It rejects deep cuts to programs hard-working families count on, and provides a path to passing full-year funding bills that deliver for the American people and are free of any extreme policies.”

  House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement in support of the new agreement.

  

  “It will also allow us to keep the investments for hardworking American families secured by the legislative achievements of President Biden and Congressional Democrats,” the pair said. “Finally, we have made clear to Speaker Mike Johnson that Democrats will not support including poison pill policy changes in any of the twelve appropriations bills put before the Congress.”

  Let’s see if this sticks…

  Johnson and the Democrats’ biggest challenge will be House conservatives, who have opposed earlier debt ceiling agreements over a lack of spending offsets.

  That said, this agreement is separate from funding for Israel and Ukraine – a growing sticking point among some Republicans.

  As Mike Shedlock from MishTalk.com noted on Saturday, many problems remain.

  

  What’s the Real Deadline?

  January 19 is less than two weeks away. The real deadline is allegedly February 3.

  Since Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is not incessantly yapping over this, I suspect the real deadline is further away.

  Republicans can always punt with another “temporary” and “clean” continuing resolution. And that would not surprise me in the least. It would buy everyone time to avoid budget cuts that would kick in on April 30.

  But eventually, it will come down to my long-stated beliefs, expressed below.

  Expect More of This for More of That

  The Republican hard-line House Freedom Caucus won’t accomplish anything because there is not enough of them and they are not even united on what they want.

  Some want funding for Israel but that is conveniently lumped with funding for Ukraine which they generally don’t want.

  H.R.2 is a nonstarter. As a result, there will be some Republican holdouts who will not vote for whatever Speaker Mike Johnson concocts with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

  If any bill passes in the House, it will be with Democrat support. The Freedom Caucus will howl.

  The only question is how big this final boondoggle is.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 18:05

• MSNBC Host Ridiculed For Crying Over January 6
  MSNBC Host Ridiculed For Crying Over January 6

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news.

  An MSNBC host faced ridicule after he performatively cried over January 6 in a cringe stunt during his live show.

  

  Jonathan Capehart was talking with former D.C. police officer Michael Fanone about his new book when the incident occurred.

  “I’m going to try to get through this…erm…” stuttered Capehart as he appeared to wipe tears from his face.

  “Thank you for what you did three years ago today,” he continued as his voice quivered.

  MSNBC host cries over 3-year anniversary of “January 6”.

  This is going to keep me laughing all through the winter.pic.twitter.com/qR0UlQBzWZ

  — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 6, 2024

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

  Fanone looked rather awkward as Capehart blubbered, but played up to the contrived theatrics.

  “We are still in the midst of the same fight that began on January 6, 2021 and we have a lot at stake in this country and I think that it deserves every American’s attention,” he said.

  Capehart’s ludicrous behavior was quickly skewered on X.

  Yet they laughed and celebrated over the “summer of love.”

  These people are such frauds. pic.twitter.com/EWswtyWHLb

  — Pro Swing Trading 📈😎🇺🇸 (@Pro__Trading) January 6, 2024

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

  “Whatever they are hysterical about is what they are lying about” Tucker Carlson

  — Gimme3Steps (@TheSouthGAJohn) January 6, 2024

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

  This is either acting, mental illness or both.

  What’s happening at the border right now is infinitely worse than J6.

  The media doesn’t even report on the border invasion let alone cry about it.

  Give me a break.

  — Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) January 6, 2024

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

  Omg even the police officer was like wtf are you doing? 😅

  He was practicing all night for that moment lol

  — Carlos Rincon (@carlitosrincon_) January 6, 2024

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

  Omg even the police officer was like wtf are you doing? 😅

  He was practicing all night for that moment lol

  — Carlos Rincon (@carlitosrincon_) January 6, 2024

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

  This underlies neatly how the media-social-industrial complex sold J6 to the American public: by manipulating the faith Americans put in their institutions. They sold a nonsense study by constructing an argument on the basis of emotion, which enabled people to accept otherwise…

  — Christian Watson (@OfficialCWATSON) January 6, 2024

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

  Far too many soy lattes.

  — George Suchey (@suchey62) January 6, 2024

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

  Look how wild J6th was…oh wait..nevermind. pic.twitter.com/FuFuyoJhyi

  — The Comedian (@The__Comedian__) January 7, 2024

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

  Meanwhile, if it’s a competition based on hysterical weirdo behavior, Rep. Steve Cohen will give Capehart a run for his money.

  3 years ago today, I was there in the U.S. Capitol. We were minutes away from being violently attacked. I saw what happened, I felt what happened. And so did you.

  Donald Trump is a traitor to the United States of America. Don’t ever forget it. pic.twitter.com/NhBYq1GIM3

  — Steve Cohen (@RepCohen) January 6, 2024

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

  * * *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 17:30

• BRICS Expands Footprint In The Global South
  BRICS Expands Footprint In The Global South

  Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates formally joined the BRICS group of major emerging economies on January 1, 2024, expanding the bloc’s footprint in the Global South and growing its economic and political clout on the world stage, establishing a real counterweight to the Western-dominated G7.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  In August, the bloc had announced that it would be admitting six new members, including Argentina.

  However, as Statista’s Felix Richter reports, the South American nation declared a formal rejection of the offer on 29 December, 2023 with Argentina’s President Javier Milei stating in a letter published by several media outlets that the membership “was not considered appropriate at this time.”

  Speaking on the expansion of the BRICS, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said at a press briefing:

  “We shared our vision of BRICS as a champion of the needs and concerns of the peoples of the Global South. These include the need for beneficial economic growth, sustainable development and reform of multilateral systems.”

  He also indicated that the addition of the six new members is just the beginning of the bloc’s expansion process.

  “As the five BRICS countries, we have reached agreement on the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures of the BRICS expansion process, which has been under discussion for quite a while,” he said.

  “We have consensus on the first phase of this expansion process, and further phases will follow.”

  Adding major fossil-fuel producers may give the bloc more scope to challenge the dollar’s dominance in oil and gas trading by switching to other currencies, a concept referred to dedollarization.

  However, expansion is “more about politics and less about economics,” according to analysts at Bloomberg Economics.

  Other groupings that are already promoting a move toward a more “multipolar” world – and away from the post-Cold War dominance of the US — include OPEC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), and the African Union.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 16:55

• Supreme Court Allows Idaho To Enforce Strict Abortion Ban, Will Hear Case
  Supreme Court Allows Idaho To Enforce Strict Abortion Ban, Will Hear Case

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Supreme Court on Friday granted Idaho the authority to enforce its strict abortion ban while legal clashes play out over a federal law mandating emergency care.

  

  Responding to emergency requests from Idaho state officials, the nation’s highest court temporarily suspended a federal judge’s ruling that found parts of the ban conflicted with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986.

