Oct 14

Today’s News 14th October 2023

  • Why Israel Needs A Second Amendment
    Why Israel Needs A Second Amendment

    Submitted by Aidan Johnston of Gun Owners of America,

    While insurgents were flying across the Israeli border on paragliders, a series of coordinated attacks left more than 1200 Israelis dead, many at a music festival on the Gaza border. 

    A day later, in response to the tragedy, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced that the country would be taking a series of actions to loosen its strict gun control laws.

    Of course, with videos of Hamas gunmen kicking in doors in an Israeli village near the border, it’s not hard to understand why the government of Israel is starting to second-guess its strict gun control laws.

    The truth is the individual right of the people to keep and bear arms is “necessary to the security of a free state.”

    That’s something that Americans understand. There’s no need to fear an invading force of paragliders, (or any force at all, really) coming over the US border. Even if the military didn’t immediately take care of the threat, American citizens would convert their F-150s into makeshift technicals and squash the invaders with overwhelming firepower.

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    And to those who say, “That could never happen here.” Never say never.

    The ATF recently notified all FFLs in border states to be on the lookout for straw purchases of belt-fed & 50-caliber firearms.

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    Israel’s gun culture is fraught with civilian firearm restrictions. And to make matters worse, the Israel Defense Forces have spent the last few years confiscating guns from local civilian security forces.

    This confiscation has led to Israeli civilians being outgunned as they defend their homes. While Hamas terrorists invaded with machine guns, grenades, and missiles, these Israeli gun owners were forced to fight back with only a single handgun and 50 rounds of ammunition each, the maximum allowed by law.

    But while the changes in Israel’s Firearms Licensing Division will no doubt benefit self-defenders held up by bureaucracy and paperwork, those who are eligible to carry firearms under the new rules will still have “to undergo a telephone interview” and may have to wait up to “a week” for approval.

    Even then, Israeli gun owners can only purchase a meager 100 rounds of ammunition. That’s not even enough ammo for a good range day.

    As of the writing of this article, the license application portal is down, likely due to overwhelming demand.

    That means even citizens who qualify under this may-issue permitting system can’t apply for that “speedy” telephone interview.

    Instead of ammunition restrictions, waiting periods, and bureaucratic firearm licensing, Israel needs a Second Amendment protecting individuals’ right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. 

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    American politicians who sit horrified by the scenes unfolding in Israel should stop attempting to strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights and consider the unknown number of terrorists who may have crossed the southern US border undetected. 

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    Maybe that will finally wake them up to the importance of our Second Amendment.

    *   *   *

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 23:40

  • STEM College Degrees Still Male-Dominated
    STEM College Degrees Still Male-Dominated

    Over the past decades, progress towards gender parity in varying societal and economic contexts has advanced, albeit slowly in some places.

    While, for example, literacy in females has caught up to that of their male counterparts since the 1970s, Statista’s Florian Zandt notes that many scientific fields are still heavily male-dominated. This is especially true for STEM jobs.

    Statista’s chart, based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics, shows that progress towards a more equal distribution of conferred degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics was barely achieved over the past ten years.

    Infographic: STEM College Degrees Still Male-Dominated | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In the academic year ending in 2021, more than 60 percent of all bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in United States postsecondary education institutions were awarded to men. The share distribution is even more tilted towards males for tertiary education below or at associate’s degrees. The former are comprised of certificates not necessarily leading to an undergraduate degree, while the latter are typically awarded after completing community college or similar institutions. Here, 71 percent of degree holders in the academic year of 2020-21 were male. Still, associate degrees saw the most substantial shift towards a more equitable distribution over the past ten years, while the share of doctorate degrees awarded to females in STEM studies remained virtually the same.

    Overall, around 800,000 STEM degrees were conferred in the academic year of 2020-21, an increase of 42 percent compared to ten years prior.

    In terms of total associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees awarded in the United States in 2021, STEM degrees account for around 20 percent.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 23:20

  • A New "Brave New World"
    A New “Brave New World”

    Authored by Raw Egg Nationalist via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    For the past century, it’s been a mainstay of the science-fiction genre: the medicated society—a society in which the majority of the population is given some form of drug to alter their behaviour, ostensibly for the better.

    (Lapina/Shutterstock)

    The most famous example of the genre is, of course, Aldous Huxley’s novel “Brave New World,” published in 1932. In Huxley’s vision of the 26th century, the drug Soma is used to ensure the obedience of the lower classes of a “perfect” eugenic world where people are bred specifically for the social function they perform.

    More recently, in the Christian Bale film “Equilibrium” (2002), the citizens of a totalitarian city-state must take an emotion-killing drug as a means to prevent war. Those who refuse to take the drug, called Prozium, are labeled “sense offenders” and are violently hunted down and sentenced to death by a special caste of “clerics.” Art, literature, and any expression of human emotion and creativity are prohibited.

    Science-fiction writers return again and again to these scenarios because they raise fundamental questions about the nature of authority and social control. In doing so, they also ask us to question what it is that makes us truly human.

    Would it be desirable to eliminate human imperfection with something as simple as a pill? Would the loss of certain “negative” or “destructive” aspects of our humanity be justified by the net gain to social order and the reduction in suffering? And would it be better to try to persuade ordinary people to surrender these aspects of themselves voluntarily for the greater good, or would an “enlightened” class of rulers have every reason to force people to do so, perhaps even without their knowledge?

    The dramatization and the fictional settings shouldn’t blind us to the fact that such possibilities are very real. Very real—and very close. Just how close has been revealed by new figures from Public Health Scotland, which show that more than a million men and women, close to a quarter of Scotland’s adult population, are now being prescribed anti-depressants, powerful drugs with wide-ranging effects on mood and physical health. This probably makes Scotland the nation with the highest rate of anti-depressant use in the world. In the United States, by contrast, around 15 percent of adults are on anti-depressants, which is still, by any metric, a lot.

    It’s not just anti-depressants that Scots are swallowing in record numbers. According to figures published by the Mail on Sunday, more than a third of Scottish adults are now being prescribed drugs from one of five broad classes associated with mental health issues. This includes a further 200,000 adults taking benzodiazepines, which are prescribed for anxiety and insomnia, and 190,000 who take gabapentinoids. Another 130,000 adults are given so-called z-drugs (such as zopiclone and zolpidem), and more than 800,000 are on opioid-based pain medication.

    A situation like this doesn’t emerge overnight. It’s taken decades for Scotland to reach this point. The problem was already bad enough in 2007, when the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) first came to power, that the government made a pledge to reduce the country’s dependency on anti-depressants. Instead, the figures have risen every year since. By 2010, 630,000 adults were taking anti-depressants, and an extra 390,000 were added over the next 12 years. There’s no reason to believe the trend won’t continue.

    Politicians are now asking serious questions. Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament Maurice Golden told the Mail on Sunday: “The sheer number of prescriptions being issued for depression and anxiety in Scotland is astonishing. The fact it has risen so considerably requires urgent and serious attention from the Scottish Government.

    “There was a time when the SNP pledged to reduce the rise in these prescriptions, but it has only ever gone in this direction since.”

    So why is this happening? A representative from Scotland’s Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr. Jane Morris, suggested it may simply be due to increased public knowledge of mental health issues and the treatments on offer.

    “We’d like to think public education and awareness of the treatability of mental illness means that more people are coming forward,” she told the Mail on Sunday.

    On this view, the number of people suffering from depression would be fixed, more or less: All that actually changes is how many people decide to seek treatment. We’re supposed to conclude, then, that at least a quarter of the adult population of Scotland has always been depressed. You don’t need to be an expert to have serious doubts that this could ever actually be the case. Dr. Morris did at least acknowledge that “increased prescribing may now reflect a rise in Scotland’s need for mental health treatment.”

    Getting to the bottom of the problem is likely to prove difficult. And the difficulties are only made more acute by the fact that anti-depressants don’t really work.

    The state of depression research is shockingly limited. Even after decades of scientific study, there’s still no evidence that the dominant chemical explanation for depression—serotonin deficiency—is true. And yet the doctors of Scotland, and doctors throughout the Western world, continue prescribing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (“SSRIs”) on the assumption that serotonin levels are the issue.

    Many studies have shown that anti-depressants are barely more effective at improving mood than placebo. The improvement is so small that some scientists argue it’s really non-existent. Access to these minimal benefits is also unevenly distributed among users. A large-scale meta-analysis in the British Medical Journal, considering data from 232 studies of anti-depressant use dating back to 1979, showed that just 15 percent of users experienced an improvement they would not have derived from the placebo, with the remaining 85 percent gaining no benefit from their use.

    Those who should supposedly benefit the most from anti-depressants—sufferers of severe depression, comorbid anxiety, and suicidal thoughts—may actually benefit the least from their use. Most clinical trials of anti-depressants deliberately exclude these people, resulting in misleading claims being directed at the drugs’ main target consumers.

    If Scotland is facing an enormous mental health crisis, and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t, anti-depressants are unlikely to be the answer. Their blanket use is just complicating matters further. Not least of all because they introduce a range of unpleasant side-effects, ranging from widely publicized loss of libido and sexual function, to gastrointestinal problems, dizziness, insomnia, headaches, loss of or increase in appetite, and even suicidal ideation and self-harm, especially in the early stages of use.

    But, more fundamentally, our reliance on drugs that don’t really even work is preventing us from understanding the root causes of depression and devising new ways—real ways that work—to address them.

    This is a textbook case of what the philosopher Ivan Illich called “iatrogenesis,” or “medically caused harm.” In his famous book “Medical Nemesis” (1975), Illich argued that the growing medicalization of society is having the paradoxical effect of making us less and less well. In particular, what medicalization does, according to Illich, is reduce our capacity to respond to our problems of health and well-being in suitable ways.

    When we see illness simply as an issue to be solved by technical interventions—with pills, injections, and surgery—administered to us by an anointed class of experts, we lose the ability to see illness on any other terms, as anything else. Like, for example, the product of a mismatch between our nature as human beings, stretching back 200,000+ years, and the very different social world we now inhabit. There’s no pill or surgery that can cure that.

    I make the case repeatedly in my work that the modern industrial diet, consisting of more and more processed food, and our unprecedented exposure to harmful industrial chemicals are making us deeply unwell, including causing a precipitous decline in markers of reproductive health such as sperm counts and testosterone levels. I think depression is part and parcel of this too. In the last few weeks, new research has shown, for instance, that consumption of processed food, especially products containing artificial sweeteners, can increase depression risk by up to 50 percent, and that elevated exposure to phthalates, a class of ubiquitous chemicals found in everything from personal-care products to plastic bottles, can significantly increase the risk of post-partum depression in new mothers.

    There’s still much investigation to be done of what’s clearly a very complex issue. But we would be fools not to heed the warnings of the thinkers who have shown us, on the page and on the screen, the dangers of a world of total medication. If we really want to do something about the massive rise in depression, in Scotland or anywhere else, we must face the possibility of a new Brave New World: one in which pills are not the answer to all our problems.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 23:00

  • China's Birth Rate Plummets 10% To Lowest On Record
    China’s Birth Rate Plummets 10% To Lowest On Record

    China’s birthrate fell 10% last year to its lowest level on record, a significant drop in spite of extensive efforts by the CCP to encourage people to get busy.

    Children play outside a cafe in Beijing, China. (AFP)

    The country had just 9.56 million births in 2022, the lowest figure since they began keeping records in 1949, according to a report by the National Health Commission.

    The high costs of child care and education, growing unemployment and job insecurity as well as gender discrimination have all helped to deter many young couples from having more than one child or even having children at all. -NBC News

    China’s population also fell for the first time in six decades, dropping to 1.41 billion people – a demographic shift that’s caused officials to worry that the country will ‘get old before it gets rich’ – with a slowing economy and declining tax receipts amid increases in government debt due to soaring health and welfare costs.

    According to the report, the demographic downturn is largely thanks to China’s one-child policy imposed between 1980 and 2015. Nearly 40% of Chinese babies last year were the second child of a married couple, while 15% were from families with three or more children.

    The sharp decline in births comes despite Beijing’s efforts to increase child care and provide other financial incentives. In May, President Xi Jinping presided over a panel to study the topic.

    Not just China

    As we noted in June, Japan’s birth rate has also plummeted to a record low for the seventh straight year, with the number of babies born falling below 800,000 this year, health ministry data showed on June 2.

    The number of newborns in Japan fell to 770,747 this year, down 40,875 from the previous year and the lowest since the country began record-keeping in 1899, Kyodo News reported, citing health ministry data.

    Japan’s fertility rate—the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime—fell from 1.30 in 2021 to 1.26 last year, equivalent to the previous low recorded in 2005. The number is far below the 2.07 rate necessary to sustain a stable population.

    The decline in Japan’s birth rate is attributed to people delaying parenthood due to the economic impact brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the prevailing trend among couples to delay marriage, according to the report.

    The US birthrate has also been in decline, falling slightly in 2022 compared to 2021, with roughly 3.7 million babies born nationwide. It still hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels according to the CDC.

    And as Mike Shedlock noted two years ago.

    More via Mish Talk, worth a review:

    The Pandemic Caused a Baby Bust, Not a Boom

    Scientific American reports The Pandemic Caused a Baby Bust, Not a Boom

    When the COVID pandemic led to widespread economic shutdowns and stay-at-home orders in the spring of 2020, many media outlets and pundits speculated this might lead to a baby boom. But it appears the opposite has happened: birth rates declined in many high-income countries amid the crisis, a new study shows.

    Arnstein Aassve, a professor of social and political sciences at Bocconi University in Italy, and his colleagues looked at birth rates in 22 high-income countries, including the U.S., from 2016 through the beginning of 2021. They found that seven of these countries had statistically significant declines in birth rates in the final months of 2020 and first months of 2021, compared with the same period in previous years. Hungary, Italy, Spain and Portugal had some of the largest drops: reductions of 8.5, 9.1, 8.4 and 6.6 percent, respectively. The U.S. saw a decline of 3.8 percent, but this was not statistically significant—perhaps because the pandemic’s effects were more spread out in the country and because the study only had U.S. data through December 2020, Aassve says. The findings were published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

    Birth rates fluctuate seasonally within a year, and many of the countries in the study had experienced falling rates for years before the pandemic. But the declines that began nine months after the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency on January 30, 2020, were even more stark. “We are very confident that the effect for those countries is real,” Aassve says. “Even though they might have had a bit of a mild downward trend [before], we’re pretty sure about the fact that there was an impact of the pandemic.”

    Covid Accelerated the Existing Trend

    Covid accelerated the already declining birth rates. 

    Given the 16-year lag between births and the civilian noninstitutional population coupled with the aging of the workforce there will be fewer and fewer workers supporting retired workers on Social Security. 

    Notice the relatively steep decline in the birth rate starting in 2008 and continuing through today. 

    That impact will start showing up in 2024 and last a minimum of 12 years.

    How long depends on whether the birth rate picks up after Covid. I highly doubt the birth rate will pick up.

    Deflationary and Inflationary Impacts

    1. Inflationary: Shortage of workers increases wage pressures
    2. Deflationary: Fewer workers support an increasing number of retirees
    3. Deflationary: Older workers need more assistance, buy fewer things, travel less. 
    4. Deflationary: More government debt and deficits. Government spending has a negative impact on real GDP.

    *  *  *

    Time for another sexual revolution?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 22:40

  • California Bans Student Suspensions For Defying Teachers, Disrupting Classes
    California Bans Student Suspensions For Defying Teachers, Disrupting Classes

    Authored by Sophie Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    It will be illegal for California public schools to suspend students for disrupting class or defying teachers—known as willful defiance suspensions—starting July 1, 2024.

    “With Governor Newsom’s signing of SB 274, California is putting the needs of students first,” bill author Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) said in a statement a day after the governor’s signing Oct. 8. “No more kicking kids out of school for minor disruptions. Students belong in school where they can succeed.”

    A class at Stark Elementary School in Stamford, Conn., on March 10, 2021. (John Moore/Getty Images)

    SB 274—an extension of the author’s previous legislation from 2019 that banned willful defiance suspensions for TK–5 students permanently and for grades 6–8 until 2025—now broadens such policy to include all public-school grades from TK–12 across the state, with a sunset date of July 1, 2029.

    Traditionally, willful defiance suspensions have been imposed on students for disrupting school activities, including wearing hats backward, nodding off in class, using bad language in school, or engaging in verbal disagreements with teachers, Ms. Skinner’s office said in the statement.

    Under the new law, teachers can remove a student from class for unruly behavior, but the youth would not be suspended from school. Instead, school administrators would be responsible for evaluating and implementing suitable in-school interventions or support for the student, according to the senator’s office.

    Additionally, the bill prohibits the suspension or expulsion of students due to tardiness or truancy.

    “The punishment for missing school should not be to miss more school,” Ms. Skinner said in an earlier press release after the bill passed the California Assembly and Senate.

    According to Ms. Skinner, suspending students could potentially lead to them dropping out of school.

    “Suspending students, no matter the age, doesn’t improve student behavior, and it greatly increases the likelihood that the student will fail or drop out,” she said in the Oct. 9 statement.

    Additionally, the senator’s office said that such suspensions have been “disproportionately directed at students of color, LGBTQ students, students who are homeless or in foster care, and those with disabilities.”

    According to Ms. Skinner’s office, a 2018 report shows that such suspensions accounted for 21 percent of all suspensions involving black male students in middle schools in California and 26 percent in high schools.

    However, opponents of the bill have said that it would create more chaos in schools.

    Davina Keiser, a former teacher with four decades of teaching experience in the Long Beach Unified School District, told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that disruptive behavior was “detrimental to the learning of everybody else in the classroom.”

    “It’s almost like a license for the rest of the kids to go ahead and misbehave,” she said.

    Ms. Keiser still works as a substitute teacher for the district and is the president of the education nonprofit Del Rey Education.

    Lance Christensen, the vice president of the California Policy Center, an educational nonprofit that focuses on policy and government affairs, said that such bills could lead to a loss of teacher resources in the public education system.

    “I’ve warned about the dire consequences of public school classes without discipline,” Mr. Christensen wrote on X. “The governor just signed SB 274 which will exacerbate the havoc in our schools by stripping teachers & principals of tools to deal with ‘willfully defiant’ kids. Expect more teachers to resign.”

    Micaela Ricaforte contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 22:20

  • Trump's Unflattering Story About Netanyahu Elicits Outrage From Republican Rivals
    Trump’s Unflattering Story About Netanyahu Elicits Outrage From Republican Rivals

    Republican rivals of former President Donald Trump have lashed out at the GOP front-runner for telling a story about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which put him in a negative light and suggested he’s ‘weak’ at a sensitive moment. 

    It happened Wednesday night at a campaign rally. Trump was recounting the events and hours leading up to his decision to kill top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a 2020 drone strike outside the Baghdad airport. Trump told a cheering crowd that the Israeli prime minister “let us down” by backing out of participation in the covert operation at the last minute. Watch:

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    Trump also controversially said this week Israeli leaders need to “step up their game” as Netanyahu “was not prepared” for the deadly Saturday raid into southern Israel. He further called Hezbollah “very smart” while generally urging Israel to be more prepared and efficient. He had at one point called Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant a “jerk”.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, chief among Trump’s 2024 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, blasted the somewhat impulsive words, saying “Now is not the time to be attacking our ally,” – especially as the Israeli bodies and missing are still being counted. 

    DeSantis also admitted that while “there’s a lot of people that generally like Trump’s policies,” they are not “big fans” of his behavior, in a swipe at the story about Soleimani’s death. 

    But it was Chris Christie, also in the 2024 race, who went even more on the attack, calling Trump “a fool”. 

    “Only a fool would make those kinds of comments. Only a fool would give comments that give aid and comfort to Israel’s adversary in this situation, and he always places it in the context of himself,” the former New Jersey governor said.

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    “This is someone who cares not about the American people, not about the people of Israel, but he cares about one person and one person only: The person he sees in the mirror when he wakes up in the morning,” Christie continued. “As a Republican Party, we cannot once again nominate a fool like this to be our nominee and get him anywhere near the presidency of the United States.”

    Jewish groups also weren’t happy:

    Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary who serves on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said he wished Trump would “let his personal grievances with Bibi, whatever they are, slide for now.”

    And here’s Trump’s own former Vice President weighing in…

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    Journalist Max Blumenthal offered his opinion on Trump’s words, saying “Every US President has hated Netanyahu, regarding him as a conniving fanatic. But only Trump said out loud what Obama was overheard saying on a hot mic and Clinton said in private.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 22:00

  • The Movie Disney And China Don’t Want You To See
    The Movie Disney And China Don’t Want You To See

    Authored by Jonathan Miltmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Few directors in Hollywood have more power than Martin Scorsese, the Oscar-winning director of box office hits such as “Goodfellas,” “Casino,” “The Departed,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

    (L-R) Actor Richard Gere, director Martin Scorsese, the Dalai Lama, and producer and screenwriter Melissa Mathison hold hands at the end of a brief meeting with reporters prior to a speech by the Dalai Lama at an awards ceremony in New York on April 30, 1998. The ceremony honored Mr. Scorsese and Ms. Mathison for their work on the film ‘Kundun.’ (Matt Campbell/AFP via Getty Images)

    But even the legendary filmmaker lacked the clout to save the fate of his movie “Kundun” (1997) when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came knocking on Disney’s door.

    The film is probably one that most readers have never heard of, even though it was nominated for four Academy Awards and included the legendary Mr. Scorsese. A historical drama written by Melissa Mathison, “Kundun” explores the life of the young Dalai Lama, who in 1950 saw his homeland of Tibet invaded by the CCP.

    Ms. Mathison conceived the project after meeting the Dalai Lama in 1990, and although she had concerns that Hollywood wouldn’t be interested in such a film, she caught a break when she convinced Mr. Scorsese to direct the film.

    “I’m not saying he wants to do it, but I know he’s going to get it,” Ms. Mathison recalled thinking. “I knew he’d understand the society, the moral code, the journey, and the spirituality of it,” she said in the documentary “In Search of Kundun with Martin Scorsese.”

    Disney eventually agreed to distribute the film, which was given a $28 million budget. But China had other ideas.

    Tibet, along with Taiwan and Tiananmen, is among the forbidden Three Ts—the issues considered most contentious by the CCP. So with China becoming an emerging global power in the 1990s, the CCP decided to flex its muscle and attempted to nix the project.

    Two days into the production of “Kundun” in 1996, a representative from the Chinese Embassy approached Disney’s chief strategic officer, Lawrence Murphy.

    “You started shooting a film in Morocco about the Dalai Lama called ‘Kundun,’” the diplomat said before explaining that Beijing had concerns with the film’s subject matter.

    ‘Play by China’s Rules’ … or Else

    At the time, Mr. Murphy hadn’t even heard of the film. But it would soon become clear that the CCP wanted the shooting of “Kundun” shut down. Why Beijing would want the movie censored is obvious. “Kundun” describes atrocities that China’s communist regime committed in the 1950s following its invasion of the Himalayan country.

    “The Chinese have bombed the monastery of Lithang. It has been destroyed,” an adviser tells the Dalai Lama at one point in the movie. “Nuns and monks are made to fornicate in the streets. They put guns in the hands of Khumba children and force the child to kill the parents.”

    While the description is horrifying, even more moving is the scene in which an elderly Tibetan woman tearfully and frantically insists that she’s “happy and prosperous under the Chinese Communist Party.”

    This isn’t exactly flattering stuff for the CCP, any more than “Schindler’s List” is for the Nazis. Yet history isn’t always pretty.

    In any event, the CCP’s decision to lean on the film left Disney CEO Michael Eisner in a pickle.

    If Mr. Eisner shut down the film, he’d anger Mr. Scorsese and look weak for caving to the CCP. If he proceeded with production, he risked losing Disney’s commercial and manufacturing foothold in China, as well as the 1.4 billion potential consumers.

    So Mr. Eisner opted for a third way. He allowed the shooting of “Kundun” to proceed, but he limited the film’s distribution and marketing. “Kundun” was released on Christmas Day in 1997—in two theaters nationwide.

    In other words, in the contest over truth and creative freedom versus government censorship, Disney blinked, and film producer Matt Tabor describes what Disney’s decision meant going forward.

    “If foreign companies wanted access to [China’s] market, they were going to play by China’s rules,” Mr. Tabor noted in a recent production by the Foundation for Economic Education on the showdown. “’Kundun’ marked the first opportunity for China to flex that muscle in the movie business.”

    It was a watershed moment. And if there was any doubt that Disney caved to China, which officially considered the film “an interference in China’s internal affairs,” one need only read the groveling message that Disney sent to China after the dust had settled a year later.

    The Apology: ‘We Made a Stupid Mistake’

    Despite “sending ‘Kundun’ quietly to the gulag,” Disney found itself kicked out of China’s burgeoning market, along with other U.S. film studios.

    “These films are full of inaccuracies,” a Chinese official told The Washington Post. “That’s why they are not popular within China.”

    “We made a stupid mistake in releasing ‘Kundun.’ This film was a form of insult to our friends. The bad news is that the film was made; the good news is that nobody watched it. Here I want to apologize, and in the future, we should prevent this sort of thing, which insults our friends, from happening. In short, we’re a family entertainment company, a company that uses silly ways to amuse people.”

    Mr. Eisner’s complete capitulation would have a profound impact on the global entertainment landscape for years to come. It explains why “Kundun” can’t be streamed on Amazon or Netflix even today. It explains why NBA executives go apoplectic when a single general manager tweets his support of protesters in Hong Kong.

    One can appreciate the tough situation that Mr. Eisner was in without agreeing with his decision to banish “Kundun” to Siberia. Companies have commercial interests, and balancing those against doing the right thing or supporting creative expression isn’t always easy. Indeed, this balancing act existed before Disney banished “Kundun,” evidenced by one executive’s stated reason for passing on the film.

    “I don’t need to have my spirits and wine business thrown out of China,” Edgar Bronfman Jr.—the CEO of Seagram, which briefly owned Universal Pictures—replied when pitched on “Kundun.”

    Yet, the message of Disney’s showdown with China isn’t really about the ethics of dealing with a powerful communist regime. The real lesson is that we should prevent governments from amassing such dictatorial power in the first place, and remind ourselves that governments are hardly arbiters of truth. Indeed, if the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that government officials have no business deciding what’s true and what’s false—even though it’s a power they clearly desire.

    The reality is that those who wish to censor speech are usually far more interested in power than truth—the CCP’s attempt to censor “Kundun” reinforces that idea—and reminds us that sometimes the best way to exercise freedom is to watch a movie they don’t want you to see.

    Matt Tabor contributed to this article.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 21:40

  • What Does Strong El Niño Mean For Winter Activity Across US? 
    What Does Strong El Niño Mean For Winter Activity Across US? 

    NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts a 75% to 85% chance of a ‘strong El Niño‘ between November and January. This weather phenomenon has led to more winter activity in parts of the US.

    Courtesy of The Weather Channel, here are the main highlights of CPC’s report:  

    • Forecasters from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center still favor a strong El Niño late this fall into winter, or a 75-85% chance from November through January. That means the seasonal average of sea-surface temperatures in a certain region of the equatorial Pacific Ocean would be at or above the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than average.

    • NOAA says there is an 80% chance El Niño will last through spring (March-May).

    • There is 3-in-10 chance this event could warm even further and become historically strong, or a so-called super El Niño, which means sea-surface temperatures would cross the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than average threshold. There have been three super El Niño winters since 1950 in 2015-16, 1997-98 and 1982-83.

    Here are the El Niño impacts across the US, including temperatures and rain/snow patterns: 

    Current El Niño strength versus ‘super El Niños’ that have formed over the decades – many of these super El Niños have resulted in major snowstorms across the Lower 48. 

    Local media outlet KUNC in Greeley, Colorado, spoke with Stephen Yeager, a project scientist with the center’s Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, who highlighted the shifting weather patterns in the US because of El Niño and what it means this winter: 

    “The United States tends to get wetter and colder in the south, from California all the way across to Florida, whereas the northern part of the country from the state of Washington and across tends to be drier and warmer than normal,” Yeager said. “States in the middle, like Colorado, don’t have very strong connections to El Niño that are consistent.”

    The new El Niño event could either diminish or boost winter snowfall significantly, depending on how the weather pattern develops.

    “We might see more snowfall sort of in the southern mountains of Colorado, maybe the southwest,” Yeager said. “It’s unclear exactly how far north that impact will reach. Whether we’ll get a really epic snow year is hard to say, but I would say there’s a potential to see extreme winter weather in one direction or another.”

    Yeager said this winter’s event is expected to be comparable to the major El Niño of 1997 and 1998, one of the most powerful in history. That event caused massive flooding, drought, and other natural disasters at the time. The 1997-98 El Niño peaked at a three-month average of +2.4 degrees Celsius on the Niño 3.4 Index.

    But Yeager said when it comes to the center’s predictions, he makes no promises.

    “Only time will tell if we’re accurate,” Yeager said. “But we believe our system has something to offer, and we’re excited to be able to contribute this knowledge to the conversation going on right now about the impacts El Niño may have in the coming months.”

    At the beginning of the month, we cited one US meteorological analyst who said: “This is not a typical year. The 2023-2024 winter season is going to be very different” due to “2023-2024 winter is an El Nino pattern.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 21:20

  • Animal Contraceptive And Antibiotics Detected In Top 10 Popular Fast Foods: Report
    Animal Contraceptive And Antibiotics Detected In Top 10 Popular Fast Foods: Report

    Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Two types of animal antibiotics and an animal contraceptive have been detected in food samples from America’s top 10 most popular fast-food chains, according to a laboratory report.

    (TotallyBlond/Shutterstock)

    In September, Moms Across America (MAA) submitted food samples from 10 popular American food chains to the Health Research Institute, an Iowa-based nonprofit laboratory that tests food for nutritional value, biofunctionality, and contaminants and toxins, requesting that the laboratory test the samples for over 100 common veterinary drugs and hormones. MAA is a nonprofit activism group formed by mothers intending to bring awareness to food that contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and pesticides.

    Molecular and chief scientist at the Health Research Institute, John Fagan, confirmed that his lab tested the food samples.

    8 in 10 Popular Fast Food Chains Tested Positive

    Most of the food was sampled from America’s top 10 most popular food chains. Volunteers for MAA went to their local McDonald’s, Starbucks, Subway, Chick-fil-A, Burger King, Taco Bell, Chipotle, Dunkin’, Wendy’s, or Domino’s stores and ordered the same meal several times.

    Kept in its packaging, each meal was sealed, frozen, and mailed to the Health Research Institute.

    At the laboratory, the food and its packaging were ground up and then tested for veterinary drugs and hormones.

    With the exception of Chipotle and Subway, all the food samples tested positive for veterinary drugs.

    Monensin, Narasin, and Nicarbazin

    The drug concentrations in all of the food samples were below 2 micrograms per kilogram, which is significantly below the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) acceptable daily intake.

    Mr. Fagan highlighted that the FDA’s acceptable intake levels are meaningful for checking acute poisoning. Yet in the case of fast food, which some people consume daily, there is a concern of chronic poisoning due to accumulation of toxins. 

    Monensin

    Less than 0.5 microgram per kilogram of the antibiotic monensin was detected in Taco Bell, Dunkin’, Wendy’s, Domino’s, Burger King, and McDonald’s.

    The acceptable daily intake for monensin is 12.5 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day. 

    The antibiotic monensin was detected in Taco Bell, Dunkin’, Wendy’s, Domino’s, Burger King, and McDonald’s.

    Monensin is a commonly used veterinary antibiotic with a slim margin of safety. Side effects of monensin in animals include anorexia, diarrhea, weakness, and motor problems. Overdose can cause an animal’s poisoning or even death.

    Monensin poisoning is rare in humans, and there is no effective treatment used in clinical practice.

    One case occurred in a man who ingested 300 milligrams of monensin, leading to severe rhabdomyolysis, or a breakdown of muscle tissue. This medical condition is quite severe and can lead to damaged heart and kidneys.

    The dose that man ingested, however, is a million times higher than the microgram doses detected in the food samples.

    Narasin

    Less than 2 micrograms per kilogram of narasin was detected in a Wendy’s cheeseburger. It was also found in trace amounts in a meal from Dunkin’, Domino’s, and a Starbucks sandwich.

    The acceptable daily intake for narasin is 5 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day.

    Narasin is an antibiotic and antiparasitic feed additive that helps control parasitic infections in fattened chicken. It is also often added to cattle feed, as it increases dry matter intake. Both narasin and monensin are ionophores, meaning they can disturb the balance of ions in cells and are often used in animals to control bacterial and parasitic infections.

    Side effects of narasin in animals include anorexia, diarrhea, and degeneration of heart and skeletal muscles.

    These antibiotic ionophores are not used in humans due to concerns of toxicity, though there are few cases of documented toxicity from these drugs.

    Nicarbazin

    Nicarbazin, an animal antiparasitic and contraceptive, was detected in the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich sample. Less than 0.5 microgram per kilogram of nicarbazin was detected.

    The acceptable daily intake for nicarbazin is 200 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day.

    The drug is primarily used as an antiparasitic drug in fattened chickens and turkeys, but it has also been used for population control of geese and pigeons.

    Since it is highly toxic to agricultural embryos and decreases egg laying and hatching among grown poultry populations, many farmers have called for more regulations to protect their animals from such exposures.

    To date, no reports have shown that nicarbazin causes toxic effects in humans, though its long-term ramifications are unknown. One research report assumed that nicarbazin would be safe for consumers since most turkeys fed the drug would act as a filter, breaking down the drug before it reached the market.

    “The impact of millions of Americans, especially children and young adults, consuming a known animal contraceptive daily is concerning,” said Zen Honeycutt, MAA’s executive director. “With infertility problems on the rise, the reproductive health of this generation is front and center for us, in light of these results.”

    Few studies have investigated the effects of veterinary drugs in humans.

    “That’s the problem,” Ms. Honeycutt told The Epoch Times. “These are veterinary drugs and hormones … so the only studies that I have found and that you will find will be for animals. [They’re] not authorized for humans, and yet they’re being allowed [into the food supply].

    “Some people are consuming this food every day, so we don’t know how much they are accumulating in their body,” Ms. Honeycutt added.

    Are All Fast Food Chain Stores Affected?

    Since each food sample was bought from only one store per fast-food chain, Ms. Honeycutt said that they would need to do more tests to know if all other chains served food containing similar veterinary drugs.

    However, she was suspicious that other chains may also be affected.

    “My understanding is that they’re grinding the meat up of hundreds of birds in order to make these processed meat patties. So when one is contaminated, it likely contaminates possibly hundreds of other samples … If one comes down with this particular disease, then the farmer will likely treat any of the birds at a facility,” Ms. Honeycutt said.

    When asked about potential package contamination, Mr. Fagan from the Health Research Institute said that the packages came from different states across the United States, so while one package might be contaminated, it would be difficult for all of them to be contaminated.

    The MAA previously tested 43 school lunches provided by participants. Lab tests found that 95 percent of the lunches had glyphosate, and 74 percent contained at least one harmful pesticide.

    Glyphosate is a weed killer, and childhood exposure to glyphosate has been linked to the development of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

    Thiabendazole, an immune suppressant, was detected in around 30 percent of the samples, and a developmental toxin was found in over 40 percent of them.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the fast-food chains reported in this article for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 21:00

  • Ancient Solar Storm Discovered In Tree Rings Reveals 'Catastrophic' Event 14,000 Years Ago
    Ancient Solar Storm Discovered In Tree Rings Reveals ‘Catastrophic’ Event 14,000 Years Ago

    A new study, based on the analysis of growth rings in ancient trees, suggests that the most powerful solar storm on record slammed into Earth approximately 14,300 years ago. Should a storm of that intensity strike today, modern society would instantly collapse. 

    Researchers from the Collège de France, CEREGE, IMBE, Aix-Marseille University, and the University of Leeds published the new study in the Royal Society A journal. They measured radiocarbon levels in ancient trees preserved within the eroded banks of the Drouzet River near Gap, in the Southern French Alps, and found “tree trunks, which are subfossils – remains whose fossilization process is not complete – were sliced into tiny single tree-rings. Analysis of these individual rings identified an unprecedented spike in radiocarbon levels occurring precisely 14,300 years ago.” 

    They said, “By comparing this radiocarbon spike with measurements of beryllium, a chemical element found in Greenland ice cores, the team proposes that the spike was caused by a massive solar storm that would have ejected huge volumes of energetic particles into Earth’s atmosphere.” 

    “Radiocarbon is constantly being produced in the upper atmosphere through a chain of reactions initiated by cosmic rays.” Edouard Bard, lead author of the study, said in a statement.

    Bard said, “Recently, scientists have found that extreme solar events including solar flares and coronal mass ejections can also create short-term bursts of energetic particles which are preserved as huge spikes in radiocarbon production occurring over the course of just a single year.” 

    The researchers warned if “similar massive solar storms” slammed into Earth today, it would be “catastrophic for modern technological society, potentially wiping out telecommunications, satellite systems and electricity grids.” 

    The study’s co-author, Tim Heaton, a radiocarbon expert at the University of Leeds in England, explained, “Extreme solar storms could have huge impacts on Earth. Such super storms could permanently damage the transformers in our electricity grids, resulting in huge and widespread blackouts lasting months. They could also result in permanent damage to the satellites that we all rely on for navigation and telecommunication, leaving them unusable. They would also create severe radiation risks to astronauts.” 

    Researchers said nine extreme solar storms – known as Miyake Events – have been identified over the last 15,000 years. The last known major solar storm fried telegraph machines in 1859 – has been called the “Carrington Event.” 

    Solar Cycle 25 has been underway since April 2019 and might peak sometime in 2025. In December 2022, the total number of sunspots was at its highest in eight years, indicating solar activity has ramped up. Earlier this year, scientists observed twice as many sunspots — red flags that solar maximum could be nearing.

    Readers have been well-informed about what an ‘X-class’ flare could do to modern society:

    Forget the climate change narrative pushed by corporate media. Focus on how to protect the grid from major solar storms… 

    The world needs to prepare for the next big solar storm. Remember, in 2016, former President Obama signed an executive order titled “Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events.”  

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 20:40

  • GOP Lawmaker Flies To Israel To Rescue Americans After 'Ton of Requests'
    GOP Lawmaker Flies To Israel To Rescue Americans After ‘Ton of Requests’

    Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), a U.S. Army combat veteran, has gone to Israel to aid with the evacuation of stranded American citizens after Hamas terrorists launched attacks on its territory.

    Representative-elect Cory Mills (R-Fla.) arrives at the Hyatt Regency in Washington, on Nov. 13, 2022. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

    A picture shared by former Rep. Mayra Flores on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, shows the Iraq veteran with a group of Americans he helped escape Israel by bus.

    “My friend … is currently on the ground in Israel, helping to evacuate American citizens who are trapped,” Ms. Flores wrote. “May God keep them safe as they continue their rescue efforts!”

    In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Mr. Mills said that he has already helped 32 Americans to escape the country, adding that he’s hoping to make another trip on Thursday.

    “Since the Biden admin has failed to do their job once again, I’ve stepped in to rescue Americans stranded in war-torn Israel,” the Florida Republican said in a post on X.

    The GOP lawmaker noted that he couldn’t get into the specifics of the operation because of safety reasons.

    It isn’t the first time Mr. Mills, who served in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division, has embarked on such a trip. He also helped to evacuate American families and Afghan refugees in Afghanistan amid the chaotic U.S. troop withdrawal in August 2021.

    “Unfortunately, this isn’t my first time doing this because my team and I actually had conducted the very first successful overland rescue out of Afghanistan … that rescued a mother and three children from Amarillo, Texas,” Mr. Mills told the network.

    “Right now, our big tactic is to try and look at consolidation points,” he added. “My team and I run the routes prematurely, so we can try and just make sure we can run it and see if there’s any safety issues and look at the best evac areas. Doing predominantly just ground evacs and getting to bordering countries like Jordan to ensure that we can get them back to America.”

    Mr. Mills’s trip to Israel comes as a bipartisan group of 146 members of Congress recently called on U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to use all available resources, including chartering flights, to evacuate Americans seeking to leave Israel amid the ongoing war.

    Numerous airlines have already halted flights to and from Israel due to the conflict, which saw days of rocket fire and missile barrages between the Hamas terrorist group and the Israeli military, some of which have hit Ben Gurion International Airport.

    US in Talks to Evacuate Americans

    National Security Council coordinator John Kirby, meanwhile, said at a White House press briefing on Oct. 11 that they’re in “active conversations” about how to bring Americans, many of whom are dual citizens, back home safely. However, he fell short of providing a plan or specifics of what has been decided upon.

    “The State Department is an [sic] active touch with American citizens in Israel,” he said in a transcript of the briefing. “And we want to make sure—right now, there are still commercial carriers—not all, some—flying in and out of Ben Gurion every day. There are still now viable ground routes. If you wanted to leave safely out of Israel, that is also an option to you.”

    “But neither of those options may necessarily be feasible or affordable to certain Americans,” he added. “And so, we are exploring actively a range of other options to assist if Americans want to leave. I’m just not at liberty now to go into more detail about that.“

    The number of American citizens or dual nationals currently living in Israel remains unconfirmed by the U.S. Department of State, which confirmed Thursday that 25 U.S. citizens have died in the Israel-Hamas war and 17 remain unaccounted for, some of whom are feared to be taken as hostages by Hamas terrorists.

    When Mr. Mills was asked how many American citizens he believes currently remain in Israel, he said there was a high possibility that there are “large swaths of Americans across the entire country.”

    “We were getting a ton of requests from Americans who were stranded, who had tried to reach out to the State Department, who were getting nowhere, had flights canceled, no more hotel room availability,” he explained.

    The congressman also said that he’s concerned evacuating efforts like the one he’s currently assisting with could turn into a redux of the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.

    “The minute that you start seeing a potential counteroffensive or you start seeing General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah from Hezbollah kick in, or you see other proxy militia groups that are headed by people like Hadi al-Amiri [of the political-paramilitary Hadr group] or Qais Khazali [of Iran-backed paramilitary group Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq] out of Iraq and Syria, that could definitely put a damper on things, especially if they start taking any type of indirect fire onto that runway,” Mr. Mills said.

    “I hope that we don’t see a repeat of what happened in 2021 in Afghanistan, where Americans were left behind and abandoned by this administration,” he added.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 20:20

  • Taylor Swift's 'The Eras Tour' Is Already The Most Profitable Concert Movie Ever Made
    Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ Is Already The Most Profitable Concert Movie Ever Made

    Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ is already the most profitable concert movie in history – and it’s only premiering today.

    Is it the ‘Kelce-effect’?

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, according to data from AMC Theatres Distribution, The Eras Tour had pulled in more than $100 million in pre-sale tickets worldwide as of October 4.

    Analysts will be eyeing the box office this weekend, as some pundits estimate that the film of the U.S. stadium tour could bring in as much as $150 million in its debut.

    Data compiled by The Numbers platform shows that Swift’s new release has already surpassed the previous music concert movie record: Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never (2011), which had a worldwide box office revenue of $99 million.

    Infographic: 'The Eras Tour' Is Already the Most Profitable Concert Movie Ever Made | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    This was followed by Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert with $71 million in 2008 and One Direction: This Is Us with $68 million in 2013.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 20:00

  • Is Newsom’s Senate Appointment An 'Insulting' Pledge Fulfilled?
    Is Newsom’s Senate Appointment An ‘Insulting’ Pledge Fulfilled?

    Authored by Patrice Onwuka via RealClear Wire,

    The latest fad in the left’s identity politics game is the “black woman” pledge. Democratic lawmakers – particularly white men – are tripping over themselves to tip their hat to the core of the Democratic Party by appointing or nominating black women to prominent public positions.

    There are two problems with this kind of pledge: First, it can promote tokenism. Second, it advances loyal partisans who will advance an ideological agenda over those looking for bipartisan solutions for the good of the country.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom made good on his 2021 pledge to appoint a black woman to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the late Senator Dianne Feinstein. Union veteran and current EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler will be sworn in shortly as the next senator, ensuring that the high chamber has a black woman serving in office.

    Perhaps Newsom took a page from President Joe Biden’s 2020 playbook in selecting former campaign foe Kamala Harris as his running mate. Now, Vice President Harris could become the next president of the United States.

    Biden also nominated Ketanji Brown-Jackson to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He was fulfilling a pledge he made when his campaign was struggling and he needed to win South Carolina.

    While some people view this type of pledge as important to ensuring that black women’s voices are represented in national politics and public policy, others worry about the signals it sends.

    Not even one month ago, California Democrat Rep. Barbara Lee, who is ranking in third place in next year’s special election for Sen. Feinstein’s former seat, noted that “The idea that a Black woman should be appointed only as a caretaker to simply check a box is insulting to countless Black women across this country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election.”

    Selecting individuals based on their race, gender, and sexual orientation easily opens the door to criticism that this person is not qualified but merely a window dressing. It’s a criticism (among many) that dogs diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

    Lee said as much, adding that “the people of California deserve the best possible person for that job. Not a token appointment. Black women deserve more than a participation trophy.”

    Laphonza Butler has not held elected office (not necessarily a disqualifier), but her resume reflects a career largely in either organized labor or lobbying. This contrasts with Rep. Lee’s deep ties to the community and decades-long experience in politics. Either way, though, both women would be reliably partisan, and that is the second weakness of the left’s black-woman pledge.

    Black women are not a monolith; we don’t all hold the same views despite largely being aligned with one party. Black female voters are more likely to call themselves moderate, not liberal. They are less likely to support abortion than other Democrats, are far less concerned about climate change, and are more likely to prioritize jobs and the economy. Unfortunately, the voting records of the 30 black females in Congress reflect near-perfect party allegiance. Would Butler be different?

    Butler is likely to push hard for abortion rights given her work at EMILY’s List.

    As a longtime organized labor advocate, Butler’s potential positions on federal labor policy come at a critical moment. Democrats have reintroduced the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which rips right-to-work laws apart and would lead to a wholesale reclassification of millions of independent contractors, half of whom are women – all to the benefit of labor unions.

    In a 2021 Elle magazine interview, Butler talked about the need for workplace flexibility to be a present mother as the new head of EMILY’s List. Time and location flexibility are critical to keep many women attached to the labor force as they balance childrearing, caregiving, health concerns, and other priorities. Would Butler champion flexibility for all women by opposing the PRO Act?

    The Biden Department of Labor is set to finalize its new rules cracking down on independent contracting nationwide, which Independent Women’s Forum contends will be devastating for women. Would Butler push back on this ill-advised policy as well?

    Butler consulted for Uber during its fight with California’s legislature when it passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5). This bill reclassified independent contractors, leading to devastating results for freelancers – including the loss of incomes and livelihoods – and small businesses. We can only hope that her time at Uber might influence her view of freelancing to be more nuanced than those of union buddies, and inclined to protect independent work.

    Some will cheer Newsom’s pledge fulfillment. The black women, however, who view economic and social issues differently than Butler, have little to celebrate with her appointment.

    Patrice Onwuka is the director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women’s Forum.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 19:40

  • Saudi Arabia Puts Israel Deal On Ice, Engages With Iran In Latest Hit To Us Foreign Policy
    Saudi Arabia Puts Israel Deal On Ice, Engages With Iran In Latest Hit To Us Foreign Policy

    As widely expected, Saudi Arabia has put its US-backed plans to normalize ties with Israel on ice indefinitely, Reuters reported citing two sources, signalling a rapid reversal (and rethinking) of the Kingdom’s foreign policy priorities as war escalates between Israel and Hamas.

    Meanwhile, as reported previously, the rapidly escalating war has also pushed the kingdom to engage with Israel’s sworn enemy, Iran: earlier this week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took his first phone call from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi as Riyadh tries to prevent a broader surge in violence across the region.

    Two sources told Reuters there would be a delay in the US-backed talks on normalization with Israel that was a key step for the kingdom to secure what Riyadh considers the real prize of a U.S. defense pact in exchange, although it may just as well settle for a higher oil price now that geopolitical risk premium has exploded higher.

    As a reminder, until Hamas sparked a war on Oct. 7 by launching an attack on Israel, whether with or without Iran backing, both Israeli and Saudi leaders had been saying they were moving steadily towards a deal that could have reshaped the Middle East.

    While Saudi Arabia – birthplace of Islam and home to its two holiest sites – had until the latest conflict indicated it would not allow its pursuit of a U.S. defense pact be derailed even if Israel did not offer significant concessions to the Palestinians in the their bid for statehood, sources had previously said. But an approach that sidelined Palestinians would risk angering Arabs around the region, as Arab news outlets broadcast images of Palestinians killed in Israeli retaliatory airstrikes.

    Hamas fighters killed more than 1,300 Israelis in their Oct. 7 attack and more than 1,500 had been killed by Friday in Israel’s ongoing strikes on Gaza in response, according to official reports.

    The first Reuters source said talks could not be continued for now and the issue of Israeli concessions for the Palestinians would need to be a bigger priority when discussions resumed – a comment that indicates Riyadh has not abandoned the idea, although the probability of Palestine getting bigger concessions now from the Biden admin is negligible.

    The Saudi rethink highlights challenges facing Washington’s efforts to deepen Israel’s integration in a region where the Palestinian cause remains a major Arab concern.

    “Normalisation was already considered taboo (in the Arab world) … this war only amplifies that,” Saudi analyst Aziz Alghashian said.

    The Reuters source said Washington had pressed Riyadh this week to condemn the Hamas attack but said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan pushed back. A U.S. source familiar with the issue confirmed this.

    Meanwhile, Biden’s top National Security advisor Jake Sullivan once again lied, and told a White House briefing this week that the normalization effort was “not on hold” but said the focus was on other immediate challenges. The truth: the normalization effort is not only “on hold” but absent a miracle, is dead.

    * * *

    Meanwhile, the regional conflict has also prompted the Saudi crown prince and Iran’s president to speak for the first time after a Chinese-brokered initiative prompted the Gulf rivals to re-establish diplomatic ties in April. A Saudi statement said the crown prince told Raisi “the kingdom is exerting maximum effort to engage with all international and regional parties to halt the ongoing escalation”, underling Riyadh’s move to contain the crisis.

    A senior Iranian official told Reuters the call, made by Raisi to the crown prince, aimed to support “Palestine and prevent the spread of war in the region”. “The call was good and promising,” the official said.

    A second Iranian official said the call lasted 45 minutes and had the blessing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

    The Saudi government did not provide further details on the call but the statement said the crown prince stated the kingdom’s “opposition to any form of civilian targeting and the loss of innocent lives” and expressed Riyadh’s “unwavering stance in standing up for the Palestinian cause”.

    Bottom line: while just one week ago the US was making progress in pushing Saudi Arabia and Iran far apart, events from last weekend have reminded the middle east that, at the end of the day, Arabs will be Arabs.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 19:20

  • Judge Admonishes DOJ For "Wasting the Court's Time" In Trump Documents Case
    Judge Admonishes DOJ For “Wasting the Court’s Time” In Trump Documents Case

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

    Attorney David Harbach with the special counsel’s office threw out a new argument during the two Garcia hearings scheduled Thursday, drawing ire from the judge for “wasting the court’s time” by not filing the arguments and case citations the motions the government had already submitted.

    Defendants Carlos De Oliveira and Waltine Naut leave the courthouse after the Garcia hearings with their attorneys, on Oct. 12, 2023. (TJ Muscaro/The Epoch Times)

    Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira and butler Waltine Nauta were charged alongside former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, and on Oct. 12, the government argued that their attorneys had conflicts of interest and could not properly represent them. The purpose of a Garcia hearing is so the defendants are clear about any potential conflicts of interest and their ramifications. The hearings for Mr. De Oliveira and Mr. Nauta were held back to back.

    Mr. Harbach had argued there was an ethical issue with the defendants’ legal counsel, and that they should not be able to call into question their former clients’ credibility and characters on the witness stand. The roundabout arguments ended up frustrating the judge, and Mr. Nauta’s hearing was ultimately postponed.

    Carlos De Oliveira

    Mr. De Oliveira is represented by John Irving and local attorney Larry Murrell.

    The prosecution argued that Mr. Irving previously represented three potential witnesses only identified as Trump Employee 3, Witness 1, and Witness 2, and though he no longer represents them, attorney-client privilege would still apply, and he would not be able to make use of confidential information regarding his former clients. Mr. Irving stopped representing the three clients on Aug. 30, and said there was nothing he knew that the government didn’t already know, and no issue of confidentiality would be a problem in the case.

    Mr. Harbach appeared to cast doubt on the claim, saying “we don’t know what we don’t know.”

    Judge Aileen Cannon, presiding over the case, repeatedly asked Mr. De Oliveira if he understood the arguments, and the impact of retaining his attorney, and the possibility that his lawyer may not represent him as “vigorously” as he is supposed to. Mr. De Oliveira, who speaks with a thick Portuguese accent, answered affirmatively each time.

    When Mr. Harbach pointed out that this meant Mr. Irving would not be able to call the character or credibility of his three former clients into question during cross-examinations, his argument did not go smoothly. He tripped over his words as he presented the new argument, which was shut down by the defense.

    Mr. Irving made clear that he did not concede to the special counsel’s proposed “ethical prohibitions,” and argued that he should not “be precluded to talk to the jury about any witness.”

    Mr. Irving also said that Mr. De Oliveira’s local counsel, Mr. Murrell, would be able to cross-examine those three witnesses if necessary, and Mr. De Oliveira accepted this.

    After explaining to Mr. De Oliveira that his acceptance, and his waiving of any conflict in his legal representation, would mean he would lose attorney-conflict arguments as an appeal later down the line, Mr. De Oliveira elected to keep his lawyer.

    Waltine Nauta

    Mr. Nauta is represented by Stanley Woodward, who previously represented the Trump Employee 4 the government claimed “flipped” to become a key witness.

    Mr. Woodward’s law firm still represents Witness 1 and Witness 2, though during Mr. Nauta’s hearing Mr. Harbach said they no longer planned to call Witness 2 to testify.

    When Mr. Harbach made the new argument during the second Garcia hearing, saying the lawyer would not be able to stand up and attack a witness’s credibility and character in defense of his client, the defense immediately seized upon it, stalling the proceeding.

    Mr. Woodward refused to waive his right to call any witness’s character or credibility into question. He gave the hypothetical example of Trump Employee 4 having a stroke just before he was to testify—was he to not touch upon his medical condition and credibility if the court ordered such a prohibition?

    Mr. Woodward said that “filling the sky with hypotheticals to presume” that he was unable to properly cross-examine the witnesses to defend his clients was “wrong.”

    Mr. Harbach received little backup from the judge over his argument about issues of loyalty and confidentiality; Judge Cannon criticized him for citing three cases outside the 11th Circuit that couldn’t be used properly as parallels, but noted that Mr. Nauta should be aware of this. She expressed frustration and said it wasn’t clear whether Mr. Harbach was asking the court to prohibit the attorneys questioning former or current clients.

    The three cases the government mentioned were United States v. Yannotti, United States v. Spataro, and United States v. Rahman, which were all prosecuted in New York.

    Mr. Woodward requested more time as he said that Thursday was the first time he heard such an argument and could now not properly advise Mr. Nauta on his 6th Amendment rights meant to be highlighted by the Garcia hearing.

    No new hearing date has been scheduled.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 19:00

  • Friday Fun? Jon Stewart Summarizes The Israel-Palestine Conflict Conversation Conundrum
    Friday Fun? Jon Stewart Summarizes The Israel-Palestine Conflict Conversation Conundrum

    It appears nothing has changed in nine years…

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

    Will it be different this time?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 18:40

  • WH Ups Pressure On Tuberville To Abandon Pentagon Blockade
    WH Ups Pressure On Tuberville To Abandon Pentagon Blockade

    Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

    As the war in Israel intensifies, the White House will accelerate its efforts to break the blockade on Pentagon promotions that Sen. Tommy Tuberville has kept in place for more than six months, arguing that the Alabama Republican’s “selfish stunt” amounts to “a windfall to our adversaries.”

    Tuberville has shown no sign of relenting even as the United States rushes munitions to Israel and sends American armed forces to the region, insisting that the “hold is not affecting our military’s readiness.”

    President Biden’s national security spokesman, John Kirby, noted Wednesday that the commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which patrols Middle Eastern waters, has not been relieved on schedule because his replacement, Rear Adm. George Wikoff, remains in Senate limbo.

    Conflict in Israel, Kirby told RealClearPolitics, “just highlights how dynamic the security environment is around the world and how much more critical it is that the leadership of the military be able to address that dynamism through the normal promotion process.”

    Republicans have backed Biden’s efforts to support Israel after a Hamas terrorist attack last weekend left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and killed 22 American citizens. For his part, Tuberville has said that Israel “has a right to go” into the Gaza strip to root out the terrorist organization. The senator cautioned Tuesday during an interview with a local Alabama Fox affiliate, however, that “the problem is, when you start picking sides in the Middle East, it can get really messy very quick.”

    In a White House memo obtained by RCP, the administration seized on that comment as “outrageous” and evidence that Tuberville, a former college football coach in his first term in office, was not only “directly sabotaging the American military” but also expressing weakness “after Israel endured horrific terrorist attacks from Hamas.”

    “When it comes to the horrific events in Israel, President Biden knows which side he’s on,” stated the memo authored by White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates. “Sen. Tuberville should look in the mirror and then follow the President’s lead.”

    “How many memos are we up to now,” Tuberville’s office replied. “A dozen at least?”

    “This memo will have the same impact as the previous memos from the Biden comms staff: none whatsoever,” Tuberville spokesman, Steven Stafford, told RCP. “Coach’s hold is not affecting our military’s readiness. No job is unfilled, and no job is going undone. The hold is certainly not affecting the militaries of other countries.”

    “This has to be the Left’s most ridiculous attack yet, but unfortunately the lamestream media has bought it completely,” he said before adding, “You should ask the Pentagon if they believe our military is not ‘ready at a moment’s notice.’”

    Acrimony had already set in on both sides well before the Hamas attack. For months, Tuberville defended his hold on the promotions of hundreds of military officers in protest of a new Pentagon policy that reimburses servicemembers for abortion-related expenses. Democrats are welcome to bring the new Pentagon abortion policy up for a vote itself, he has said in response to the criticism, or confirm the promotions one by one.

    Republicans running for president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, have previously expressed their support for the blockade, and the issue has become a sort of red line for 2024 candidates seeking the GOP nomination.

    If the Senate was to take up each military promotion one at a time as Republicans say Democrats are welcome to do, the Congressional Research Service estimates that the process would consume approximately 700 hours of floor time.

    The Senate did vote in September to confirm the promotion of the Marine Corps commandant and Army chief of staff, proving according to Tuberville that the upper chamber can still meet its obligations to offer advice and consent.

    The White House previously told RCP that the updated abortion policy is critical for military readiness. If soldiers are stationed in states like Alabama with restrictive abortion laws, Kirby told RCP in July, then some servicemembers may decide to leave the military. “That means we lose talent, important talent,” he said before adding that ensuring abortion access “is just the right darn thing to do for people who raise their hand and agree to serve in the military.”

    Tuberville has received a fair share of incoming. In an open letter published last May, former defense secretaries from both Republican and Democratic administrations warned that the blanket hold “risks turning military officers into political pawns.” More recently, former CIA Director Michael Hayden raised eyebrows by suggesting that more drastic measures may be needed.

    When asked if Tuberville should be removed from the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hayden responded on social media Monday, “How about the human race?” The senator called the comment “disgusting” and tantamount to an endorsement of “politically motivated assassination.” His office referred the issue to Capitol Police.

    “Regardless of any delusions Sen. Tuberville is under, this is not a game. The stakes for America’s military could not be higher,” the White House responded. “And the abhorrent Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel are an inescapable reminder that Tuberville is intentionally undermining our military readiness in th

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 18:20

  • Bitcoin Spot ETF Coming After SEC Abandons Appeal
    Bitcoin Spot ETF Coming After SEC Abandons Appeal

    Today was the deadline by which the SEC must either appeal the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, request the Appeals Court revisit its ruling, or follow the court’s August order and review Grayscale’s bid to change its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot Bitcoin ETF.

    Bloomberg has just reported, according to a person familiar with the matter, that the SEC isn’t planing to ask for an appeal.

    As a reminder, in August, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the SEC’s denial of Grayscale Investment’s application to convert the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into an ETF was invalid and must be reviewed, calling it an “arbitrary and capricious” rejection.

    The court said that federal agencies are required to “treat like cases alike.”

    The SEC’s decision not to appeal was somewhat expected as Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas tweeted yesterday…

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

    And as is evident in the collapse in the market’s discount for GBTC…

    So what happpens next?

    Bloomberg’s James Seyffart tweeted the following:

    1. Done deal I guess if this is accurate. No en banc application

    2. No. I do not think they will appeal to the Supreme Court either.

    3. Dialogue between Grayscale and SEC should begin next week. Hoping for more info on next steps sometime next week or week after?

    Bitcoin bounced a little on the headline…

    However, as CoinTelegraph reports, there’s still a chance regulators could delay and continue their ‘war onm crypto’:

    A September note from law firm Ropes & Gray warned the GBTC application could be sent back for review to the SEC, giving the regulator another chance to reject it on a different basis.

    “In this scenario, the new denial could itself then be subject to another appeal by GBTC to the D.C. Circuit,” wrote the firm.

    Another delay scenario, according to Ropes & Gray, would be if the New York Stock Exchange has to make a new filing to list GBTC – then it is possible the SEC could take up to eight months to reach a decision on the ETF.

    But, the likelihood of an approved spot Bitcoin ETF this year is 75%, according to Bloomberg analysts who updated the odds after Grayscale’s August court win (and is likely dramatically higher now as they previously noted the odds jump to a 95% likelihood of approval by the end of 2024).

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 18:00

  • The Net Zero Ship Starting To Sink
    The Net Zero Ship Starting To Sink

    Authored by Nicole James via The Epoch Times,

    Are we observing the early stages of worldwide resistance against the constraints of net zero policies?

    Investors are ditching renewable energy faster than any other funds on record.

    Reuters reports that renewable energy funds suffered a net outflow of $1.4 billion in the July to September 2023 quarter.

    LSEG Lipper data shows this to be the largest-ever quarterly outflow. There was also a 23 percent decline from the end of June of the total assets under management in the sector—now valued at $65.4 billion.

    The S&P Global Clean Energy Index (.SPGTCLEN), is also down by 30 percent this year with most of the decline occurring since July. This Index comprises major solar and wind power companies and other renewables-related businesses.

    Yet in contrast, the S&P 500 Energy Index (.SPNY), which is oil and gas-heavy, has increased slightly this year.

    It is not just investors who are exiting net zero. Politicians are also raising concerns.

    Australian Nationals Senator Matt Canavan said net zero has “absolutely carked it.”

    His position is that net zero is a “soundbite” and “totally insane.” It is unachievable because people will starve if it is enforced.

    “Almost everything we grow, we make, we do in our society relies on the use of fossil fuels,” he said.

    Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace agrees.

    He told Tucker Carlson, “If we banned fossil fuels, agricultural production would collapse in a very short period of time. People will begin to starve … and half the population will die in a very short period of time.”

    Governments Across the World Bucking the Net Zero Trend

    Politicians around the world are also raising concerns.

    UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has delayed banning new petrol and diesel cars and residential gas heating until 2035. This has been previously delayed twice with deadlines moved from 2025 to 2030.

    He said, “We’re not going to save the planet by bankrupting the British people.”

    France’s President Macron has said that gas boilers will not be banned. He has also been shy about declaring a date for phasing out fossil fuels.

    The polls are showing that New Zealand’s government is heading for opposition in this weekend’s election.

    The taxing of livestock for methane emissions and transforming sheep and cattle farms into pine plantations has caused a revolt among rural voters.

    In the Netherlands, the Farmer-Citizen movement is the dominant party in the Dutch Senate and every provincial assembly.

    Germany is planning to resurrect its coal plants and some of Germany’s large corporations such as Volkswagen, Siemens, and BASF are leaving their homeland for better business climates after the increasing local cost of pushing for net zero.

    U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes that real environmentalism is about protecting natural habitats, sustaining ecosystems, and reducing pollution and deforestation. It’s not about net zero, he said.

    Even Bill Gates now says that “no temperate country is going to become uninhabitable.”

    This is quite different from his earlier statement on Fox News two years ago when he said, “The migration that we saw out of Syria for their civil war, which was somewhat weather dependent, we’re going to have 10 times as much migration because the equatorial areas will become unliveable.”

    While Australia contributes just over one percent of global carbon dioxide emissions (a similar level to the UK), in 2022, China approved 106 gigawatts of new coal fired power capacity which gives it 243 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity under construction.

    That is the equivalent of 243 coal power plants with China now accounting for around 30 percent of global CO2 emissions.

    Meanwhile, in June, Swedish authorities abandoned its 100 percent renewable target to reach net zero by 2045, and Norway followed this announcement by approving investments exceeding over US$18 billion to develop 19 oil and gas fields.

    Even in the European Union, there is a shift of voters turning away from Green parties and towards those with an anti-EU sentiment.

    According to Politico, one reason is voter attitude towards climate transition policies.

    Back in Australia, geologist, Professor Ian Plimer has been vocal in his criticism of net zero.

    He told ADHTV that, “The fundamentals of science are you do not tamper with the original evidence. That has happened with our temperature record, where the past has been cooled and it makes it look as if we’re warming. That is fraud.”

    Senator Ralph Babet told the Australian Parliament that net zero is a “complete and utter scam, designed to shut down our nation, enrich predatory globalists, and the CCP.”

    There are still some who cling to the net zero mission, however.

    Former UK PM Theresa May wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Net zero isn’t a cost to be minimised—it’s the growth opportunity of the century, worth 1 trillion pounds to British business by the end of the decade.”

    But investors aren’t buying it.

    While many renewable projects are being shelved or delayed such as wind projects in the UK, Netherlands, and Norway because of constraints such as skyrocketing costs, Rich Pontillo, Lead Advisory at Nasdaq IR Intelligence, told Reuters there could be another upcycle because of “massive” U.S. government subsidies.

    However, if there is a change of president in 2024, Pontillo may need to rethink this statement.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/13/2023 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Oct 13

Today’s News 13th October 2023

  • China's "National Team" Has Small Cash Pile To Rescue Tumbling Stocks
    China’s “National Team” Has Small Cash Pile To Rescue Tumbling Stocks

    By Ye Xie and Amy Li, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategists

    The sovereign wealth fund’s investment in the big banks shows that Beijing is committed to putting a floor under the stock market.

    The purchase is limited in size, but the signaling effect could be more important. Unfortunately, the signaling effect works only if investors believe that the National Team has deep pockets to keep buying the dip. The reality is that the cash pile at Central Huijin Investment Ltd. is dwindling fast.  

    Chinese equity markets responded positively to the news that Huijin bought about $65 million of shares in the four largest Chinese banks, and pledged to increase holdings over the next six months.

    It fits the historical pattern where intervention by the state fund tended to support the market in the short term, as this column noted yesterday. But history also shows these actions alone won’t be able to sustain the market over time.

    The sovereign wealth fund could be formidable if it has unlimited fire power. That’s not the case, though. Huijin has been burning through its cash over the past two years. Cash and cash equivalents have declined to 30 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) as of June, from a peak of 301 billion in 2021.

    The cash has been used to pay dividends and interest to the fund’s shareholders — i.e. the government. Presumably, it was to help fund the cash-pinched government as the economy slowed.

    Ultimately, to rejuvenate the market, the economy and corporate earnings growth need to pick up. And there’s not much the National Team can do to help with that.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 23:20

  • Map Explainer: The Gaza Strip
    Map Explainer: The Gaza Strip

    Recent attacks on Israel by Hamas have placed the Gaza Strip firmly in the spotlight of the global news cycle.

    While conflict in that part of the world is thoroughly covered in headlines and news stories, more basic facts about Gaza receive less attention.

    With this infographic, Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley fills in some of those gaps, including demographics, infrastructure, and more.


    Below, we outline three key facts to know about the Gaza Strip and the people who live there:

    1. Gaza is Young and Increasingly Crowded

    Gaza has a high fertility rate (3.9), and as a result, nearly half of the people living there are children. Much of this rapidly growing population lives in crowded cities and camps that are some of the most densely populated areas in the world.

    The majority of people in the Gaza Strip are officially considered refugees by the UN. Over many decades, refugee camps have become permanent settlements, blending with the surrounding urban areas. Upwards of 80% of the population relies on international aid for basic services and sustenance.

    In terms of religion, Gaza is very uniform. 99% of the population are Sunni Muslims. This is similar to Egypt and other North African nations.

    2. The Territory is Tightly Controlled

    Israel has enforced a land, air, and sea blockade since 2007, when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and Israel’s Security Cabinet labeled region a “hostile entity”. The land border of Gaza Strip is heavily fortified consisting of double-wired fencing and concrete barriers. These borders follow the “Green Line”, a demarcation set after the end of the Arab–Israeli War. There is also a 100-300 meter buffer zone inside the territory’s border where access is restricted.

    There are two border crossings—one into Egypt in the south and one into Israel in the north—that a limited number of civilians can cross. Over the years, border crossings on the east side of the territory have been closed down. There is an additional large scale crossing on the bottom corner of the territory that serves as a checkpoint for goods entering from Egypt.

    The region’s airspace is controlled by Israel. Even its electro-magnetic space is restricted, meaning many Palestinians rely on 2G and 3G.

    3. Infrastructure is Patchy

    Multiple years of conflict and underinvestment have left infrastructure in shambles in much of the Gaza Strip.

    For example, there is a just single diesel power plant servicing the entire region. Power lines run into Gaza from neighboring Israel, but even in non-conflict periods, the region runs a large electricity deficit.

    Gaza accesses fresh water via the Coastal Aquifer—an underground water supply that is dwindling due to over-extraction—and from desalination plants. International aid efforts are improving the situation, but infrastructure remains damaged by neglect and intermittent air strikes.

    Water treatment infrastructure has slowly been improving due to foreign aid, and less raw sewage is now entering the Mediterranean Sea. This clean-up effort has helped create more recreation opportunities along the territory’s beaches.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 23:00

  • Banks Need More Than Profits For Wary Investors
    Banks Need More Than Profits For Wary Investors

    By Bre Bradham, Bloomberg markets live reporter and analyst

    When US banks kick off the third-quarter earnings season Friday, it will mark the first in a long line of hurdles the group needs to clear in order to assuage investor fears.

    Bank stocks are hovering near the lowest level of the year, a mark hit in May following First Republic Bank’s collapse. The KBW Bank Index has tumbled 24% this year, a sharp underperformance to the S&P 500 Index’s 13% gain. Five of the largest US banks, excluding JPMorgan Chase & Co., have combined to lose about $100 billion in market capitalization this year.

    “Investors in the bank space just have about a half-dozen issues that are out there that need to get resolved to their better satisfaction,” Piper Sandler analyst R. Scott Siefers said.

    Among the challenges are new regulatory proposals that would impose higher capital requirements on banks, unrealized losses in their securities’ portfolios and rising bad loan write-offs. The demise of three banks in the S&P 500 earlier this year is also still fresh in investors’ minds.

    The sector fell 1% on Thursday, underperforming the broader market as yields climbed.

    “Investors are sort of looking at things and saying, the spring was an actual crisis with three large bank failures. The summer was downward estimates revisions due to interest rates and funding pressures, and now you’re telling me we’re on the cusp of a potential credit cycle,” Siefers said. “The industry is in sort of a show-me phase right now.”

    The weakness in recent weeks has been driven in part by concerns over unrealized losses due to rising bond yields. With the Federal Reserve’s path of interest-rate hikes remaining uncertain and instances of bank charge-offs due to borrower distress emerging, investors will likely remain bolted to the sidelines.

    “Third-quarter is not likely to flip a switch from good to bad, but it is likely to affirm an upward progression of loan losses from what’s been unusually favorable levels,” Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo said about credit.

    For Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Christopher McGratty, it’s going to take time to get more constructive on bank stocks. The market can’t account for credit weakness until it can get a sense of just how deep it will run.

    “There’s a high degree of unpredictability,” said McGratty. His firm has a market-weight stance on the sector.

    Meanwhile, banks’ net interest income results will be in focus amid the higher deposit costs, as firms continue to compete for business amid the tumult sparked by the collapses of regional lenders like Silicon Valley Bank in March. JPMorgan, one of the first firms scheduled to report third-quarter results on Friday, is expected to be an NII outlier among its biggest peers because of its acquisition of First Republic.

    Shares of the nation’s biggest bank gained more than 8% this year, adding $30 billion in market capitalization. That’s made JPMorgan roughly twice as big as the second-largest US bank by market value, Bank of America Corp.

    Analysts expect guidance to reflect relative stability, following downward revisions from many banks over the summer.

    Of course, the uncertainties could be resolved in a favorable way to banks. The Fed could engineer a soft landing, rate cuts could alleviate deposit costs and final versions of regulatory proposals may be tempered.

    Given that the sector’s trading at such cheap valuations, some analysts have argued for investors to take a stock-picking approach. Others warn the group has become woefully undervalued and poised for a bounce. Earnings season will bring “micro” factors to “center stage” and banks could outperform, according to Citi analysts.

    “Large-cap banks appear materially oversold,” UBS analyst Erika Najarian wrote in a note recently. “Once again, stocks are reflecting what we think are unwarranted existential concerns, rather than the fundamental issues.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 22:40

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger Says Democrats Want To "Ruin" US Cities
    Arnold Schwarzenegger Says Democrats Want To “Ruin” US Cities

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

    Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a recent interview that Democrats want to “ruin” American cities.

    During an interview with actor Rob Lowe on his podcast, the former bodybuilder and “Terminator” star responded to a statement that the Republican Party wants “strong military, low taxes, less government, [and] more personal freedoms.”

    Mr. Schwarzenegger, 76, chimed in by adding “strong law enforcement.”

    When he was asked by Mr. Lowe what it means to be a Democrat, he responded: “Ruin your cities. That’s what the Democrats would say. We are about ruining the cities. We want to [expletive] up every city in America. That seems to be the theme right now.”

    “Why is that?” Mr. Lowe asked.

    “I have no idea,” he replied.

    Although Mr. Schwarzenegger served as California governor as a Republican between 2003 and 2011, he became increasingly critical of GOP policies during former President Donald Trump’s tenure and also made a number of controversial statements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, he criticized people for not wearing masks or getting COVID-19 vaccines, drawing pushback from conservative media and via social media.

    “There is a virus here. It kills people. And the only way we prevent it is to get vaccinated, to wear masks, to do social distancing, washing your hands all the time, and not just to think about, ‘Well, my freedom is being disturbed here,'” he said in 2021, drawing condemnation. “No. Screw your freedom. With freedom comes obligations and responsibilities.”

    Despite the comments, in a September interview with the New York Times, the former California governor insisted that believes he still has a home in the Republican Party.

    “There is a home for me in the Republican Party. In the state of California, the Republican Party has done a horrible job to represent the people,” he claimed. “When you’re in the Legislature, you’re not supposed to represent only your district; you’re also supposed to represent the state and move the state forward and work with everyone in order to make life better.”

    He then claimed that the “majority of Californians … want to get rid of fossil fuels,” which Republicans do not support. He did not cite evidence for his assertion.

    But in a recent “View” appearance, he stated that the current U.S. immigration system is “set up to commit a crime,” while appearing to suggest that more work visas should be issued. He also cited concerns about drug cartels and terrorism for better border security.

    “You have to really have comprehensive immigration reform, and you have to look at this immigration problem in a comprehensive way. You can, first of all, I believe very strongly in having a border that no one can get through. That’s number one for me,” he stated on “The View” earlier this year.

    He added: “Number two, what is important is that we have visas available for people that want to work in the United States, so they don’t have to work illegally. It is bogus, we need the workers here,” he said, responding to co-host Ana Navarro.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 22:20

  • Victor Davis Hanson: Hamas And Amoral Clarity
    Victor Davis Hanson: Hamas And Amoral Clarity

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    One unexpected blowback from the medieval Hamas’s barbaric murdering of hundreds of Israeli civilians is the revelation of current global amorality.

    More than 20 Harvard university identity politics groups pledged their support to the Hamas murderers—to the utter silence for days of Harvard President Claudine Gay.

    Americans knew higher education practiced racist admission policies. It has long promoted racially segregated dorms and graduations. And de facto it has destroyed the First Amendment.

    But the overt support for Hamas killers by the diversity, equity, and inclusion crowd on a lot of campuses exposes to Americans the real moral and intellectual rot in higher education.

    Democratic Socialist members of the new woke Democrat Party openly expressed ecstatic support for Hamas’s bloodwork.

    Their biggest fears were not dead fellow Americans or hostages, or some 1,000 butchered Jewish civilians. Instead they were fearful that righteous Israeli retaliation might destroy the Hamas death machine.

    Palestinians for years fooled naïfs in Europe and the Obama and Biden administrations into sending billions of dollars into Gaza.

    These monies were channeled to tunnel into Israel, to obtain a huge rocket arsenal, and to craft plans to wipe out Jews.

    The Biden administration has blood on its hands.

    As soon as Biden took power, he resumed massive subsidies to radical Palestinians, canceled by the prior Trump administration.

    He ignored warnings from his own state Department that such fungible moneys would soon fuel Hamas terrorism.

    His administration dropped sanctions against Iran, ensuring that Tehran would enjoy a multi-billion-dollar windfall to be distributed to Israel’s existential enemies—another fact well known to the Biden administration.

    If the Biden administration had announced overtly that it was rabidly anti-Israel, it would be hard to imagine anything it could have done differently from its present nihilist behavior.

    Biden and company quickly restarted the defunct Iran appeasement deal—a leftover from the anti-Israeli Obama administration. No surprise, they appointed radical pro-Iranian activist Robert Malley to head the negotiations.

    Malley allegedly has leaked American classified documents to Iranian officials and is under investigation by the FBI. He did his best to place pro-Iranian, anti-American activists into the high echelons of the U.S. government.

    Biden was intent on forcing South Korea to release to Iran $6 billion in sanctioned frozen money.

    That expectation of cash ensured Iran would be reimbursed for its present terrorist arming spree.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken shamefully tweeted that Israel should settle for an immediate ceasefire. No wonder he soon withdrew his unhinged posting.

    That idiocy would be the moral equivalent of an American ally in December1941 urging the U.S. to seek negotiations with imperial Japan after its surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor—to avoid a “cycle of violence.”

    The Biden team has drained strategic arms stockpiles in Israel, designed to help the Jewish state in extremis.

    It recklessly abandoned a multibillion-dollar arms trove in Kabul, some of which reportedly made its way from Taliban killers to the Hamas murderers.