  “The applications for stay … are granted,” the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday stated. “The preliminary injunction issued on August 24, 2022, by the United States District Court for the District of Idaho … is stayed.”

  The high court said it would hear oral arguments on the matter in April.

  Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador welcomed the decision, writing on X, formerly Twitter, “Idaho will continue to fight to protect life.”

  Federal Law Turns Hospitals ‘Into Abortion Clinics’

  EMTALA, the federal law at the center of the case, stipulates that emergency room care must be provided to anyone, irrespective of their ability to pay.

  The Biden administration cited this law in a 2022 federal guidance for health care providers regarding abortion. The guidance told hospitals they were obligated to provide “stabilizing” care under EMTALA to patients experiencing an emergency condition, extending this to include abortion.

  It applies to hospitals receiving federal funding through the Medicare program.

  On Monday, lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), acting on behalf of the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, filed an emergency application for a stay pending appeal with the Supreme Court. Their motion asked for an immediate injunction against the 9th Circuit’s ruling, arguing that EMTALA preempts Idaho’s abortion ban, the Defense of Life Act.

  “Hospitals—especially emergency rooms—are centers for preserving life. The government has no business transforming them into abortion clinics,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley in a statement.

  “Emergency room physicians can, and do, treat ectopic pregnancies and other life-threatening conditions. But elective abortion is not life-saving care—it ends the life of the unborn child—and the government has no authority to override Idaho’s law barring these procedures.

  “We urge the Supreme Court to halt the lower court’s injunction and allow Idaho emergency rooms to fulfill their primary function—saving lives,” she added.

  District Court’s Block of Ban

  Idaho’s abortion ban has been partially blocked from being enforced to the extent it conflicts with EMTALA since U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Winmill issued an injunction in July 2022 after the Biden administration sued.

  Judge Winmill, in making his ruling, noted that the state’s actions put doctors in an ethical bind.

  The dilemma, as described in the ruling, revolves around doctors grappling with the obligation to provide emergency care under EMTALA and the state’s blanket prohibition of abortions in Idaho.

  “The doctor believes her EMTALA obligations require her to offer that abortion right now. But she also knows that all abortions are banned in Idaho. She thus finds herself on the horns of a dilemma. Which law should she violate?” Judge Winmill wrote.

  Idaho challenged this ruling, arguing that the two laws were not conflicting and emphasizing that the federal law did not expressly mandate doctors to perform abortions in specific circumstances.

  The Biden administration, represented by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, disagreed, asserting in court filings that the Idaho law “criminalizes care required by federal law.”

  The Epoch Times contacted Ms. Prelogar’s office for comment.

  Appeals Court’s Suspension of Block

  The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals briefly suspended Judge Winmill’s ruling in September but later allowed its reinstatement, prompting Idaho to appeal to the Supreme Court in November 2023.

  Idaho aimed to expedite resolution, seeking an injunction to limit the full enforcement of its abortion ban. An appeal is pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

  In light of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling for Texas earlier this week in a similar case involving EMTALA and stringent abortion restrictions, Idaho’s attorney general pushed the Supreme Court to act on their request, pointing to the 5th Circuit’s Jan. 2 opinion.

  In a win for Texas, the 5th Circuit unanimously declined “to expand the scope” of EMTALA to include enforcing abortions. The state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, argued the Biden administration’s rule would force doctors to perform elective abortions against state law.

  “The question before the court is whether EMTALA, according to HHS’s Guidance, mandates physicians to provide abortions when that is the necessary stabilizing treatment for an emergency medical condition. It does not,” wrote 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kurt Engelhardt in the opinion.

  “EMTALA does not mandate any specific type of medical treatment, let alone abortion,” the opinion added.

  ADF lawyers are also litigating the Texas case.

  Idaho’s abortion law was enacted in 2020 with a provision stating it would take effect if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in July 2022, which effectively overturned Roe, Idaho’s law came into force.

  The Defense of Life Act imposes criminal penalties, including up to five years in prison, for anyone performing an abortion, with health care professionals risking the loss of their licenses if found in violation. An exception is granted if the abortion is deemed necessary to protect the life of the pregnant woman.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 16:20

• Is Biden About To Put 10 Million Hispanics On The Path To American Citizenship?
  Is Biden About To Put 10 Million Hispanics On The Path To American Citizenship?

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

  If Biden gets the Republicans to go along with his Mexican counterpart’s proposal to grant work visas to those 10 million Hispanics who the latter claims have worked in the US for 10 years, then they’d be able to apply for a green card and eventually citizenship five years after that, which could lead to the imposition of one-party rule by 2032 if those new citizens in battleground states vote Democrat as expected.

  

  Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who’s known by his initials as AMLO, revealed during a press conference on Friday that “Mexico asked US authorities to grant visas to at least 10 million Hispanic migrants that have worked for more than 10 years in the country.”

  It also asked that the US pay regional states $20 billion in exchange for helping stem illegal immigration. AMLO added that the sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela should be lifted too since he partially blames them for this process.

  If Biden complies with the first of his three requests, then that would place 10 million Hispanics on the path to American citizenship since they could turn their work visa into a green card, after which they could apply for citizenship with full voting rights after five years. The Pew Research Center cited US Census Bureau data from 2020 to report last November that at least 1.6 million illegals live in Texas and 900,000 in Florida, which could have serious implications for forthcoming elections if they’re legalized.

  The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative “determined that Latino voters were decisive in sending President-elect Joe Biden to the White House”, with Latinos in 12 of the 13 states that they analyzed “support[ing] Biden over President Donald Trump by a margin of at least 2 to 1. And in nine of the 13 — including the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — the margin was at least 3 to 1. Only in Florida was Biden’s margin among Latino voters less than 2 to 1.”

  With this trend in mind and recalling that Trump won Texas by a little more than 600,00 votes and Florida by less than 400,000 according to the Federal Election Commission’s official results from the 2020 election, those two could permanently turn blue by 2032 if their illegals obtained citizenship. Battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin could join them considering the thin margins within which Biden won them and their own large illegal populations.

  Referring back to the Pew Research Center’s official Census-informed report, it’s estimated that between 75k-175k live in Michigan and Wisconsin while 175k-400k live in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Seeing as how Biden won those states by around 150,000, 20,000, 10,000, 10,000, 40,000, and 80,000 votes respectively, each of them with the possible exception of Michigan would easily turn Democrat if those illegals obtained citizenship and the UCLA’s identified trend holds as expected.