    Once the mass murdering started, the amoral clarity of our “allies” was stunning.

    NATO partner Turkey openly sided with the killers. It —along with Blinken—called for a cease fire—at the moment the Hamas death squads had finished, and Israel was ready to hold Hamas to account.

    Qatar, where the U.S. Central Command is based, proved little more than a Hamas front.

    It offers sanctuary to the architects of Hamas killing. And Qatar ensures a safe financial pipeline to Hamas from Iran and the radical Arab world.

    Some of the most vehement current supporters of the Hamas death squads were immigrants to America from the Middle East.

    Oddly, they apparently had fled just such illiberal Middle East regimes to reach a tolerant, democratic, and secure United States.

    Yet they now endorse the Hamas butchering of Jewish civilians. Its savagery is aimed at executing, raping, and beheading Jews, and then mutilating their bodies.

    Hamas apparently hopes to shock the Israeli government into voluntarily committing suicide—in line with the ancient Hamas agenda to destroy the Jewish state.

    In a strange way, this reign of death has become a touchstone, an acid test of sorts that has revealed the utter amorality of enemies abroad and quite dangerous people at home.

    It is past time that Americans deal with the medieval world that was revealed this week rather than keep dreaming in the fantasy world of our government.

    Americans need to stop illegal immigration and restore their southern border, while ceasing all immigration from unhinged, hostile nations.

    The military must return to its deterrent role and fire its woke commissariat.

    Our leaders must accept that in the last three years of the Biden administration, serial American appeasement abroad, disunity at home, and social chaos have encouraged an entire host of enemies —China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Middle East illiberal regimes, and former friends like Turkey and Qatar.

    And our enemies dream of doing to us what we just saw in Israel.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 21:40

  • Visualizing The R&D Investment Of The 10 Biggest Nasdaq Companies
    Visualizing The R&D Investment Of The 10 Biggest Nasdaq Companies

    Over the last decade, Apple’s research and development (R&D) spending has jumped from about $3 billion to over $26 billion.

    The world’s largest company, like other tech giants, is investing heavily in R&D on the heels of AI disruption and the rapid speed of innovation. As these technologies become more pervasive in our daily lives, so too has investment in R&D across major companies.

    As Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld shows in the following graphic, using data from Trendline, the scale of spending at the 10 biggest companies listed on the Nasdaq is significant…

    R&D Investment by the 10 Biggest Nasdaq Firms

    In 2022, the 10 largest Nasdaq companies by market cap spent roughly $222 billion on R&D—a figure that has risen considerably in recent years.

    *Trailing 12 months, ending December 31, 2022. Nvidia and Broadcom data is as of January 29, 2023.

    Amazon invested over $73 billion in R&D last year, more than double the levels seen at Meta or Apple. R&D spending increased 30% over the year for the retail heavyweight, as it invested in technology infrastructure that underlies everything from software to autonomous vehicles.

    Facebook parent Meta spent almost a third of its annual revenues on R&D in 2022, the highest proportion across the 10 largest Nasdaq companies. The majority of these investments were through its research arm, Reality Labs, which is focused on building a metaverse. However, the company has since pivoted away from its work on the metaverse due to a lackluster response—instead focusing on generative AI.

    Chipmaker Nvidia, which has seen its market capitalization skyrocket in 2023, spent over $7 billion on R&D across generative AI, deep learning, robotics, and a number of other research areas. Between 2021 and 2022, investments in R&D grew by 34%.

    Fastest Rising R&D Spenders, Globally

    Beyond big tech names in the Nasdaq, many companies are accelerating their investment in R&D as the complexity of technology increases.

    The table below shows the top 10 companies globally with the highest increase in R&D spend, based on analysis by fDi Intelligence.

    China’s largest electric vehicle maker, BYD, increased R&D investment by 133%, the most across companies analyzed. Among its primary research areas is the “Blade Battery”, which is a prismatic battery designed to hold as much as 50% more energy than comparable models.

    Two chipmakers, AMD and TSMC also made the list, while three healthcare companies Moderna, Novo Nordisk, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals made significant R&D investments.

    The Future of Innovation Spending

    Even as many big tech names saw their stock prices fall in 2022, many dramatically increased their R&D investment.

    This came as tech firms laid off thousands of employees. Together, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google’s parent company Alphabet laid of 40,000 employees as of early 2023.

    Despite challenging environments, the focus on R&D is evident. Large companies can apply innovation across numerous areas of their business, improve efficiencies, with the goal of making the most out of research dollars spent.

    At the same time, the complexity of technology is accelerating, requiring companies to spend more to keep with the pace of innovation. This involves investment in engineers, research facilities, along with the cost of running more advanced technological infrastructure.

    Between 2000 and 2020, global R&D spending increased more than threefold to $2.4 trillion, a trend that shows minimal signs of slowing.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 21:20

  • The Incredibles: Roughly 80% Of Grades Given At Harvard Are In The 'A' Range
    The Incredibles: Roughly 80% Of Grades Given At Harvard Are In The ‘A’ Range

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    The Harvard Crimson on Thursday reported that 79 percent of grades given to Harvard students in 2020-21 were in the A range.

    That is an increase of 20 percent over the last decade.

    It leaves the question of not how difficult it is to flunk out of Harvard but how difficult it is not to excel. Faculty have apparently solved any equity issues by making everyone a top student.

    The problem was raised in the movie “The Incredibles,” when the villainous character “Syndrome” reveals a plan to make everyone a superhero.

    Syndrome’s motive is hardly altruistic: He hated superheroes and “with everyone super, no one will be.”

    In 2010, 60 percent of Harvard students were given grades in the A range and that was viewed at the time as rather scandalous.

    Now, to not get an A, is apparently a shocker.

    Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh and Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana reportedly presented the data at the first meeting this year of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

    Claybaugh admitted that the “report establishes we have a problem — or rather, we have two: the intertwined problems of grade inflation and compression.”

    She noted that the effort to secure better teaching evaluations may be driving the upward shift.

    She also noted that it obviously “complicates selection processes for prizes, fellowships, or induction into Phi Beta Kappa, which rely heavily on students’ grade point averages.”

    In other words, to paraphrase Syndrome: “With everyone an A student, no one will be.”

    Yet, the suggestions on how to deal with the problem were even more bizarre. Romance languages and literatures Professor Annabel Kim suggested the “abolition of grading” and the institution of “narrative-based” evaluations.It is not clear how employers would be informed of the narrative-based performance of students in school.

    On this trajectory, Harvard will be at 100 percent ‘A’s in year 2033. It may seem the perfect grading system for a trophy generation. However, my students have long objected that they never wanted the trophies.  It is not their generational problem, it is ours. We resolved the struggle over tough decisions by not making them.

    What is interesting is that Harvard is creating an effective three-grade system where the curve runs from A+ to A-.

    The new report seems to vindicate William F. Buckley, Jr. when he declared “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 21:00

  • A "Sh*t Thing" To Say: Explosive Kerfuffle Erupts Between House Dems After Jewish Rep. Accused Of Slamming Muslims
    A “Sh*t Thing” To Say: Explosive Kerfuffle Erupts Between House Dems After Jewish Rep. Accused Of Slamming Muslims

    House Democrats had a tense closed-door caucus meeting on Wednesday, after one lawmaker accused another of saying a “shit thing” about Muslims.

    The kerfuffle erupted after Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) described a virtual vigil she attended in the wake of this weekend’s Hamas attack, Politico reports. Wild explained that she didn’t want any religious community to feel ostracized, and noted that Muslim leaders weren’t present at the event to condemn the attack, when Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) – a prominent Jewish Democrat and Israel hawk, loudly interjected.

    Accounts differ, however, on whether Gottheimer was referring to Muslims or made an ill-timed remark in an unrelated conversation, with some attendees overhearing him saying “because they’re all guilty” and others saying he stated “because they should feel guilty.” A spokesperson for Gottheimer strongly denied that he was talking about Muslims.

    “Congressman Gottheimer never said anything about Muslims in today’s caucus meeting, a community he cares deeply about. Congressman Gottheimer said that the members of Congress who have not yet condemned Hamas terrorists should feel guilty,” said his spokesperson Chris D’Aloia.

    “Joshua!” one Democratic lawmaker shouted out in response to his remarks.

    Gottheimer insisted later that his comments were taken out of context, and made as part of a separate conversation about condemning Hamas. He has notably complained in recent days that there’s been insufficient criticism of Hamas for the attack.

    Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), a first term progressive lawmaker, then confronted Gottheimer – with Cesar telling Gottheimer that his remarks were a “shit thing to say,” and were “shameful,” after the two argued back and forth, according to six witnesses.

    Amid the spat, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and other progressive lawmakers were spotted leaving the party meeting together.

    The dustup shined a bright light on the longtime fracture within the Democratic Party over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s a divide that the party had largely skirted following the bloody surprise terrorist attack this weekend — but one that threatens to roil Democrats further as the war in the Middle East progresses in the weeks ahead. -Politico

    Gottheimer’s spokesman then peddled in unconfirmed reports that Hamas beheaded babies. 

    “Congressman Gottheimer is furious and deeply disappointed with Members of Congress who have yet to condemn Hamas terrorists for brutally murdering, raping, burning alive, kidnapping, torturing, and beheading innocent babies, children, women, men, and grandparents — including Americans,” said D’Aloia, adding “Congressman Gottheimer said that those members who have not condemned Hamas terrorists should indeed feel guilty. Of course, Congressman Gottheimer doesn’t blame innocent Palestinian civilians — he blames the terrorists.”

    The White House has been casting a ‘very public shadow’ of support for Israel – with President Biden on Tuesday forcefully denouncing Hamas’ attack as “pure, unadulterated evil,” and pledging that the United States “has Israel’s back.”

    While a handful of progressive lawmakers have publicly pushed for a cease-fire, de-escalation and even stripping government support from Israel, most Democrats in Congress have largely stayed behind the president as he sidestepped those calls.

    Biden also has urged lawmakers in both parties to provide emergency funding for Israel and condemned Hamas for the killing of more than 1,000 Israelis and the kidnapping of hundreds more.

    Several progressive and more establishment-minded Democrats said that party unity has been palpable so far due in part to the gruesome nature of the attacks on Israel that took place. -Politico

    “It was so grotesque that it ended up uniting people even if they have different views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With the exception of a few of the [Democratic Socialists of America] chapters, you really haven’t seen any difference of opinion when it comes to this,” one House Democrat told the outlet.

    “There are a couple of people, a handful of people, who are not part of the present, unanimous posture of progressives and Democrats,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of liberal Jewish advocacy group J Street. “That’s where we are today in the immediate aftermath of this attack. I’m not going to say that’s where things will be in a week, two weeks, three weeks, but that’s where we are today.”

    DSA Defection

    Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) declared in a Wednesday statement that the Democratic Socialists of America’s “inability to look at what has happened as terrorism is very upsetting and shocking,” and that he would be leaving the DSA over their stance on Israel.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 20:50

  • Remember, Disinflation Doesn't Equal Falling Prices
    Remember, Disinflation Doesn’t Equal Falling Prices

    While progress in the fight against inflation has been stalling in the past three months, the inflation rate has come down significantly since peaking in June 2022.

    However, as Statista’s Felix Richter notes, looking at the steep decline of the inflation rate since then, some people are probably thinking: “Great, inflation is cooling. But then why is everything still so expensive?”

    Whenever we’re discussing inflation coming down, it’s important to distinguish between disinflation and deflation.

    What we’ve seen over the past year and hope to see more of is disinflation, i.e. a deceleration of price increases (yes, increases).

    For the overall price level to actually come down, the inflation rate would have to drop below zero, which would signify deflation.

    While the Fed desperately wants inflation to come back down, it is aiming for 2 percent inflation, not deflation, because the latter creates a whole set of problems on its own.

    As the following chart shows, the rate of inflation (yellow line) has come down quite a bit from its June 2022 peak of 8.9 percent. Consumer prices (blue line) continue to climb, however, and are now 18.6 percent higher than they were in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit.

    Infographic: Disinflation Doesn't Equal Falling Price | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    So while some prices will or have already come back down from their peaks as supply chain disruptions and global crises recede – see gas prices for example – prices will continue to rise at the aggregate level, albeit hopefully at a slower rate.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 20:40

  • Iran's Raisi & Saudi Crown Prince Hold 1st Ever Phone Call Amid Israel-Gaza War
    Iran’s Raisi & Saudi Crown Prince Hold 1st Ever Phone Call Amid Israel-Gaza War

    Via The Cradle,

    Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) held their first-ever telephone conversation late on Wednesday to discuss “the need to end war crimes against Palestine.”

    State-run news agency Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said MBS stressed the “necessity of adhering to the principles of international humanitarian law and expressed deep concern for the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and its impact on civilians” and “reaffirmed the kingdom’s stance against targeting civilians in any way and the loss of innocent lives.”

    MbS doubled down on his support for the Palestinian cause and his support for “efforts aimed at achieving comprehensive and fair peace that ensures the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights.” 

    According to Mohammad Jamshidi, political advisor to the Iranian president, the crown prince warned that failing to recognize Palestinian rights would further inflame the situation, adding that “cooperation between Riyadh and Tehran can contribute effectively and quickly to putting an end to the conflict inside Palestine.” 

    Raisi emphasized that the issue of Palestine “cannot be solved” without giving the Palestinians full rights. 

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    The current situation in Palestine results from “repeated miscalculations by Western countries, led by the US,” Raisi said. 

    “Iran and Saudi Arabia, as major players in the region, can support the oppressed Palestinian people in the current circumstances, which are sensitive circumstances,” Raisi added. 

    Raisi also warned, “the crimes of the occupation and the American green light will cause devastating insecurity for [Israel] and its supporters.” 

    Iran and Saudi Arabia signed a historic Chinese-brokered reconciliation agreement in March this year to end years of regional tension between the two countries. 

    Several months later, Saudi Arabia entered US-sponsored talks to normalize ties with Israel. While publicly holding on to the Palestinian issue as a condition, Riyadh made major demands in exchange for a deal, including a firm defense treaty with Washington, help developing a nuclear program, and access to more advanced weaponry.

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    But Hamas “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” and the devastating Israeli response against civilians in the Gaza Strip have seemingly eroded any hope of the deal being reached.

    According to The Cradle columnist Mohammad Sweidan, Riyadh will now “find it nigh near impossible to abandon the request for Israeli concessions, particularly with Tel Aviv’s aggressive bombardment of civilians in the Gaza Strip now a daily occurrence.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 20:20

  • Scalise Drops Out Of Speaker's Race After Failing To Win Over GOP Holdouts
    Scalise Drops Out Of Speaker’s Race After Failing To Win Over GOP Holdouts

    Update (2005ET): Despite winning his party’s nomination by a margin of 113-99, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) has dropped out of the Speaker race, after a group of GOP holdouts refused to vote for him.

    Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., speaks to reporters after a closed-door meeting of House Republicans during which he was nominated as their candidate for Speaker of the House, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023 (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

    The move leaves Republicans without a GOP nominee for the role, just nine days after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted.

    “I was very clear we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs this country is counting on us,” Scalise told reporters on Thursday, Axios reports. “But there’s some folks that really need to look in the mirror over the next couple of days and decide are we going to get it back on track, or they’re going to try to pursue their own agenda.”

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    As Axios further notes:

    Zoom in: Scalise won the nomination on Wednesday by a 113-99 margin, but on Thursday it became clear he wasn’t making the progress needed to risk a vote on the House floor.

    • The House GOP is in a tight spot, with any combination of five Republicans being enough to sink a speaker bid — at least without help from Democrats.

    What’s next: House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) narrowly lost the nomination to Scalise, and could now contest the nomination again.

    *  *  *

    After House Republicans narrowly nominated Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) to be the next speaker over Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) by a vote of 113 to 99, several GOP lawmakers publicly announced they wouldn’t support him in a chamber-wide vote.

    “They knew I was with [Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio] in the room, and I thought I might go with Scalise if everybody was gonna get behind Scalise, that was fine, but it’s just not that way,” said Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) following a meeting with the House Freedom Caucus. “There’s just people that are not on his team.”

    At least six GOP lawmakers said they wouldn’t vote for Scalise, all but guaranteeing a repeat of January’s drawn out Speaker vote when Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) took 15 ballots to secure the position.

    “I just don’t think Steve’s got the votes,” Moore added.

    Scalise, 58, is a longtime member of House leadership favored by centrists and neocons. He needs at least 217 lawmakers to support his candidacy. Given the slim GOP majority in the chamber, and Democrats expected to nominate Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to the post as they did during January’s Speakership elections, Scalise faces an uphill battle.

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    House Republicans are likely to meet behind closed doors today to try and hash out their differences before the next chamber-wide vote.

    Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX)

    Scalise can only afford to lose four votes on the floor. 

    Some members said they were frustrated by Scalise allies voting down an earlier measure aimed at raising the threshold to elect a speaker candidate to 217 — a majority of the House.

    “I put the amendment forward this morning to say, let’s figure this out, because I can count votes. I’m not a whip, but I can count votes,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who led the amendment that was backed by a significant number of GOP lawmakers.

    “I was just making it very clear that if you rush this to the floor, I’m a hard no. So we’ll go now have some conversations and go figure out where we’re gonna go.” -Fox News

    Following a meeting with GOP leaders, Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) who leads the Main Street Caucus, said the division within the GOP “does not look good for the House or for the country.”

    “Frankly, I think it would be easier in a political environment where people understood that governing requires some give and take,” he added. “I never get everything I want in any negotiation. There are a lot of people around here who don’t understand that, and it makes it hard to govern. It is not a problem unique to the Republican Party, but it is on full display in our party today.”

    When asked if Republicans simply need to huddle in a room to settle their differences, Johnson replied: “I would like to be able to have the power to lock some people in some places, for sure.”

    As The Hill notes:

    IF HE GETS THE JOB, SCALISE INHERITS a race against the shutdown clock from his predecessor. Lawmakers have until Nov. 17 to fund the government or risk another shutdown, and multiple members, including Scalise, have said in recent days that Congress may need to once again rely on a stopgap spending bill to keep the lights on.

    The House will come into session at Noon.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 20:03

  • Dumbocracy Achieved: ACT Test Scores For US Students Drop To 30-Year Low
    Dumbocracy Achieved: ACT Test Scores For US Students Drop To 30-Year Low

    The government-enforced lockdown of schools and months of forced remote learning during Covid have devastated the education of America’s future leaders. New data on ACT college admissions tests shows high school students’ scores have plunged to the lowest in over three decades.

    According to data published by ACT, the nonprofit organization that administers the college readiness exam, the average composite score on the ACT test fell to 19.5 for the class of 2023, a decline of .3 points from 2022. The average scores in mathematics, reading, and science subjects were below ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, indicating fewer seniors than ever are ready for college. 

    Source: AXIOS 

    “We are also continuing to see a rise in the number of seniors leaving high school without meeting any of the college readiness benchmarks, even as student GPAs continue to rise and students report that they feel prepared to be successful in college,” ACT CEO Janet Godwin wrote in a statement. 

    One of the best examples of a school system caught in a grading scandal is the Baltimore City Public Schools system. Investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore has found dozens of schools with very few kids proficient in critical subjects on state exams despite some earning satisfactory grades. 

    Godwin continued, “The hard truth is that we are not doing enough to ensure that graduates are truly ready for postsecondary success in college and career. These systemic problems require sustained action and support at the policy level. This is not up to teachers and principals alone – it is a shared national priority and imperative.”

    About 1.4 million high school seniors took the ACT test, about 21% of them met benchmarks for college subjects. And a shocking 43% met none of these benchmarks. 

    Readers have well-understood the Covid crisis and government lockdowns unleashed a ‘learning poverty.’

    Last fall, Anthony Fauci told corporate media he had “nothing to do” with school lockdowns and the resulting learning loss among public school students. 

    But history shows Facui is a liar. 

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    Meanwhile, some universities and colleges no longer require applicants to submit ACT and SAT standardized tests. This may be because the education-industrial complex understands the dumbing down of the youth – plus, the continuation of the EDU bubble is only made possible by giving false promises of future success to the younger generation while strapping them with $100,000 in student debt. 

    Also, there needs to be a nationwide discussion on ‘woke’ math, and gender pronoun studies – and how these subjects will produce tomorrow’s rocket scientists. 

    The worsening implosion of the public school system is more free advertisement for parents to consider homeschooling. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 20:00

  • RFK Jr. Sees Surge In Fundraising After Declaring Independent Run
    RFK Jr. Sees Surge In Fundraising After Declaring Independent Run

    Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Within hours of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement that he will run for president as an independent and not a Democrat, the super PAC supporting his candidacy raised more than $11 million.

    Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes a campaign announcement at a press conference in Philadelphia, Pa. on Oct. 9, 2023. Mr. Kennedy announced he will end his Democratic primary bid and will run for president as an independent. (Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)

    American Values 2024 disclosed on Oct. 10 that it has generated $11.28 million since Mr. Kennedy told an audience in front of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, “I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States.”

    Individual events have spurred bountiful fundraising for Mr. Kennedy. In September, a private fundraiser performance by musician Eric Clapton generated more than $2 million that was split between the campaign and American Values 2024.

    The organization tallied about $6.47 million in July from a mix of donors who are registered Democrats and Republicans, according to American Values 2024. That number included about $5 million collected during Mr. Kennedy’s testimony in a hearing about censorship before the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

    Individuals can give as much as $3,300 to a political candidate’s campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission.

    Super political action committees (PACs) are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals and “spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates,” according to OpenSecrets, an organization that tracks money in U.S. politics and its impact on elections and public policy.

    Unlike traditional PACs, super PACS may not contribute money directly to political candidates.

    Prominent Democratic Party donors like Abby Rockefeller have contributed to American Values 2024, but Republican donors have given a majority of the money the super PAC has received, including former President Donald Trump donor Tim Mellon, according to American Values 2024 reports.

    Tony Lyons, co-chair of American Values 2024, spoke to The Epoch Times about the influx of support.

    “People feel that the Democratic National Committee was disenfranchising them and that Bobby would not get the nomination based on the rules the DNC was putting into place and the inflammatory statements they have made about him time after time,” he said.

    “They feel that their vote wouldn’t count, and that their donation wouldn’t be helpful because the primary would be rigged. Just as Bobby Kennedy sees a path to victory as an independent, so do the donors that were reluctant to contribute with him running as a Democrat,” Mr. Lyons explained.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a campaign event in Philadelphia on Oct. 9, 2023. (NTD/Screenshot via NTD)

    George Washington, America’s first president, is the only independent candidate to win election to the nation’s highest office. No independent candidate has won an electoral vote in the past 50 years. America, Mr. Kennedy believes, is ready for “a new page in American politics.”

    “There have been independent candidates before. But this time is different. This time, the independent is going to win,” Mr. Kennedy said.

    During his Oct. 9 announcement in Philadelphia, Mr. Kennedy noted that  “three-fourths of Americans believe President (Joe) Biden is too old to govern effectively. President Trump faces multiple civil and criminal trials. Both have favorability ratings deep in negative territory.”

    He also referenced a recent Gallup poll showing that 63 percent of U.S. adults agree with the statement that the Republican and Democrat parties do “such a poor job” of representing Americans that “a third major party is needed.”

    A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week indicated that Mr. Kennedy could draw support from around one in seven U.S. voters in the 2024 presidential election. In a three-way race, President Trump received 33 percent support compared to 31 percent for President Biden and 14 percent for Mr. Kennedy.

    Ahead of Mr. Kennedy’s Oct. 9 announcement, a poll commissioned by American Values 2024 and conducted by John Zogby Strategies showed that, in a three-way matchup, President Trump and President Biden were tied at 38 percent each, and Mr. Kennedy generated 19 percent support.

    “The media pundits will tell you we have no chance. They say my only impact will be to draw votes from other candidates,” Mr. Kennedy said on Oct. 9 in Philadelphia.

    “The Democrats are terrified I’ll spoil the election for President Biden. The Republicans fear I’ll spoil it for President Trump. The truth is—they’re both right! But only their inside-the-beltway myopia deludes them into thinking we have no chance to win.”

    American Values 2024 will hire surrogates to go out in public and amplify his message.

    “He [Mr. Kennedy] thinks this election will be won by reaching voters through podcasts and alternative media outlets that have more readers and viewers than legacy media,” Mr. Lyons said.

    American Values 2024 has raised around $28 million since its inception in fall 2022, according to Mr. Lyons. The organization believes it can raise $100 million by the end of December.

    Supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listen to the announcement that he will run as an independent for president, in Philadelphia, on Oct. 9, 2023. (Jeff Louderback/The Epoch Times)

    The super PAC is also building a volunteer network, launching a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fitness program, and organizing car caravans to travel across the country. Some of the money will be used for targeted advertisements in newspapers and on billboards and social media.

    Since announcing his candidacy in April to challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democrat party nomination, Mr. Kennedy has gained widespread support from conservative and moderate Republicans, independents, Libertarians, and moderate Democrats.

    Last week, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) said that Mr. Kennedy would address the organization’s Investor Summit to Save America in Las Vegas later this month. Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Kari Lake, who narrowly lost a gubernatorial bid in Arizona last year and is now running for U.S. Senate, will also speak.

    “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a unique voice in advocating for the defunding of the weaponized bureaucracy and ensuring the constitutional right of medical freedom,” CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp said in a statement. “Kennedy joining such an important event is a reflection of the splintering of the left-wing coalition that has gone full woke Marxist to the point that traditional liberals don’t feel welcome anymore.”

    Mr. Kennedy said that “declaring independence from the Democratic party” was a “painful” decision that he did not take lightly because of his family’s history with the party.

    During an August interview with The Epoch Times in Columbia, South Carolina, he said, “I’m a Democrat. The Democrat party has lost its way, and I want to return it to its traditional ideals.”

    Mr. Kennedy faced what he deemed multiple roadblocks to “fair primary elections” from the DNC. Earlier this year, the organization voted to give President Biden its full support. At the same meeting, the DNC voted to replace New Hampshire with South Carolina as the first-in-the-nation primary state. The organization has warned that New Hampshire will face potential penalties if that state’s Democrat primary does not comply with new primary calendar plans.

    Mr. Kennedy told supporters in New Hampshire that he would have to make a decision before Oct. 15 to run as an independent and that it would require about $15 million in funds to get on the ballot in all 50 states.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 19:40

  • Ellison Testifies Bankman-Fried Was "Freaking Out" About Inability To Raise Capital From Saudis
    Ellison Testifies Bankman-Fried Was “Freaking Out” About Inability To Raise Capital From Saudis

    On her third day of testimony former Alameda Research Chief Executive Officer Caroline Ellison detailed more interactions with Alameda employees and how SBF was “freaking out” over not being able to raise cash from the Saudis. Her testimony also expounded on the hole in FTX’s balance sheet and the internal stress constantly shuffling loans caused at FTX and Alameda. 

    Bloomberg said Thursday that Ellison looked “more relaxed than in previous days” of testimony. We guess once you’ve detailed how you used the IDs of Thai hookers to set up fake crypto accounts to bribe the Chinese government, the rest of the fraud admissions just seem like easy work and just kinda roll off the tongue. 

    Among the items brought to light on day 3 of her testimony was the claim that SBF wouldn’t let her quit when she wanted to. Ellison said in court: “He said I couldn’t I was too important to Alameda and I should stay at Alameda.”

    On Thursday Ellison said she admitted to Alameda employees that the company likely wasn’t going to make it: “A lot of employees had been asking me about what was going on or what the implications was for them. I was hoping that some might stay, but if my goal was to get them to stay, I would have asked them to stay. My goal was to inform Alameda employees what had been going on and what the implications were.”

    She said the employees were grateful she was “open and honest with them.”

    She detailed more on Thursday about how SBF was “freaking out” about not being able to raise money from Mohammed bin Salman: “He told me he went to the Middle East and tried to raise funds there but it didn’t sound like he had success.” We had detailed in yesterday’s testimony that MBS was one place where FTX was potentially looking to raise capital. 

    Ellison again talked about how she was worried about Alameda’s lenders recalling loans in summer 2022. Talking about the 7 alternate balance sheets she used with FTX to lie about the company’s financial position, Ellison said Thursday: “I don’t recall if we discussed all of them, I know we discussed some.”

    She also told the jury how she wasn’t “as good a manager as she could be”, Bloomberg wrote. Ellison said in court: “By limiting factors in scaling I meant those were things that were preventing Alameda from doing as well and making as much money as we could. I thought the biggest factor was that [Sam] Trabucco and I weren’t as good managers or leaders as we could be and we weren’t pushing employees to you know make new things or do better in the way that I wished we were.”

    Ellison also admitted that Alameda had an “improper advantage” from being so close to FTX and having access to customer funds. In 2022, she had told Bloomberg that the entities were walled off from each other: “We definitely have a Chinese wall in terms of information sharing to ensure that no one in Alameda would get customer information from FTX or anything like that, or any sort of special treatment from FTX. It’s very important for FTX to be perceived as a fair, neutral marketplace where everyone gets an equal shot.”

    She said that communication broke down between her and SBF after their breakup, stating in court Thursday: “I tried to avoid [one on one conversations] and avoid spending much time in social settings. We talked sometimes outside of work. He still lived in the same apartment, so it’s hard to avoid that entirely.”

    “There were periods of time when he wasn’t paying attention to Alameda,” she also testified, helping make the point from the defense that SBF was not always aware of Alameda’s daily operations. 

    Ellison claimed she was unaware of government probes into FTX and Alameda until after a November meeting. She testified that the FBI confiscated her mother’s and boyfriend’s computers, both of whom were also involved with Alameda and FTX. Ellison pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in December after multiple meetings, including a lengthy one this Monday.

    Recall, we detailed Ellison’s sordid second day of testimony earlier, wherein she talked about falsely using the IDs of Thai hookers to bribe Chinese officials and how even FTX’s fabricated balance sheets, laden with FTX’s FTT token and other tokens closely affiliated with Bankman-Fried, were concerning. 

    On Wednesday, @teddyschleifer reported on X that “Caroline Ellison testified that Sam Bankman-Fried ordered her to lie in mid 2022 to Genesis, one of FTX’s lenders, about Alameda’s balance sheet,” he wrote. “Caroline prepared a bunch of bullshit balance-sheets that they could send, and Sam chose ‘Alternative 7’ as the best lie of the bunch.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 19:20

  • The Welfare State's Destruction Of Faith In Freedom
    The Welfare State’s Destruction Of Faith In Freedom

    Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    As I read about the life and death of billionaire Charles Feeney, I could not help but think what America’s welfare-state way of life has done to destroy many people’s faith in freedom. 

    According to an article in the New York Times, Feeney was “a pioneer of duty-free shops and and investor in technology start-ups.” He became a billionaire. And then he donated all of his $8 billion fortune to charity. He left himself around $2 million.

    America’s welfare state way of life is based on the notion that the federal government is needed to force people to be good and caring to others. 

    That’s the idea, for example, behind Social Security.

    If there was no Social Security, it is said, there would be seniors dying in the streets.

    That’s because, they say, people, including children and grandchildren, cannot be trusted with the freedom to decide whether to honor their mother and father or grandparents on a voluntary basis. They must be forced to do so through the coercive apparatus of the Internal Revenue Service and the faceless bureaucracy of the Social Security Administration.

    It’s the same, for example, with public schooling.

    If the state didn’t force parents to herd their children into these governmental institutions, the poor would have no way to have their children educated.

    The notion that there would be people with money to help out others in need is considered ludicrous. 

    And then along come people like Charles Feeney, who are more than willing to help out others with money they have accumulated.

    Of course, there are countless instances of people helping others on a purely voluntary basis, but welfare-statists give them short shrift. 

    Consider, for examples, local drives to raise money for college scholarships for poorer students. Or food drives that are sometimes conducted at churches in America. People are more than willing to contribute to such drives. 

    In fact, guess who funds the churches themselves. No, not the government. The members of the church do that, on a purely voluntary basis, simply because they consider it an important thing that they wish to do.

    Imagine if the government had been funding churches for the past 225 years. Imagine if a libertarian came along and suggested that such funding be immediately terminated. Imagine the response: “If we did that, the churches would cease to exist. Do you libertarians honestly believe that people would fund churches all on their own? And where would the poor go to church? Only the rich would have churches.”

    Some would say that people don’t have enough money to donate to worthy causes. There is a good reason for that — the federal government’s income tax, which deprives people of an enormously large amount of money that could be saved, donated, invested, or spent. The more people are able to earn and keep, the more they are able to help out others. A society in which people are on the verge of starvation is a society where there is not going to be a large amount of donations to help out others. 

    Finally, there is something important to note about America’s welfare-state way of life: It does not reflect care and compassion, as welfare-warfare state proponents claim. That’s because care and compassion do not come from the coercive apparatus of the IRS and the faceless bureaucracy of the welfare state. They come only from the willing heart of the individual, who demonstrates such care and compassion by voluntarily helping others.

    What we need in America is a revival of faith in freedom, ourselves, others, and God. When that revival comes, the welfare-state way of life will be finished. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 19:00

  • Menendez Charged With Conspiracy To Act As Foreign Agent Of Egypt
    Menendez Charged With Conspiracy To Act As Foreign Agent Of Egypt

    US Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was hit with a new charge Thursday that he conspired to act as an agent of the Egyptian government while he was head of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.

    In a superseding indictment filed in Manhattan federal court, Menendez was accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone acting as “an agent of a foreign principal” to register with the US government. Menendez was prohibited from doing so either way as a member of Congress.

    The new charge comes weeks after Menendez and his wife Nadine were indicted for allegedly accepting bribes, as well as having “promised to take and took a series of acts on behalf of Egypt, including on behalf of Egyptian military and intelligence officials.”

    According to the indictment, Menendez and his wife, along with business associate Wael Hana, met with an Egyptian intelligence official in Menendez’s Senate office in Washington DC, during which they discussed a US citizen who was injured in a 2015 airstrike by the Egyptian military – an incident which some members of Congress cited as a reason to withhold certain military aid to Egypt.

    Shortly after the meeting, the Egyptian official texted Hana that if Menendez took care of the matter, “he will sit very comfortably.”

    Hana texted back, “Orders, consider it done.”

    In an email, Hana’s attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, said the “new allegation that Wael Hana was part of a plot concocted over dinner to enlist Senator Menendez as an agent of the Egyptian Government is as absurd as it is false.”

    “As with the other charges in this indictment, Mr. Hana will vigorously defend against this new and baseless allegation,” he wrote.

    Menendez and his wife have pleaded not guilty to the charges lodged against them last month. Hana pleaded not guilty last month to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery.

    After Hana’s company was granted a lucrative monopoly by the Egyptian government to certify that all meat imported into that country met religious requirements, prosecutors said, Menendez urged U.S. agriculture officials to stop questioning the deal. –AP

    Menendez was also accused of accepting “cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value” as part of a “corrupt relationship” with businessman Fred Daibes.

    Daibes, a developer and former bank chairman, allegedly gave Menendez gold bars valued at approximately $400,000, in exchange for assistance in a case in which he faced federal bank charges.

    Instead of facing over 10 years in prison, Daibes, a felon, only ended up serving probation after striking an agreement with the US Attorney’s Office in New Jersey.

    “For purposes of the Federal Extortion Act, it makes no difference if the senator took an official act so long as he accepted the money and there was knowledge the money was in exchange for that official influence, even if he never carried out what he had promised he would do,” according to NBC Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos.

    Menendez disclosed that his family had accepted gold bars in 2020. Daibes encountered bank fraud charges that could have netted him up to a decade in prison for lying about a nearly $2 million loan from Mariner’s Bank, where Daibes served as chairman.

    Last year, however, New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to let Daibes plead guilty to one count and serve probation. They said Daibes had repaid the loan. -Fox News

    According to the report, Menendez, 69, is ‘close’ with US Attorney Philip Sellinger – having supported him for the position, while Sellinger had previously raised funds for Menendez’s campaign.

    Menendez also allegedly pushed prosecutors to grant leniency to friends of his associates.

    One businessman, Jose Uribe, bought Nadine Menendez a $60,000 Mercedes Benz after she killed a man in a 2018 crash.

    You know it’s bad when…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 18:40

  • Beyond Crypto: Zero-Knowledge Proofs Show Potential From Voting To Finance
    Beyond Crypto: Zero-Knowledge Proofs Show Potential From Voting To Finance

    Authored by Andrew Singer via CoinTelegraph.com,

    In a world increasingly anxious about privacy and exploitation of one’s personal data by governments, corporations, social media platforms and banks, zero-knowledge proofs may offer some relief. 

    Indeed, this emerging cryptographic protocol could partially remedy two rapidly growing global deficits: privacy and truth.

    ZK-proofs have already found a home within the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector — enabling scaling protocols to make Ethereum transactions faster and cheaper, for example. But this may just be the beginning. 

    One day, ZK-proofs could help convince your bank that your income is above a certain threshold — to qualify for a mortgage, for example — without revealing your actual income. Or prove to the election authorities that you are a resident or citizen without giving them your name, driver’s license or passport.

    ZK-proofs open up a new world of potential applications, including “anonymous voting, decentralized games, proving personal information without fully disclosing your personal information, and fighting against fake news by proving the source of the news,” Polygon co-founder Jordi Baylina tells Magazine.

    To this point, some in the cryptographic community already view ZK-proofs as a potential weapon in the looming struggle against false information, including AI-altered documents, images and identities. 

    “We may have a technological battle for truth coming up where ZK can play a critical part,” prize-winning cryptographer Jens Groth tells Magazine. “There is this idea of proof-carrying data,” i.e., data that carries within itself proofs of correctness including origin and provenance data, “so nirvana would be that all data we get are verified data.”

    In some industry sectors like finance, ZK-proofs may profoundly alter how business is conducted. “We see this revolutionizing the audit industry,” Proven co-founder and CEO Rich Dewey tells Magazine in connection with ZK-enabled proof-of-solvency protocols, like the one his tech firm has developed. “The only question is the timeline.” 

    Requiring fewer resources

    Even though ZK-proofs were first presented back in the 1980s by researchers Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali and Charles Rackoff, only in the past decade have they had their “big breakthrough,” according to Baylina.

    “Now it’s possible to prove any generic statement.” This statement — sometimes called a circuit — “can be programmed with a specific language and can be anything,” Baylina says. 

    ZK-proofs are computationally complex, which has arguably slowed their development, but their core intuition seems simple enough. As described in a forthcoming paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: 

    By using a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP), a party can prove to other parties that a computation was executed correctly. There is no need to replicate the computation—only the proof needs to be verified. Ideally, verifying a ZKP needs significantly less resources than re-executing the computation.”

    What follows are some of the promising ZK-proof use cases on the table today — beyond the strict confines of the crypto sector — that may or may not involve the use of blockchains.

    ZK-proofs require fewer resources when re-executing a computation. (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)

    Verifying digital voting 

    Electronic voting has been slow to catch on globally, but if and when it does, the odds are that ZK-proofs will play a prominent part. ZK-proofs are already being used in e-voting systems in trials in a number of Swiss towns and cantons, Dahlia Malkhi, distinguished scientist of Chainlink Labs, tells Magazine.

    “ZK-proofs can add verifiability to an online election, allowing anyone to check that the votes were counted correctly,” explains Malkhi, without revealing how individuals voted — a key concern with electronic voting, she says. 

    Cryptographic electronic voting systems have been around for decades, Malkhi adds, but their adoption has been moderate. On the technical side, one of the challenges has been “the compromise of end-user devices, which ZK-proofs don’t protect against.”

    There are other obstacles, too, that are beyond ZK-proofs purview or ability to control — which also may suggest their limitations. 

    Electronic voting requires a credible “digital identity” system, i.e., a link to “real world” information that isn’t always easy to secure. (Think of all those voting rolls on aged paper ledgers.) “ZK by itself cannot bootstrap e-voting,” Malkhi says. 

    Cryptographer Groth, like Malkhi, cites the need for some sort of “trust anchor” to make ZK-proofs impactful in everyday life. “Zero-knowledge proofs often need a hook to reality.”  

    Electronic “ballot boxes” like this could benefit from the added security of ZK-proofs. (Fred Miller)

    Maybe one day, thanks to ZK-proofs, someone will be able to prove that they are older than 18 years of age or a United Kingdom citizen without having to pull out a driver’s license or passport, Groth tells Magazine, but “you cannot prove you’re over 18 out of thin air. You need the trust anchor that establishes your age,” he says, i.e., some authority that verifies your citizenship or birth year, adding:

    In the future, organizations may issue ZK-friendly trust anchors, but right now, it is not common practice, so you have a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.”

    Privacy safeguards for CBDCs

    Today, the world seems awash with central bank digital currency projects. According to the Atlantic Council, 130 countries representing 98% of global GDP are now exploring state-issued digital money. 

    But CBDCs come freighted with privacy questions, and some fear they could be misused by governments to surveil their own populations, for instance.

    That is why high privacy guarantees are “at the core of most CBDC projects today,” Jonas Gross, chairman of the Digital Euro Association, tells Magazine. 

    ZK-proofs can be part of the solution, he adds, and it is for this reason that “various central banks are studying [ZK-proof] applications — for example, in the U.K., Japan and South Korea.” 

    “If privacy is a top priority, ZK-proofs should be considered,” Remo Nyffenegger, a co-author of the St. Louis Fed paper cited above and research assistant at the Center for Innovative Finance at the University of Basel, tells Magazine. 

    Indeed, the European Central Bank published a regulatory proposal for the digital euro in late June “and states therein that zero-knowledge proofs should be considered in the CBDC tech stack,” he adds.

    Again, there may be limits on what exactly ZK-proofs can do by themselves. “I don’t see using ZK-proofs [alone] as sufficient because ongoing political discussions show that not all CBDC-related data will be obfuscated if ZK-proofs are used,” Gross comments. “High privacy also needs to be supported by regulation and educational efforts around the actual degree of privacy of a CBDC.”

    Exposing an altered photo

    AI apps are now so powerful that distinguishing between machine-generated images or documents and those created by human beings is already problematic. Things will only get worse, but ZK-proofs may offer at least a partial remedy.

    “Blockchain tech and ZK-proofs could be used as built-in safeguards in these systems to verify the origin, authenticity, and ownership of AI-generated files and manage some of the risks associated with AI-generated content,” says Malkhi, while Groth adds:

    There is interesting new research showing applications of ZK-proofs to demonstrate, for example, you’ve not altered a photo too much — i.e., combating fake news.”

    High-end cameras that digitally sign photos along with metadata like location and timestamp are already on the market and can establish authenticity, continues Malkhi. The current problem is that these digital files are often enormous — much too large to post on a news service’s website, for instance. 

    But with ZK-proofs, their file size can be substantially reduced, making them practical to use online while preserving critical verification elements. “It could prove that the recording or image has not been altered, maybe [including] even the date, without revealing identity or location or whatever,” adds Baylina. 

    Proof-of-solvency with ZK-proofs?

    Many believe that finance will be the first major business sector to be impacted by ZK-proofs. Indeed, 41% of respondents in Mina Foundation’s “State of Zero-knowledge Report 2022” agreed that finance was the industry “most in need of ZKPs,” far ahead of healthcare (12%), social media (5%) and e-commerce (3%).   

    In March, Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso announced a partnership with tech firm Proven to implement a “proof of solvency” solution that relies on ZK-proofs. This protocol will soon enable investors, regulators and others to know whether the exchange is solvent — i.e., its obligations are less than its assets — based on daily reports. 

    One of the more ingenious aspects of Proven’s protocol is that it involves the exchange’s customers in the process of keeping the exchange honest. It’s a sort of crowd-sourcing version of auditing.

    Co-founders Dewey and Agustin Lebron tell Magazine that every day, an exchange (e.g., Bitso) publishes a cryptographic proof-of-solvency attestation. And when it does, each individual client/user of the exchange is issued a “receipt” that reflects that individual’s unique holdings. Millions of digital receipts might be issued on a daily basis. 

    What if one day a customer doesn’t receive a daily receipt, or it’s wrong? That user might take to Twitter or some other social media venue and complain or ask questions. Have others experienced something similar? A thread might grow.

    This protocol relies on the law of big numbers. Bitso, for instance, has some five million users, and the presumption is that a critical mass of complainants might surface quickly, collectively waving a red flag that might prompt further investigation. 

    This ZK-proofs-based protocol has another advantage, too, according to Bitso. It provides “a proof-of-solvency that can be confirmed without revealing all of that information to a third party. All an auditor needs to do is run the zk-SNARK protocol to come to the conclusion that the proof is true.” 

    According to Groth, the use of ZK-proofs to demonstrate financial solvency “gained more traction after the FTX implosion.” Indeed, if such a protocol had been available last year, the Bahamas-based exchange’s meltdown might have been avoided, some say — or at least its wrongdoing would have come to light sooner. 

    Interestingly, FTX Japan, now rebranded as Liquid Japan, has been using Proven’s proof-of-solvency technology since its recent re-launch in early September. “With the adoption of Proof of Solvency, we can now prove it [solvency] in a cryptographic manner that is verifiable by 3rd parties,” notes the company, adding:

    We are starting to work on increasing the frequency of publishing the Proof of Solvency to 1x day by the end of 2023.”

    A snapshot of Liquid’s proof-of-solvency widget. (Liquid)

    “Immutable” tracking of goods

    “ZK-proofs can become very relevant in the context of digital identities, whether they are issued by the government or private entities,” adds Nyffenegger. They could prove that you are not included on some government sanctions list without revealing who you are, for instance.

    ZK-proofs potential use in supply chains is also frequently cited. But the difficulty here, as with e-voting, is that this requires connecting to a trustworthy “real-world information” source, which can authenticate the date an order was shipped from the factory, for instance. 

    “ZK-proof-based supply chain tracking systems haven’t been battle-tested long enough in live environments,” notes Malkhi, adding that that could soon change:

    The potential of ZK-proofs here is vast — helping to improve transparency and reduce the potential impact of fraud by enabling the immutable, real-time tracking of goods.” 

    It should be added that while blockchains provide some of ZK-proof’s first exciting use cases, the technology does not require blockchain technology to work — but they are surely helpful.

    “They are just a very suitable tool for blockchains because they provide proofs of correct computation — which aligns well with the need for verifiability on blockchains — while hiding as much information as possible,” Johannes Sedlmeir,  a researcher at the University of Luxembourg’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, tells Magazine.

    With a blockchain platform, a verifier can check if a certain “hash” appears somewhere on the blockchain “and hence binds me as a prover,” he adds. 

    Blockchains aren’t required for Proven’s proof-of-solvency protocol to work, Lebron tells Magazine, though it’s always useful to have validators on-chain. It appears to be more of a “like to have” than a “need to have” circumstance. 

    Obstacles remain

    What obstacles still need to be overcome before ZK-proofs become commonplace? Malkhi has already cited the challenges with “bridging to the real world,” and this would well prove the biggest hurdle to surmount before ZK technology becomes mainstream, in her view. 

    However, other barriers remain that might require laws and regulations to overcome. Will ZK claims be accepted in court, for instance? 

    Scaling also remains a challenge in many use cases given that there is, at present, no “standardized way to ‘program,’” says Malkhi, making it difficult for developers to integrate proofs into their apps.

    To this last point, Proven’s protocol with Bitso requires some five million unique “receipts” to be issued monthly (though soon daily) to Bitso users, but Proven says this isn’t an issue. “We figured out how to scale,” co-founder Lebron says.

    Complexity is another potential sticking point. “For small- to medium-size assertions, we already have a good ZK system,” cryptographer Groth tells Magazine. “For large assertions, we still need to improve efficiency.” ZK-proofs like SNARKs can be cheap to verify, “but the prover pays a large performance overhead compared to native computation,” he adds.

    Becoming “magnitudes cheaper”

    The user experience needs to improve, too. “Using a technology secured by ZK-proofs for an everyday activity like buying groceries should be so seamless that the user doesn’t even know,” says Baylina. 

    “The other thing we need is time,” Baylina says. Protocols like Polygon’s zk-Ethereum Virtual Machine are still new but are becoming more usable all the time. “As Polygon zkEVM matures, over the next year, we anticipate it will become orders of magnitudes cheaper.”

    Given these potential roadblocks, how long might it take before the technology becomes commonplace? 

    “I believe five years is too short of a time frame owing to the current TRLs [technology readiness levels] of ZK-proofs,” says Sedlmeir, referencing the finance sector specifically. While ZK-proofs have matured rapidly in recent years, they “are still complex to implement and prover performance is still a significant bottleneck.” 

    There might be a transition period as ZK-proof works in tandem with traditional protocols, as in financial auditing. Proven’s Dewey envisioned working “hand in glove” with traditional Big Four audit firms for a time. 

    Vast potential

    In sum, ZK-proofs still face challenges. They can’t work in isolation. They still need to be attached to a truth source or “oracle.” Doubts about computational complexity, usability and scalability remain as well. 

    But if these hurdles are surmounted, ZK-proofs could offer a 21st-century solution to not only the “fake news” challenge but also the privacy quandary as with CBDCs, providing just enough anonymity for users to comfortably use state-issued digital money but enough accountability so governments can be assured fraudsters or money launderers aren’t infiltrating their networks. 

    As the technology and the underlying infrastructure improve, summarizes Malkhi, “ZK-proofs have vast potential to enable an internet where the majority of contracts are underpinned by cryptographic guarantees.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 18:20

  • Kirby Bluntly Says Ukraine Aid "Near End Of The Rope" & Won't Be "Indefinite" 
    Kirby Bluntly Says Ukraine Aid “Near End Of The Rope” & Won’t Be “Indefinite” 

    In a surprise and stunning admission, given only a week ago these words might have been unthinkable coming straight from the White House, Biden’s national security council spokesman John Kirby bluntly admitted that funding for Ukraine is “coming near the end of the rope” and is “not going to be indefinite.“

    He had said the words in a Wednesday afternoon press briefing wherein he unveiled a new $200 million arms package for Ukraine, which is drawn from previously Congressionally approved funds. 

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

    Kirby detailed that this latest package includes HIMARS ammunition, artillery shells, anti-tank weapons, and other equipment. Here’s what he said:

    “In the near term, we’ve got appropriations and authorities…for Ukraine and for Israel, but you don’t wanna be trying to bake in long-term support when you’re at the end of the rope.”

    But interestingly this new $200 million was apparently surplus from the infamous “accounting error”: 

    According to the Pentagon, the $200 million package for Ukraine used funds made available by a Pentagon “accounting error” that overvalued previous arms shipped into the conflict. As the White House has been struggling to get Congress to authorize more Ukraine spending, the Pentagon has said it has about $5 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the US to ship weapons straight from its own military stockpiles.

    According to more details of the package, the $200 million will purchase:

    • AIM-9M missiles for air defense
    • Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (c-UAS) equipment
    • Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
    • 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds
    • Precision aerial munitions
    • Electronic warfare equipment
    • Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles
    • AT-4 anti-armor systems
    • Small arms and more than 16 million rounds of small arms ammunition
    • Demolitions munitions for obstacle clearing
    • Spare parts, training munitions, maintenance, and other field equipment

    In more “normal” times we might expect Kirby’s bluntly asserting that Ukraine funding is “not going to be indefinite” to result in a massive D.C. beltway and mainstream media uproar, but those same MSM politicians pundits are now consumed with Israel-Gaza developments.

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

    The spotlight has certainly moved away from Ukraine. Instead, the administration is preparing to bolster urgent defense aid to Israel as it continues anti-Hamas operations in Gaza. The Pentagon has said it is committed to doing “both” – that is providing defense aid and weapons to Israel and Kiev. Military assets are now being moved to the eastern Mediterranean region.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 18:00

  • NBC News Instantly Exposed As Liars After Claiming They "Gained Access" To X Community Notes System
    NBC News Instantly Exposed As Liars After Claiming They “Gained Access” To X Community Notes System

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    When NBC News published a hit piece claiming that Twitter/X’s Community Notes fact checking system rarely corrects posts and asserting that they “gained access” to the system, both claims were instantly revealed to be untrue… by Community Notes itself.

    “Elon Musk has touted Community Notes as a way to fight false and misleading information on X,” NBC News tweeted.

    The outlet then declared”@NBCNews gained access to the system, and found that on posts containing known misinformation, few posts were ever corrected. Many fact-checks were delayed.”

    The claims were quickly revealed to be complete BS, hilariously by Community Notes:

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

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

    One note reads, “NBC did not ‘gain access’ to any special Twitter system they merely had one of the many thousands of community notes contributors show them that some misleading posts had yet to have any notes added.”

    It adds that “Any 6 month old account with a verified phone number can join the program.”

    Another points out that it is completely erroneous to suggest some back room employee is approving notes, as implied by NBC.

    NBC News set out to make people think Community Notes doesn’t work and ended up proving the exact opposite:

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

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

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

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

    As we highlighted yesterday, The EU is threatening to block X in its member states, claiming that Musk is allowing ‘disinformation’ to be spread, but without citing any specific examples:

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

    *  *  *

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

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Summit Vitamins – super charge your health and well being.

    Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 17:40

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Oct 12

Today’s News 12th October 2023

  • India's Diesel Exports To Europe Soar To Record High
    India’s Diesel Exports To Europe Soar To Record High

    Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

    India’s diesel exports loading for Europe hit a record high in September amid open arbitrage for westbound shipments, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing tanker-tracking data and analysts.

    Last month, diesel cargoes loading from India and bound for Europe averaged between 280,000 barrels per day (bpd) and 303,000 bpd – or roughly half of all Indian diesel shipments in September, according to vessel-tracking data by LSEG, Vortexa, and Kpler cited by Reuters.

    At the same time, Indian diesel shipments eastwards to Singapore slumped in September.

    The east-west arbitrage on diesel futures in Europe and in Asia jumped last month, which incentivized traders to ship more of the India-produced fuel to Europe, analysts told Reuters.

    But the differentials have narrowed in the past week, which means that India’s diesel shipments to Europe are unlikely to repeat in October the highs from September, they added.

    The high Indian exports of diesel to Europe last month could help Europe stock on fuel supplies ahead of the winter, on one hand, and potentially ease the downward pressure on refining margins in Asia, on the other hand, according to the traders and analysts who have spoken to Reuters.

    The higher shipments in September may have also been the result of the temporary Russian ban on diesel exports to most markets, including Turkey, Serena Huang, Vortexa’s head of APAC analysis, told Reuters.

    At the end of last week, Russia lifted the ban on most of its diesel exports, two weeks after announcing export restrictions on diesel and gasoline to curb soaring domestic prices.

    The ban on diesel and gasoline exports, enforced on September 21, affected Russia’s diesel exports which have been diverted away from the EU after the embargo kicked in in February. Russia is now shipping diesel to Turkey, the Middle East, North and West Africa, and Brazil in South America.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/12/2023 – 02:00

  • Inside China’s Long Game To Infiltrate US Politics
    Inside China’s Long Game To Infiltrate US Politics

    Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As Chinese authorities escorted the senior Federal Reserve official from his Shanghai hotel room, they demanded he “say good things about China” when back in the United States.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Shutterstock)

    The atmosphere was “frightening,” the official, who remained unnamed, recalled to the Fed.

    That was the first of four times the official was detained and interrogated during a 2019 trip to Shanghai. Chinese authorities threatened his family, tapped his phones and computers, and copied contact information of other Federal Reserve officials from his account on Chinese social media app WeChat, according to Senate Homeland Security Committee Republicans who made public the details in a report last July.

    The U.S. official recounted Chinese authorities trying to pry “sensitive, non-public economic data” out of him and insisting that he “advise senior government officials” on sensitive economic issues such as trade tariffs while the United States and China were embroiled in a trade war. They forced him to drink liquor and attempted to make him commit to future meetings to allow them to gather economic intelligence.

    Unsettling as it is, the incident was but part of a “long-running and brazen” malicious campaign from China over the course of more than a decade to undermine U.S. economic policy and advance Beijing’s ambition to supplant the United States as the global superpower.

    Coercion and threats represent only a sliver of the regime’s toolbox used to target the Western political sphere. A Chinese think tank based in Beijing, in partnering with the state-affiliated Tsinghua University, in 2019 rated White House advisors and U.S. governors by their friendliness to Beijing. The group labeled officials as “friendly,” “ambiguous,” or “hardline” after combing through metrics such as age, work history, public statements, trade activities with China, and length of term.

    Time, patience, and thoroughness—these are attributes that Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former Asia Pacific chief at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in the 1990s, sees in the Chinese regime’s craft of infiltration.

    “They’ve been capable to work in a very holistic way,” he told The Epoch Times.

    China, he noted, doesn’t have a democratic election process that could displace the leadership from power. “So they know that they can plant today something that will be capable to be harvested in five, 10 or 15 years.”

    Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who has advocated for a tougher stance on China, agreed.

    “They’re playing the long game,” he told The Epoch Times.

    Biding Their Time

    Few if any U.S. leaders, from the federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels, are immune to the risk of the Chinese regime manipulating them to bolster its hidden agenda, warned the National Counterintelligence and Security Center in July last year.

    By leveraging relationships with U.S. officials—called “using the local to surround the central” in communist slogan terms—Beijing can pressure Washington to back policy outcomes favorable to the regime, such as deepening bilateral economic ties and tamping down criticism of the regime’s abysmal human rights record.

    A Chinese spy reportedly drove for the recently deceased Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for 20 years.

    Christine Fang with then-Dublin City Councilmember Eric Swalwell at a student event in October 2012. (Screenshot/Social media)

    Christine Fang, an alleged Chinese spy working for China’s top intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, reportedly used campaign fundraising, networking, and romantic relationships with at least two Midwestern city mayors to gain a footing in their spheres of influence.

    Ms. Fang also approached Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) when he was a member of the Dublin City Council, raised money for his 2014 reelection campaign, and facilitated an intern’s placement in Mr. Swalwell’s office, according to Axios.

    The connection prompted a two-year investigation from the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which in May ultimately decided not to take any action against the California lawmaker, but cautioned Mr. Swalwell to remain aware of “the possibility that foreign governments may attempt to secure improper influence through gifts and other interactions.”

    The United Front network, which helps the Party control the Chinese diaspora, also plays a role in co-opting well-placed individuals for Beijing’s interests.

    Lu Jianwang, one of the two alleged operators of a secret Chinese police station in New York, together with his brother, has given tens of thousands of dollars to New York politicians in recent years, including vice chair of the Democratic National Committee Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), New York Mayor Eric Adams, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, campaign finance records show.

    People walk by a building (C), which is suspected of being a secret police station on behalf of China’s regime, in New York’s Chinatown on April 18, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    “Local level officials, state officials are just not going to be as aware of or as attuned to some of these influence efforts—they’re just trying to create jobs,” Sarah Cook, a senior China analyst at the Freedom House, told The Epoch Times.

    “The CCP is very good at taking advantage of that, to get people to side with them, to get people in the United States to have a stake in what the CCP also wants. Then later, that can be activated to create situations that are more problematic.”

    “I think people at the earliest part of that relationship, don’t realize that,” she added.

    As with Ms. Fang’s case, the Chinese influence operations begin early in the local leaders’ careers.

    “They’re very, very patient, they have time on their side. Their determination and their focus is remarkable,” Mr. Juneau-Katsuya said of the regime.

    He said that Chinese intelligence officers-turned-defectors had detailed to him how they were instructed to be model citizens in the Western world for five to 10 years, working their way up the ladder in society before being “activated.”

    “When the security service or the police tried to do a background check, they find absolutely nothing,” he said. “So they are extremely, extremely deep undercover agents in that perspective,” Mr. Juneau-Katsuya said.

    ‘Lie in Plain Sight’

    Taiwan, Uyghur, Falun Gong, Tiananmen Square. The list of the Chinese Communist Party’s trigger words goes on. And the regime has made it clear that no one—in China or anywhere else—should go against its will.

    Late at night on March 28, a day after the House overwhelmingly passed Rep. Chris Smith’s (R-N.J.) Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, a furious email from the Chinese embassy’s minister counselor Zhou Zheng arrived at the inbox of an aide to the congressman.

    Doctors carry boxes containing fresh organs for transplant procedures at a hospital in Henan Province, China, on Aug. 16, 2012. (Screenshot via Sohu.com)

    The email, written from a Gmail account registered under Mr. Zhou, declared the bill “absurd” and claimed the “so-called ‘forced organ harvesting’ in China is a farce.”

    The bill was the first ever such legislative piece to curb the state-sanctioned killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs, an atrocity that an independent London tribunal in 2019 concluded has taken place in China for years “on a significant scale.”

    A number of whistleblowers, including eyewitnesses, have come forward to The Epoch Times to share testimony of the grisly act.

    Mr. Zhou, in true Beijing fashion, demanded that the United States stop “baseless hype and anti-China moves and stops preceding [sic] this legislation.”

    Mr. Smith said the claims in the email were “a big lie in plain sight.”

    “The Falun Gong practitioners and the Uyghurs are being killed for their organs, and it’s tens of thousands every single year, as we know,” he told The Epoch Times.

    “Perfectly healthy people being put down in a gurney drugged in order to effectuate two to three of their organs being taken out involuntarily—and they kill them—that is murder. That’s crimes against humanity.”

    The New Jersey Republican on April 14 wrote to the Chinese embassy requesting a visa to visit Xinjiang, the northwestern Chinese region where an estimated 1 million Uyghurs are being held in detention camps. He hasn’t heard back.

    A few weeks before the email to Mr. Smith, counselor Li Xiang with the Chinese embassy wrote to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), insisting he retract his bill ordering the declassification of information surrounding COVID-19 origins, which had been signed into law on March 20.

    Mr. Hawley shrugged it off. “The Chinese government wrote to me and demanded I withdraw my Covid origins bill,” he wrote in a social media post on March 9. “Hahaha. Not a chance.”

    An Uyghur woman protests in front of policemen on a street in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, China, on July 7, 2009. (Guang Niu/Getty Images)

    Mr. Li also hit a wall when he tried to block a scheduled congressional hearing on the origins of COVID-19. Nor was he successful with his warning to House lawmakers not to meet with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen during her visit to Los Angeles.

    The audacity of the regime in making demands of an elected member of Congress “incensed” Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), one of the recipients of the threatening letter.

    “Basically, I just said, ‘No, you can’t tell me who I can and can’t meet with and I’m going to go ahead and meet with her,’” Ms. Hinson told The Epoch Times. “And that’s what we did.”

    “The fact that somebody was bold enough to assume that they could send me an email like that, and threaten and bully me—incredulous.”

    “I will not be bullied, my mind is not going to be changed on an email like that, where you are deliberately trying to undermine my ability to do my job.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 23:25

  • From Culinary Arts To Cognitive Science: The Median Student Debt For Every US Bachelor's Degree
    From Culinary Arts To Cognitive Science: The Median Student Debt For Every US Bachelor’s Degree

    According to the Federal Reserve, student loans added up to $1.6 trillion in Q2 2023, making them the third largest category of U.S. household debt behind auto loans ($1.8 trillion) and mortgages ($12 trillion).

    The current student debt figure represents a 40% increase from a decade ago, resulting in greater pressure for the federal government to do more to help debtors. For example, on Oct 4. 2023, the Biden administration announced an additional $9 billion in student debt cancellations, bringing the total relief amount to $127 billion.

    With student debt becoming a broader social issue, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu has visualized data from the Education Data Initiative to show you the median debt per major for a bachelor’s degree in the country.

    Dataset and Highlights

    The following table includes all of the data we used to create this graphic. Note that we’re showing median student debt, which differs from the mean average.

    To understand how this works, imagine a list of every student’s debt for a given major. The median represents the middle value, meaning half of students owe less than that amount, while the other half owes more.

    Major Field of Study 2022 Median Debt
    (USD thousands)
    Behavioral Sciences Social Sciences $42.8
    Religious Education Arts and Humanities $32.0
    Culinary Arts and
    Related Services    		 Arts and Humanities $28.6
    Human Services Social Sciences $28.6
    Education Other $28.0
    Clinical, Counseling, and
    Applied Psychology    		 Health and Medicine $27.4
    Literature Arts and Humanities $27.0
    Natural Sciences Sciences $26.9
    Physical Sciences Sciences $26.6
    Music Arts and Humanities $26.6
    Architecture Arts and Humanities $26.5
    Arts, Entertainment, and
    Media Management    		 Arts and Humanities $26.5
    Visual and Performing Arts Arts and Humanities $26.5
    Health Professions and
    Related Clinical Sciences    		 Health and Medicine $26.0
    Communication, Journalism, and
    Related Programs    		 Other $25.9
    Drama/ Theater Arts
    and Stagecraft    		 Arts and Humanities $25.8
    Astronomy and Astrophysics Sciences $25.6
    Engineering, General Engineering $25.5
    Multi-/Interdisciplinary Studies Other $25.4
    Aerospace, Aeronautical,
    and Astronautical Engineering    		 Engineering $25.2
    Biological and Physical Sciences Sciences $25.2
    Foods, Nutrition, and
    Related Services    		 Health and Medicine $25.2
    Biochemical Engineering Engineering $25.1
    Information Science/Studies Sciences $25.1
    Film/Video and
    Photographic Arts    		 Arts and Humanities $25.0
    Social Work Health and Medicine $24.9
    Zoology/Animal Biology Sciences $24.7
    Civil Engineering Engineering $24.6
    City/Urban, Community,
    and Regional Planning    		 Social Sciences $24.5
    Criminal Justice and Corrections Social Sciences $24.5
    Mechanical Engineering Engineering $24.5
    Radio, Television, and
    Digital Communication    		 Other $24.4
    Business Administration, Management,
    and Operations    		 Other $24.4
    Health and
    Physical Education/ Fitness    		 Health and Medicine $24.2
    Accounting Other $24.1
    Computer & Information Sciences Sciences $24.0
    Public Relations, Advertising,
    and Applied Communication    		 Other $23.9
    Chemical Engineering Engineering $23.8
    Biology Sciences $23.7
    Journalism Other $23.4
    Criminology Social Sciences $23.4
    Liberal Arts and Sciences,
    General Studies and Humanities    		 Social Sciences $23.3
    Botany/Plant Biology Sciences $23.3
    Psychology Social Sciences $23.3
    Public Health Health and Medicine $23.1
    Archeology Social Sciences $23.0
    Communication and
    Media Studies    		 Other $22.8
    Social Sciences Social Sciences $22.8
    Chemistry Sciences $22.8
    Hospitality Administration/Management Health and Medicine $22.8
    Physics Sciences $22.8
    History Social Sciences $22.8
    Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration,
    Nursing Research, and Clinical Nursing    		 Health and Medicine $22.6
    English Language and Literature Arts and Humanities $22.5
    Sociology Social Sciences $22.3
    Computer Science Sciences $22.3
    Marine Sciences Sciences $22.2
    Political Science and Government Social Sciences $22.0
    Science, Technology, and
    Society    		 Sciences $21.8
    Mathematics Sciences $21.8
    Geography and Cartography Social Sciences $21.7
    Anthropology Social Sciences $21.7
    Animal Sciences Sciences $21.6
    Environmental Design Social Sciences $21.2
    Agricultural Sciences $20.8
    Economics Other $20.7
    Statistics Other $20.6
    Public Administration Social Sciences $20.6
    Philosophy Social Sciences $20.6
    International/Global Studies Other $19.9
    Business Operations Support and
    Assistant Services    		 Other $19.1
    Cognitive Science Sciences $18.1
    International and
    Comparative Education    		 Other $13.0

    From this dataset we can see that median debt for most Bachelor’s degrees is in the mid $20,000s range. Two outliers at the upper end are Behavioral Sciences ($42,800) and Religious Education ($32,000), while at the lower end we can see Comparative Education ($13,000) and Cognitive Science ($18,100).

    Comparative education is a social science that involves the study of education systems, processes, and outcomes across different countries or cultures.

    Looking at this data from a broader perspective, we can also see some trends emerge based on field of study. For starters, most Arts and Humanities degrees fall in the upper half of the ranking, while the bottom quarter of the ranking appears to be largely made up of Social Sciences, Sciences, and various business studies.

    What About a Master’s Degree?

    Education Data Initiative also includes median debt data for master’s degrees.

    Major Field of Study 2022 Median Debt
    (USD thousands)
    Advanced/Graduate Dentistry
    and Oral Sciences    		 Health and Medicine $158,155
    Visual and Performing Arts Arts and Humanities $63,830
    Radio, Television, and
    Digital Communication    		 Other $55,554
    Social Sciences Social Sciences $54,554
    Philosophy Social Sciences $54,260
    Journalism Other $53,213
    Statistics Other $53,174
    Clinical, Counseling, and
    Applied Psychology    		 Health and Medicine $51,888
    Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration,
    Nursing Research, and Clinical Nursing    		 Health and Medicine $51,420
    Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies Other $48,693
    Public Relations, Advertising, and
    Applied Communication    		 Other $48,366
    Sociology Social Sciences $46,871
    Health Professions and
    Related Clinical Sciences    		 Health and Medicine $44,598
    English Language and Literature Arts and Humanities $44,301
    Political Science and Government Social Sciences $43,853
    Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies
    and Humanities    		 Social Sciences $43,408
    Finance and
    Financial Management Services    		 Other $43,408
    Psychology Social Sciences $43,408
    Business Administration, Management,
    and Operations    		 Other $43,251
    Economics Other $43,053
    Literature Arts and Humanities $42,826
    Computer Engineering Engineering $42,647
    Public Administration Social Sciences $42,154
    Arts, Entertainment,
    and Media Management    		 Arts and Humanities $41,238
    History Social Sciences $40,948
    Computer & Information Sciences Sciences $40,579
    Anthropology Social Sciences $40,428
    Biology Sciences $40,265
    Architecture Arts and Humanities $39,788
    Communication and Media Studies Other $39,270
    International/Global Studies Other $37,180
    Zoology/Animal Biology Sciences $37,056
    Hospitality Administration/Management Other $36,203
    Marketing Other $35,738
    Criminology Social Sciences $35,318
    Computer Science Sciences $35,301
    Engineering Engineering $33,235
    Health and Physical Education/Fitness Health and Medicine $32,372
    Agriculture Sciences $30,676
    Geography and Cartography Social Sciences $30,657
    Education Other $29,434
    Chemistry Sciences $28,912
    Accounting Other $28,212
    Mechanical Engineering Engineering $26,775
    Civil Engineering Engineering $26,180
    International Agriculture Sciences $23,275

    While obtaining a master’s typically results in a greater amount of student debt, it can actually depend on your major. For instance, the median debt for a master’s in Computer Science is $35,300, which is $7,500 lower than a bachelor’s in Behavioral Science.

    The biggest outlier from this list is Graduate Dentistry and Oral Sciences, with a median debt of $158,155. While this may sound like a lot, it should be compared to the average salary of a U.S. dentist, which according to Indeed is $225,400 per year.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 23:05

  • Guns For Hire: America’s Crisis State Goes Global
    Guns For Hire: America’s Crisis State Goes Global

    Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great staffs, both of the old parties have ganged aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them in martialling [sic] to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”—Theodore Roosevelt

    From being a nation in a permanent state of emergency, America’s crisis state has gone global.

    The military industrial complex, which has established itself as the “solution” to all of our worldly problems (at taxpayer expense, of course), has mired the nation in endless wars abroad waged by U.S. military servicepeople who have been reduced to little more than guns for hire.

    Every successive president starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt has been bought—lock, stock and barrel—and made to dance to the tune of the police state, a.k.a. the Deep State, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex.

    Even Dwight D. Eisenhower, the retired five-star Army general-turned-president who warned against the disastrous rise of misplaced power by the military industrial complex was complicit in contributing to the build-up of the military’s role in dictating national and international policy.

    The Biden Administration’s response to the latest carnage in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war merely plays into the hands of a salivating military industrial complex for whom war is merely a means to a larger profit margin.

    War has become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire and its incestuous relationship with a host of international defense contractors, is one of its best buyers and sellers.

    Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. military dropped a bomb every 12 minutes.

    President Obama, the antiwar candidate and Nobel Peace Prize winner, waged war longer than any American president. His administration’s targeted-drone killings resulted in at least 1.3 million lives lost to the U.S.-led war on terror.

    America has long had a penchant for endless wars that empty our national coffers while fattening those of the military industrial complex.

    The United States has been at war for all but 15 years in its 247-year history.

    Since 9/11, we’ve spent more than $8 trillion to wage wars abroad, including the lifetime price of health care for disabled veterans and interest on the national debt.

    The average American pays over $2300 a year in taxes to support the military, half of which goes to military contractors.

    Even with America’s military might spread thin, the war drums continue to sound as the Pentagon polices the rest of the world with counterterror activities in 85 countries.

    The American Empire—with its endless wars waged by U.S. military servicepeople who have been reduced to little more than guns for hire: outsourced, stretched too thin, and deployed to far-flung places to police the globe—is approaching a breaking point.

    Aided and abetted by the U.S government, the American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.

    Although the U.S. constitutes barely 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 40% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 10 biggest spending nations combined.

    Unfortunately, this level of war-mongering doesn’t come cheap to the taxpayers who are forced to foot the bill.

    Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry. In fact, the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford.

    As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card, “essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”

    War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors.

    For example, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”

    Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better for the spending that can be tracked.

    Consider that the government lost more than $160 billion to waste and fraud by military and defense contractors. With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort dubbed as the “coalition of the willing” has quickly evolved into the “coalition of the billing,” with American taxpayers forced to cough up billions of dollars for cash bribes, luxury bases, a highway to nowhere, faulty equipment, salaries for so-called “ghost soldiers,” and overpriced anything and everything associated with the war effort, including a $640 toilet seat and a $7600 coffee pot.

    A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing had been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:

    $71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.

    That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “we the people” have over our runaway government.

    It’s not just the American economy that is being gouged, unfortunately.

    There’s a good reason why “bloated,” “corrupt” and “inefficient” are among the words most commonly applied to the government, especially the Department of Defense and its contractors.

    Driven by a greedy defense sector, the American homeland has been transformed into a battlefield with militarized police and weapons better suited to a war zone. Biden, no different from his predecessors, has continued to expand America’s military empire abroad and domestically, calling on Congress to approve billions that pander to the powerful money interests (military, corporate and security) that run the Deep State and hold the government in its clutches.

    Mind you, this isn’t just corrupt behavior. It’s deadly, downright immoral behavior.

    Essentially, in order to fund this burgeoning military empire that polices the globe, the U.S. government is prepared to bankrupt the nation, jeopardize our servicemen and women, increase the chances of terrorism and blowback domestically, and push the nation that much closer to eventual collapse.

    Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of an overhauling.

    The illicit merger of the global armaments industry and the Pentagon that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 60 years ago has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today.

    The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.

    This is exactly the scenario Eisenhower warned against when he cautioned the citizenry not to let the profit-driven war machine endanger our liberties or democratic processes:

    “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

    We failed to heed Eisenhower’s warning.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the growth of and reliance on militarism as the solution for our problems both domestically and abroad bodes ill for the constitutional principles which form the basis of the American experiment in freedom.

    As James Madison warned, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

    At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise. As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts:

    The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.

    WC: 1659

    ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

    Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 22:45

  • California's 9th Circuit Strikes Again: Liberal Majority Upholds California's Ban On High-Capacity Magazines
    California’s 9th Circuit Strikes Again: Liberal Majority Upholds California’s Ban On High-Capacity Magazines

    California’s extremely liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled in favor of California, allowing the state’s ban on high-capacity gun magazines to remain in effect while the state appeals a federal judge’s ruling which found the ban unconstitutional.

    In a 7-4 vote, the 9th Circuit stayed a Sept. 22 ruling by US District Judge Robert Benitez in San Diego, who found that the state’s ban violated gun owners’ rights to keep and bear arms under the 2nd Amendment. Benitez cited a 2022 decision by the US Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires that firearms restrictions be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

    Following Benitez’s decision, California AG Bob Bonta (D) moved to stay the decision, which the 9th Circuit’s liberal majority quickly did. The Monday ruling applies to a long-running lawsuit brought by the California Rifle & Pistol Association as well as gun owners challenging the ban.

    “If a stay is denied, California will indisputably face an influx of large-capacity magazines like those used in mass shootings in California and elsewhere,” wrote the 9th Circuit Democrat majority.

    The four Republican-appointed judges on the 9th Circuit dissented, including US Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay, who said the majority’s attitude towards the 2nd Amendment was “laughably absurd.”

    In response to Monday’s decision, Bonta’s office said it was “relieved that the court considered the public safety of Californians in its decision.”

    One can join the raging discussion over the decision over at Calguns.net.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 22:25

  • Struggle For The World-Island
    Struggle For The World-Island

    Authored by Francis P. Sempa via RealClear Defense,

    In 2017, Robert D. Kaplan wrote an essay describing the geopolitical eclipse of Europe by Asia in the 21st century, and what this meant for U.S. foreign policy. Though Kaplan used the provocative title, “The Return of Marco Polo’s World and the U.S. Military Response,” his analysis was grounded in geography and history. What Kaplan and others have called the Long European War of the 20th century (World Wars I and II, and the Cold War) gave rise to the beginnings of what could be a Long Asian War in which China and the United States struggle for control of the World-Island.

    Kaplan described a “new strategic geography” where “Europe disappears, Eurasia coheres,” and the “interactions of globalization, technology, and geopolitics” fulfill Sir Halford Mackinder’s vision of a Eurasian-African supercontinent that he called the “World-Island” in his 1919 book Democratic Ideals and Reality. Mackinder warned that control of the World-Island meant command of the world.

    Kaplan was among the first observers to see a link between China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and potential command of the World-Island. In his essay, he noted China’s attempts “to build a land bridge across Central and West Asia to Europe, and a maritime network across the Indian Ocean from East Asia to the Middle East.” Although China called the BRI “infrastructure projects” reminiscent of the medieval Silk Road, the political and geopolitical implications should have been evident from the outset of the program, which President Xi Jinping announced in September 2013.

    Mackinder had written about the migrations of Asian hordes into the settled regions of the Old World, laying special emphasis on the Mongol Empire, which at its height stretched from East Asia to eastern Europe and parts of the Middle East, and from Russia to India, China, and parts of Southeast Asia. The Mongols, Mackinder noted, came the closest of all the Asian invaders to achieving effective political control of the World-Island. The two most important factors limiting the Mongol reach were insufficient manpower and technological constraints. China in the 21st century suffers from neither geopolitical weakness.