  It was predicted in mid-November 2020 that “Biden’s America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole” because “Amnesty & Open Borders Will Revolutionize The Electoral Landscape” by placing the US on “The Path To One-Party Rule”, which could then lead to mass disarmament and more state-backed racist violence. The first step in this plan is to place all illegal immigrants on the path to US citizenship, which is precisely what AMLO just proposed amidst the US’ fierce debate over its de facto open southern border.

  The issue is so serious that the Republicans won’t approve more Ukraine aid unless Biden implements comprehensive border security reform to stem the tide after literally millions of illegals flooded into the country over the past three years of his presidency. Seeing as how so-called “moderate” Republicans have a tendency to sell out their principles after some time, and the vast majority of the party consider themselves to be “moderates” instead of MAGA, they might agree to amnesty as a “compromise”.

  Biden could promise to implement more robust border security and order the government to turn back all illegals caught crossing the frontier instead of retaining his “catch-and-release” policy that’s encouraged so many to invade the country in exchange for them going along with amnesty. He might even add a humanitarian and economic dimension to his argument by claiming that it’s “the right thing to do” and could lead to them paying more taxes, which could sway most “moderate” Republicans.

  If the Republicans agree to this “compromise”, then they’d be handing the country over to one-party Democrat rule by 2032, after which the dystopia that was warned about three years ago would become an irreversible reality. Their opponents’ liberal–globalist policies that would be imposed in the aftermath would also forever put an end to their own conservative-nationalist ones that they claim to support, thus completing the latest “American Revolution” that’s been ongoing since Obama’s time in office.  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 15:10

• "Gobsmackingly Bananas": Weather Models Predict Polar Vortex Invasion Into US 
  “Gobsmackingly Bananas”: Weather Models Predict Polar Vortex Invasion Into US 

  While it’s still uncertain, weather models suggest that a polar vortex might plunge large swaths of the Lower 48 into dangerously cold temperatures sometime late next. 

  There has been a lot of speculation on social media platform X about the incoming polar vortex. 

  Updated info on the impending climate emergency due to the Arctic blast across the Pacific Northwest & then into the Central and Midwest USA in the coming 5-10 days.

  “Gobsmackingly bananas” temperatures 76°F below climate normal for mid-January are off-the-charts cold pic.twitter.com/JMNBm1bRLF

  — Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) January 6, 2024

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

  It is now official what the Arctic has predicted: a massive cool down next week. #natgas https://t.co/b3iePWMSQy

  — Heinrich Leopold (@LeopoldHeinrich) January 7, 2024

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

  Weather watchers and meteorologists point out that an ongoing stratospheric warming event could displace the polar vortex from the Pole and pour cold air into the Lower 48. 

  The Arctic signals we will be seeing a historic cold winter. #natgas https://t.co/jb32p6qZAT pic.twitter.com/T53mgNPwLh

  — Heinrich Leopold (@LeopoldHeinrich) January 6, 2024

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

  Almost 60C of warming now at 10hpa 60N..
  The #spv stratospheric polar vortex weakened and displaced from the N Pole.. pic.twitter.com/cCT6ygWlZ8

  — Marco Petagna (@Petagna) January 5, 2024

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

  Big stratospheric warming underway over the North Pole 10hPa temps have soared from -80C to -15C and continues on up +65C in a matter of days. pic.twitter.com/waEtmrUfaW

  — London & Southeast 🔆 (@TheSnowDreamer) January 6, 2024

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

  It’s not just X users chatting away about a potential polar vortex. Bloomberg data shows headlines across corporate media with “Polar Vortex” have spiked in the last two weeks. We overlaid the headline data with natural gas futures, in which prices are rising, an indication traders could be pricing in a cold snap premium. 

  

  New weather outlooks from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center show a cold blast arriving late next week for Central and Eastern parts of the US. 

  

  Couple this with the higher precipitation probabilities—great news for snow lovers. 

  

  Longer-term outlooks show more cold is in store after the midpoint of the month. 

  

  Sigh. 

  Climate strike week 281. #FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/Ncz5LBAp4Z

  — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) January 5, 2024

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

  A new weather note from John Baranik, a meteorologist for DTN, provided more details about the incoming cold blast for the Lower 48:

  Those of us in the US and Canada have had short bursts of colder air, but nothing that would be labeled as arctic just yet.

  That will all change early next week, as an arm of the polar vortex is pinched off from the North Pole and settles into Western Canada by Jan. 9. Two upper-level ridges, one in Alaska, and another in the North Atlantic, will do the pinching. We have not had a dramatic ridge in either location to start the winter; this is a primary reason why we have yet to see a polar vortex event take place.

  But even with the polar vortex starting to develop in Western Canada, it will take another day or two for it to pull down the air from the North Pole, with those arctic-cold anomalies below normal starting to show up on Dec. 10 in northwest Canada.

  The cold will expand south and east from there into the U.S. during the following couple of days as the southern jet stream causes a few storm systems to move through the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains Jan. 10-12. The extent and depth of the cold air are currently in question, as of Jan. 5.

  Model forecasts suggest that a ridge in the Southeast may be able to contain that cold air to the western half of the U.S. and Canada, at least the harshest of the cold. That would mean from the Canadian Prairies down to the Texas Panhandle up to Missouri and Minnesota will be the areas east of the Rockies to be put into the icebox for an extended period of time.

  Again, models are still working out how cold it might be, and some of that depends on the recent and forecast snow cover. A system that goes through the Plains and Midwest early in the week could lead to some very low temperature readings over the snowpack when the arctic air comes in.

  Meanwhile, the incoming cold snap reminds us of the multi-billion dollar weather disaster that paralyzed Texas’ power grid for over a week in February 2021. 

  Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy for JPMorgan Asset & Wealth Management, recently published a note, reminding clients about power grid instabilities across the US:

  Due to retirement of dispatchable power generation (nuclear, coal, gas) and underinvestment in pipelines, gas storage and winterization, major US cities will face electricity outages and/ or natural gas outages (which are much worse). The North American Electricity Reliability Association just released its 2023 risk assessment. The region NERC highlights as having the greatest risk of power outages, even in normal peak conditions: Midwest MISO, which stretches from Minnesota down to Lo Louisiana. Outage risk in more extreme weather conditions is cited for New York, New England and the entire Western US. NERC cites peak loads rising at “ an alarming rate ” due to electrification, coinciding with increasingly intermittent new sources of generation ( wind and solar power ) and 80 – 110 GW of nuclear and fossil fuel generation retirements by 2033, which is ~7% of current installed capacity. Reserve margins indicate the buffer each region has to a spike in summer demand; the chart on the left summarizes NERC’s assessment of future reserve margins. Note as well how unplanned outages have been rising during cold weather storms.