    The remarkable thing about China’s BRI is how it replicates the World-Island on the map. In a fascinating article in The Diplomat entitled “How China’s Belt and Road Took Over the World,” Shannon Tiezzi shows the geographical evolution of the BRI. In 10 years, the BRI has extended its reach to 154 countries. On the Eurasian-African World-Island, only India, North Korea, Jordan, and a few nations of Western Europe have escaped China’s financial and infrastructure grasp. Indeed, the BRI extends beyond the World-Island to nations in the western and southern Pacific, Central and South America, and some islands in the Caribbean (including Cuba). Tiezzi notes that China has spent $564 billion on BRI-related projects in its 10-year history.

    China is not sending armies to the nations of its BRI empire, but it is sending bankers, financiers, technocrats, engineers, and spies. Empire-building in the 21st century comes in many shapes and sizes. What beganas an economic and infrastructure initiative has gradually shifted to politics. The BRI, writes China-expert Felix Chang, “has become a key feature of Xi’s foreign policy.” The leaders in Beijing, Chang explains, have “always regarded the initiative as a way to garner political support and create new spheres of influence.” For China, Chang concludes, political aims of the BRI outweigh economic ones. The BRI was a geopolitical program from the very beginning.

    Some observers of the BRI focus their analyses on the land road through Central Asia to Europe, but the maritime aspect of the BRI may be even more important. Robert Kaplan understands that more than most geopolitical thinkers. In his Marco Polo essay, Kaplan noted that “the United States is a maritime power, operating from the greatest of the island satellites of the Eurasian supercontinent.” And in the 21st century, as during the mid and late 20th century, maritime power has both naval and air components. China’s maritime Silk Road is a direct challenge to America’s maritime supremacy. It is reminiscent of Imperial Germany’s challenge to Great Britain in the years leading up to the First World War, and of Japan’s challenge to both British and American naval and air power in the western and south Pacific in the years leading up to the Second World War.

    Our response, according to Kaplan, should be “to extend the concept of the Asia pivot to encompass the entire navigable rimland of Eurasia, including not only the Western Pacific but the Indian Ocean as well.” U.S. sea power, Kaplan writes, “is the compensatory answer for shaping geopolitics . . . Here is where the ideas of Alfred Thayer Mahan meet those of Halford Mackinder.” Mackinder, it should be noted, recognized the value of predominant sea power to island nations such as Great Britain and the United States. His great fear was that a hostile Eurasian land power (or alliance of land powers) could use the immense resources of continental Eurasia to attain maritime supremacy over the island democracies. If that happened, he wrote in 1904, “the empire of the world would then be in sight.” He even suggested that China, with its long oceanic frontage, allied to Russia could achieve dominance on land and at sea.

    The immense growth of Chinese naval power and its proclaimed desire to exert control over the entire South China Sea (including reunifying with Taiwan) should be viewed in the context of the maritime component of the BRI. For it is the maritime route from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean that links Eurasia to the Middle East and Africa, just as the land component of the Silk Road links East Asia to Central Asia and to Europe. It is roads, rails, and shipping lanes that can cohere the Eurasian-African World-Island.

    The first battle of the Long Asian War may be fought in the South China Sea. China’s pressure on Taiwan has increased exponentially. In a recent 24-hour period, the PLA launched 103 warplanes toward Taiwan, causing Taiwanese spokespersons to warn of escalation should the provocative and dangerous sorties continue. This comes on the heels of China’s recent expansion of its nine-dash line to ten dashes, including one located east of Taiwan. It also comes in the wake of President Biden’s remark while visiting Vietnam that the United States does not want to contain China. The struggle for the World-Island has begun.      

    Francis P. Sempa writes on foreign policy and geopolitics. His Best Defense columns appear at the beginning of each month.  

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 22:05

  • Putin Says OPEC+ Output Cuts "Likely" To Continue Into 2024
    Putin Says OPEC+ Output Cuts “Likely” To Continue Into 2024

    By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

    Russian President Vladimir Putin told an energy conference in Moscow on Wednesday that Russia and Saudi Arabia would “most likely” extend output cuts into 2024 and warned that clashes in the Middle East could impact oil exports with higher shipping and insurance costs. 

    “I am sure that the coordination of the OPEC+ partners’ actions will continue,” Putin told the conference. 

    “This is important for the predictability of the oil market, and ultimately for the well-being of all mankind,” Putin added, noting that while Russia and Saudi Arabia would likely “continue [their] cooperation”, “we need to consult with colleagues – our decisions are made by consensus”. 

    In the last days of September, OPEC+ decided to keep current oil production cuts in effect until the end of the year, extending 1-million-barrel-per-day supply cuts that began in July through December 31, 2023. Russia also extended its 300,000 barrels per day export cut until the end of the year.

    After Brent crude’s brief flirtation with up to $97 per barrel in late September, oil prices have pared gains, again rallying briefly with the Hamas missile attack on Israel over the weekend, which has led to a declaration of war by Israel. 

    On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz formed an emergency unity government for conflict decision-making as Israel places the Gaza Strip under siege, stripping it and its 2 million people of all power and electricity. 

    That second rally on the potential for a Middle East conflict to threaten supplies was short-lived. On Wednesday at 12:34 p.m. ET, Brent crude was trading at $86.61, down 1.19% on the day. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at $84.46, down 1.76% on the day. 

    At the Moscow conference, Putin was standing beside Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, who has asked the Russian leader to “mediate” in the Israel-Hamas conflict. 

    Putin is calling for the creation of a Palestinian state to resolve the conflict, and is using this as a platform to bring attention to what he calls the “failure” of Washington’s Middle East policy, The Moscow Times Reports. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 21:25

  • California Introduces "Ebony Alert" To Find Missing Black Kids, Young Women
    California Introduces “Ebony Alert” To Find Missing Black Kids, Young Women

    A new California law which goes into effect Jan. 1 is the first of its kind in the nation to prioritize the search for missing black kids and young black women.

    On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed Senate Bill 673 to create the “Ebony Alert” monitoring system, which will allow the Highway Patrol to activate the alert upon request from local law enforcement when black youth, or women, go missing in an area. The Ebony Alert system will utilize electronic highway signs, and encourages authorities to use social media, TV, radio and other systems to spread word when a black child (or woman!) goes missing, NBC News reports.

    The Ebony Alert will be used for missing black people between the ages of 12 and 25.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js“Data shows that Black and brown, our indigenous brothers and sisters, when they go missing there’s very rarely the type of media attention, let alone AMBER alerts and police resources that we see with our white counterparts,” state Sen. Steven Bradford (D), who created the legislation, told NBC News earlier this year, adding “We feel it’s well beyond time that we dedicate something specifically to help bring these young women and girls back home because they’re missed and loved just as much as their counterparts are.”

    California state Sen. Steven Bradford last year.Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images file

    About 141,000 Black children under the age of 18 went missing in 2022, and Black women over 21 accounted for nearly 16,500 missing persons cases that year, according to the most recent data from the National Crime Information Center. More than 30,000 Black people in the U.S. remained missing at the end of 2022, according to the center. Although about 38% of the people who went missing i in 2022 were Black, according to the Black and Missing Foundation, missing Black people are less likely than white people to have their stories highlighted in the media. Also, missing persons cases for Black people remain open longer than those for white people. Derrica Wilson, co-founder of the foundation, told CNN that a majority of the 6,000 cases of missing Black people in her database remain unsolved. -NBC News

    The state’s Amber Alert system, meanwhile, requires that a victim be under the age of 17 or have a proven disability, and authorities must have a reason to believe they’re in danger. Alerts can’t be used for custody battles or runaways.

    The problem, according to the report, is that missing black kids are usually classified as runaways – and therefore don’t qualify for Amber Alerts.

    “Something’s better than nothing,” said Bradford. “Whether the Amber alert or an Ebony Alert is going to be 100% effective, we don’t go with that false illusion or belief. But it’s better than not doing anything at all.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 21:05

  • RFK Jr.'s Strong Stance Against COVID Vaccines Appeals To Some Trump Voters
    RFK Jr.’s Strong Stance Against COVID Vaccines Appeals To Some Trump Voters

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

    Former President Donald Trump’s defense of Operation Warp Speed remains a sticking point for some of his supporters drawn to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s message and his direct rebuke of the COVID policies.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaking at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Miss., on Oct. 2, 2023. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)

    Attendees of an event at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum where Mr. Kennedy spoke on Oct. 2 discussed with The Epoch Times their concerns and what they appreciated about his message, but noted significant differences between the two.

    “As Kennedy has been calling out the truth no matter how much criticism he’s faced for it, Trump has really been silent on the whole COVID sham,” Scott Stringer said.

    “In my mind, Trump was tricked.”

    Mr. Kennedy has frequently railed against the ties between Big Pharma, the medical profession, and the government that has been toxic for the country, Mr. Stringer said.

    “The medical community cannot be trusted,”he said.

    In a recent visit to the doctor’s office with his son, he said staff pushed the vaccine, which was unrelated to why they were there.

    “I can’t believe they did that with all the medical data that’s come in,” he said.

    Charlotte Stringer, Mr. Stringer’s wife, agreed that President Trump needs to admit that he was wrong. This admission, she said, would bring him more support.

    The problem is, given his personality, it’s unlikely he will confess to such an enormous mistake, she said.

    “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” she said. “With that said, I think he’s the best choice to run this country.”

    On Mr. Kennedy’s speech, she appreciated his open-mindedness given his history as a person who for years listened to and advocated for mothers of the vaccine-injured while they were being dismissed by the pharmaceutical industry.

    Having witnessed churches close and continue to take in tithes while simultaneously getting loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, she said Mr. Kennedy’s stance against the lockdowns, specifically regarding the closure of the churches, resonated intensely with her.

    “That really made me have huge respect for him,” she said.

    ‘We’ve Got to Stop the Shots’

    MaryJo Perry, president of Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights (MPVR), said she’s troubled by President Trump’s unwillingness to admit what she describes as Operation Warp Speed having been a failure.

    “I don’t know if his motive is pride, or if there’s something else going on,” she said.

    Mr. Trump planned to set up a commission to investigate childhood vaccines back in 2017 after he got elected and was about to take the White House, Mr. Kennedy broke the news and said he would chair the commission after he met Mr. Trump on Jan. 10, 2017.

    However, the idea was never implemented and the Trump Campaign didn’t confirm the proposal.

    Ms. Perry pointed to a video of Bill Gates stating that he had advised President Trump against the investigation.

    “That would be a bad thing, don’t do that,” Mr. Gates said in the interview.

    Though she doesn’t know if this was why President Trump abandoned the idea of starting a commission with Mr. Kennedy.

    “And then, on the heels of that, we had this Operation Warp Speed that didn’t work, and yet he’s still protecting it,” she said. “That bothers me greatly.”

    MaryJo Perry, president of Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights, introduces Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Miss., on Oct. 2, 2023. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)

    Also present was Dr. John Witcher, founder of MS Against Mandates, who was fired for treating COVID patients with ivermectin.

    “Though he never mandated them, he pushed the shots and has said multiple times that he saved 100 million people by rolling out the vaccines,” Dr. Witcher said. “He knows that a lot of his constituents are 100 percent against the vaccine, but he doesn’t want to admit that he was duped by Dr. Fauci.”

    “Of course, that’s what Kennedy has been out there saying from Day One,” Dr. Witcher said. “He continues to be against the shot. And we’ve got to stop these shots.”

    ‘A Man of Integrity’

    Overall, Mr. Stringer said that it came off “very clearly” that Mr. Kennedy was “a man of integrity.”

    “He believes in his positions, and he’s not afraid to change his views,” he said.

    On whether a Trump/Kennedy ticket would work, Mr. Stringer said there’s no question that both love the country, unlike the current administration.

    The alliance could have the potential to unify the nation, he said.

    But there would need to be an alignment on issues like energy and the COVID vaccines, he said.

    “I agree more with Trump on energy, and we’ve got to have a better energy policy, but how does that stand with where Kennedy stands on energy?” Mr. Stringer asked. “Kennedy doesn’t like nuclear energy or coal, and he worked to remove fracking from New York State, though he and Trump seem to agree on wind energy and the fact that it’s gotten out of control.”

    On vaccines, they would need to come to an understanding, he said.

    “Trump would need to reconcile with the great work Mr. Kennedy has done to expose the truth on vaccines so that Trump can leverage that and say, ‘You know what, I was duped,’” he said.

    Both have taken a stance against the Ukraine war, which Mr. Stringer also opposes.

    “We do not need to send them another dime,” he said. “I think there’s some suppression of real information on what’s going on over there. I think it’s one of the most corrupt governments and countries in the world, honestly.”

    Mr. Stringer said he believes Mr. Kennedy would make a great vice president and a great president.

    “He believes in what his uncle and his dad stood for, and I think he could keep us solid in a lot of ways,” he said, referring to the late President John F. Kennedy and the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, respectively.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Miss., on Oct. 2, 2023. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Miss., on Oct. 2, 2023. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)

    Declaring Independence

    Before Mr. Kennedy announced a week later on Monday, Oct. 9, that he would not be running as a Democrat but as an independent, those in last week’s audience were already speculating that he would be leaving his former party.

    Mr. Stringer said he wasn’t concerned over whether this decision could end up drawing votes from either side.

    “I’m not afraid that anyone speaking the truth is going to split the vote,” he said. “The big question is who’s he going to take the votes from? Biden or Trump?”

    Predicting that Mr. Kennedy would leave the Democratic Party, Ms. Stringer wants to see President Trump leave the Republican Party and become independent as well.

    “I would love to see them meet in the middle and run together,” she said.

    Given the rate of the country’s decline, Ms. Stringer said she’s not overly concerned with hot-button social issues that seem to never be resolved and just wants to see President Trump back in office.

    If Mr. Kennedy were to join him, even better, she said.

    On concerns over spitting the vote, she believes Mr. Kennedy would take votes away from President Biden.

    “There are a lot of people on the left who are seeing what Biden—or whoever is leading him—is doing and wishing they had voted for Trump,” she said. “It’s clear that a man who doesn’t know how to walk across a stage, who falls down, who can’t remember people’s names or state he’s in, is being controlled. He’s not running the show, and many on the left are realizing that their children won’t have a pot to pee in because he is turning this country into a laughingstock to the rest of the world.”

    ‘Trump Needs to Follow Kennedy’s Lead’

    Dr. Witcher said he’s not alone in wanting to see Mr. Kennedy as vice president to President Trump.

    “Like many people, I think they could be a great team together,” Dr. Witcher said. “We’ve got to expose the corruption at all levels of government.”

    President Trump, he said, has the capacity and gumption to charge forward, while Mr. Kennedy has the experience of fighting against the pharmaceutical industry.

    “The COVID vaccine mandates that were enacted are really the biggest issue, and we can’t forget that,” Dr. Witcher said. “There are a lot of people in his camp that voted for him who did not and will not take the vaccine. They saw COVID as a plandemic from day one. Trump needs to follow Kennedy’s lead on that because it’s the reason he’s so popular.”

    When asked if he thought Mr. Kennedy would make a good leader, Ron Matis, the political director for the Mississippi District of the United Pentecostal Church, the organization that cosponsored the event with MPVR, said he thought that the most powerful statement he made was that he’s willing to examine all sides of the argument and, if wrong, adjust his worldview accordingly.

    “That’s something you don’t hear people who are running for office say,” Mr. Matis said. “They seem to have everything baked in and are not willing to listen, so the fact that he said as a leader he would be open to changing his position based on evidence, I think a lot of people found that refreshing.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 20:45

  • Zelensky Asks To Visit Israel In 'Solidarity' As Spotlight Shifts
    Zelensky Asks To Visit Israel In ‘Solidarity’ As Spotlight Shifts

    Most people at some point in their daily lives have experienced that annoying moment when a “friend” invites themselves over, typically at an inconvenient time, maybe for dinner or an intrusive lengthy conversation.

    Perhaps that’s what the Israelis may be feeling after suffering one of the worst disasters in their history, as on Wednesday Axios is out with the following exclusive story: Zelensky asks to visit Israel in show of solidarity.

    Two Ukrainian officials have told Axios that Zelensky, who is Jewish, wants to travel to Israel as a “show of solidarity” amid the Gaza war and as Israel is reeling from the weekend terror attacks by Hamas. Israeli officials have also confirmed the request to the publication. 

    Image: GPO/Times of Israel

    “Zelensky’s office sent an official request to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office asking to coordinate a visit, the Ukrainian and Israeli officials said,” the report says.

    As soon as the Saturday Hamas assault on the Nova Trance music festival and area Jewish settlements began, the entire world and all major international media outlets became transfixed on developments in Israel and Gaza.

    Pro-Israel as well as pro-Palestinian protests and counterprotests immediately sprang up in the US and Europe. Facebook profile flags were also switched in the blink of an eye – from Ukrainian to Israeli flags… it’s almost as if the public masses in the West “forgot” about Ukraine, as the Israel-Gaza war enters day five.

    It seems the pro-Ukraine cause in general, including efforts in Congress and by the Biden administration to keep the billions in aid flowing, has been sapped of its prior enthusiasm and momentum. Zelensky, having been suddenly removed from the spotlight, now appears to be seeking to link his cause with Israel’s, the cynic might say.

    Axios noted, “A visit by Zelensky would boost international support for Israel’s counteroffensive against Hamas in Gaza”—or perhaps it will in Zelensky’s own mind at least.

    Zelensky made a surprise visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday to issue a solidary statement in support of Israel…

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

    “In the face of such a terrorist strike, everyone who values life must stand in solidarity … Israel has the full right to defend itself against terror,” Zelensky had said in a statement that came shortly after the Saturday Hamas attack.

    Time will tell if this visit of the Ukrainian president will materialize. There’s as yet no date, and the Israelis are, well… very busy at the moment. Likely much too busy to have to roll out the red carpet for Zelensky to do a Tel Aviv photo op.

    Some pundits have said that underlying this is a scramble for valuable US foreign aid, which could be diverted to Israel…

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

    But the Pentagon has sought to calm Kiev’s fears, promising in a new statement there’s enough aid to go around:

    The secretary of defense said Wednesday that the Pentagon is able to continue providing aid to Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion and also support Israel after a Hamas attack Saturday sparked a new and bloody war there.

    “Absolutely, we can do both, and we will do both,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at a press conference Wednesday in Germany, where he appeared with newly confirmed Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles “C.Q.” Brown to announce the 48th aid package to Ukraine.

    But already public support for ‘endless’ support or ‘blank check’ funds to Ukraine was waning, and now as all eyes are on the Middle East, it is likely to further fade. After all, the major news networks have suddenly dropped their coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war, airing instead 24/7 updates on Israel, Gaza bombardments, and the plight of the over 100 hostages taken by Hamas.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 20:25

  • Offshore Wind Is An Economic And Environmental Catastrophe
    Offshore Wind Is An Economic And Environmental Catastrophe

    Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,

    When it comes to “renewables” wreaking havoc on the environment, wind turbines have stiff competition. For example, over 500,000 square miles of biofuel plantations have already replaced farms and forests to replace a mere 4 percent of transportation fuel. To source raw materials to build “sustainable” batteries, mining operations are scaling up, with no end in sight, in nations with appalling labor conditions and nonexistent environmental regulations. But the worst offender is the wind industry.

    America’s wind power industry somehow manages to attract almost no negative coverage in the press, or litigation from environmentalists, despite causing some of the most obvious and tragic environmental catastrophes so far this century. Last August I wrote about the ongoing slaughter of whales off America’s northeast coast thanks to construction of offshore wind turbines:

    “When you detonate massive explosives, repeatedly drive steel piles into the ocean floor with a hydraulic hammer, and blast high decibel sonar mapping signals underwater, you’re going to harm animals that rely on sound to orient themselves in the ocean. To say it is mere coincidence that hundreds of these creatures have washed ashore, dead, all of a sudden, during precisely the same months when the blasting and pounding began, is brazen deception.”

    Nonetheless, when the story can’t be buried, deception is the strategy. Not one major environmental organization, government watchdog agency, or media outlet has called for a slowdown in industrial offshore wind projects. Instead, they repeatedly claim these allegations are misinformation. And from that paragon of truth, FactCheck.org, we get this: “No Evidence Offshore Wind Development Killing Whales.”

    Let’s set aside the obvious negative impact on whale populations of tens of thousands of marine surveying and construction sorties into offshore areas where shipping traffic has never before been concentrated, or the impact of noise and explosions on not one site, such as would be the case with a lone oil rig, but on thousands of sites, each one being prepared for an offshore wind turbine. The destruction wrought by wind turbines extends well beyond what it’s doing to whales.

    A report just released by a New England fishermen association summarizes research they completed on offshore wind projects. Their findings are stunning. Just the geographic extent of these proposed offshore wind projects is unprecedented. According to the report, “Federal regulators at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) have designated almost 10 million acres for wind farm surveys and development.” That is over 15,000 square miles.

    Not included in that allocation are the corridors where high voltage lines will have to cross the ocean floor to transfer electricity from the turbines to land-based power grids. The report found that “electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emanating from subsea cables appear to produce birth deformities in juvenile lobster.” That’s just the beginning.

    The report also found that wind farms “increase sea surface temperatures and alter upper-ocean hydrodynamics in ways scientists do not yet understand,” and “whip up sea sediment and generate highly turbid wakes that are 30-150 meters wide and several kilometers in length, having a major impact on primary production by phytoplankton which are the base of marine food chains.” And there’s more.

    Wind turbines “generate operational noise in a low frequency range (less than 700 Hz) with most energy concentrated between 2 and 200 Hz. This frequency range overlaps with that used by fish for communication, mating, spawning, and spatial movement,” and “high voltage direct current undersea cables produce magnetic fields that negatively affect the drifting trajectory of haddock larvae by interfering with their magnetic orientation abilities.” Haddock are “a significant portion of U.S. commercial fish landings and are an important component of the marine food chain.”

    Nothing to see here, right?

    What’s going on off the coast of New England is being allowed to happen because of disgraceful negligence on the part of America’s environmentalist community. What’s about to happen in California is just as bad, and is proceeding without any organized opposition or serious criticism.

    Earlier this year, the federal government leased 583 square miles of deep ocean waters off the coast of California for offshore wind farms. When the first phase of these offshore wind developments are completed, these wind farms will deliver 4.5 gigawatts of “clean” electricity to the California grid. That may sound like a lot of electricity. It’s not.

    To begin with, even offshore wind only blows intermittently. The most optimistic projections for the actual yield of these turbines are never more than 50 percent. This means that in terms of baseload power, only 2.25 gigawatts will come from these new offshore wind farms. California’s average electricity consumption is 32 gigawatts (of which only 22 gigawatts are produced in-state), which means if these offshore wind farms are ever completed, they’ll supply a mere 6 percent of California’s current electricity demand – the same amount currently coming from Diablo Canyon, California’s last operating nuclear power plant. But how many turbines will this take, and what will they look like?

     The biggest wind turbines in the world can now produce 10 megawatts at full output. To generate this much electricity, these machines are 1,000 feet tall, which is more than three times higher than the Statue of Liberty from the water line to the tip of the torch. To achieve a collective capacity at full output of 4.5 gigawatts, 450 of these would have to be built, floated 20 miles offshore, anchored to the seabed with cables nearly a mile long, then from each one a high voltage line would also have to descend 4,000 feet to reach the ocean floor, where it would then lie on the sea bed – some proposals actually call for them to be buried – to transmit electricity to the onshore power grid. Four hundred and fifty floating wind turbines, each one of them with vertical dimensions that are longer than a modern aircraft supercarrier. There are huge and unresolved engineering hurdles involved in developing large floating wind turbines.

    Bear in mind, if California’s state legislature gets its way, and the state goes fully electric – think all space heaters, water heaters, dryers, along with all trucks, buses and cars going fully electric – electricity demand will more than triple. While it’s hypothetical, the math is simple and revealing: to get 100 gigawatts of baseload power from offshore wind, you would need 20,000 turbines. And imagine all the high voltage distribution lines, and all the batteries to buffer the massive surges of intermittent power.

    To somewhat return to reality, we must acknowledge that none of California’s enlightened planners intend to use offshore wind to generate 100 percent of California’s renewable electricity. But in one of the most reputable mainstream studies produced to date, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, Mark Jacobson, completed a series of simulations, culminating in a report released in December 2021 that called for 20 percent of California’s electricity to derive from offshore wind. Making more conservative assumptions regarding the size of each offshore turbine and the yield, he predicted more than 12,000 offshore wind turbines would be required.

    Imagine the logistics.

    How many ships will this take? How many submarines and divers? How many port facilities? How many new homes for the construction workers? What about the undersea power cables? What about the storage batteries needed to buffer nearly 20 gigawatts of on again, off again electricity? What about the ongoing maintenance? What about the raw materials needed to build all these leviathans? What about the billions and billions of dollars that will flow into the pockets of the special interests behind this disaster of a project, paid by taxpayers and ratepayers?

    Overall, Jacobson’s study projected about one-third of California’s electricity to come from a combination of onshore and offshore wind turbines. Shall we reiterate what else we already know about wind turbines? Their slaughter of raptors, bats, and insects? Their incessant, low frequency sound that is audible for miles and, despite “debunking” articles that defy basic common sense, drives people and animals nuts? The visual blight? The staggering quantity of materials required for their manufacture, and the difficult if not impossible task of recycling the materials after they’ve reached the end of their service life?

    Where are the environmentalists?

    Where, for that matter, are the economists? Is the mantra “climate crisis” so powerful that literally anything goes, including a scheme that delivers not only environmental but economic catastrophe? In 2020, an in-depth financial analysis by the Manhattan Institute documented how “offshore wind’s costs will far exceed its benefits.” And that was before the supply chain problems, inflation, and interest rate hikes that have forced offshore wind developers from New England to California to greatly increase required rates, or pull out of projects altogether.

    Imagine if this was an oil rig, a desalination plant, or a nuclear power plant. The opposition would be apoplectic, and that is not hypothetical conjecture. California had a chance to build another major desalination plant which would have supplied 55,000 acre feet per year of drought proof fresh water to the residents of Orange County, population 3 million. Along with other projects in the works, this desalination plant could have made that relatively arid coastal county completely independent of imported water. But environmentalists fought the project at every turn, and in May 2022, in a unanimous vote, the California Coastal Commission denied the construction permit.

    As for oil and gas, California’s state legislators are doing everything they can to destroy production in the state. Despite having massive reserves of oil and gas, Californians have to import more than 75 percent of their oil and more than 90 percent of their natural gas. And when it comes to nuclear power, the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, California’s last one, narrowly escapes regulatory shutdown every few years, despite being designed to operate well past the middle of this century.

    The scandalous double standard at work here can only be attributed to a combination of powerful special interests representing the wind power industry, interacting with a state legislature and environmentalist movement that is either bought off or alarmingly stupid. As it is, hundreds of billions of taxpayer subsidies are on track to pay for offshore wind. If it is not stopped, it will be one of the most egregious cases of economic waste and environmental destruction in human history.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 20:05

  • IMF Expects Subdued Growth As "Tightening Starts To Bite"
    IMF Expects Subdued Growth As “Tightening Starts To Bite”

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published its latest update on the state of the world economy on Tuesday, predicting sluggish growth for 2023 and 2024, as many challenges persist and policy tightening is taking effect.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, according to its World Economic Outlook, the organization now expects global GDP to grow by 3.0 percent this year, down from 3.5 percent in 2022.

    Infographic: IMF Expects Subdued Growth as 'Tightening Starts to Bite' | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    For next year, the IMF predicts 2.9 percent growth, a slight downward correction from its April 2023 forecast of 3.0 percent.

    “Economic activity still falls short of its pre-pandemic path, especially in emerging market and developing economies and there are widening divergences among regions,” the report finds.

    “Several forces are holding back the recovery. Some reflect the long-term consequences of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and increasing geoeconomic fragmentation. Others are more cyclical in nature, including the effects of monetary policy tightening necessary to reduce inflation, withdrawal of fiscal support amid high debt and extreme weather events.”

    Aside from inflation, which is expected to remain elevated across advanced economies until 2025, many of the problems that weighed on the global economy in 2022 – high debt levels, the war in Ukraine and rising geopolitical tensions – have carried over into 2023, resulting in continued uncertainty and muted growth prospects. And while China’s reopening boosted global growth prospects earlier this year, the country’s property crisis now poses yet another downside risk, not only to domestic growth as a deepening of the crisis could have global spillover effects.

    All things considered, the IMF finds that risks to its latest outlook are slightly more balanced compared to six months ago, when the U.S. and Swiss banking crises as well as the specter of a potentially disastrous U.S. debt default cast large shadows over the global economy.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 19:45

  • CBDCs: The Ultimate Tool Of Oppression
    CBDCs: The Ultimate Tool Of Oppression

    Authored by Laura Dodsworth via The Brownstone Institute,

    ‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever,’ said O’Brien, the grand inquisitor of the totalitarian regime in Orwell’s futuristic novel 1984.

    Alternatively, you could imagine a sandal.

    Last month I visited Sutton Hoo, the famous Anglo-Saxon burial site of a king and his ship in Suffolk. A gold coin pendant in the museum caught my eye. It depicted a triumphant Roman standing over a conquered barbarian, his sandalled foot placed firmly on the supine opponent’s chest.

    Coin depicting Emperor Honorius at Sutton Hood museum. View a better image on the British Museum website.

    The ship burial probably dates from 625 AD, long after the Romans had left. The gold could have been melted down by the Anglo-Saxons but instead it was fashioned into a pendant. Maybe it conferred the prestige of the Roman world onto the wearer, or was totemic of victory. Perhaps it was an ironic reminder that the Romans were gone and every empire has its day.

    The Roman on this coin was the Emperor Honorius, who ruled between 395 and 423. Miserably for Honorius, he was emperor when the Visigoths captured and plundered Rome and when the British Isles slipped from Roman control. In fact, when Romano-British cities asked him for help against barbarian attacks he told them to look to their own defences. You would never know all this from the coin, which is a fine piece of reputational management.

    Coins have always been more than lumps of precious metals; they are also a means of propaganda and control.

    Early bronze coins depicted cattle, as the state property of Rome was originally comprised of herds of cattle. Then coins featured Roman deities such as Mars, the god of war, or symbols of the state such as the she-wolf with twins. Later in the Republic, images of politicians featured on coins. The first living man to be embossed on a coin was the powerful Julius Caesar. One silver denarius minted around 29 BC shows a Nile crocodile (the symbol of Egypt) with the inscription ‘Egypt conquered.’ And other coins also showed emperors defeating barbarians, gleaming with undistilled power.

    Imagine handling a coin which depicts your own subjugation. If you were privileged, hard-working or lucky enough to obtain some of this lucre for yourself, it was nonetheless a reminder of the sandal on your chest. Every time you bought a luxury good, your fingers would slide over the embossed symbol of your defeat. Coins reminded you of your place in the world.

    Coins in circulation in the UK are at a record low. In fact, not a single one or two penny coin was issued in 2022. Yet there has never been greater potential to use money for propaganda and control.

    Digital money and particularly Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) offer the potential for the government, through the central bank, to see every purchase and transfer you make, in real time. And not just see, but control.

    Of course, our governments in the West will say that central bank money in digital form is convenient, safe, and stable. They will promise never to use it as an instrument of control, as an authoritarian government would. Here in the UK, our cosily-named proposed ‘Britcoin’ would supposedly exist alongside cash.

    China, the country that took the lead with lockdowns, has taken the lead with CBDCs. It started researching CBDCs in 2014 and has been running live trials of DCNY (Digital Chinese Yuan) for years, with the size and scale increasing each time. The Chinese government has tested expiration dates to encourage users to spend their DCNY quickly, for times when the economy needs stimulus. That’s right, an expiry date for people’s money has already been trialled.

    The Chinese ‘Social Credit System’ is a broad regulatory framework that is designed to score and incentivise the trustworthiness of individuals and companies. In other words, the government will either reward or punish various forms of behaviour using real-time monitoring, data gathering and sharing, curate blacklists and redlists, and use punishments, sanctions and rewards.

    A report in 2019 found that 23 million people had been blacklisted from travelling by plane or train due to their low social credit score. In 2018 a student was denied access to university because her father was in debt. There isn’t a centralised and transparent set of rules, instead it’s been operated locally so far, but it has been reported that behaviour such as poor driving, spending too long playing video games, or posting fake news can result in low ratings, as well as more serious matters such as not fulfilling court orders.

    You won’t find many Chinese critics of the Social Credit System – there is probably a sanction for criticism of government policy. You’d think this system would unite Western commentators in horrified criticism, but it is quite neutrally and even warmly described by some left-leaning writers and think tanks.

    We don’t need to look as far as China to understand the implications here in the West. In 2019, Mastercard and Doconomy launched a credit card with a carbon footprint calculator that can switch off your spending when you reach your carbon max. This functionality is voluntary, but it could be an automatic aspect of a CBDC.

    Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said that the Government would be required to make the final decision on whether a UK CBDC should be programmable. Sir Jon Cunliffe, a deputy Governor at the Bank, said:

    ‘You could think of giving your children pocket money, but programming the money so that it couldn’t be used for sweets. There is a whole range of things that money could do, programmable money, which we cannot do with the current technology.’

    As this quote reveals, CBDCs won’t just alter our relationship with money but with government. Governments around the world have shown increasingly authoritarian tendencies during the management of the Covid pandemic, and more recently to discourage driving in cities. Behavioural science has been leveraged to manipulate, incentivise and coerce us into behaving as model citizens. Do we want to negotiate with Daddy State to be allowed to spend our ‘pocket money’ as we wish?

    An account-based CBDC would give the government enormous power over your money as your identity is connected to the money. A 2020 Bank of England discussion paper gave examples of programmability, for example that smart cars could automatically pay for fuel directly at the dispensing pump, with automated taxation and charitable donations at point of sale.

    That all sounds very convenient. But politicians pushing Net Zero goals on an unwilling population could choose to go a step further. If you insist on keeping your private car, despite the inconvenient 20 MPH speed limits, the ULEZ and congestion charges, and the Low Traffic Neighbourhood barriers, they could simply dictate a maximum fuel spend in a given time period. Just ten of your Britcoins on petrol this month, Sir, no more driving for you.

    Money grants freedom and so it is also weaponised to deny freedom. Domestic abusers restrict access to money, and therefore essentials such as food, clothing, and travel. Economic abuse is insidious, effective and subtle, and it leaves no bruises. As with the domestic abuser, the potential is there for the government to weaponise money to exert the ultimate financial control.

    The jackboot and the sandal were graphic symbols of authority subjugating conquered peoples. If programmable CBDCs are introduced, your own digital financial footprint will be used to control you. The means of control change over time but the insatiable desire for total control remains constant.

    Republished from the author’s Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 19:25

  • Biden Classified Doc Scandal Deepens
    Biden Classified Doc Scandal Deepens

    More than a year before White House lawyers claim to have ‘discovered’ classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in November of 2022, evidence has emerged that White House employees ‘inspected’ or ‘took inventory’ of them, while another official removed “a few” boxes containing Biden materials that October, according to the House Oversight Committee.

    According to a letter to White House counsel Edward Siskel from Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), the official timeline of events provided by the Biden team “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating.”

    Comer says that a Penn Biden Center employee told the committee that on March 18, 2021, senior White House aide Annie Tomasini “[took] inventory of President Biden’s documents and materials” stored at the center, where he established a private office after his vice presidency.

    The same witness also said that on Oct. 13, 2022, Oval Office deputy director of operations, Ashley Williams, removed “a few” of Biden’s boxes.

    The White House has previously claimed that all relevant documents were either moved to the National Archives or the DOJ, while Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, said that the documents were discovered on November 2, 2022 – a total lie.

    The committee, which has conducted three witness interviews, says on five occasions, White House employees, including former White House Counsel Dana Remus, and the president’s former assistant Kathy Chung, a current Department of Defense employee, went to the Penn Biden Center to take inventory, pack up or remove materials. These visits occurred between March 2021 and mid-October 2022. –CBS News

    “There is no reasonable explanation as to why this many White House employees and lawyers were so concerned with retrieving boxes they believed only contained personal documents and materials,” said Comer in his letter.

    The letter requests transcribed interviews with Remus, Williams, Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, a top adviser to the first lady, and Katie Reilly, a West Wing aide, according to CBS News.

    It is also asking for documentation and communication related to the documents. The committee has already interviewed Chung, who was then-Vice President Biden’s assistant. 

    Democrats, of course, have resorted to whataboutism…

    “Former President Trump’s willful retention of hundreds of highly classified documents, his defiance of court-ordered subpoenas, his reported disclosure of our country’s most sensitive national security information, and false statements to law enforcement should worry the Chair of a congressional committee with jurisdiction over government records,” said a spokesman for Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. “Instead Chairman Comer is using the Committee to focus on President Biden whose complete cooperation with the Special Counsel’s investigation stands in stark contrast, including voluntarily participating in a two-day interview with the Special Counsel, and opening the doors to his Penn Biden Center office and private residence to investigators.”

    As Jonathan Turley noted earlier, the ‘ultimate punchline’ here could be that Special Counsel Robert Hur may be in a sticky situation if he actually finds evidence of a crime.

    On its face, the President claims that he had no knowledge of these documents appears dubious at best.

    Some classified material reportedly goes back to Biden’s time as a senator — material that he would have had to remove from a sensitive compartmented information facility or secure room on Capitol Hill.

    More importantly, the documents from the Obama Administration were removed when Biden left as vice president.

    They were then divided and repeatedly moved to different locations. That suggests not just knowledge but a purpose.

    Why were they divided and some documents were found in his garage and possibly his library?

    If Hur found fingerprints that contradict Biden’s statements, he could face not just some of the same charges brought against Trump but also possible false statement or obstruction charges.

    Notably, Biden used counsel to conduct searches and (as in the Trump case) additional classified materials were found after the Biden team said that they had finished their searches.

    There are serious questions over whether, in allowing uncleared counsel to search through these documents, evidence may have been lost in how they were stored or appeared in locations like the garage.

    Hur can bring charges against third parties, who would not be barred from indictment under the DOJ policy.

    But what does Hur then do if he has evidence against the President himself?

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 19:05

  • Out-Of-Hospital Cardiac Arrests Spiked In 2021, Study Finds
    Out-Of-Hospital Cardiac Arrests Spiked In 2021, Study Finds

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

    Cardiac arrests that happened outside of hospitals spiked in 2021, according to a new U.S. study.

    An ambulance in Seattle, Wash., in a file image. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

    Out-of-hospital cardiac arrests were higher after the COVID-19 pandemic than before the pandemic, U.S. researchers found.

    They analyzed data from Seattle and King County in Washington state from the years 2018 to 2021. The dataset consisted of 13,081 patients, including 7,102 who were dead when emergency responders arrived and another 4,952 who were treated but died ahead of hospitalization or in the hospital.

    Compared to the prepandemic years, or 2018 and 2019, there were 19 percent more people who suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the pandemic period, or 2020 and 2021, researchers said. That included a 10.8 percent increase in those who survived until responders arrived and a 27.2 percent increase in patients declared dead when responders reached the patients.

    The increase in those who survived was among 18- to 64-year-olds, with the rate among those 65 and older holding steady.

    The numbers were the highest during 2021, after the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out.

    The researchers did not factor in vaccination status, instead aiming to examine the impact of COVID-19 on out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.

    Of the people who suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrests during the pandemic and survived until emergency responders arrived, 6.2 percent tested positive for COVID-19 in the two weeks before the cardiac arrests or the week following the cardiac arrest, or were diagnosed with COVID-19. Just 3.7 percent of a random sample of those who were declared dead on arrival had COVID-19, which was lower than the percentage in a recent Maryland study.