  

  If you think power outages are bad, natural gas outages would be far worse. During winter storm Elliott in December 2022, cold weather resulted in the failure of gas production wellheads, pipelines, and distribution. Dry gas production in the lower 48 states fell by 16%, with Marcellus and Utica production falling by 23% – 54%. On December 25, interstate natural gas pipelines serving Con Edison experienced drops in pressure due to production losses and operational issues. Con Ed restored pressure from a backup LNG system until systemwide pressure was normalized, and ended up narrowly avoiding a gas system outage.

  During a gas outage, local gas distribution companies would need to go building-by-building and shut off gas valves to ensure that residual gas does not seep through units whose pilot lights are out. During the system restoration process, the main distribution system would be purged; then workers would have to insure at each point of service th at heating and cooking gas lines are safely purged and operational before restoring service and relighting pilot lights. Any homes or buildings with safety issues would need remediation before any gas restoration. Even losing service to 130,000 customers would be considered a major outage and could have taken five to seven weeks (!!) to restore. A large outage could also cause extensive property damage due to burst water pipes within homes and buildingssince water expands when it freezes.

  All eyes are on the incoming cold blast and possible grid strain issues due to high heating demand. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 14:35

• Paxlovid Does Not Reduce Risk Of Long COVID, Potentially Linked To Rebound Symptoms: Study
  Paxlovid Does Not Reduce Risk Of Long COVID, Potentially Linked To Rebound Symptoms: Study

  Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (Emphasis ours),

  

  Paxlovid, an antiviral medication prescribed to treat symptoms associated with COVID-19, does not reduce the risk of developing long COVID in vaccinated people recovering at home.

  The report comes from a new study published in the Journal of Medical Virology on Thursday. Conducted by a team of researchers from the University of California–San Francisco, the study also found that more people are experiencing rebounds of their COVID symptoms after taking Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir-ritonavir) than previously reported.

  Paxlovid is the first antiviral pill approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat mild and moderate COVID-19 in adults. It is typically prescribed to those at high risk of having the virus progress to a severe illness, including hospitalization or death. The medication has also been authorized for use in children 12 and older who are at risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19.

  According to manufacturer Pfizer, initial trials of Paxlovid showed it reduced hospitalizations and death in unvaccinated COVID patients by 86 percent to 89 percent. A real-world study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that adults who took Paxlovid within the first five days of a COVID-19 diagnosis had a 51 percent lower hospitalization rate within 30 days than those who did not take the medication. More recent studies have indicated lower efficacy rates, with patients having about 37 percent reduced hospitalization and death risk.

  However, no study has pointed to whether the drug helps protect people from getting long COVID, noted authors of the UC San Francisco study.

  Paxlovid Did Not Prevent Long COVID

  To determine if Paxlovid protects against long COVID, the research team examined over 4,600 vaccinated individuals from the UC San Fransisco COVID-19 Citizen Science study who experienced their first positive COVID-19 tests between March and August 2022. None of the patients was hospitalized. About 20 percent of patients took the three-pill course of Paxlovid, while about 80 percent did not.

  In December 2022, the patients answered a follow-up survey that included questions about long COVID, COVID rebound symptoms, and how long they continued to test positive.

  “We found a higher proportion with clinical rebound than previously reported, but did not identify an effect of posttreatment rebound on Long COVID symptoms,” researchers wrote.

  The team found little difference between the two groups. For example, roughly 16 percent of patients prescribed Paxlovid had long-COVID symptoms compared to about 14 percent who were not prescribed the medication. Long-COVID patients in each group experienced fatigue, shortness of breath, confusion, headache, and changes in sense of smell and taste.

  Paxlovid Rebound Symptoms Confirmed

  The UC San Francisco study reported that just over 1 in 5 individuals (21 percent) who reported getting better after taking Paxlovid experienced rebound symptoms, or a return of their COVID symptoms. Among those who experienced rebounds, 10.8 percent reported one or more long-COVID symptoms.

  Additionally, retesting positive was common among rebound patients; 25.7 percent of individuals who took Paxlovid and repeated antigen testing after testing negative ended up testing positive.

  In all, just over 26 percent of participants reported either rebound symptoms or test positivity, the study noted.

  Of the roughly 75 percent who didn’t experience rebound while on Paxlovid, 8.3 percent reported at least one long-COVID symptom.

  The study echoes a Nov. 13, 2023, study conducted by Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers also indicating that 1 in 5 individuals who took Paxlovid experienced a rebound of symptoms.

  “We conducted this study to address lingering questions about Paxlovid and virologic rebound in COVID-19 treatment,” senior author Dr. Mark Siedner, associate professor of medicine at HMS and an infectious disease clinician and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, said in a HMS press release. “We found that the virologic rebound phenomenon was much more common than expected—in over 20 percent of people taking Paxlovid—and that individuals shed live virus when experiencing a rebound, which means they may be contagious after initial recovery.”

  Previous clinical trials suggested that between 1 percent and 2 percent of patients who took Paxlovid experienced rebound, according to the press release.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 14:00

• EU Adopts "Emergency Airworthiness Directive" After FAA Grounds Boeing 737-9 Max Jets Over Blowout
  EU Adopts “Emergency Airworthiness Directive” After FAA Grounds Boeing 737-9 Max Jets Over Blowout

  Shortly after the US Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency order to ground 171 Boeing 737-9 (MAX) jets used by major airlines due to an incident where an emergency door separated from an Alaska Airlines Max jet over Portland on Friday evening, European aviation authorities have adopted the FAA’s directive.

  EASA wrote in a statement that “specific configuration” of the 737-9 MAX aircraft will be grounded for immediate inspection following “an event on an Alaska Airlines flight, where an exit panel detached from the aircraft inflight, leading to rapid decompression of the cabin.” 

  

  “EASA took the decision to adopt the FAA Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) despite the fact that, to the Agency’s knowledge and also on the basis of statements from the FAA and Boeing,” the regulator said. 

  However, the EU regulator noted, “No airline in an EASA Member State currently operates an aircraft in the relevant configuration.” 

  Safety precautions in the EU for the troubled 737 MAX come as the FAA grounded 171 737-9 Max jets on Saturday after a mid-cabin exit door on an Alaska Airlines flight separated from the plane mid-flight over Portland.  

  BREAKING: Alaska Airlines plane makes emergency landing in Portland, Oregon after window blows out in mid-air.