    During the pandemic, the Washington state researchers said, survival was less likely among people who suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA), consistent with previous research. While 42.6 percent of people survived to hospital admission before the pandemic, just 35.7 percent did in 2020 and 2021. And compared to 2018 and 2019, when 19.2 percent of the patients survived to hospital discharge, just 15.4 percent of patients were discharged alive during the pandemic.

    COVID-19 contributed to the downturn in survival, but only a little, the researchers said. They pegged it as responsible for 18.5 percent of the downturn.

    The major factors, they said, included social isolation that led to fewer observed events, a delay in health care workers treating patients due to updated equipment and resuscitation protocols, and hampered emergency response times. The factors were described as Utstein characteristics.

    “OHCA survival was poorer during the pandemic years, largely owing to changes in systemwide Utstein characteristics, as opposed to patient-specific acute SARS-CoV-2 infection,” Jennifer Liu, an epidemiologist at the Seattle and King County Department of Public Health, and her coauthors wrote. SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19.

    Other groups have also said that indirect reasons for the lowered survival rate and increased occurrence rate could stem from reasons such as delayed response times.

    Ms. Liu and the other authors declared no conflicts of interest or funding.

    Limitations of the paper, which was published by JAMA Network Open, include the data being from one county.

    Vaccination Impact?

    Ms. Liu did not respond to a request for comment, including why the group did not analyze the possible impact of vaccination on the increase in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. The COVID-19 vaccines can cause myocarditis, or heart inflammation, as well as other cardiac events.

    “What most striking is the lack of analysis of a possible correlation of OHCA case rates with the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns that started at the end of 2020 and continued throughout 2021,” Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Epoch Times via email.

    “Such correlation has been observed in other studies and since the authors seem to have access to comprehensive case-level data (e.g., medical records), it looked like they could have potentially done that,” Mr. Levi, who was not involved in the research, added. “At the very least the authors should have analyzed the temporal correlation between community vaccination rates and the OHCA case rates.”

    Mr. Levi noted that the number of events was primarily grouped in the pandemic and pre-pandemic periods, apart from one graph in the supplementary content, which showed the year with the most events was 2021.

    “It is not even clear if there is an increase in 2020 compared to the baseline, or the entire increase is observed in 2021,” Mr. Levi said.

    The researchers did find a statistically significant correlation between weekly COVID-19 rates in the community and the weekly rate of OHCA, but only in 2020, not in 2021. Mr. Levi contributed to research that found the worse outcomes among people who suffered heart cardiac arrests during the pandemic in Boston stemmed from a reluctance to seek health care. He and other researchers also found that in Israel, increases in emergency calls for young people for cardiovascular events were significantly associated with COVID-19 vaccination.

    Some other papers have found that prior to the vaccine rollout, people who tested positive for COVID-19 and suffered a cardiac arrest were more likely to die when compared to people who did not test positive.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 18:45

  • What Do US Teens Want To Be When They Grow Up?
    What Do US Teens Want To Be When They Grow Up?

    What do you want to be when you grow up?

    This supposedly innocent question has been lobbed at children and teenagers for decades, although the answers might differ now due to the rise of social media and the possibility of achieving worldwide fame not being confined to appearing on the big screen or arena stages anymore.

    As Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, according to a 2021 survey by YouGov weighted by age and gender, teenage boys and girls in the United States share some similarities when it comes to their dream job – even though the top spots couldn’t be further away from each other.

    Infographic: What Do U.S. Teens Want To Be When They Grow Up? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    12 percent of male teens listed professional athlete as their preferred future job, followed by 11 percent who wanted to become an online content creator.

    Classic dream jobs like musician (six percent) and doctor or nurse (five percent) still made the top 5, albeit barely.

    For females, the latter seems to be the most coveted future job, with 13 percent of teenage girls wanting to become a medical professional, while 11 percent put actress as their dream occupation.

    The fact that becoming a YouTuber, streamer or vlogger made the top five for participants of both genders shows the rapid development of financial and societal clout attributed to online personalities, for better or worse.

    According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the market size for influencer marketing has doubled since 2019 and was valued at $16.4 billion worldwide in 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 18:25

  • Netanyahu Vows "Every Hamas Operative Will Die" As Israeli Citizenry Mobilizes For War
    Netanyahu Vows “Every Hamas Operative Will Die” As Israeli Citizenry Mobilizes For War

    Update(1820ET): PM Netanyahu, just after forming an emergency war-time government with Benny Gantz…

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    And Gantz too spoke of total societal mobilization in Wednesday night words:

    Benny Gantz, who joined an emergency government with Netanyahu, stated on Wednesday that his cooperation with the government is “a clear message to our adversaries and to all Israeli citizens: all of us together are mobilizing.” Gantz said after the Security Cabinet meeting in which he participated, “Just as people from left and right, from the city and the village, go out to fight, decisions of the government will also be made by people from different camps. Now, we are all one camp – the camp of the people of Israel.”

    These Israeli leaders don’t seem too concerned (an understatement) about the immense and rapidly mounting civilian casualties among Palestinians caught under the air war with nowhere to go, as a long, bloody ground campaign in the Gaza Strip looks inevitable.

    Below is an interesting clip from 2009 of Pat Buchanan offering his thoughts on what’s been a decades-long crisis:

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    IDF reservists have been returning to Israel from abroad in droves…

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    * * *

    Update(1425ET): US National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby confirmed that the United States will be sending the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean, after it was already announced that the USS Gerald R. Ford would be deployed as part of “support” operations related to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

    However, Kirby said that the Eisenhower will not be directly joining or escorting. Instead, the carrier will be in the region for availability if called upon. While in a press briefing Kirby tried to downplay the dual carrier deployment as somewhat routine or expected, they will certainly be on standby to potentially intervene if all hell continues breaking loose in the Middle East.

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    Kirby also confirmed that the US administration is in talks with Qatar as part of mediation efforts to free the hostages being held by Hamas. It’s believed there are Americans among the captives in Gaza, which at this moment is being pounded by Israeli airstrikes. Kirby said the following:

    “Obviously, we’re in discussions not only with the Israelis, about what hostage recovery could look like, but with other allies and partners in the region. And there are some countries like Qatar that have open lines of communication with Hamas, so of course, we’re casting the net wide as you would expect, we want to get these all the hostages back with their families, particularly the American hostages, no question about that.”

    Meanwhile…

    MCCAUL: US SPECIAL FORCES, FBI SHOULD BE USED TO FREE HOSTAGES

    * * *

    Update(1304ET): The IDF has revised its earlier alert as follows, downplaying the severity of the northern infiltration alert:

    IDF spokesperson: Further to the reports of intrusion from the Lebanese border into Israel’s airspace, as of now fear of intrusion has been ruled out.

    An updated headline from Times of Israel: IDF says no drone infiltration in north after scares send millions into shelters

    An emergency war-time government has been formally announced in Israel:

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    * * *

    Update(1250ET): Israeli emergency authorities, specifically the Israeli Homefront Command, has ordered residents in the far northern town of Ma’alot-Tarshiha to stay in their homes and lock their doors, warning of possible infiltration of militants from Lebanon. The alert stayed active for a brief period Wednesday. There are current official reports of an airspace breach from Lebanon, possibly drones sent by Hezbollah:

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    The current top headline at The Times of Israel reads:

    Residents across north told to shelter as several aircraft appear to infiltrate Israel

    On the other side of the border, Lebanese residents are scrambling for exit as fighting grows, and as evidence of damaged and burning homes and buildings begins to circulate:

    Cross-border violence between Lebanon and Israel has escalated into a fourth day, pushing many Lebanese in southern towns to leave as Hezbollah and the Israeli military continue to trade fire.

    Hezbollah said it fired precision missiles on an Israeli position across from the Lebanese town of Dharya on Wednesday, drawing retaliatory Israeli shelling that has left a number of houses damaged.

    Tensions have been boiling along the Israeli-Lebanese border since Palestinian fighters launched a surprise multi-front assault on Saturday morning. The Israeli military has been heavily bombarding the Gaza Strip since, while Palestinian groups have continued to fire thousands of rockets towards Israel. At least 1,055 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis have been killed.

    Sirens are reportedly going off across northern Israel, amid unverified reports of major drone action:

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    Amid the escalating and highly dangerous (for the prospect of major, broader war) tit-for-tat Israel-Hezbollah escalation, both sides are vowing “decisive” response to deadly attacks.

    News wires are now reporting that 22 Americans have been confirmed killed after the weekend Hamas terror rampage in southern Israel. 

    The US Embassy in Beirut is meanwhile refuting reports that it is evacuating, but is it a sign of things to come as the south Lebanon situation slides?

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    A below review of the last hours via journalist Joyce Karam. UPDATE:

    • Lebanon front, Israel- Hamas war 
    • Drones, infiltration from Lebanon 
    • Israel fired flares 
    • Residents in N Israel to enter shelter 
    • Gaza hospitals full capacity 
    • Israel gets war cabinet 
    • Evacuations from Israel
    • 200,000 Gazans displaced

    * * *

    A worst-case scenario for Israel is emerging: the dreaded multi-front war involving Hezbollah, which is a much more formidable and better equipped paramilitary force than Hamas. 

    Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus has confirmed Wednesday Israel fired rockets into southern Lebanon for at least a second straight day, striking Hezbollah positions after the Iran-backed group struck Israeli soldiers with anti-tank missiles fired from across the border.

    Aftermath of Israeli rocket attack on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Dhaira on Monday, via Zuma Press

    Bloomberg has also confirmed in a note, “Israel said an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon hit one of its military posts near the border, news that saw investors seek haven assets like US Treasuries.” This as an Israeli ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, which is sure to be a bloody campaign, appears imminent after PM Netanyahu told Biden in a Tuesday phone call, “We have to go in. We can’t negotiate now.”

    Netanyahu also previously vowed in public statements that “what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”

    Citing IDF spokesman Conricus further, Fox News underscores that Israeli is now “actively fighting a secondary front” in the north and is surging troops toward that end: 

    …the Israeli army shelled the Lebanese border town of Duhaira and the surrounding area where the missile attack came from. He also said Israel was actively fighting a secondary front along Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon, in addition to the counteroffensive the IDF is launching in the Gaza Strip.

    “We have deployed tens of thousands of additional units along the northern border,” Conricus said, including infantry, special forces, armored forces, artillery, air forces, and “additional assets including intelligence and logistics.”

    Cross-border shelling has occurred since Sunday, leading to multiple casualties among Hezbollah members and possibly other Islamic factions. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has also had a presence there and has taken casualties. The IDF said, “The message to Hezbollah is very clear: ‘If they try to attack, we are ready and we are vigilant on our border.’”

    At least one “Israeli senior officer” has been killed at the northern border since the exchange of fire has increased. Another two Israeli troops have also been confirmed killed. Hezbollah has claimed to have wounded and killed a “large number” of Israeli troops.

    Al Jazeera wrote Tuesday that “At least three Hezbollah members, an Israeli senior officer and two Palestinian fighters have been killed so far in the cross-border fighting.” 

    And the IDF has confirmed: “In Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah have already fired anti-tank missiles and rockets at our positions and soldiers, fortunately without any significant casualties,” Conricus said. “There has already been an attempt of Islamic jihad terrorists infiltrating into Israel. That attempt was successfully thwarted by the IDF, sadly at the cost of a senior [IDF] officer and two other soldiers.”

    Hezbollah has meanwhile issued a fresh statement saying it sees the United States as a direct accomplice in Israel’s killing of Gazans, as the Israeli air war continues, with Palestinian deaths on Wednesday approaching 1,000 after four straight nights of unprecedented bombardment.

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    “At least 950 people, including at least 140 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry,” CBS reports. ‘The ministry said in a social media post that at least 5,000 more people in the blockaded Palestinian territory were wounded, most of them women and children.”

    Dangerously, and amid fears of a broader regional conflagration, Syria launched missiles on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which didn’t appear to do significant damage. However, Israel has reportedly released an emergency statement for settlements in the area: “Instructions have been given to residents of the Golan to stay near shelters.” Israel says it is forming an emergency war-time government.

    ISRAEL PLANS TO ANNOUNCE EMERGENCY GOVT TONIGHT: ISRAEL RADIO

    Iran’s Supreme Leaders has issued fresh threats, even while asserting it didn’t have a direct hand in the Saturday Hamas terror rampage into Southern Israel:

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    Complicating matters and sending regional tensions soaring further at a moment of fresh Iran threats, a US carrier group will soon cross the Atlantic to park in waters off Israel as part of “support” operations. A second carrier could also be on its way:

    The US might deploy a second aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to support Israel’s attack on Gaza, two Pentagon officials told POLITICO on Tuesday.

    In the wake of the Hamas attack on southern Israel, the US announced that it was deploying the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group, which arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean on Tuesday.

    The Pentagon officials said that the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its strike group, which includes several other warships, were already scheduled to leave Norfolk, Virginia, this week and that it might be ordered to also deploy near Israel. The Pentagon said that the Eisenhower could leave on Friday and arrive in the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of October.

    A double aircraft carrier deployment would be a massive show of force in the region and could risk escalating the situation. Some Shia factions in Iraq have threatened attacks on US bases in the country if the US “intervenes” to support Israel against Hamas. 

    Hezbollah has issued a statement directly responding to this possibility, saying, “Sending aircraft carriers to the region with the aim of raising enemy morale reveals the weakness of the Zionist military machine.”

    More images have begun to emerge of the ratcheting conflict along the Israel-Lebanese border…

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    In Israel, the death toll from the weekend attack has risen to 1,200 – according to new official statements. The Biden administration has also confirmed that at least 14 of these were US citizens.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 18:20

  • Christian Baker Who Refused To Make LGBT Cake Scores Legal Victory
    Christian Baker Who Refused To Make LGBT Cake Scores Legal Victory

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips has scored a victory of sorts in his ongoing lawsuit for refusing to bake a gender transition cake, with the Colorado Supreme Court agreeing to hear his appeal.

    Baker Jack Phillips decorates a cake in his Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo., on Sep. 21, 2017. (Rick Wilking/Reuters)

    Last week, in a win for Mr. Phillips’ years-long legal fight, the Colorado Supreme Court finally agreed to hear his case after a lower court held that Colorado authorities can force the baker to put messages on cakes that violate his personal beliefs, according to a case announcements posting.

    Mr. Phillips, who in 2018 won a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in a lawsuit for declining to bake a custom cake for a same-sex wedding, was sued once again in 2019 for refusing to create a cake for a transgender lawyer celebrating a gender transition.

    The attorney, Autumn Scardina, also demanded that Mr. Phillips create a custom cake depicting Satan smoking marijuana, according to court filings.

    But Mr. Phillips declined, saying he would not create cakes expressing those messages for anyone.

    Then, a lower appeals court held that Colorado authorities could compel Mr. Phillips to put messages on his cakes that go against his religious convictions, prompting Mr. Phillips’ attorneys to file an appeal in April with the Colorado Supreme Court.

    Subsequently, in July 2023, following a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of a Christian website designer who argued that Colorado’s law requiring her to create websites celebrating same-sex weddings infringed on her constitutional rights, Mr. Phillips’ attorneys filed a supplemental notice with the state Supreme Court, asking for a hearing.

    More Details

    In the supplemental filing, Mr. Phillips’ attorneys asked the Colorado Supreme Court to apply the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis and similarly affirm Mr. Phillips’ constitutional right to free speech.

    And so on Oct. 3, in a victory for Mr. Phillips’ legal battle, the Colorado Supreme Court finally agreed to hear his case.

    “Free speech is for everyone. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in 303 Creative, the government can’t force artists to express messages they don’t believe,” Jake Warner, senior counsel for the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF), said in a statement.

    “Because the attorney asked Jack to create a custom cake that would celebrate and symbolize a transition from male to female, the requested cake is speech under the First Amendment,” he added.

    “You don’t need to agree with Jack’s views to agree that Americans shouldn’t be compelled to express what they don’t believe,” he added.

    Mr. Phillips told Fox News in an interview that he hopes the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case gives him hope for an end to his years-long legal fight.

    “I hope it is the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m pretty excited about it,” Mr. Phillips told Fox News in an interview.

    “The state court turned us down in our first case, but I think they realize now that I serve everybody,” he added.

    The Colorado Supreme Court has yet to schedule oral arguments in the case.

    Mr. Phillips said the case is about his right to express his religious freedom and to “do so without fear of punishment in the marketplace.”

    Supreme Court Decision In Web Designer Case

    In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Christian web designer Lorie Smith, who said she would design a website for anyone—including if they identify as LGBT—so long as the requested content doesn’t run afoul of her religious beliefs.

    Ms. Smith said that, when clients asked her to include messages that are pro-abortion or same-sex marriage—both views that conflict with her personal convictions—she would refer them to other designers.

    Concerned that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission would use the state’s anti-discrimination statute to force her to create websites that convey messages that she disagrees with, she challenged the law to protect free speech.

    Like Mr. Phillips, Ms. Smith was represented by ADF.

    Lorie Smith, a Christian graphic artist and website designer in Colorado, prepares to speak to supporters outside the Supreme Court in Washington on Dec. 5, 2022. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo)

    In July 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled against Ms. Smith, holding that the state has the right to force her to create websites with messages that violate her religious beliefs.

    Her attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court—and won.

    “Like many states, Colorado has a law forbidding businesses from engaging in discrimination when they sell goods and services to the public. Laws along these lines have done much to secure the civil rights of all Americans,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the 26-page majority opinion (pdf), with the court’s three liberal justices dissenting.

    “But in this particular case, Colorado does not just seek to ensure the sale of goods or services on equal terms. It seeks to use its law to compel an individual to create speech she does not believe. The question we face is whether that course violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.”

    “In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance,” Mr. Gorsuch wrote.

    “The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” he added.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 18:05

  • Microsoft Must Pay $28.9 Billion In Back-Taxes
    Microsoft Must Pay $28.9 Billion In Back-Taxes

    “That’s a nice little business you got there, it would be a pity if the IRS confiscated it…”

    In an 8K filed by Microsoft after the close, the company said it received notices from IRS seeking additional payment of $28.9b plus penalties and interest for the tax years 2004-2013; the payments stem from disagreements over the tax treatment of intercompany transfer pricing, a well-known corporate tax black hole.

    It was not immediately clear if these notices suggested the company had underpaid taxes on purpose or if there was a TurboTax-style glitch, but whatever the reason, $29 billion is a lot of money, even for Epstein island regulars such as Bill Gates.

    Naturally, Microsoft said that it disagrees with the notices and will vigorously contest them, and “does not expect” a final resolution on these issues in the next 12 months.

    On October 11, 2023, Microsoft Corporation announced the receipt of Notices of Proposed Adjustment (“NOPAs”) from the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) for the tax years 2004 to 2013. The NOPAs were received on September 26, 2023. The primary issues in the NOPAs relate to intercompany transfer pricing. In the NOPAs, the IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $28.9 billion plus penalties and interest.

    As of September 30, 2023, we believe our allowances for income tax contingencies are adequate. We disagree with the proposed adjustments and will vigorously contest the NOPAs through the IRS’s administrative appeals office and, if necessary, judicial proceedings. We do not expect a final resolution of these issues in the next 12 months. Based on the information currently available, we do not anticipate a significant increase or decrease to our tax contingencies for these issues within the next 12 months.

    If the US tax service, now staffed with tens of thousands of newly weaponized (literally ) tax collectors is starting to go after the the Magnificent 7’s massive cash hoards to plug the staggering, war-like debt-funded US deficit, Microsoft may be the first but it certainly won’t be the last to get such a ransom demand from the IRS.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 17:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Oct 11

Today’s News 11th October 2023

  • How Widespread Are Depression, Stress, & Anxiety?
    How Widespread Are Depression, Stress, & Anxiety?

    Yesterday, October 10th, was World Mental Health Day and this year its theme was Mental Health is a Universal Human Right.

    As Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia, explains, this means:

    “Every individual, regardless of their location, occupation, or identity, is entitled to achieve the highest attainable level of mental well-being. This encompasses the entitlement to safeguard oneself from mental health risks, access to mental health care that is readily available, easily accessed, and of high quality, as well as the entitlement to freedom and involvement within their community.”

    While awareness around the topic of mental health has improved significantly in recent years, Statista’s Anna Fleck reports that the WHO states that there is still some way to go in terms of societal attitudes and governmental policies.

    This includes recognizing that mental health overlaps with multiple aspects of life, including education, employment, housing, and social participation and that more work needs to be done to continue to destigmatize mental health issues as well as to further improve access to mental health services and facilities for all.

    The following chart looks at how widespread mental health issues are around the world.

    According to a survey by Statista Consumer Insights, nearly half of the respondents interviewed in Sweden reported having experienced mental health problems such as depression, stress or anxiety in the twelve months prior to the poll.

    Infographic: How Widespread are Depression, Stress and Anxiety? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The share was comparatively lower in countries such as Mexico, India, France and China.

    However, with this data alone it is hard to tell to what extent these figures are reflective of the mental health prevalence in various countries or the degree to which there is social acceptance and discourse around the topic. 

    According to the UN, millions of people worldwide are suffering due to mental health issues and it is estimated that one in four will experience a mental health problem in their lifetime.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 02:45

  • Either Shore-Up Reserve Forces Or Bring Back Conscription, Romanian General Says
    Either Shore-Up Reserve Forces Or Bring Back Conscription, Romanian General Says

    Via Remix News,

    Romania must either rebuild its reserve forces or reintroduce conscription, retired Romanian and NATO General Virgil Bălăceanu has said.

    Bălăceanu, former head of the Multinational Brigade South-East, said on Monday that a law that is absolutely necessary for the replenishment of the Romanian Army reserve has been circulating in the inter-institutional procedure for more than three years.

    The retired army general told Prima News that there is no peacetime army that does not have a reserve and gave the example of Ukraine, which, he said, “would not have survived if it did not have a reserve, which means replenishing the units.”

    According to him, the successful direction is to replenish the reserves, initially through recruitment on a voluntary basis.

    “There is also a need to train the operational reserves, those who completed their military service until 2007. All these issues are included as amendments to the law on preparing the population for defense,” said Bălăceanu.

    “If we do not rebuild the Romanian Army’s reserve on the principles of voluntary service, then we will have to reintroduce compulsory military service, and such a decision cannot be postponed for the next five years,” he warned.

    “Do you think that we will have any political party that in its electoral program will raise the issue of reintroducing compulsory military service? I rule out such a possibility because it would be a disaster in the elections,” Virgil Bălăceanu pointed out.

    He noted, however, that “the parties that win the elections will be obliged, if the Romanian Army does not have its reserves replenished, to decide to reintroduce compulsory military service,” pointing out that Romania currently only has 2,000 voluntary reservists compared to Poland’s 38,000.

    “At present, they are trying to recruit all the young people who have been selected as voluntary reservists,” he said of Warsaw.

    Romania abolished conscription in 2007, but only eight years later, parliament began debating to bring it back. That was tabled due to insufficient political support, but in May the government decided to revisit the issue.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 02:00

  • Neural Reality – The Ultimate VR – Could Answer The Fermi Paradox
    Neural Reality – The Ultimate VR – Could Answer The Fermi Paradox

    Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClear Wire,

    Scientific skepticism is Dr. Steven Novella’s bread and butter. As president of the New England Skeptics’ Society, his mission is to promote science and critical thinking. Novella casts the light of evidence on a range of complicated topics on his blog and his podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe.

    In his latest book, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future, Novella, also a Yale neurologist, looks ahead with a critical eye, attempting to realistically forecast the future rather than falling for the hype that commonly accompanies futurism. Among the panoply of topics he touches upon is the notion of neural reality, which would be the ultimate expression of virtual reality.

    “With neural reality, you don’t have to strap on glasses or deal with issues of safety or a disconnect between the physical and virtual worlds,” he wrote. “Neural reality [uses] a brain-machine interface to directly feed the virtual world into your mind.”

    There would be no clunky headset nor handheld controllers.

    It “completely replaces your sensory input and motor output with a virtual world, while you, for example, lie safely in bed,” he described.

    Neural reality sounds too futuristic to be possible. But Novella, an expert neurologist, says it’s certainly coming.

    “There is no reason to think that this technology is not possible; it is only a question of how long it will take and how good the technology will be.”

    One could imagine this tech being used compassionately at first. People suffering “locked in” syndrome might be the first to use it, followed by quadriplegics. Then it might be the old and infirm who live out their final days in fantastical worlds inside their minds. Eventually, however, neural reality could turn dystopian, or utopian, depending upon how you want to look at it.

    “There’s no question it will be seductive to live in a virtual world where you can have literal godlike power,” Novella commented.

    Eventually, almost everyone might decide to “take the blue pill” and choose to live in neural reality.

    As Novella notes, this may be the answer to the Fermi paradox, which calls attention to the lack of evidence for intelligent alien life despite how common it should be in our Universe. Maybe aliens are safely ensconced underground, being cared for by robots, whilst contentedly dwelling within their own minds.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 23:40

  • Commonly-Prescribed Antibiotic May Help With Explosion Of Sexually Transmitted Infections: CDC
    Commonly-Prescribed Antibiotic May Help With Explosion Of Sexually Transmitted Infections: CDC

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

    Health care providers should consider prescribing the antibiotic doxycycline as a way to prevent some sexually transmitted infections (STIs), according to a draft recommendation that was posted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week.

    “The purpose of the proposed guidelines is to provide updated clinical guidance for healthcare providers to inform the use of doxycycline PEP for preventing bacterial STI infections,” the health agency’s document reads, referring primarily to bacterial infections such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis.

    A worker at the Dexxon pharmacutical plant holds up a package of their Doxylin antibiotics drug in the Israeli town of Or Akiva on Nov. 8, 2001. Doxylin is the trade name for Doxycycline Hydrochloride, one of the three antibiotics effective in combating anthrax infections. (David Silverman/Getty Images)

    The antibiotic “should be implemented in the context of a comprehensive sexual health approach including risk reduction counseling, STI screening and treatment, recommended vaccination, and linkage to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), HIV care, or other services, as appropriate,” according to the draft.

    “Current data suggest overall benefit of the use of doxycycline PEP, but potential risks related to the development of resistance and impacts on the microbiome will need to be closely monitored after implementation of these guidelines,” the CDC stated.

    Doxycycline, which was first developed by Pfizer decades ago and is within the tetracycline spectrum of antibiotics, has been used as a prophylactic against several infectious diseases, including Lyme disease and malaria. It can be used as a first-line treatment for chlamydia and is sometimes used to treat syphilis.

    The public has about 45 days to comment on the proposed rule via the Federal Register’s website.

    Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a CDC official who heads the agency’s division on STIs, told CNN that the health agency would seek public comment because it allows researchers and policymakers “to gather important input before finalizing guidance and gives clinical providers, people affected by STIs, and partner organizations the opportunity to weigh in before … guidance is finalized.”

    “It’s going to take game-changing innovations for us to turn the STI epidemic around. And Doxy-PEP is the first major new prevention intervention we have for STIs in decades,” Dr. Mermin told CBS News last week, noting that his agency will have to also monitor for

    There are gaps in the “long-term monitoring, evaluation, and additional studies” regarding the use of doxycycline, according to the CDC official.

    “There are important questions that remain regarding potential risks,” he said.

    Although health officials say the drug is generally tolerated well, doxycycline can have a range of side effects, including diarrhea or vomiting, rash or itching, changes to the appearance of nails, irritation of the esophagus, loss of taste, and tinnitus. Notably, it can darken the color of one’s skin, teeth, gums, or scars, according to health officials.

    Some have reported that lying down after taking the antibiotic can cause the medication to reflux back into the esophagus, causing irritation or even ulcers.

    STIs Skyrocketing

    STIs have been on the rise across the United States in recent years, according to the CDC. More than 2.5 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis were reported in all of 2021, the CDC stated, noting that syphilis rates increased by 32 percent, chlamydia by 4 percent, and gonorrhea by more than 4 percent from 2020 to 2021.

    The CDC’s report states that communities such as “gay and bisexual men and younger people” have been “hit especially hard” by STIs in recent years.

    Months ago, San Francisco’s health department started promoting doxycycline as a prevention measure, according to a report from the Associated Press.

    “We didn’t feel like we could wait,” said Dr. Stephanie Cohen, who oversees the local agency’s STI prevention work.

    Some other city, county, and state health departments, mostly on the West Coast, have since followed suit.

    Earlier this year, local health authorities in Houston issued a warning that syphilis infections are on the rise. The recent increase was attributed to pregnant women, who can pass the bacteria to their unborn babies, the Houston Health Department said in a June statement.

    “It is crucial for pregnant women to seek prenatal care and syphilis testing to protect themselves from an infection that could result in the deaths of their babies,” Marlene McNeese Ward, an assistant director with the Houston health agency, said in the statement at the time. “A pregnant woman needs to get tested for syphilis three times during her pregnancy.”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 23:20

  • Mexico Threatens Diplomatic Action As Texas Border Security Delays 19,000 Trucks
    Mexico Threatens Diplomatic Action As Texas Border Security Delays 19,000 Trucks

    Authored by Rashi Varshney via The Epoch Times,

    Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has announced that he will send a diplomatic note to the U.S. regarding Texas’s border cargo inspections that are causing significant delays to U.S.-bound traffic.

    Mr. Obrador said that 19,000 trucks carrying goods worth $1.9 billion have been impacted by the increased security.

    He criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision, denouncing it as both irresponsible and “politically motivated,” accusing Mr. Abbott of exploiting the illegal immigration crisis for political gain.

    The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) initiated “enhanced commercial vehicle safety inspections” on Sept. 19 in the vicinity of El Paso and Del Rio to combat illegal activities including drug and human smuggling, and to identify unsafe vehicles.

    In September, Mr. Abbott declared an “invasion” at the southern U.S. border, attributing the surge in illegal immigration to President Joe Biden’s policies. He had announced the deployment of the National Guard, DPS, and local law enforcement to address the crisis.

    Mr. Abbott shared his declaration on X, formerly Twitter, on Sept. 20, emphasising the state’s efforts to secure the border and the safety of Texan residents, by completing the border wall, and installing razor wire and marine barriers.

    Mexico’s Freight Transport Chamber Protests

    Mexico’s national freight transport chamber, the National Chamber of Cargo Transportation (CANACAR), said on Sunday that it joins the concerns of different sectors in Mexico’s north regarding the crisis that continues on the border between Mexico and Texas due to the unilateral decision of Texas to impose inspections on Mexican trucks seeking to cross into the state.

    “It has been 21 days since Governor Greg Abbott’s administration made the decision to stop the flow of units traveling over the three bridges that divide the Ciudad Juárez region with El Paso, Texas,” the group said in a statement.

    It added that in this period, CANACAR has a record backlog of at least 19,000 trucks that have not been able to cross the border, with $1.9 billion in merchandise being stranded at the border. This has already generated a serious impact on trade between Mexico and the United States, the complaint said.

    Trucks wait in a long queue to cross into the United States after the Texas Department of Public Safety announced increased security checks at the international ports of entry into Texas, at the Zaragoza-Ysleta border crossing bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on April 9, 2022. (REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez)

    The CANACAR in its statement urged the Texas government to revoke its measure, which it said hampers the region’s development and jeopardizes tens of thousands of jobs in both Mexico and the United States.

    The Mexico’s freight transport chamber also dubbed the measure by Texas as “absurd” and said that the presence of elements of the Texas Department of Security at border crossings and the implementation of review operations has caused lane closures, and increased crossing times by up to 24 hours.

    According to figures from the Ministry of Economy, Mexico is the largest buyer of Texas exports. In 2021, the value of trade in goods with Mexico amounted to $231 billion, with 400,000 jobs relying on these exchanges.

    Border Crisis

    There has been an ongoing crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border related to unvetted immigration, which has surged to 2,860,127 unvetted immigrated entering the United States in FY2023, as per the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). These figures significantly surpass the 2020 figure of 646,822 and even the previous high of 2,766,582 seen in 2022.

    The Biden administration has faced criticism from Mr. Abbott for failing to secure Texas’s border.

    “President Biden’s reckless open border policies have created an ongoing crisis at our southern border as record levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs, and weapons pour into Texas,” his office has said.

    In response to the unsustainable crisis, for which Texas has long born the brunt, in 2021, Mr. Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, deploying the Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety to the southern border.

    “Operation Lone Star personnel work around-the-clock to detect and repel illegal crossings, arrest human smugglers and cartel gang members, and stop the flow of deadly drugs and weapons into our nation. While the federal government ignores this crisis, Texas is holding the line,” its website says.

    However, most recently, in a notable policy shift, the Biden administration declared on Oct. 5 the urgent need to expedite the construction of the U.S.–Mexico border wall in Starr County, Texas, citing to the significant rise in illegal immigration.

    Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the waiving of 26 federal regulations to fast-track the construction of roads and barriers along the southern border in Texas.

    These new barriers will be erected within the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, specifically in areas marked as “high illegal entry” zones. Construction will take place near Falcon Dam, the Arroyo Morteros Tract, Las Ruinas Tract, Arroyo Ramirez Tract, key intersections like Perez Road and U.S. Highway 83, and multiple tracts within the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

    Mr. Abbott had criticized the Biden administration’s failure to adopt such border policies sooner, but instead having rolled back Trump-era policies and measures like the border wall construction, which the governor said has led to unprecedented illegal immigration numbers.

    In the beginning of 2021, the Biden administration ceased the ongoing border wall construction initiated by former President Donald Trump.

    On Oct. 4, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said from a Mexico visit that the United States and Mexico share a “mutual responsibility” regarding the current crises of fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration that must be tackled through cooperation between the two countries.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 23:00

  • Lindsey Graham Says "Only Way" To Keep Hamas-Israel From Escalating Is To Attack Iran's Oil
    Lindsey Graham Says “Only Way” To Keep Hamas-Israel From Escalating Is To Attack Iran’s Oil

    Republican Senator Lindsey Graham apparently isn’t worried about the price of oil.

    The hawkish Senator took to Fox News earlier this week, amidst the Hamas attacks on Israel, and immediately called for the U.S. to strike Iran and, specifically, the country’s oil refineries. Graham said on the air that Iran “planned” the attack on Israel. 

    “Well, for every Israeli or American hostage executed by Hamas, we should take down an Iranian oil refinery. The only way you’re going to keep this war from escalating is to hold Iran accountable,” Graham said on Fox News. 

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

    He continued: “How much more death and destruction do we have to take from the Iranian regime? I am confident this was planned and funded by the Iranians. Hamas is a bunch of animals who deserve to be treated like animals. So if I was Israel, I would go in on the ground. There is no truce to be had here. I would dismantle Hamas. This is the best opportunity Israel has to destroy Hamas. Take it to the Iranians.”

    He concluded: “If you harm one American in Syria by using your Iranian militia against us in Syria, if you escalate the war by urging Hezbollah to attack Israel in the north, if Hamas kills one American Israeli hostage, we’re going to blow up your oil refineries and put you out of business. It is now time to take the war to the Ayatollah’s backyard.”

    Graham also later said that the U.S. could “reset the world” by saying to Iran “if you escalate any more attacks coming from Iran, we’re coming after you,” according to Newsweek. 

    “If there is an escalation in this conflict, if hostages start getting killed, if Hezbollah in the north attacks Israel in strength, we should tell the Ayatollah we will destroy your oil refineries and your oil infrastructure,” he reiterated in a subsequent interview on Monday, according to The Hill. “We will put you out of business. Without money coming from Iran and weapons coming from the Iranians, Hamas will be nothing. Hezbollah will be nothing.”

    On The Hill’s NewsNation on Monday, he added: “This is an Israeli ‘9/11,’ it couldn’t have happened without a lot of money and technology and weapons. So it’s time to hold them accountable. The escalation of the conflict should result in a joint attack on the Iranian oil infrastructure to put them out of business.”

    “They [Iran] are religious Nazis. Listen to the language coming from the Ayatollah and his henchmen. They want to purify Islam in their own image. Saudi Arabia is at risk here. They want to destroy the Jewish state. They want to kill all of the Jews and come after us.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 22:40

  • 2023 Is US' Lowest Wildfire Year Since 2000
    2023 Is US’ Lowest Wildfire Year Since 2000

    Via Cliff Mass Weather blog,

    Being well into October and with a train of very wet weather systems approaching, we can be confident that most wildfire activity is over this year over the Northwest U.S.   There are no active fires over Washington State today.

    The good news is that this was a very benign wildfire year for the entire U.S..

    In fact, the lowest wildfire acreage since 2000 (see below).  You will note little evidence of a long-term trend.

    Here in Washington State, the Department of Natural Resources is responsible for a large proportion of the burnable area of the State.  2023 is running way below the average for acreage burned (red line is average).  Again, no obvious upward trend.

    What about the biggest fire state of the western U.S.: California?  This year was the second lowest in ten years!  And last year was equally low.

    And what about monthly particulate/smoke levels for the past five years?  According to Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, things are getting better!  Note the outlier during September 2020.

    Do these numbers surprise you?   They are reality.  But if you follow the media and some activist groups, the wildfire threat is getting worse very quickly, with global warming being the major cause! 

    Of course, there is no group that exaggerates wildfire threats more than the Seattle Times and their cartoonist, David Horsey (see below).   I do wonder why his wildfire monster wears sunglasses.

    You should not be surprised that the wildfire threat has stayed tame over the last few years and probably won’t accelerate during the years ahead.

    Let me give you several reasons:

    1.  Global warming for all the hype and exaggeration is quite modest at this point….the western U.S. has warmed up by roughly 2F over the past half century with very little change in precipitation.  Not enough to profoundly alter the fire situation.

    2.  The areas that have burned during the past decades will enjoy suppressed fire potential for a while.

    3.  Many of the wildfires in the western U.S.  during the past decade were caused by failing electrical infrastructure.  After severe impacts on their bottom lines, many power companies (like PG&E) are hardening their powerlines and turning off power when strong winds are predicted.

    4.  After much delay or insufficient efforts,  states are getting more serious about restoring forests, using approaches such as thinning and prescribed burning.  This reduces the potential for catastrophic fire.

    5.  Fire management policy changes allowed more fires to burn in previous decades and contributed to more fires and smoke.

    The bottom line is that all the scary talk about rapidly rising wildfire threats in our future is really not based on solid facts, and reality is going a different way. 

    How many other scary and unfounded predictions have gone viral in the public space?  That communists were taking over the universities and government in the 1950s?  That Vietnam was a domino requiring intervention?  That weapons of mass destruction were hidden in Iraq?    We seem to love believing in apocalyptic predictions, whether or not factual information supports them?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 22:20

  • Stop Feeding The Polarization Beast
    Stop Feeding The Polarization Beast

    Authored by Alison Dagnes via RealClear Wire,

    A new academic year has begun, as is evident from the smell of Xeroxed paper in the hallways and the excitement of college freshmen who are new to our classrooms. These first weeks are glorious: students are cheerful and optimistic, believing that this will be the year of straight A’s and good times. The professors are generally happy, too, having spent at least part of the summer away from campus, believing that this is the year where there will be no plagiarism, only enthusiastic class participation and completed reading assignments.

    These first few weeks are always so hopeful and expectant. Then the first exams hit, and spirits are murdered en masse, like a “Law and Order” marathon but with fewer attorneys.

    That’s the way it normally is, anyway – but as we’re often told, these are unprecedented times. This fall of 2023, the spirit-killing happened way too quickly in my American Politics classrooms, something I noted when a first-year student took my proffered syllabus, met my smile with a grimace, and asked: “Do we, like, have to talk about politics in this class?”