  Several items, including phones, were sucked out of the plane when it suddenly depressurized. Everyone is safe. pic.twitter.com/BtOB1RU3tn

  — BNO News (@BNONews) January 6, 2024

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

  Here’s a list of the latest actions by airlines in the US and worldwide that operate these troubled jets (list courtesy of Bloomberg): 

  • Alaska Air Group Inc., the airline at the center of the turmoil, initially grounded all 65 of its 737-9 Max jets hours after the accident. It later allowed 18 of the planes to resume flying after receiving detailed maintenance inspections pre- dating the event. However, it subsequently pulled all jets from service again.
  • United Airlines Holding Inc., the biggest operator of the affected Max type, says all 79 of its jets are temporarily grounded. The next step is for the airline to determine with the FAA the inspection process and requirements to return the planes to service. It earlier said 33 of the jets had met necessary inspections before grounding all planes.
  • Panama’s Copa Airlines SA said it grounded 21 of its impacted jets. The carrier has a total of 29 in its fleet, but operates them in two different configurations. – Aeromexico has followed United and Alaska Air in pulling all 19 of its 737-9 Max jets from service for inspections.
  • Icelandair said its small fleet of 737-9 Max jets are not affected by FAA inspections. The carrier has been in contact with Boeing and the FAA.
  • Turkish Airlines said its country’s civil aviation authority asked it to examine its small fleet of five 737-9 Max planes. Until the technical review is complete, the carrier has withdrawn the jets from service.
  • FlyDubai said its three 737-9 Max jets are unaffected by the FAA directive, the company told Bloomberg News.

  

  One X user wrote:

  The Boeing 737 Max hull failure is bad This was a brand-new aircraft. ~150 revenue flights. Probably no more than 250 pressurization cycles on it total (if that) While failures of this sort are not unknown, they tend not to occur on a new airframe. Which suggests that a production issue is at fault…

  The Boeing 737 Max hull failure is bad

  This was a brand-new aircraft. ~150 revenue flights. Probably no more than 250 pressurization cycles on it total (if that)

  While failures of this sort are not unknown, they tend not to occur on a new airframe. Which suggests that a…

  — The Mind Scourge (@TheMindScourge) January 6, 2024

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

  Remember this… 

  As a reminder, the 737 Max was “designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys”.https://t.co/Z5rt2LoI3e

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 6, 2024

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

  We suspect Boeing shares might be red come Monday morning. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 13:25

• An Eclectic Mix Of Things To Mull Over
  An Eclectic Mix Of Things To Mull Over

  By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  An Eclectic Mix of Things to Mull Over

  Let’s start with the one thing that has annoyed me more than anything else. I kept hearing over and over “what a good report” the jobs report was. That disturbs me, because with some digging, there were a number of issues that we highlighted in Strange Jobs Reports. I accept that my interpretation could be wrong, but some people who I trust (and have been consistently good) pointed out that it was probably worse than I wrote. Something that I found curious (but haven’t verified) is supposedly 11 of the last 12 reports have been revised down (seems odd).

  10 of the past 11 months have been revised lower https://t.co/fn139AC4il pic.twitter.com/tfrNWsdZXg

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 5, 2024

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

  There was a very good radio interview I listened to with someone from a temporary employment company who pointed out that for the second month in a row, there were losses in temp employment – usually a leading indicator. Oh, and the ISM was awful, but enough ranting! Or, more accurately, enough ranting on that subject, and let’s move on to other things that perturb me.

  First the “Normal” Stuff

  America the Divided, may well be how we fill in the blank for America the ______ (the 2024 Outlook piece). The election is heating up as we near the primaries and President Biden launched his first campaign commercial. The slogans might sound “unifying,” but from a distance, they seem more likely to be divisive (rather than unifying) at least at this stage.

  Paying lip service to Geopolitical Risk. I’m certainly aware of the risk that having such great access to and interaction with our Geopolitical Intelligence Group could be influencing me too much (for a hammer, every problem looks like a nail). But we are not the only ones talking about geopolitical risk. It has been mentioned in corporate report after corporate report (right up there with AI). Certainly, asset managers mention that geopolitical risk could pose the biggest risk to markets in 2024. Yet, for all the talk, I think that it is largely being ignored. Times Have Changed – Position Accordingly, details my thoughts on how geopolitical risk is impacting market signals and correlations. These changes in turn should impact your business decisions and portfolio management.

  General Robeson and Peter Tchir were on Bloomberg Radio discussing the Middle East, shipping, and oil (Bloomberg Podcast). Academy was also on Bloomberg TV with our macro take on markets, the economy, and geopolitical risks (Bloomberg TV first 2 segments).

  The Non-Strategic Petroleum Reserve

  From turning a blind eye to Iran’s sale of oil (well above any sanction limits) to the feeble attempts to exchange oil for free elections in Venezuela, to the disingenuously named Inflation Reduction Act, I cannot help but be concerned. The U.S. (as a nation) has painted itself into a corner and is not doing a good job of getting out of that predicament.

  

  We have tensions in the Middle East. We have competitors for Venezuela’s supply. The finds in Guyana may prove challenging for the U.S. (as opposed to other countries) to access.

  “We,” or at least the incumbent politicians, have demonstrated a real fear of inflation. Probably, at least in part, rightfully so, but that fear seems overdone – especially in an era where jobs and pay raises have been plentiful.

  There is no way that our adversaries (and even some “friends” like the Saudis) haven’t noticed this depletion and are taking advantage of it when and where they can. It is one reason why I like energy and energy stocks so much.

  COVID “Bumps”

  We argued, quite violently, it seems, that much of the goods inflation was transitory. That not only did you have supply chain issues, but you had consumer behavior radically altered, at least for a little while.

  • Government money was sloshing around. Job availability was incredibly high.
  • Mobility was high and many were exploring a “new way of life” that “work from home” brought, creating demand in its own right.
  • Finally, consumers aren’t stupid, and knew about supply chain issues, so they bought what was available, even if they didn’t need it at the time.

  Here is how I see the COVID bump playing out for goods (already discussed) and for services (up next).

  

  We have argued, less violently, but increasingly so, that the services industry experienced a similar bump, but with some key differences!

  • It started later for many. In some cases, states or countries precluded certain services from being offered. Even in areas where services were available, individuals had their own comfort level as to when they were comfortable using various services.
  • The travel industry was particularly hard hit by COVID, and it was difficult to return to normal after such a dramatic COVID pullback in demand. So, the “supply chain” issues in services like travel were hampered even after they started normalizing.
  • There was less money sloshing around by the time services got into full swing. Let’s admit it, 2023 should be labeled as the Summer of Vacation. It also happened to be the summer that America really discovered Europe and overseas travel.

  If I am correct about the difference, I think that we are in the early stages of declines in service usage. That will hit the economy hard.

  QQQ – Or When Passive Isn’t So Passive

  The top 7 companies (one stock has two share classes, so I counted both classes) totaled over 55% of the weighting in QQQ. Now, primarily due to a reweighting methodology, the top 7 companies are 38% of the index. Still a hefty chunk and an index skewed towards the titans, but that is a pretty significant drop. The methodology (I think more than market moves) also changed the top 7 companies in the index, with one dropping out and one entering.

  Let’s just say for a moment that you want to “bet on a reversal” of some of last year’s moves. Maybe you want to bet on small caps. For many, you could express it in futures (which has the same changes), or you could express it in ETFs (easier for many). If you thought, for example, that the Nasdaq 100 and the Russell 2000 would converge (I encouraged that trade until recently), it would seem to make some sense. Yet, all your charts going back to the changes in the Nasdaq in December will be heavily skewed by the top 10 stocks, which represented a far bigger portion of the index than it does now!

  Let’s say, and I think this is interesting, you owned the Magnificent “Pick a Number” stocks. Some number of the biggest tech companies. If you periodically hedged that position with Nasdaq 100, you had potentially a 55% overlap. It is far less than that today.

  Some of the biggest names in tech have struggled since late December (underperformed from early November to outright negative performance in some cases starting late December). Presumably, the rebalancing had an impact (QQQ alone is $225 billion as of Friday – not an insignificant number in a market that I view as being less liquid at any depth, than the frantic, algo driven, markets would make you believe).

  I cannot help but wonder what other shenanigans this reweighting is potentially having on portfolios?

  In any case, if the Magnificent “Pick a Number” falter, it won’t impact the Nasdaq 100 like it would have last year.

  Maybe it is nothing, but it seems strange enough to me to warrant consideration. Especially when you are talking about strategies and positioning that involved the behemoths in terms of market capitalization. If “hedges” are less effective, will we see more outright selling?

  Who Will Buy Treasuries Ever Again?

  If feels like it was just a few months ago when:

  • We watched every Treasury auction as a harbinger of doom (they haven’t stopped issuing, just no one pays much attention).
  • We talked about Chinese TIC data and the dwindling holdings (they are still reducing their holdings at a steady clip, but no one cares).
  • Every missile shot in the world seemed to cause immediate fears about the U.S. budget deficit (they are still being shot and the cost will add up, but that isn’t today’s problem).
  • As we issue debt at higher yields, our overall cost of debt increases, further increasing the risk of deficits and increasing the proportion of tax revenue spent on budget service. This is still happening, though new issue yields aren’t as bad as they were. However, most longer-dated debt is replacing debt with lower coupons – and about 65% of debt with high coupons is owned by the Fed at their limits. It takes years to increase (or decrease) the average coupon and it is still happening.
  • DC is dysfunctional and divisive but will keep spending money. No comment.

  Oh, it was just a few months ago! This is probably the biggest reason why I can’t get comfortable betting on a “flight to safety” trade. I just don’t think that we are done with these legitimate fears, and something will trigger them again (probably bad price action, since price action more often than not instills the narrative, rather than responds to the narrative).

  Bitcoin ETF’s

  I will be so happy when these are finally approved! I think that there are something like 14 applications for Bitcoin “spot” ETFs (that is the terminology when things like “cash” ETF or “physical” ETF don’t work because Bitcoin is neither cash nor physical).

  I’ve understood the amount of hype surrounding this from the existing holders of Bitcoin. It will apparently open up a whole new wave of buyers. There is so much excitement that many firms are “backing” a bitcoin ETF, which must indicate a Wall Street (or at least an ETF manager) love affair with Bitcoin. All that may be true, but I’m leaning towards this being a massive “sell the news” opportunity. Apparently, that is consensus (though I think that it is consensus in terms of voices, not money put to work, and money put to work is all that matters when looking for contrarian views).

  One thing that is very different about the chase for the Bitcoin ETF is the Greyscale Bitcoin Trust (ticker GBTC). This is not an ETF, but in my opinion, it is the main reason why everyone who can is trying to get a Bitcoin ETF.

  As of Friday, GBTC had a market value of $25 billion. The expense ratio, as published on Bloomberg, is 2%. That one security, therefore, generates about $500 million in fees! QQQ at $225 billion has fees listed as 0.2%. So before actual costs (which I presume are higher for GBTC), GBTC generates more income than QQQ! SPY, at $478 billion, has an expense ratio of 0.095%, so it also generates less than $500 million in fees. I suspect that GBTC alone is competitive with some much larger ETF suites, which is why so many are going after this obvious pie!

  I cannot think of an ETF launch (in recent memory) where you could just point to one asset and say, “if I can just get X% of that AUM, I’m doing extremely well!” That I think is a big motivator.

  GBTC is interesting in its own right, because it can trade at a premium or discount to NAV. There is a methodology to increase the shares outstanding, typically done when it is trading at a significant premium to NAV (likely indicating excess demand for GBTC). That was done and is how GBTC got so large.

  GBTC averaged around a 40% discount to NAV for much of the first 5 months of 2023. 40%! That discount to NAV has narrowed to 5.5% as of Friday – great for anyone who stuck with GBTC as not only did Bitcoin appreciate, but the gains from the discount to NAV closing were extremely good as well!

  But presumably, if an ETF that will trade close to NAV becomes available, investors would prefer that to something that can trade at meaningful discounts. In “normal” times, equity ETFs have almost no variation and credit products can deviate 1% or so depending on the availability of the create/redeem arb and the quality of the Net Asset Value calculation (not as straightforward for credit). I’m assuming that due to how Bitcoin trades, there will be some deviation even in the ETF NAV versus trading price, but it will be much more manageable (and not as one-sided) as the trust vehicle in place.

  The provider of GBTC is one of the applicants for an ETF (or at least that is my understanding). So, in my opinion, the first “battle” will be to divvy up the GBTC pie, with people trying to get money out of that. I wonder, at this point, how many of the GBTC holders own that versus being short Bitcoin, in anticipation of being able to get out at flat? If that is true, the pie might be smaller than everyone looking to ride the ETF wave realizes.

  I’ve heard that some ETF providers have lined up large crypto holders to swap their crypto into the ETF (once launched). That is interesting from an AUM standpoint but should do nothing for Bitcoin price (once the headlines of “billions enter Bitcoin ETF in first weeks of trading” have run their course). It just transfers the holding format, rather than creates real demand. If Bitcoin is so great, and you already figured out how to custody it yourself, why would you use an ETF? It seems almost bizarre – Bitcoin is great, the future of money, it trades 24/7, etc., but do I prefer to hold it in ETF form?

  I think that money will transfer from other ways of holding Bitcoin into ETFs, but that seems more of an admonishment of holding Bitcoin (the costs, the risks, the liquidity) than anything else.

  Will some new money come in? Sure, without a doubt marketing will ramp up and there are still some people who want Bitcoin but haven’t figured out how to buy Bitcoin. Though I suspect that number is far less than when the Bitcoin futures launched, and they do not seem (to me) to be a resounding success (if they were, we’d probably be hearing a lot less about “spot” bitcoin ETFs).