    My student is not alone in her political distaste, as evidenced by recent polling data from Pew that reports a majority of Americans are “exhausted” when thinking about politics. Even worse, the Pew data show that the percentage of Americans who are excited by politics is a microscopic 4%. That’s lower than the percentage of Americans who hate ice cream (7%)! On the plus side, it’s higher than the percentage of people who don’t like dogs (2%). In any case, the number is depressing to consider for those of us who are unrelenting cheerleaders for democracy.

    The bottom lines are these: Elections are important. Elections have consequences. The American experiment of a democratic republic is teetering now, and it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation where everyone needs to chip in, or the whole thing is going to fall apart. Unfortunately, these bottom lines are increasingly difficult to sell to the general public, which can avoid bad information with a thumb swipe.

    The theory known as “news avoidance” describes a segment of the public who, after being deluged with so much content and information, unplugs from the news. Reuters conducts an annual survey of global news trends and has found that the percentage of American news avoiders is growing. Its 2023 report stated that the percentage of Americans who are “passive consumers,” or avoiders of the news, has grown to 51%.

    Let’s unpack that number, because being a “passive consumer” is about the same as total abstention.

    Thanks to technology, even those who want to dodge the news will still get bits of information from story fragments that seep into their feeds. These servings can come from reliably sourced journalism, or spicy stories that may or may not be true, or scary misinformation from well-meaning friends, or shady disinformation that originates from truly bad-intentioned actors. Regardless of the information quality, everyone who receives these news bits is getting them without context or perspective.

    This is where our hyper-polarized, deeply personal, and furious political system becomes repugnant for my students and, apparently, for the majority of Americans who used the words “divisive” and “corrupt” to describe U.S. politics. The political stories most people hear are actually slivers of information that pierce their news avoidance because they are the loudest and most sensational bits.

    Our current political media system feeds this beast. When politics moves from policy debates to a fight about individuals, the discourse becomes a cheapened binary. Nuance takes time, but sledgehammer invectives are much easier – and much more effective as clickbait.

    This is not just about Biden and Trump; seemingly every election in 2024 will be a negative referendum on a single person. Will you vote against Doug Mastriano if he runs? Will you vote George Santos out of office? Will you send Joe Biden and his “crime family” packing? Our elections have become one-dimensional unpopularity contests.

    No wonder only 4% of those polled are excited about the elections. Only the most engrossed and outraged citizens dig into these fights, and politicians cater to this subset of seething voters instead of the broader public. This is where, as The Bulwark’s Tim Miller writes, politics becomes fan service, where politicians just play the hits. Our political climate right now is toxic, so the greatest hits are chock full of emotion. In an effort to break through the noise, these politicians continue to amplify their well-worn messages of negative partisanship, panic, and ire. And that’s what’s seen and heard by all those Americans who are already trying to avoid the news because it’s so angry and contentious.  

    So, that’s not good.

    The answer, however, is fairly straightforward. We all have to refuse the (click) bait that’s offered to us and read news to become informed, rather than enraged. Instead of letting bits and bites of politics and news seep into our brains when we’re not looking, maybe a sober news review will help us assess the real problems we face.

    In short, we must resist the temptation for fire and fury and opt instead for equilibrium. We need to change the words we use to describe politics – and the only way to do that is to dismiss the pull of negative emotions.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 22:00

  • These Are America's Richest Men & Women In 2023
    These Are America’s Richest Men & Women In 2023

    Elon Musk has topped the Forbes 400 2023 list of the richest people in America, which was published on Tuesday.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, the 52-year-old Tesla and SpaceX cofounder was reported to have a net worth amounting to $251 billion, as of September 8.

    Musk has some $90 billion more than the second richest person in the United States, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (59), who owns $161 billion. Rounding off the top five are software giant Oracle founder Larry Ellison (79) with $158 billion, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett (93) with $121 billion and Google’s Larry Page (50) with $114 billion.

    While a gender divide still exists among the U.S.’ wealthiest, with the first of the country’s richest women coming in 14th place on the list, females are still making extremely high figures.

    Walmart’s Alice Walton (73) tops the women’s roundup, with a net worth of $66.5 billion in 2023. She is followed by Julia Koch (61) of Koch Industries with $59.8 billion, who alongside her three children inherited a 42 percent stake from her late husband, David. Jacqueline Mars (83), who owns an estimated one-third of the candy, food and pet care firm Mars, then ranks third place for richest women and 19th place for richest Americans with $38.9 billion.

    Infographic: America's Richest Men and Women in 2023 | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to Forbes, the top 400 wealthiest people in the U.S. are worth a combined $4.5 trillion.

    Of these, the top 20 are worth roughly $1.9 trillion altogether. Analysts highlight that these 20 are 30 percent richer than they were one year ago.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 21:40

  • Brutal: RFK Jr's Own Siblings "Denounce" Him And Endorse Biden
    Brutal: RFK Jr’s Own Siblings “Denounce” Him And Endorse Biden

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    As he announced that he will be running for President as an independent candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s own siblings have thrown him under the bus and endorsed Joe Biden, labelling their brother as “dangerous” to America.

    Within view of where the first and only independent candidate to win the American presidency helped establish the new country’s government, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood in front of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Oct. 9 and told supporters he believes he will take a similar path to the White House.

     “Today, we are turning a new page in American politics,” Mr. Kennedy said after making the expected announcement that he will run for president as an independent in the 2024 election and depart the Democratic Party’s primary.

    “There have been independent candidates before. But this time is different. This time, the independent is going to win,” Mr. Kennedy said.

    “Three-fourths of Americans believe President Biden is too old to govern effectively. President Trump faces multiple civil and criminal trials. Both have favorability ratings deep in negative territory,” he said.

    “That is what two-party politics has given us, and that is why we need to pry loose the hammerlock of corrupt power over Washington D.C. and make this nation ours again.”

    But his siblings were furious, as he suspected they would be:

    “It is painful for me to let go of the party of my uncles, my father, of my grandfather, and of both of my great-grandfathers—John ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald, Boston’s first Irish Catholic mayor, and Patrick Kennedy, a Boston ward boss—who, together, launched my family’s political dynasty more than a century ago,” Mr. Kennedy explained.

    “But my sacrifice is nothing compared to the risk our founding fathers took when they signed the Declaration of Independence 247 years ago right over there,” Mr. Kennedy continued, pointing to Independence Hall.

    “What really terrifies the elites, though, is not me. It is what I represent—a populist movement that defies the left-right division,” Mr. Kennedy continued, and his siblings were quick to respond.

    In a statement posted on Twitter/X, Kerry Kennedy, Rory Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy II, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend claims that while their brother has the Kennedy name, he does not share the Kennedy “values, vision, or judgement.”

    They further announced that RFK Jr’s announcement is “deeply saddening” for them and that they all “denounce his candidacy.”

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    Brutal.

    There is somewhat expansive irony in the Kennedy siblings waxing about ‘values and judgement’ while endorsing Joe Biden, as social media made clear…

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    Related:

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 21:20

  • Long COVID Might Be Diagnosed With Nearly 100 Percent Accuracy: Study
    Long COVID Might Be Diagnosed With Nearly 100 Percent Accuracy: Study

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A simple blood test may finally provide answers for the millions struggling with long-COVID symptoms.

    (Smit/Shutterstock)

    New research published in Nature reveals distinct biomarkers in patients with the complex condition, allowing a machine learning algorithm to diagnose it correctly nearly every time.

    “This is the first paper of many findings where we’re seeing clear abnormalities between a healthy control population and folks with long COVID,” the study’s principal investigator, David Putrino, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience and is a professor of rehabilitation and human performance at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, told The Epoch Times.

    How Does AI Spot Long COVID in Blood Samples?

    The findings offer hope of objective confirmation to long-COVID sufferers, who represent about 6 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many have faced doubts that their persistent fatigue, brain fog, and pain after COVID-19 infection are real.

    Mr. Putrino and his team analyzed around 270 patients from three locations—The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Union Square, and Yale School of Medicine—between January 2021 and June 2022.

    They divided participants into three groups: those with no prior COVID infection, those who fully recovered, and those with long-COVID symptoms for at least four months after infection.

    Researchers had all patients complete questionnaires about symptoms, medical history, and health-related quality of life and give blood samples to identify biomarker differences.

    A machine learning algorithm was applied to determine which biomarkers best identified long COVID. The questionnaire data were then fed to the program.

    The algorithm differentiated between those with and without long COVID with 96 percent accuracy, detecting unique features in long-COVID patients’ blood. The biggest differences involved abnormal immune cell activity, reactivated dormant herpes viruses like Epstein-Barr, and reduced cortisol levels.

    The findings show promise for objectively identifying the “constellation of immune cells” diagnostic for long COVID, Dr. Thomas Gut, director of the Post-COVID Recovery Center at Northwell Staten Island University Hospital in New York, told The Epoch Times. “Serological markers could be a huge step toward confirming long COVID versus other complications,” he added.

    The data also raise questions about COVID’s role in awakening other viruses, Dr. Gut noted. “This data does suggest that there be a link between these viruses.”

    Is It Long COVID or Something Else?

    A recent analysis in the British Medical Journal by researchers from the UK, Denmark, and the United States found significant flaws in long-COVID scientific literature. Previous studies may have overestimated prevalence due to broad definitions and lack of control groups, potentially feeding public anxiety and misdiagnosis.

    “There is a need for better case definitions and more stringent [long-COVID] criteria,” the authors wrote.

    Mr. Putrino’s findings offer clinicians guidance for confirming long COVID.

    Rather than a general battery with normal results, doctors will be able to target specific symptoms, according to Mr. Putrino. “We can look at hormonal health. We can run a detailed hormone battery. We can run a detailed immune battery. And we can look for evidence of co-infection,” he said, noting that the study also enables doctors to find the exact problem and treat it with medications.

    It’s Not in Your Head: Long COVID Is a Real Disease

    This new research could offer a way to distinguish long COVID from psychological distress caused by COVID-19 itself. Mr. Putrino emphasized the key takeaway is that long COVID is not a functional disorder without physical signs.

    “We’re not looking at a psychosomatic condition,” he said. “We’re seeing very, very clear evidence that this is an infection-associated complex chronic illness, and this study proves it.”

    A study published in February in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research finds “substantial” evidence suggesting a role for psychological mechanisms in long COVID. The researchers pointed out that it’s well-established that psychological distress isn’t only a symptom but also a risk factor of long COVID, noting that higher levels of personal resilience were associated with lower severity of the condition.

    What Comes Next?

    The eventual design of a blood test for diagnosing long COVID will most likely necessitate the use of machine learning software and further research, Mr. Putrino said.

    The test wouldn’t offer a straightforward yes or no answer due to the diverse symptoms experienced by different patients, he noted. Instead, the test would involve analyzing various factors and symptoms, creating a nuanced approach to accurately identify long-COVID cases based on the amalgamation of these findings.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 20:40

  • "Your Position Is Clear" – Musk Slams Terrorist-Supporting BLM Posts
    “Your Position Is Clear” – Musk Slams Terrorist-Supporting BLM Posts

    This is going to get awkward for a lot of virtue-signalers…

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    At least two Black Lives Matters (BLM) groups have made statements on X, formerly known as Twitter, supporting Hamas – the terrorist group responsible for the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis (including women and babies).

    The first BLM group (@blmgrassroots) issued a lengthy statement proclaiming, among other things, that “when a people has been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned but understood as a desperate act of self-defense.” The statement did not include any criticism of Hamas or its tactics.

    We used a screenshot of the tweet since we suspect this will be deleted very quickly.

    This should not be a surprise since Melina Abdullah, the co-director of the group, has been accused of antisemitism, according to InfluenceWatch. But, if you thought that was a little distasteful, here is what BLM’s Chicago affiliate tweeted.

    Again, we used a screenshot of the tweet since we suspect this will be deleted very quickly.

    It doesn’t get much clearer than that – BLM ‘standing with’ paragliding terrorists who killed hundreds of innocent Israeli concertgoers (as the community note makes it clear) .

    Ultimately, Elon Musk – who has repeatedly been accused of anti-semitism by the Anti-Defamation League, which in turn has frequently supported BLM in the past – made it very clear how he feels about their comment…

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    Still don’t see it – maybe this tweet will help clarify things…

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    Presumably the following companies will be demanding their money back, all $99 billion of it, and will promptly cease any and all donations to BLM-affliliated groups and issue a statement of regret for their prior support…

    • Bank of America: $18.5 million
    • BlackRock: $810 million.
    • Adidas: $120 million.
    • Amazon: $169.5 million.
    • American Express: $50 million.
    • Apple: $100 million.
    • IBM: $252 million.
    • Kellogg: $91 million.
    • Microsoft: $244.6 million.
    • PGA Tour: $100 million.
    • Warner Bros. Discovery: $115 million.
    • etc…

    Source

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    Also, Jonathan Greenblatt and the Anti-Defamation League have been awkwardly quiet in their rebuke of BLM…

    However, that may leave Mr.Greenblatt with a problem, given that Israel Hayom reported last year that a Fox News investigation found that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s educational and “anti-bias” programs, which influence millions of American children, educators and officials, promote far-left and critical race theory (CRT) concepts including “white privilege” and “systemic racism,” and promote groups such as the Women’s March and BLM – despite those organizations or their leaders’ virulent Jew-hating, Israel-hating and pro-Farrakhan positions. 

    This problem a longstanding. 

    Six years ago, ZOA documented that multiple ADL educational lesson plans: encouraged students to join BLM protests in Ferguson (the same protests that demanded ending Israel’s existence, calling Israel an apartheid genocidal state); promoted BLM while ignoring the BLM/M4BL organizations’ antisemitism and antisemitic platform; and repeated numerous BLM false claims.

    The list of critiques of ADL includes:

    • ADL sought to defund and remove the tax exemptions from three pro-Israel organizations (including prominent Christian Zionist group PTNJ).

    • ADL hired an outreach director who justified anti-Israel terrorism; said Jews need to “repent for Gaza’s dead”; and, after Black extremists murdered innocent Jews in Jersey City, blamed Black antisemitism on “Jewish landlords, and pawnbrokers and small merchants” and on “systemic racism” against Blacks.

    • ADL’s Black History Month celebration featured an Israel-hating BDS activist.

    • After Ilhan Omar tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”, and gave an insulting “non-apology,” claiming she reacted to Israeli “oppression,” Greenblatt praised Ilhan Omar, saying: “Hats off to Rep Omar for her honest apology & commitment to a more just world.”

    • ADL opposed Israel’s anti-BDS law banning BDS activists from entering Israel, which was upheld by Israel’s courts.  Furthermore, in 2018, ADL said that Israel should allow antisemitic boycott activist, SJP-BDS hate group president and terrorism supporter Lara Alqasem to enter Israel.

    • In September 2020, ADL co-signed a full-page New York Times advertisement promoting the antisemitic Israel-bashing BLM.  ADL signed just four months after BLM burned, defaced and looted Los Angeles Jewish synagogues, schools and businesses; and despite BLM/M4BL falsely accusing Israel of genocide, ethnic cleansing, training US police to murder Blacks, etc.

    We look forward to Greenblatt’s appearance on CNBC to clear up any confusion.

    Maybe Matt Walsh was on to something…

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    Bonus BLM Tweet (from the UK)…

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    And while we are at it, anyone remember this?

    Presumably, Google and its ad-services will have already contacted all BLM-affiliated groups and banned them for ‘policy violations’ (which we assume includes, supporting baby-killing terrorists?)

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    And now we wait for this epic SNAFU by the deep state’s favorite on-demand riot organization (whose activity tends to peak 3-6 months prior to presidential elections) to force the FBI to conclude that BLM is yet another white-supremacist terrorist organization…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 20:20

  • Americans Searching "Will I Get Drafted To War" Hits Highest Level Since Iraq 2007 Surge Amid WW3 Threat
    Americans Searching “Will I Get Drafted To War” Hits Highest Level Since Iraq 2007 Surge Amid WW3 Threat

    Geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner has warned that the world is teetering on the edge of a war cycle that could last many years. Nenner may be correct: The Ukraine war has been ongoing for 1.7 years, and just days ago, Hamas invaded Israel, sparking yet another dangerous geopolitical powder keg exploding right before our very eyes. 

    On Saturday, former President Trump told the crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that the US is “closer to World War III than we’ve ever been.” 

    “I’m telling you, we are closer to World War III,” Trump said, warning that another conflict could use “weaponry the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

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    On Tuesday, Israeli officials said the country’s death toll exceeded 1,000 from the ‘surprise attacks’ by Hamas that began on Saturday. In Gaza and the West Bank, authorities report 850 people have been killed in fighting there. 

    “It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield, it’s a massacre,” IDF Major General Itai Veruv was quoted as saying. “You see the babies, their mothers and their fathers, in their bedrooms, and in their protected rooms, and how the terrorists killed them — it’s not a war.”

    “It’s something that I never saw in my life,” Veruv said. “We used to imagine our grandmothers and grandfathers during the pogroms in Europe. It’s not something that we have seen in recent history.”

    While the horrific scenes of the Hamas attack have gone viral on X for the world to see, some Americans are panic-searching if they will be drafted as the conflict in the Middle East and Eastern Europe could spiral out of control. 

    Google search data shows that “Will I get drafted to war?” has jumped above the Feb. 2022 high when Russia invaded Ukraine and hit the highest level since former President George Bush announced the troop surge in Iraq in early 2007. 

    “How old do you have to be to get drafted to war?” is another search phrase on the rise. 

    Let’s hope America’s military is combat-ready. 

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    Maybe Charles Nenner is correct: “This war cycle is going to be bad, and I’ll tell you why.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 20:00

  • Waste Of The Day: Nevada Sitting On $91 Million Meant To Help Homeowners
    Waste Of The Day: Nevada Sitting On $91 Million Meant To Help Homeowners

    Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via RealClear Wire,

    While homeowners in Nevada receive foreclosure notices and risk losing their homes, the state has only used a small portion of the $120 million the U.S. Treasury Department allocated to help people avoid foreclosure.

    Nevada Affordable Housing Assistance Corporation, a small nonprofit, gets the federal funds and is supposed to pay banks directly to bring mortgages current, ProPublica reported.

    But its slow pace at enrolling people in need and paying those delinquent mortgages ranks Nevada 43rd among the states for getting money to homeowners.

    At the end of the first quarter, Treasury reported that the nonprofit had distributed $17 million — less than 14% of the funds — and as of Aug. 15, according to NAHAC’s data, Nevada had distributed an additional $12 million.

    A federal audit found that previous leadership at Nevada Affordable Housing Assistance Corporation “had squandered federal aid to homeowners caught up in the 2008 foreclosure crisis,” ProPublica reported. It’s unclear, other than new leadership, why the same organization would be entrusted to run a $120 million program.

    The program continues to have issues, including making timely payments to banks, while homeowners continue to receive foreclosure notices on loans they thought were being paid.

    One woman who got a few partial mortgage payments from the program, Shirley Geraci, said when she told the nonprofit that she was getting foreclosure notices, the organization was unable to tell her how much it had paid her bank and why the payment hadn’t been applied to her account, and it wouldn’t provide anything in writing.

    Geraci and her daughter were unsure whether they’d even try to continue getting more aid.

    The states are “flying by the seat of their pants” to run the program and “people are suffering,” she said.

     The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 19:40

  • Mental Health Is The Top Health Concern Among Americans
    Mental Health Is The Top Health Concern Among Americans

    A 2023 Ipsos survey has found that mental health is now the chief health concern among U.S. adults, surpassing the coronavirus, obesity and cancer.

    As Statista’a Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, 53 percent of U.S. respondents said that they thought mental health was the biggest health problem facing people in their country as of August this year, up from 51 percent in 2022.

    Infographic: Mental Health Is the Top Health Concern Among Americans | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Where the coronavirus had been considered the biggest health problem by roughly two thirds of U.S. respondents through the pandemic, perceptions of the danger of the virus have now curtailed to just 15 percent of respondents considering it the most serious health issue – lower than the rates for obesity (30 percent), cancer (29 percent) and even stress (18 percent).

    According to the survey data, this trend is not unique to the U.S.

    Across the 31 countries polled by Ipsos as part of the Global Health Service Monitor, an average of 44 percent of people said that mental health was the top health concern facing their country. This was followed by cancer (40 percent), stress (30 percent), obesity (25 percent) and drug abuse (22 percent).

    Sweden and Chile stood out for reporting particularly high levels of concern around mental health in 2023 (at 67 percent and 66 percent, respectively).

    Meanwhile, cancer was the most cited health concern in India (59 percent), obesity in Mexico (62 percent) and stress in South Korea (44 percent).

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 19:20

  • The Navy And Diversity
    The Navy And Diversity

    Authored by Brent Ramsey via RealClear Wire,

    In recent years, the Navy has put a lot of emphasis on “Diversity”.   If you visit the Navy’s recruiting website, www.navy.com, on the first page it has an entry, “Who we are”.  When you access that page, it contains three entries:

       Women in the Navy:  With a picture of five women sailors at sea.

       Diversity and Equity:  With a picture of a black female sailor in the foreground.

       Reserve:  With a picture of a black male sailor looking out over the sea.

    Under “THE NAVY’S COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY & EQUITY” it says, “Why are diversity and equity important to the Navy?”, followed by this statement: “We believe that leveraging our diversity is the key to reaching the Navy’s peak potential, both as a workplace and as a defense force. We also believe that when leaders tap into the energy and capability of an actively inclusive team, we achieve top performance. We know that different perspectives shine light into our blind spots, illuminating what we wouldn’t otherwise see.”  No evidence is provided proving diversity has any connection with warfighting success.  The statement is one of wishful thinking.  The fact is there is a dearth of evidence that diversity has anything to do with warfighting effectiveness and lethality.  If readers know of such evidence, I would love to hear about it.

    The Navy has a diversity policy statement.   It says: “The Department of the Navy (DON) is fully committed to creating and maintaining an environment which supports Diversity and Inclusion (D&I). The DON understands that its strength is dependent upon its people and the different perspectives, talents, and abilities they bring to the workplace. Prevailing today and adapting to the emerging security environment of tomorrow necessitates the continued attraction of our nation’s increasingly inclusive and diverse workforce. The DON is committed to the inclusion of our diverse collection of Sailors, Marines, and Civilians into all aspects of the organization’s operations. Successfully including all personnel creates an environment that motivates innovation and provides fresh perspectives, which allows the DON to reach its maximum warfighting potential. Practicing D&I principles allows the DON to fully leverage the wealth of knowledge, experience, and perspectives from all of our people. The DON’s core values-Honor, Courage, and Commitment-reinforce our promise to respect others and provide equal opportunity for all people. Our commitment to each other is second to none, and we must match our dedication to an inclusive environment that assures the success of our core mission. Therefore, I ask every Sailor, Marine, and Civilian to join me in ensuring our workforce actively includes all perspectives in order to harness the powerful benefits of D&I.”  Again, no evidence is presented that a diverse force is more effective, more lethal to our enemies.  This is an example of pandering to the political left with no substance about how to achieve the goal of more diversity nor proof that attaining that diversity makes the Navy more dangerous to our enemies.

    The Navy stood up an organization, Task Force One Navy (TF1N), In July 2020 with great fanfare to examine diversity and how to achieve it.  At its creation, the Navy had 8% black officers.[i]  The 2022 DOD Military Demographics Report shows the Navy now at 7.9% black officers.   The TF1N report had dozens of recommendations about how the Navy would improve the number of minority officers.  The only conclusion that can be reached by this outcome after more than 2 years is that the Navy is clueless about what it takes to attract more minorities to the Navy.  Maybe enticing more minorities to the Navy is more than cliques about diversity and inclusion. 

    At the United States Naval Academy (USNA), the premier educational institution for training career naval officers, there is an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion headed by a CAPT with a staff of 5, all black.  What possible purpose could this office serve?  Those selected for USNA are already there, selected by the admissions staff based on the criteria established by the Navy for attendance.  The Navy’s thumb is already on the admissions scale in favor of two elite groups coveted by the Academy for two entirely different reasons.  The first group are the elite athletes who get in for their athletic prowess not their test scores or GPA.  This group already has a high percentage of minorities, a necessity to attempt to be successful in the elite sports like football and basketball.  This phenomenon of the USNA competing in Division I sports is entirely superfluous to training naval officers and only serves to pander to the alumni who desire such prestige sports to be provided by their alma mater.   The second group are certain minorities who get in because the standards for black and Hispanic minorities are lower than the standards for whites and Asians.  We know for a fact that standards for certain minorities are lower from the statements made by the U.S. Solicitor General’s statement to the Supreme Court arguing in favor of racial preferences for the military in the SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC cases.  Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the justices on Oct. 31. “So, it is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps. And, at present, it’s not possible to achieve that diversity without race-conscious admissions, including at the nation’s service academies.”  She offered this statement without proof that diversity adds to the lethality or effectiveness of our nation’s fighting forces.

    The impression left of these glimpses of the Navy described above is one of pandering, of painting a false image of the Navy to attempt to appeal to women and minorities to join, to convince the public and potential recruits that the Navy is politically correct. 

    Part 2

    The dictionary defines diversity as, “the state or fact of being diverse:  difference: unlikeness.  Another definition and the one the Navy is presumably alluding to is: “the inclusion of individuals representing more than one national origin, color, religion, socioeconomic stratum, sexual orientation, etc.”

    By policy and recruiting emphasis, the Navy tells you exactly what diversity they want.  First and foremost, they want skin color diversity.  How do we know this aside from the pictures at the recruiting website?  Because Task Force One Navy (TF1N) was all about attracting more blacks, Hispanics, and native Americans to Navy officer ranks only.  The report documents clearly that the Navy is already overrepresented in enlisted minorities.[ii]  Thus, its laser focus is promotion of the idea that the Navy needs more black and Hispanic officers although the preeminent emphasis seems to be for more black officers.  Why this conclusion?  On Admiral Gilday’s CNO watch he urged all hands to read How to be an Anti-racist by Ibram X. Kendi.  Kendi, is an avowed racist based on his own words.  He openly advocates for racism against whites and for the supremacy of blacks.  Kendi is an advocate for race-based discrimination, arguing “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.”[iii]   Increasing the number of black officers apparently became the priority under ADM Gilday.  After the George Floyd tragedy, the Navy openly embraced support for Black Lives Matter.[iv]

    In the latest DOD Military Demographics Report 2021, the Navy officer corps is still only 7.9% black versus the goal of 13% established by the TF1N report. Since the TF1N report, the Navy’s numbers still have not gone up.  The Army reports 12% of its officer corps is black in that same report so the Navy’s result seems unusual.  Overall, the 2021 report shows 13,361 minority officers in the Navy.  One would have to conclude that there are no meaningful barriers to qualified minorities to join the officer corps of the services since over 54,000 minority officers are currently serving.[v]  According to reports of the Department of Education, there were over 200,000 graduates with either bachelors or Masters degrees in school year 2020-2021.[vi]  With qualifications easily met by thousands of minorities each year, why is it that fewer blacks and Hispanics choose to serve?  There is zero credible evidence of barriers to service. Quite the opposite is the case with the services bending over backwards to try to recruit minorities especially with programs that reach out to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) to try to attract minorities to the services.  The TF1N report contains 63 references to HBCUs and MSIs.[vii]  It is plain that the Navy claiming to want diversity is not convincing to most of those eligible to serve and that the Navy lags the Army substantially in providing a convincing argument on why serving the nation is a good idea.

    The other diversities being sought are in sexual practice and gender diversity.  This comes through loud and clear at the website, in recruiting media and images and through such phenomenon of the military’s celebration of pride month and lately even promotion of drag queen shows on board ships and a drag queen being used for recruiting (which the Navy has now retreated from due to negative reaction from the public).  Added to that is the nonsensical promotion of popular progressive practice of what pronouns to use and the farcical and unserious nature of our current leadership becomes clear.  Just days ago, DOD had to retreat when it was pointed out its new pronoun policy for awards was both ungrammatical and unpopular with the public.  Even our outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff objected.

    If diversity is such a priority, why only pick out blacks, gays, and transgenders to emphasize?  The definition above includes the categories of national origin, religion, and socioeconomic stratum.  Why no commercials to get Christians or Muslims to join?  Why no ads to attract immigrants?  Why are there no recruiters in the inner cities among high concentrations of young socio-disadvantaged minorities?   The answer is plain that the diversity push is motivated by the popular canard promoted by the left that the US is still a racist nation and must provide racial preferences to minorities.  The recent Supreme Court cases Harvard v. Students for Fair Admissions and UNC v. Students for Fair Admissions emphatically ruled against using race in college admissions as violations of equal protection law.

    Part 3

    The truth is that the racial and sexual identity politics advocates have gained control over our nation’s culture, and this has seeped into our military where it does not belong.

    Although we hear a lot about systemic racism and white supremacy there is no evidence that such is present in the today’s military.  DOD’s own internal review shows that fewer than 2% of serving DOD personnel identify racism as a problem in DOD.[viii]  DOD’s extremism standdown and subsequent reporting revealed fewer than 100 incidents of extremism in the last reporting year out of a DOD force of over 2.1 million, an astonishingly tiny number.[ix] 

    So, why all the fuss over diversity, diversity, diversity when the services are already substantially diverse, have few internal complaints of racism or extremist activity?  Could it be purely a conformity reflex and a reflection of the hold the left has over our military leadership that is supposed to be apolitical?

    Nowhere at the Navy site is proof offered that Diversity is essential for combat effectiveness?  We do have a lot of counter evidence that diversity advocacy is flawed or counter to fielding a lethal military such as:

    • Col (Ret) Bill Prince, U. S. Army Special Forces with 11 combat deployments, attended the recent USMA Diversity conference.  In his recent article he quotes the USMA’s Chief Data Officer, Col. Paul F. Evangelista ‘96, in commenting on attempts to measure the effectiveness of DEI who said, “We don’t have the data.”[x]  West Point’s Chief Data Officer answered the DEI question candidly, “We don’t have the data.”
    • BG (Ret) Ernie Audino, US Army nails the issue precisely in his article saying[xi], “Because, if Prelogar and those generals are right, i.e. that racial diversity in our officer corps is a “national security imperative,” then the services would at least track racial percentages in their mandatory assessments of unit combat readiness, but they don’t.  Racial diversity is not included, and never has been.” 
    • CDR (Ret) Phil Keuhlen, USN, is a former Commanding Officer of a nuclear-powered attack submarine.  He conducted detailed analysis of the TF1N project, and its two sources cited to prove better performance due to diversity.  His conclusion…neither source used by TF1N passes muster. His detailed analysis can be found at this link.[xii] 
    • COL (Ret) Bing West, USMC is one of the most decorated combat veterans in our nation’s history.  COL West also served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under President Reagan. Bing’s article, “The Military’s Perilous Experiment” ought to give our military’s leaders pause in their headlong pursuit of diversity.  He writes, “Inside the military, however, another criterion has taken central booking: diversity. The focus has shifted toward emphasizing gender and racial equality, particularly in leadership positions. Diversity has replaced lethality as the lodestone for the military. “It’s all about war-fighting readiness,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Admiral John Nowell Jr. said. “We know that diverse teams that are led inclusively will perform better.”  On one level, that sentence is a tautology; every individual is unique and therefore every team is diverse. On another level, the admiral is speaking in code. He is implying that the services have been under-performing because they have not properly rewarded diversity.  As a Marine veteran, I find this disconcerting. From boot training on, Marines are taught to put aside diversity, not to emphasize it.”  The entire article can be found at this link.

    If the Navy was truly interested in the merits of diversity, there is ample study on the subject by eminent scholars, many of them black.  The lack of intellectual curiosity on the topic of diversity by Navy leadership is astounding and an apparent manifestation of the politicization of senior officer corps to the detriment of our core mission of preparing to fight and win our nation’s wars.

    A bibliography of book reviews for recommended reading for Navy leaders who really want to learn about diversity follows this article.

    CAPT Brent Ramsey, (USN, ret.) is a writer on Defense matters. He has been featured in Washington Examiner, Real Clear Defense, Armed Forces Press, CD Media, American Thinker, and Patriot Post. He is a leader with the Calvert Group, a Board of Advisors member for the Center for Military Readiness and STARRS and is a contributor to Armed Forces Press.

    [ii] Ibid

    [iii] Christopher Rufo, Ibram X. Kendi is the False Prophet of a Dangerous and Lucrative Faith, New York Post, July 23, 2021.

    [iv] Houston Keene, Navy’s Extremism Training Says it is OK to advocate for BLM at work but not ‘politically partisan’ issues, Fox News, March 29,2021.

    [v] DOD Military Demographics Report 2021, https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2021-demograph….

    [vi] National Center for Education Statistics, Table 322.20 and Postsecondary Degree Fields Report, accessed September 23, 2023.

    [vii] Task Force One Navy Final Report.

    [viii] Email from senior DOD official indicates 2% of DOD workforce have concerns about racism.

    [ix] Michael Lee, Pentagon Report Finds about 100 Troops involved in Extremist Activity, Fox News, December 20, 2021.

    [x] Col (Ret) William F. Prince, When a Diversity Conference Could Benefit from an Increase in Diversity, www.STARRS.us, September 19, 2023.

    [xi] BG (Ret) Ernie Audino, ‘Diversity’ is Not a National Security Imperative, www.STARRS.us, September 22, 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 19:00

  • Are Wind Turbines Killing These 100,000 Pound Mammals?
    Are Wind Turbines Killing These 100,000 Pound Mammals?

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

    Former President Donald Trump said recently that “windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before.”

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times)

    His comments, made at a campaign rally in South Carolina, were quickly ground through the fact-checking mills of legacy media outlets such as The Guardian and the BBC.

    “They’re washing up ashore. I saw it this weekend, three of them came up. You wouldn’t see it once a year. Now they’re coming up on a weekly basis,” President Trump said.

    The Guardian called his allegation a “lengthy and largely baseless attack on wind turbines for causing large numbers of whales to die, claiming that ‘windmills’ are making the cetaceans ‘crazy’ and ‘a little batty.'”

    The BBC lamented that clips of the former president’s speech had exceeded 9 million views but that his “claims are not backed up by evidence.”

    President Trump also said only one whale had been killed off the coast of South Carolina in the past 50 years, but now the numbers are increasing.

    Former President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd during a campaign rally in Summerville, S.C., on Sept. 25, 2023. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

    The BBC quoted Rob Deaville with the Zoological Society of London’s Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, who said whale deaths are caused by the fishing industry and ship strikes.

    “To talk about wind farms being a problem takes away discussion around the very real threats that are a problem for those species,” Mr. Deaville told the BBC.

    He said that there’s been no conclusive link between whale deaths and wind farms in the UK.

    Andrew Read, commissioner of the U.S.-based Marine Mammal Commission, told The Guardian that “there’s no scientific evidence whatsoever that wind turbines, or surveying for wind turbines, is causing any whale deaths at all.”

    Although there are broader concerns over industrializing the ocean, he said whale deaths are caused by vessel strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, and warming of the ocean caused by climate change.

    “The population of humpback whales, in particular, is recovering from being hunted and they are coming closer to the coast to feed on prey, which means they are being hit as they come into shipping lanes, or being caught up in nets,” Mr. Read said.

    He said people protesting ocean-based wind turbines are being manipulated by “fossil fuel interests,” who are threatened by so-called clean energy.

    Whales and Turbines

    In August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported to The Epoch Times that there had been 65 large whale deaths along the East Coast since December 2022. Three dead whales washed ashore in one week in Fire Island, New York; Long Branch, New Jersey; and Long Beach, New York.

    In September, the Biden administration released “An Action Plan for Offshore Wind Transmission Development in the U.S. Atlantic Region.”

    President Joe Biden’s $3.5 billion goal is to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.

    The plan is based on the “Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Study” to coordinate “timely transmission access for offshore wind” and to “evaluate multiple pathways to offshore wind goals.”

    President Joe Biden points to a wind turbine chart during a meeting about the Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership at the White House June 23, 2022.

    A dead Gray Whale lies on the shore of Limantour Beach in Point Reyes Station, Calif., on May 23, 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    Lisa Linowes, founder of WindAction, said in the recent documentary “Thrown to the Wind” that in its rush to meet these goals, the renewable energy industry has cast aside the “precautionary principle,” in which the burden is on the developer to avoid or minimize harm.

    Ms. Linowes said the move is costing lives.

    “Roughly 350 whales have died along the East Coast since 2016,” she said.

    The uptick began in 2016, she said, with a slight dip in 2022.

    “And in the first six months of 2023—so just half a year—roughly 40-plus whales have died,” Ms. Linowes said.

    Currently, a total of 3,500 wind turbines are proposed for construction across 2.2 million acres of ocean along the East Coast.

    High-resolution geophysical technology is used to survey the ocean floor for the future construction of these turbines. This seismic equipment is sending out frequencies that some believe are blasting the whales and dolphins with loud sounds that have resulted in their disorientation and inability to traverse the waters as safely as they had before.

    Robert Rand, an environmental scientist, said the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and NOAA haven’t accounted for the avoidance and aversion that takes place when the whales hear the pile driving and other dissonant sounds reverberating from the construction of the turbines.

    A crowd gathers around a dead humpback whale on Dockweiler State Beach in Playa Del Rey, Calif., on July 1, 2016. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

    “They don’t make the connection between a loud noise in the water and species moving away from that noise, and that’s a problem because they don’t have the fat stores to run around forever trying to get away from that noise,” Mr. Rand said in the film.

    “If a calf is separated from the mother, what I understand is both of them start stressing a lot, and it doesn’t take long for them to die. It’s a very deadly situation. The calf needs the mother for food, and the mother is trying to find the calf.”

    After the mother and calf expend their energy, they are stranded and they die, he said.

    Mr. Rand published an independent technical study in September that examined “geophysical sonar vessel operational noise” for the purpose of improving “noise control protections” for marine life.

    “What I’m seeing is troubling,” Mr. Rand said. “What I’m seeing are levels that are above the limit which NOAA itself set to be protected at distances which are much higher than were granted in the incidental harassment authorization. So, to me, it looks like an absolute breakdown of regulatory protection for the right whale.”

    Environmental Groups Silent

    When it comes to oil and gas development, environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club will advocate for wildlife, Ms. Linowes said, but in the case of so-called renewable energy, they blame other factors such as ship strikes and climate change, or they keep silent.

    A humpback whale swims near a cruise ship sails in Disko Bay in Ilulissat, Greenland, on Aug. 4, 2019. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

    In 2021, the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that the Rice’s whale in the Gulf of Mexico was its own separate species, of which there remained only 50.

    In July, NOAA proposed to designate 18 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida as critical habitat for the Rice’s whale, a proposal that would significantly limit the oil and gas industry from offshore drilling.

    Republican lawmakers along the Gulf Coast filed lawsuits fighting the designation, arguing that the proposal wasn’t well thought out and would harm the economy, according to a report by The Washington Post.

    U.S. District Judge James Cain, appointed by President Trump, agreed and ordered NOAA to withdraw its proposal.

    Environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity advocated for the protection of the area, and the group has initiated several lawsuits arguing that offshore drilling is harming ocean wildlife; however, the organization has made no efforts to challenge the offshore wind development impact on whales.