  The people most excited about the bitcoin ETF seem to be HODLers of Bitcoin (my gut is that they have ramped up their holdings in anticipation of ETFs unleashing a wave of demand) and the media (who want something else to talk about). I don’t have many conversations with people (with money) that indicate there is some massive pent-up demand for Bitcoin ETFs. Some, yes, massive, no. Maybe RIAs will all allocate 1% to it, but that remains to be seen.

  I view the Bitcoin ETF as much more about Wall Street seeing a pie that they can get their hands on (so why not) rather than heralding in some new wave of acceptance of crypto. And let’s be honest (and cynical), why else would I pay attention and write about it, if there wasn’t a chance that it might evolve back into something I have to incorporate into my daily work!

  Bottom Line

  Verbatim from Thursday.

  • I’m the most bullish I’ve been on energy and energy stocks in sometime (probably toss all commodities into that mix).
  • I’m the most bearish I’ve been on equities and am targeting 4,500 on the S&P 500 sooner rather than later.
  • Credit spreads will widen in sympathy with equities, though this is largely an equity valuation and “set-up” problem (the set-up being the conditioning to lower yields = higher stocks) so credit should outperform equities quite handily here.
  • On bonds, maybe, just maybe, we get some “flight to safety” trade, so I’m only mildly bearish on bonds right now, but will sell any rally in bonds as I think that the problems facing the bond market (from geopolitical risk) will outweigh the “traditional” safety bid.

  Lots to think about as we start 2024, and none of my “little tidbits” do anything to make me more comfortable with risk, just more reasons to remain cautious on everything.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 12:50

• Saturday Night Drive-By: Citing Anonymous Sources, WSJ Smears Musk As Drug Abuser
  Saturday Night Drive-By: Citing Anonymous Sources, WSJ Smears Musk As Drug Abuser

  The Wall Street Journal fired some serious shots at Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday night, dropping a lengthy hit piece accusing him of illegal drug use to an extent that has worried executives and board members while potentially jeopardizing Musk’s various federal government contracts.

  The article relies heavily on anonymous sources, described, for example,” as “people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.” Here are two of the more potent paragraphs:  

  The world’s wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.

  …

  In 2018… he took multiple tabs of acid at a party he hosted in Los Angeles. The next year he partied on magic mushrooms at an event in Mexico. In 2021, he took ketamine recreationally with his brother, Kimbal Musk, in Miami at a house party during Art Basel. He has taken illegal drugs with current SpaceX and former Tesla board member Steve Jurvetson.

  Many of the article’s accounts go back a few years or more, and there are no specific descriptions of where or when Musk supposedly used cocaine or ecstasy. As for ketamine, the 52-year-old has previously said he’s been prescribed the drug for depression, and last year tweeted that it was a better avenue than antidepressants that are “zombifying” patients. In 2018, he famously shared some cannabis on Joe Rogan’s show.

  Depression is overdiagnosed in the US, but for some people it really is a brain chemistry issue.

  But zombifying people with SSRIs for sure happens way too much. From what I’ve seen with friends, ketamine taken occasionally is a better option.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 27, 2023

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

  Musk’s lawyer told the Journal that Musk is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test,” and said there were “other false facts” in the quasi-exposé, but didn’t specify what they are. The lawyer didn’t respond to the Journal’s query about which drugs are screened for in the tests. 

  The Journal says former Tesla director Linda Johnson Rice was so fed up with Musk’s unpredictable behavior and worries about drug use that she opted out of pursuing re-election in 2019. Here again, it’s not Rice telling the Journal that, but “people familiar with the matter.”  

  Among the purportedly concerning anecdotes outlined in the story is a 2017 SpaceX all-hands meeting to discuss the firm’s Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) prototype. According to the Journal, Musk showed up an hour late, only to slur his words in a rambling speech in which he repeatedly called the product the “Big Fucking Rocket.” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell was said to have intervened and taken charge of the session, with executives later quietly speculating that Musk was on drugs. An unidentified witness described his performance as “nonsensical,” “unhinged,” and “cringeworthy.” 

  In another speculation-centric element of the Journal story, Tesla board members were said to have worried that Musk was on drugs in 2018 when he took to Twitter and said he planned to take the firm private and had “funding secured.” That market-moving tweet put Musk in hot water with the SEC, which alleged he’d misled investors. Some of the worried board members considered pushing Musk to take a leave of absence, according to “people familiar with the discussions.”

  Last year, we reported on his ketamine use. This goes far beyond that, and puts billions of dollars in federal contracts at SpaceX at risk, as well as $1 trillion held by investors, and tens of thousands of jobs tied to Musk’s companies. https://t.co/NzsGbZMUqB

  — Kirsten Grind (@KirstenGrind) January 7, 2024

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

  The Journal’s Emily Glazer and Kirsten Grind seemed bent on putting Musk’s business in danger. They note that, in addition to potentially violating his own companies’ policies, drug use of the types alleged in the story could imperil Musk’s dealings with the federal government, including $14 billion in SpaceX business. Regardless of more permissive state laws, federal contracts require compliance with the Drug-Free Workplace Act.

  In addition to drug testing, the law requires that firms publish a statement “notifying employees that the unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, possession, or use of a controlled substance is prohibited in the person’s workplace.” Contractors must also inform employees that compliance with that statement is a condition of employment. Drug use can also lead to the cancellation of security clearances. 

  Musk hit back at WSJ: 

  “After that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing. Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol. @WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird 💩 7.” 

  After that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing.

  Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol. @WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird 💩

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2024

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

  Let’s not forget that Musk’s social media platform X is an attempt to fracture corporate media. So, of course, it’s only in the best interest of legacy media to churn out hit piece after hit piece on the billionaire. 

  However… 

  

  It’s worth highlighting that the 1988 law’s scope is focused on the “workplace.” With Musk a notorious, globe-trotting workaholic, defining his workplaces could be a challenging lawyerly endeavor. 

  Multiple federal agencies have already been weaponized against Musk, and now one of the establishment’s leading newspapers has piled on with its own shot. At year-end, we reported that Musk had regained the title of “world’s richest person,” suggesting it could render him “too big to cancel” — but they’re clearly not going to stop trying.  

  Wow so you’re telling me that not only did this guy sell more EVs than any other automaker on Earth in 2023, launch 80% of payload to orbit

  But he did it while on LSD, cocaine, ecstasy & ketamine? Just when you thought the guy couldn’t get more impressive

  what a dumb smear job pic.twitter.com/7RgV50ZXVN

  — Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) January 7, 2024

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

  Legacy media’s smear campaign didn’t stop with Musk. 

  Last Thursday, Business Insider targeted hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman. The report noted she plagiarized multiple paragraphs of her 2010 doctoral dissertation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This comes directly after Ackman’s war on ‘woke’ Harvard University resulted in the ousting of Claudine Gay, former president of the school, over plagiarism.

  These smear campaigns are becoming very noticeable to the untrained eye – or the average American – suggesting a diminishing impact on discrediting individuals’ credibility and reputation by legacy media. Therefore, it seems likely that the era of canceling folks by corporate media and elites is in decline. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 12:15

• After Shooting Ashli Babbitt, Capitol Police Lt. Made False Radio Report: Lawsuit
  After Shooting Ashli Babbitt, Capitol Police Lt. Made False Radio Report: Lawsuit

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Within a minute after firing the fatal bullet that struck Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd broadcast a radio report claiming shots were being fired at him in the Speaker’s Lobby and he was “prepared to fire back,” a federal lawsuit alleges.

  

  The previously undisclosed radio dispatch is also contained on an audio recording obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times of the “OPS2” dispatch channel used by Capitol Police on Jan. 6.

  Information on the recording is contained in a federal lawsuit filed on Jan. 5 by Ms. Babbitt’s widower, Aaron Babbitt of San Diego. Mr. Babbitt, backed in his lawsuit by Judicial Watch, is seeking $30 million from the U. S. government for wrongful death.

  According to the lawsuit, Mr. Byrd fired his Glock 22 .40-caliber pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder, then announced that he was being fired upon and was ready to return fire.

  “In fact, no shots were fired at Lt. Byrd or his fellow officers,” the lawsuit stated. “The only shot fired was the single shot Lt. Byrd fired at Ashli. He heard the loud noise of the gunshot. He saw her fall backward from the window frame.”

  

  The Epoch Times reached out to Capitol Police and Mr. Byrd’s attorney for comment on the lawsuit and its allegations. Mr. Byrd is now a captain with U.S. Capitol Police.

  A few minutes prior to the shooting, a police dispatcher mistakenly reported, “They’re taking shots into the House floor.”

  “Lt. Byrd erroneously believed and acted on a false radio call and/or false report of shots fired on the House floor occurring before he left the House floor and moved across the Speaker’s Lobby to the adjacent Retiring Room,” the suit said.

  “A reasonably prudent officer in Lt. Byrd’s position would have been aware that, in fact, the report was false and the sound heard on the House floor was glass breaking, not shots fired,” the lawsuit alleged.

  It is not clear why Mr. Byrd made the statement that he was taking fire and was prepared to fire back. His radio dispatch occurred up to a minute after he fired on Ms. Babbitt, the suit said.

  “The facts speak truth. Ashli was ambushed when she was shot by Lt. Byrd,” the lawsuit said. “Multiple witnesses at the scene yelled, ‘You just murdered her.’”

  “Lt. Byrd was never charged or otherwise punished or disciplined for Ashli’s homicide,” the suit stated.

  Video shot from the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby shows Mr. Byrd emerging in a shooting stance with both hands holding the Glock.

  In his only public statements about the shooting—made not to investigators but to an NBC television anchor—Mr. Byrd never mentioned his radio dispatch or his claim that shots were being fired at him and other officers. Nor did he use that as justification for firing his weapon and killing Ms. Babbitt.

  An unknown U.S. Capitol Police officer first reported shots fired in the U.S. House just before 2:43 p.m., followed later by Mr. Byrd’s shots-fired announcement, according to the audio recording obtained by The Epoch Times. Both reports turned out to be unfounded.

  Officer: “Shots fired, House floor. Shots fired, House floor. Immediate assistance.”

  Dispatch: “Shots fired, House floor. Shots fired, House floor.”

  2nd Dispatcher: “I need units to re…,” which was cut off mid-sentence. That message ceased on the OPS2 channel but was heard in full on the OPS1 channel:

  “I need units to respond to the chamber, the House chamber floor,” the dispatcher said. “Again, units need to respond to the House floor in reference to shots fired. They were shots fired at the House floor. Again, units to respond. They’re taking shots into the House floor. We need units to respond to that location. 1443 hours.”

  Lt. Byrd: “405-B. We got shots fired in the lobby. We got fot (sic), shots fired in the lobby of the House chamber. Shots are being fired at us, and we’re prepared to fire back at them. We have guns drawn. [Unintelligible] Don’t leave that end! Don’t leave that end!”

  J6ers in the Capitol stairwell. Down the hall a man casually walking. Ashli Babbitt with no weapon stands on the door with three SWAT officers right behind her and Lt. Michael Byrd shoots and kills her. Byrd was promoted to captain. Ashli Babbitt is dead. pic.twitter.com/10TrBZLwWX

  — Ken Miles (@kenmilesamerica) December 30, 2023

  Mr. Byrd’s dispatch was followed by 11 seconds of radio silence.

  The transcript of the OPS2 radio communications provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ) as evidence in Jan. 6 criminal cases does not include the words “we’re prepared to fire back at them.” The DOJ transcript instead says, “and it went, so we locked it down.”

  Dispatcher: “Simulcasting, shots fired on the House floor again.”

  Lt. Byrd: “We’ve got an injured person. I believe that person was shot. It was…” (cut off by another transmission).

  Unknown officer: “…Shot, one down, civilian. We need EMTs. We need… Come through on the west side of the building … to the House lobby.”

  Dispatch: “That’d be House…”

  Lt. Byrd: “405-B, did you copy?”

  Dispatch: “I copied. House lobby, west side. Individual…”

  Mr. Byrd retreated from the entrance to the seated area in the Speaker’s Lobby. Officer Mike Brown, a member of the USCP Containment and Emergency Response Team (CERT), said Mr. Byrd was “down and out and almost in tears.”

  The revelation of Mr. Byrd’s previously undisclosed radio statements raises fresh questions about the shooting of Ms. Babbitt, 35, and the investigation that cleared him of potential charges of excessive use of force.

  

  The DOJ report explaining why no charges were pursued did not mention Mr. Byrd’s radio dispatch.

  Mr. Byrd never made a statement to internal affairs officers who investigated the shooting on behalf of U.S. Capitol Police. When he met with DC Metro internal affairs the night of Jan. 6, 2021, he said he wanted to retain an attorney before saying anything.

  Mr. Byrd and his attorney did an informal walk-through of the shooting scene with a Capitol Police official in late January 2021 but he was never subjected to questioning.

  DOJ Report Contained Errors

  The DOJ report absolving Mr. Byrd from culpability included numerous errors and incorrect statements.

  The report says that after the glass in the doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby was smashed out, rioters “were then able to reach through the broken glass and push the chairs off the top of the barricaded furniture.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/07/2024 – 11:40