    On Sept. 28, the center filed an emergency petition asking that NOAA mandate speed limits for vessels.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 18:40

  • Hamas' Terrorist War Against Israel: There Is No "On The Other Hand"
    Hamas’ Terrorist War Against Israel: There Is No “On The Other Hand”

    Authored by Lanny Davis via RealClearPolitics.com,

    I spent the weekend and most of Monday engaging in back-and-forth with fellow progressive Democrats who were trying to change the subject on the clear black-and-white facts about Hamas’ terrorist war against Israel.

    I kept reminding them of four indisputable facts.

    Fact one: Hamas openly declares it hates Jews.

    It is an openly bigoted, anti-Semitic organization. Its public charter, which it calls its “Covenant,” states: “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” The Covenant actually endorses the notorious fraudulent anti-Semitic rant, used in part by Hitler to justify the Holocaust, the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

    Fact two: Hamas’ invasion is not about supporting an independent Palestinian state.

    Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist. It rejects a two-state solution. The head of its political bureau, Khaled Meshal, stated this plainly at a 2012 rally in Gaza: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of land.”

    Some commentators, attempting to explain the Hamas invasion over the weekend, blamed the establishment of the state of Israel as the reason why there is still no independent Palestinian state. That is false and contradicted by undeniable historical facts. For example:

    Fact three: Hamas doesn’t care about an independent, democratic Gaza for the well-being or social justice of Gazans.

    To the contrary. Since Gaza threw out the official government of the Palestinian Authority, it has not invested in food, education, or jobs. Instead, it has used millions of dollars from Iran to build bombs and rockets to be aimed at Israeli civilians, and has lined its own pockets with 15% of substantial funds from Qatar aimed at the poor. It is simply beyond dispute that Hamas has established a corrupt terrorist dictatorship, with some leaders living in luxury abroad. In the summer of 2023, Gazans defied their overlords and held rallies throughout the area. Some chanted: “Where is the electricity and where is the gas?” – and burned Hamas flags.

    Nor is Hamas reacting to Israeli occupation of Gaza.

    In 2005, Israel withdrew its citizens (about 8,000) and soliders from Gaza and from four settlements in the West Bank. In 2007, Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority and took over dictatorial control of Gaza. But it opposed the Authority’s negotiations to establish an independent Palestinian state and does so to this day.

    Fact four: Hamas is and continues to be a terrorist organization – which meets the universal definition as dedicated to intentionally murdering civilians for political purposes.

    Hamas does not deny that. It brags about it. Just this last weekend, Hamas terrorists intentionally killed 260 young civilians attending a music festival in the desert near Gaza during the first moments of its murderous invasion.

    No, it is not the same thing when Israel is forced to respond to defend itself from rockets aimed at civilians and, tragically and unintentionally, innocent Gazans civilians are killed – often because Hamas chooses to launch its rockets intentionally aimed at civilians from schools and hospitals (a double war crime). Those who make the false equivalence between intentional murder and self-defense with tragic and unintentional deaths of innocents ignore the facts.

    I have always been a supporter of a two-state solution. Since I was very young, I believed in justice for the Palestinians and argued with my father that they deserved their own nation. But I also now remember the famous line of Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” when he argued with himself by saying, “On the one hand,” and then countered with, “but on the other hand.” However, on one issue on which he could never compromise, Tevye said: “There is no other hand.”

    So regarding the Hamas terroristic attack on Israel in the last several days, I can only say – based on indisputable facts – “There is no other hand.”

    *  *  *

    Lanny Davis is the founder of the Washington, D.C., law firm, Lanny J. Davis & Associates. He is one of the first to use the concept of legal crisis management to solve client problems – operating at the intersection of law, media, and politics. He is a former special counsel to President Bill Clinton in 1996-98 and served on a privacy and civil liberties panel appointed by President George W. Bush. He has been writing his “Purple Nation” column for more than 13 years.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 18:20

  • Biden Interviewed By Special Counsel In Classified Documents Probe
    Biden Interviewed By Special Counsel In Classified Documents Probe

    President Joe Biden was coached through given a surely thorough interview by Special Counsel Robert Hur’s team investigating his handling of classified documents spanning several years, the White House acknowledged in a statement.

    President Joe Biden speaks on the terrorist attacks in Israel from the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on Oct. 7, 2023. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

    “The president has been interviewed as part of the investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Hur,” reads the statement from the White House Counsel’s Office spokesperson Ian Sams (the guy who lied and had a meltdown over Hunter Biden’s $260K in Chinese wires). “The voluntary interview was conducted at the White House over two days, Sunday and Monday, and concluded Monday.”

    “As we have said from the beginning, the president and the White House are cooperating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can, consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation,” Sams continued.

    Of note, Hunter Biden listed Joe’s Wilmington, Delaware home – where a bunch of classified documents were found, as his address when he received above mentioned Chinese wires, due to the Biden family’s dealings with CCP-linked businessmen.

    Hur was appointed in January by AG Merrick Garland to lead the classified documents probe. Prior that, he was a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor who has litigation experience involving classified materials.

    More via the Epoch Times;

    President Biden’s interview suggests the probe may be nearing its conclusion. As recently as late August, the president said that he had not been asked by the special counsel’s office to sit for an interview.

    “There’s no such request and no such interest,” President Biden told reporters while on vacation in Lake Tahoe on Aug. 25.

    The investigation was launched after classified documents were found in President Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware, and his former workspace at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.

    In January, when tapped to lead the probe, Mr. Hur had said that he would “follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service.”

    “I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment,” he said in a Jan. 12 statement released by the Justice Department.

    In June, former President Donald Trump faced indictment on charges by Special Counsel Jack Smith related to mishandling classified documents. The former president entered a plea of not guilty in a Miami courtroom on June 13.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence disclosed in January that classified documents were found at his Indiana home during a search prompted by the Biden document discoveries. The Justice Department later concluded its investigation, finding no wrongdoing.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 18:00

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Oct 10

Today’s News 10th October 2023

  • Where Vacation Days Are Over & Underused
    Where Vacation Days Are Over & Underused

    While nations in Asia have in the past seen reports about their workaholic ways and failure to take off days from work, a 2023 release by Expedia paints a different picture of how employees in Japan and Hong Kong handle their vacation time.

    As Statista’s Katharina Bucholz reports, according to the survey carried out in early 2023, Japanese and Hongkongese have actually requested four extra days off work on average beyond the time allotted to them in 2022. This gave them a longer average real vacation time last year than workers in Germany and France. People in these countries had more days available to them, but failed to take them all.

    Some countries such as the United States rank towards the bottom of the list when it comes to the average number of vacation days allotted (and at its very bottom when looking at statutory leave with 0 days guaranteed). Despite this, the average American worker still leaves vacation days on the table, albeit just few at an average of 1.5. A more workaholic nation in Asia is Singapore, with 17 days allotted on average and an average of 2.5 unused days. Germany and French people have more unused days on average at four and 5.5, respectively. In these two countries, average vacation days allotted per year are also more numerous, however, at 28.5 each. Guaranteed by law are 20 days in Germany and 25 in France. In the U.S., Germany and France, between 10 and 14 public holidays are added to the vacation day tally as well. In Japan, this number is even higher at 16 days.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 02:45

  • 6 Takeaways From AfD's Massive Gains In Bavaria And Hesse Regional Elections
    6 Takeaways From AfD’s Massive Gains In Bavaria And Hesse Regional Elections

    Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

    While the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Socialists (CSU) received the most votes in the regional elections of Hesse and Bavaria, the headline news story across Germany is the Alternative for Germany’s (AFD) overperformance in both states. The outcome of the election is reverberating throughout Germany, with implications for the federal level as well. On the issues of immigration, the economy, and green energy, the AfD is pulling ahead, while the ruling left-liberals will be left searching for answers after an election shellacking.

    Here are six takeaways from the election results and what they could mean for the future political landscape of the country.

    AfD may be stronger than the polls say

    With both Bavaria and Hesse combined, the AfD party will now have 70 seats, a 50 percent increase compared to its previous 2018 elections. The party actually did better than the polls said it would, which had already painted a rosy picture for the anti-sanctions, anti-immigration party.

    For example, AfD was polling at around 16 percent in Hesse, but actually ended up in second at 18.4 percent, while in Bavaria the AfD is on par with the Greens and Free Voters, where it earned 15.8 percent, making it the third-largest party.

    The party has for years had a stable level of support at around 10 to 12 percent, but in the last year, it has soared in the polls up to 23 percent and continues to hover at 21 percent.

    Many new potential AfD voters may be “shy” voters who are afraid to express their support to pollsters, meaning that pollsters may not be capturing the full picture. The party is, after all, facing a potential ban, openly mocked and attacked by the political and journalistic establishment, and supporters of the party along with politicians have been physically assaulted in the past.

    Furthermore, with the AfD’s success in local elections, it may begin to “normalize” the party in the eyes of voters, which could contribute to more open support for the party — and even a jump in the polls — going into the future.

    Germans are fed up with mass migration

    In the run-up to the elections, Remix News reported a new groundbreaking poll showing a huge majority of Germans wanted fewer migrants and also saw migrants bringing fewer advantages than disadvantages.

    If we look at the polling surrounding these specific elections, it only cements the reality that Germans are remarkably shifting against mass immigration.

    For example, in Bavaria, immigration was rated as the second most important factor by voters, behind the economy, with 48 percent of all respondents telling Infratest dimap that they “welcomed” that the AfD wanted to limit the number of foreigners and refugees more strongly. In Hesse, 42 percent backed the AfD’s anti-immigration policies. In Hesse, the issue of immigration was decisive for 18 percent of voters in terms of their vote, meaning that this was their number one issue.

    This polling data shows the massive disconnect between the left-liberal mainstream that promotes mass immigration in the media and culture and the actual sentiment of the German people.

    The AfD’s Robert Lambrou, who was second on his party’s election list in Hesse, leaned heavily into the issue of migration during the campaign. Notably, he not only called for faster deportations but stated that skilled legal immigrants should only be accepted in exceptional circumstances and then only from “neighboring countries that are culturally close to Germany.”

    AfD rises in the west

    The AfD has been historically strong in the east of the country, but with a result of over 18 percent in Hesse, it marks the first major breakthrough in the west of the country. The results come as the AfD recently broke the 20 percent mark in wealthy Baden-Württemberg, the first time it has achieved such a result in a western state.

    Notably, the German mainstream is now noting that the AfD’s rise in two Western states is not a fluke or a mere protest vote, with Taggeschau writing:

    To interpret the strong results in both states as just a protest election would be too short-sighted. More and more people are voting for the AfD out of conviction. The current situation benefits the party: Asylum and refugee policy concerns many people, and support for a more restrictive migration policy is growing, as data from Infratest dimap shows. At the same time, fewer and fewer voters in both states have a problem with voting for a party that is partly right-wing extremist. And it is not just in migration policy that it is increasingly being given authority: more people are also placing their hope in the far-right party when it comes to the issues of internal security, the economy and social justice.

    Such an acknowledgment from the state-run Tagesschau regarding the AfD is big news all in itself.

    Massive blow to the traffic-light government

    Besides the AfD, the other big outcome was how incredibly poorly Germany’s left-liberal government performed in the election. Now, the political fallout could be felt for months and even years.

    For starters, the business liberals of the Free Democrats (FDP) were completely wiped out and failed to obtain the 5 percent needed to enter parliament in both states. It follows a long string of election losses for the party, which has been accused of abandoning many of its principles in its coalition alliance at the federal level. The party is now suffering the consequences, with the results likely sending party leadership scrambling to avert all-out disaster. The FDP, which has already criticized its coalition partners at the federal level, will undoubtedly be seeking out a more independent path in the future, which could lead to a serious governing crisis for Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

    However, the SPD and Greens also fared poorly, particularly the SPD, which earned an abysmal 8 percent in Bavaria and only 15.1 percent in Hesse, both historic lows. The Greens earned 14 percent in both Bavaria and Hesse, a substantial drop in both instances from their previous election results.

    There is in all likelihood trouble ahead for this coalition, and the far-left Interior Minister Nancy Faeser could still lose her job over her party’s election debacle in Hesse, although there are currently denials from top party brass that this is a possibility post-election.

    The CDU could shift further right

    Of course, the CDU is also taking note of the AfD’s rise. The CSU, the sister party of the CDU, saw 100,000 of its voters shift to the AfD in Bavaria. In short, the AfD could quickly cut into the CDU’s base, especially over the issue of immigration.

    According to German state-run media outlet Tagesschau, it also sees the CDU potentially shifting its stance over the issue, writing: “These results may well lead to a shift in the policies of the mainstream conservative CDU towards a stricter stance on migration. The votes — and the preceding campaign largely focused on national rather than regional issues — may also force the government to revisit its policy of phasing out fossil fuels.”

    Will anything change?

    Despite the AfD’s surge and a mass rejection of the left, the two elections are notable for another key reason. In both Bavaria and Hesse, both governing coalitions survived. In Bavaria, the CSU can continue governing with the Free Voters, and in Hesse, the CDU could form a theoretical coalition with the Greens once again. In other words, the status quo was maintained.

    The AfD may have seen a serious boost in both states, but for now, all parties have vowed to never work with the party. In the short term, the AfD is working to create the conditions that make it increasingly difficult for ruling parties to form status quo coalitions. In the long term, it sees the only viable path to power through a coalition with the CDU. The big question mark is if and when that will ever happen.

    Many voters may agree with the AfD’s positions on a range of issues, but many are mentally conditioned to never consider voting for the party. The CDU and other parties are aware of this and will continue to hone their message to keep their voters from straying too far away, even if they plan to maintain the status quo once they achieve power.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 02:00

  • Israel Shows Why Americans Have Right To "Weapons of War" For Self-Defense
    Israel Shows Why Americans Have Right To “Weapons of War” For Self-Defense

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    As videos emerge from Israel about the recent invasion by Hamas, it should become clear that the Second Amendment here in the US is “Necessary to the security of a free state.”

    While gun control continues to be pushed by the Biden administration, Israel, a state lauded by gun control advocates for its strict regulations, has axed some of its gun control measures in an attempt to fight the recent terrorist invasion.

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    It’s no wonder that Israel has realized that their gun control measures are getting their citizens hurt or worse. Horrifying video from border towns near Gaza shows Hamas fighters going house to house looking for Israelis.

    Without access to firearms, Israeli citizens are helpless to defend themselves against these heavily armed fighters, resulting in kidnappings and killings.

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    While Israel removing some of its firearms regulations is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, gun ownership still comes with heavy restrictions and unnecessary bureaucratic red tape.

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    During the hours of the initial invasion, US Senators continued to tweet support for gun control while similar policies were resulting in deaths across the ocean.

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    Additionally, to those that say “that could never happen here” regarding the United States, be aware that the ATF recently notified FFLs in border states warning firearms dealers about straw purchases of 50 caliber and belt-fed firearms.

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    These threats are precisely why Americans have the right to own “weapons of war” for self-defense. Politicians who push gun control should realize that their actions will only empower criminals and terrorists.

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    *   *   * 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 23:30

  • Online Child Pornography Skyrockets
    Online Child Pornography Skyrockets

    The amount of online child sexual abuse has skyrocketed in the past few years, according to the latest annual report of the UK-based NGO and watchdog, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). As many as 255,588 URLs were confirmed to contain images or videos of the abuse last year, up from 132,676 URLs in 2019.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, this rise is partly being linked to the pandemic, when lockdowns meant more people – including younger children – were staying at home and turning online for longer periods of time than before. According to child safety experts, this increased exposure could have left them more vulnerable to communities of criminals looking to find and manipulate children into recording their own sexual abuse on camera.

    According to the report, “self-generated” content has become particularly prevalent in this time, with the number of confirmed URLs containing images or videos of “self-generated” material rising from 38,424 confirmed cases in 2019 to 199,363 in 2022.

    This is where children have been groomed and coerced into taking the images without the abuser present in the room, which have then been put online.

    Infographic: Online Child Pornography Skyrockets | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    These images are most often taken at home, in a child’s bedroom or a bathroom.

    The IWF notes that the term “self-generated” child sexual abuse is limited in that it does not fully encompass the full range of factors often present within this imagery, and which appears to place the blame with the victim themselves. They note:

    “Children are not responsible for their own sexual abuse. Until a better term is found, however, we will continue to use the term ‘self-generated’ as, within the online safety and law enforcement sectors, this is well recognised.”

    Of the 255,571 web pages actioned during 2022, over three quarters (199,363 or 78 percent) were assessed as containing “self-generated” imagery.

    This is a six percentage point increase on 2021 when 72 percent of actioned reports (or 182,281) were captured in this way. Girls aged 11-13 were the group that appeared most frequently in this content.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 23:00

  • China Makes Advances In Space Lasers, Microwave Weapons
    China Makes Advances In Space Lasers, Microwave Weapons

    Authored by Joshua Philipp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The People’s Liberation Army, the army of the Chinese Communist Party, recently announced a breakthrough on a key weapons programs that may change the nature of war.

    The Long March-2F rocket carrying China’s manned Shenzhou-10 spacecraft blasts off from launch pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, on June 11, 2013. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

    Chinese scientists claim they’ve had unexpected success in developing a high-powered microwave (HPM) weapon, according to The Diplomat. The magazine notes that in January, Huang Wenhua, deputy director of China’s Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, was awarded for his research on directed energy, which HPM weapons use.

    HPM systems are able to destroy electronic equipment, and in an age when most combat systems—from tanks to planes, radios to satellites—rely on electronics, the weapons could change the way wars are fought. Warships will be fitted with HPM weapons to intercept incoming missiles.

    The HPM project, alongside other projects involving lasers and electromagnetic pulses, is part of the Chinese regime’s “Assassin’s Mace” (or “Trump Card”) program designed to defeat a technologically superior opponent by disabling or destroying the technology that makes the opponent superior.

    Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon consultant, wrote in his 2016 book “The Hundred-Year Marathon” that the first time the United States lost a simulated war game was when his team was asked to employ China’s Assassin’s Mace weapons as the opposition.

    He wrote that in the exercises, “whenever the China team used conventional tactics and strategies, America won—decisively. However, in every case where China employed Assassin’s Mace methods, China was the victor.”

    According to Richard Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, the Chinese regime’s new developments go even beyond the Assassin’s Mace program and represent an overall pivot toward “fifth-generation warfare concepts.”

    It is a shift toward the areas of cyberwarfare, electronic warfare, and space warfare, using autonomous weapons.

    The key to this shift, he said, is the Chinese military’s new Strategic Support Force branch, introduced in December 2015. Fisher said the new branch brings the military’s new weapons under one roof and demonstrates “the weaponization of broad information capabilities, plus the weaponization of outer space.”

    The idea of space warfare, in particular, was center stage during the Cold War. The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, which is now ratified by 105 countries. It set laws on the use of outer space and banned any nation from stationing nuclear warheads in space.

    What the program did not forbid, however, was the use of conventional weapons in space, and China, in particular, has been developing weapons designed to destroy or disable satellites—which are the Achilles’ heel of the U.S. military.

    The National Interest, an international affairs magazine, reported on March 10 that “China’s military is developing powerful lasers, electromagnetic railguns, and high-power microwave weapons for use in a future ‘light war’ involving space-based attacks on satellites.”

    It cites a Chinese military journal from 2013, in which researchers disclosed the idea of placing a five-ton chemical laser in low-earth orbit. They wrote that “in future wars, the development of ASAT [anti-satellite] weapons is very important” and that “the space-based laser weapon system will be one of the major ASAT development projects.”

    The Diplomat article reported on March 11 that China’s developments on high-powered microwave weapons “would undermine the efficacy of even the most advanced U.S. missiles,” and “applications could also include its use as an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon or incorporation with missiles in order to overcome enemy air defenses.”

    Fisher said that by using the space-based laser platform, China would “realize the dream of Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense initiative,” as it grants them a large-scale defense system that could intercept warheads.

    Fisher said that overall, the threat of fifth-generation weapons systems is growing, and that Chinese military doctrine and developments are making a significant push in this direction.

    With its proposed laser system, in particular, he said that in a war scenario with China, they could “take down all of our satellites that we’re using to target China, to communicate with our forces, to conduct optical or electronic surveillance. We could very quickly become blind and vulnerable to Chinese strikes; and if we did launch our own strikes, these lasers could shoot down incoming warheads.”

    Fisher said this system would go far beyond the anti-ballistic missile system known as THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, that the United States is currently deploying in South Korea.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 22:30

  • One Of China's Biggest Commodity Traders Goes Missing 
    One Of China’s Biggest Commodity Traders Goes Missing 

    He Jinbi, the founder and chairman of Maike Metals International, one of China’s top commodities traders, has reportedly gone missing in recent days and is suspected to be in police custody, as reported by Bloomberg, citing sources close to the situation. 

    Colleagues have not heard from Jinbi for several days. The people indicated that Jinbi “was escorted by police for questioning in his home province of Shaanxi.” The reasons for Jinbi’s detention were not immediately known to the people. 

    Over the past year, Maike, based in Xi’an in Shaanxi province, and Jinbi have faced legal scrutiny by creditors, especially after the firm experienced severe challenges paying for imported copper. The company, responsible for a quarter of China’s copper imports, was crushed by repeated Coivd lockdowns last year and, a deepening property market collapse and ongoing economic slump. 

    Maike’s troubles outline how one of China’s biggest commodity trading houses has stumbled into a crisis as the multi-decade commodity supercycle for raw materials falters in the world’s second-largest economy. Also, banks have increasingly grown cautious toward the commodity sector, adding further pressure on Maike’s ability to raise additional capital. 

    In an interview last fall, Jinbi told the Financial Times, “We’re actively selling assets and equities to replenish our liquidity and reduce debt.” He said Maike was “breaking arms to survive,” an expression that means sacrificing parts of the business to save it from bankruptcy.

    “The entire private sector has encountered a lot of liquidity difficulties, and we are no exception,” he said. “Now it’s all about the survival of the fittest.”

    In February, Maike filed a request to a court for “preliminary restructuring” as it aimed to restart copper trading operations. Bloomberg noted Maike’s “continued absence from the market has weighed on liquidity in China’s copper trade.” 

    We noted in April, “And when Maike Metals International ran into trouble later last year, JPMorgan was left with around 30,000 tons of copper it had been financing for the trading company in Shanghai. In the end, the bank was able to sell the metal without major losses, the people said, but the episode highlighted the risks of trading in China’s base metals industry. Maike has since filed a request for a court-led restructuring.” 

    By July, ING Groep NV in Hong Kong sued Jinbi for $147 million in unpaid debt. The combination of Maike’s short-term obligations and illiquid property portfolio makes it very hard for the trading firm to raise additional capital. 

    Mystery still revolves around why Jinbi was taken into custody by police. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 22:00

  • COVID Reinfections Clear Faster, Including In Unvaccinated People: Study
    COVID Reinfections Clear Faster, Including In Unvaccinated People: Study

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

    Reinfections cleared faster than initial COVID-19 infections, including among people who never received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new study.

    Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (purple) infected with a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (pink), isolated from a patient sample. (NIAID via The Epoch Times)

    People infected with COVID-19 for a second time cleared the illness a mean of 6.6 days, compared with a mean of 9.3 days for the initial infection, U.S. and British researchers reported in the paper.

    Researchers drew the findings from 1,796 first infections and 193 second infections.

    The difference held for a subset of 71 people who had two well-documented infections.

    Among that subset, the mean clearance time was 6.3 days, down from 9.2 days.

    “Immunity from a first SARS-CoV-2 infection affects the viral kinetics of a second SARS-CoV-2 infection principally by speeding up viral clearance and thus shortening the overall time of acute infection,” the researchers, including Dr. Yonatan Grad of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote.

    SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.

    The researchers also found that people who cleared infections quickly the first time also cleared them quickly the second time.

    “While prior infection and vaccination can modulate a person’s viral kinetics in absolute terms, there may also exist some further immunological mechanism, conserved across sequential infections, that determines one’s strength of immune response against SARS-CoV-2 relative to others in the population,” the researchers posited.

    The analysis was based on COVID-19 tests taken from players, staff members, and affiliates of the National Basketball Association between March 11, 2020, and July 28, 2022.

    Limitations include the population being primarily young, male, and healthy, though adjustments were made for age. Researchers also said that people who were infected multiple times “may differ in important immunological and behavioral ways from those who only underwent one infection during the study period.”

    Earlier studies have estimated strong protection from natural immunity, or prior infection, against severe illness, but that the shielding against infection waned over time.

    “This research supports the textbook expectation and other papers in that our immune systems clear SARS-CoV-2 faster 2nd time,” Kasper Planeta Kepp, a computational biologist who was not involved in the research, wrote on X.

    Vaccine Impact

    Like many U.S. businesses, the basketball association imposed harsher restrictions on unvaccinated players, leading to most receiving a vaccine. The association also imposed a vaccine mandate on workers.

    Most of the people with documented infections had received a vaccine. Of the 1,796 first infections, 1,095 were among the vaccinated. Some had received a booster. Another 574 had an unknown vaccination status. Just 127 were unvaccinated.

    Of the 193 people who experienced documented reinfections, 160 were vaccinated. Another 25 had an unknown vaccination status. Just eight were unvaccinated.

    A person was not counted as vaccinated until 14 days had passed following their second Moderna or Pfizer shot, or 14 days after a single Johnson & Johnson shot. That counting method has been used widely because vaccine proponents argue that it takes two weeks for the vaccines to have a full impact. Critics have noted the method obscures some infections, because infections do happen in the initial days following vaccination.

    The total number of people who tested, regardless of whether they tested positive, was not listed by vaccination status.

    Researchers said they did not detect “significant differences in viral kinetics” when comparing the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. Kinetics include the clearance time and the peak viral concentration.

    They also found that the kinetics of reinfection did not differ significantly based on the virus variant with which the person was infected. The study period covered the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants.

    The researchers were funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Yale University, the National Basketball Players Association, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Disclosures included one researcher with a consulting agreement with the National Basketball Association and Moderna, which makes a COVID-19 vaccine, and another with a consulting agreement with the league.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 21:30

  • Bumble & Tinder Top Dating Apps In US
    Bumble & Tinder Top Dating Apps In US

    Bumble and Tinder are the most popular dating apps in the US.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, Bumble, which makes women initiate the conversation, has been making strides and has caught up to older service Tinder in the U.S., according to Statista Consumer Insights.

    The female-led company behind the Bumble app went public on March 10, 2021, raising $2.15 billion.

    In the Statista survey, 38 percent of U.S. dating app users said they had used Bumble in the past 12 months – the same number as Tinder.

    Infographic: The Most Popular Dating Apps in the U.S. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In the following ranks were Plenty of Fish, Badoo and LGBTQ+ service Grindr.

    Casual platform Ashley Madison was the most popular paid service, reaching 40 percent of paying customers, an identical result with the premium subscription of Tinder, which appealed to just as many.

    9 percent of Americans said most recently that they were users of online dating services, while around 6 percent were using dating and matchmaking services offline.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 21:00

  • In US, Concern Over An Increasing Number Of Boy Victims Of Human Trafficking
    In US, Concern Over An Increasing Number Of Boy Victims Of Human Trafficking

    Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    When Elijah Muhammad was 12, his parents, members of an unnamed cult headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas, received a call from one of the executive representatives of the group, saying that it was “the will of God” that Mr. Muhammad and his brother begin their “pilgrimage into manhood.”

    Lugging gallon jugs of water, illegal immigrants thread their way along footpaths just north of the Mexico/Arizona border. (Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times)

    His parents agreed and allowed Mr. Muhammad and his brother to travel 600 miles to Kansas City in the back of an 18-wheeler semi-truck.

    Once there, Mr. Muhammad began his “pilgrimage” by working a daily shift from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. as a dishwasher in a restaurant owned by the cult. During his limited downtime, Mr. Muhammad lived in a small apartment with “dozens of boys and men.”

    “One time, I showed up late for work,” Mr. Muhammad said during a TEDx talk. “Almost immediately upon walking through the doorway of the small diner, I found myself on the floor bleeding after being hit in the mouth with a Yellow Page[s] phonebook.

    “Attempting to stand to my feet, the man began to beat me on the back until I passed out. Acts of violence were not of rare occasion at all.”

    Mr. Muhammad was the victim of labor trafficking, which the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 defines as “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.”

    It’s also a significantly underreported problem in the United States and is much more prevalent than sex trafficking.

    Trafficking, which is exploitation-based, is different from human smuggling, which is transport-based.

    Human smuggling is the act of bringing people into the United States involving “deliberate evasion of immigration laws, as well as the unlawful transportation and harboring of noncitizens already in the United States,” according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    But, smuggling can lead to trafficking, and often does.

    Sue Aboul-hosn, the regional human trafficking prevention coordinator for the Florida Department of Children and Families, cited data from a Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) report that looked at data from 2012 to 2018.

    She said that 71 percent of trafficked victims are forced into labor, 20 percent are exploited for commercial sex, and nine percent experience both sex and labor trafficking.

    But 91 percent of trafficking investigations concern sex trafficking, according to the State Department’s Office for Victims of Crime.  Five percent of investigations were labor-related, and four percent were both sex and labor, Ms. Aboul-hosn said during a human trafficking summit in Florida on Oct. 3.

    And while sex trafficking of women and girls has received considerable attention, human trafficking of boys is growing significantly. It’s now almost identical to the percentage of girls trafficked—girls account for 18 percent of trafficking victims. Boys now account for 17 percent, the DOD’s 2023 Trafficking in Person’s (TIP) report found.

    Labor Trafficking

    According to the National Institute of Justice, determining exact numbers for human trafficking is impossible due to the “covert and criminal nature” of the practice.

    However, the Global Slavery Index, published by the International Labor Organization (ILO), is considered the most accurate.

    In its latest report, the ILO estimated that 49.6 million people are being trafficked globally—with 27.6 million in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriages. Women and girls make up a majority of those in forced marriages.

    Within the forced labor category, the ILO reported 17.3 million victims in the private sector, while 6.4 million are being exploited for commercial sex, and 3.9 million are in forced labor imposed by the state.

    Of the forced labor victims in the private sector, 11.3 million are men and boys and 6 million are women and girls. In the sexual exploitation industry, 4.9 million victims are women and girls and 1.5 million are men and boys. More than 3.3 million victims of forced labor are children.

    Forced labor human trafficking. (Courtesy of The Exodus Road)

    The United States doesn’t aggregate human trafficking numbers at the national level, “making the true number of cases reported difficult to ascertain,” however, the Global Slavery Index estimates suggest that on any given day, 1.1 million people are being trafficked in the United States.

    The estimate is based on National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH) data, which separates labor and sex trafficking.

    The primary venues for labor trafficking in the United States are domestic work, agriculture and farm work, construction, restaurant and food service, and illicit activity (for example, forcing someone to smuggle drugs or commit other criminal activity), according to the Human Trafficking Hotline.

    The organization also found that while a fair amount of reported trafficking cases include U.S. citizens, such as Mr. Muhammad, more than half of reported trafficking cases (1,086 out of 1,741) involve foreign nationals.

    California, Texas, and Florida have the highest percent of reported cases at 12.8 percent, 8.8 percent, and 7.5 percent, respectively.

    New York came in at a distant fourth with 3.9 percent of reported cases.

    The State Department’s 2023 trafficking report found that while women and girls still account for approximately 60 percent of identified victims of human trafficking, “the percentage of boys … more than quintupled between 2004 and 2020.”

    Overlooking Boys

    Nearly twice the number of men than women are in forced labor situations, and illegal immigrant men and boys are especially at risk, according to ILO.

    “Imagine you woke up in a place where you don’t know the culture, you don’t know the laws, and you don’t know what resources are available and how to access them,” said Harold Henry D’ Souza, co-founder of Eyes Open International, in the State Department’s trafficking report.

    “Imagine that you thought you were going to achieve a better life for yourself and your family but find yourself on a floor with no bed. You’re working 16 hours a day. Imagine you have no food and no money because someone you trusted took the small amount of money you had ‘to keep it safe’ and provided you a one-bedroom apartment, then threatened you with arrest and deportation if you didn’t continue working without pay,” Mr. D’Souza said in the report.

    “Perpetrators in America use a variation of four words to silence foreign national victims. Traffickers shout to the victims, ‘I will get you 1) arrested, 2) handcuffed, 3) jailed, 4) deported.'”

    Illegal immigrants discovered in the bed of a pickup truck in Kinney County, Texas, on June 14, 2021. (Kinney County Sheriff’s Office)

    Ms. Aboul-hosn said a factor leading to the increased number of trafficked boys in the United States is that once an unaccompanied minor is apprehended at the border, they’re placed into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of Health and Human Services (HHS).

    “Usually, they are intercepted at the border, and they go through ORR, and ORR tries to find them a sponsor who they can go live with while they’re going through the process of applying for asylum or refugee status through the court,” Ms. Aboul-hosn said.

    “And through this process, there’s a lot of inadequate screening and supervision of the placement. … There are a lot of good sponsors out there who are doing it for the right reasons, but there’s some out there that are really just wanting to exploit the child.”

    The vast majority of sponsors are family members of the child who are also in the country illegally, according to ORR.

    Ms. Aboul-hosn said that in 2022, ORR released 55,960 children to sponsors throughout the United States and only conducted 8,618 home studies.

    “So only 15 percent of these kids, when they’re placed with a sponsor, had any type of home study or background being done,” she said.

    Once a trafficker has a child under their control, Ms. Aboul-hosn said they’ll keep that kid’s money and charge them for things like rent, food, and other “debts.”

    She said most of the boys being trafficked are traveling to the United States from the Northern Triangle countries of  Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The boys are usually 15 years or older, have no legal documentation, and little education. Most don’t speak English and distrust authorities, making them perfect victims for traffickers.

    HHS Failures

    In 2014, a teenager from Guatemala called his uncle in Florida, begging for help. He said he was being kept against his will and forced to work at an egg farm called Trillium Farms in Ohio. His traffickers told the boy that if he didn’t “pay back his debt,” they’d “shoot your dad two or three times.” His uncle agreed to help and contacted the sheriff in Collier City, Florida.

    The resulting investigation by federal prosecutors into Trillium Farms revealed that traffickers had detained approximately 45 people, and at least 10 were victims of trafficking, including eight minors. Four people pleaded guilty to participating in a human trafficking scheme, and one, Pablo Duran Ramirez, admitted that he knew some of the workers were unaccompanied minors, who’d been threatened or coerced. On June 19, 2020, Mr. Ramirez was sentenced to 37 months in prison, and ordered to pay a $67,232 fine. Trillium Farms was not charged in the case.

    Former slave Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos demonstrates how he clears brush with his sickle on a piece of land in Monsenhor Gil, Brazil, on April 8, 2015. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

    In a press release after the sentencing, U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman, said, “Ramirez exploited the desperation of migrant workers and, in some instances, their children for his own personal financial gain.”

    The other defendants, Ana Angelica Pedro-Juan, of Guatemala, Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, of Guatemala, and Conrado Salgado-Soto, of Mexico, also pled guilty to participating in a labor trafficking scheme. Mr. Castillo-Serrano, the leader of the scheme, was sentenced to 188 months in prison, while Ms. Pedro-Juan, who oversaw the victims in Ohio, was sentenced to 120 months, and Mr. Salgado-Soto, a subcontractor, was sentenced to 51 months.

    A separate investigation led by then-Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) found that HHS was responsible for releasing the boys to the traffickers in Ohio.

    “We’ve got these kids. They’re here. They’re living on our soil, and for us to just, you know, assume someone else is going to take care of them and throw them to the wolves, which is what HHS was doing, is flat out wrong,” Mr. Portman said. “I don’t care what you think about immigration policy. It’s wrong.”

    During Mr. Portman’s committee investigation, HHS told the committee that it had strengthened its procedures regarding children. However, the committee found more than 12 other cases of trafficking related to the Trillion Farms case and reported, “It’s impossible to know just how many more victims there are.”

    Unaccompanied children are transferred to HHS’s ORR by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

    In fiscal year 2022, DHS referred 128,904 unaccompanied children to ORR.

    “Approximately 72 percent of all children referred were over 14 years of age, and 64 percent were boys,” HHS reported.

    The children were mostly from Guatemala (47 percent), followed by Honduras (29 percent), El Salvador (13 percent), and other countries (11 percent) in fiscal 2022, HHS said.

    On Oct. 4, HHS reported that it currently has 10,818 unaccompanied children in its care. The agency noted that the average length of time an unaccompanied child remains in ORR’s care is 24 days, but “is working to further reduce length of care in ways that do not jeopardize the safety or welfare of the children.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 20:35

  • "A Real Trend": Trump Now Ahead Of Biden In Key Battleground States According To Polls
    “A Real Trend”: Trump Now Ahead Of Biden In Key Battleground States According To Polls

    After a summer replete with martyr-making indictments and other legal controversies, former President Donald Trump’s political vigor remains unassailable. Recent polls from battleground states and on the national stage delineate a narrative that leans in favor of Trump, showcasing his astonishing and perhaps unforeseen political resilience.

    “Trump can absolutely win a general election, that has always been true, and his odds get better every day Joe Biden is president,” pollster Nathan Klein of OnMessage told the Daily Caller. Trump has continued to make strides in recent polls, albeit with leads in many swing states situated within the margin of error, presenting a cautious optimism within his camp.

    Among states with the narrowest margins of victory in 2020, such as Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin—Trump is firmly ahead of Biden at 41% vs. 35%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll from mid-September. Indeed, the shift in political currents has been noteworthy, all while President Biden’s approval rating languishes around 40%.

    States that were pivotal in 2020, such as Pennsylvania, where Trump currently leads Biden by 2 points, and Georgia, where he is ahead by 9 points, signal not just a tepid approval for the Biden administration but a potential recalibration of political allegiances and sentiments among American voters.

    “Remember, Trump lost Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin by a collective 40,000 votes. The hypothesis that Biden would have a breezy route to re-election if Trump becomes the nominee was, from inception, deeply flawed,” Klein noted.

    “As Biden’s likeability has waned, we’re seeing a real trend of voters being drawn back in by Trump’s policies,” he continued. “As Trump now sits on a small put persistent lead in national polls, if he continues to win back a few thousand of the voters he lost in 2020 the path to victory certainly exists.”

    Biden’s support has been on a downward trajectory across diverse demographic and political spectra. Crucial issues such as crime and immigration have been described by critics as “rampant mismanagement,” causing many Americans to sour on the administration. “Around 60% of Americans now disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration, an all-time high,” Klein added.

    In late September, a McLaughlin & Associates survey suggested that Trump would emerge victorious over Biden by 43% to 38% in a national head-to-head matchup.

    “We are positioned to win the presidency, and we must defeat Joe Biden,” emphasized John McLaughlin, CEO and partner of McLaughlin & Associates, echoing a robust confidence within the Trump team. McLaughlin ascribes Trump’s advantageous position to the American people’s “buyers’ remorse” and a comparative review of the records of both candidates, particularly relating to the economy, crime, and border issues.

    An aggregate of polls also has Trump wiping the floor with Biden. Via RealClear Politics:

    Kyle Kondik, a nonpartisan polling analyst, cautions about the predictive validity of these early head-to-head matchups but does acknowledge the current data’s indication of a “close and competitive” race.

    But can Trump solidify his lead and convert it into a tangible victory? According to GOP polling analyst Jon McHenry, even though other Republican nominees might stand a better chance against Biden, Trump could theoretically clinch victory on an economic basis. However, he recognizes that the situation is too tight to definitively forecast.

    “We have such a unique situation right now with both party’s leading candidates in negative territory on their favorable to unfavorable ratings — and the current and previous officeholder. Reelection campaigns are typically a two-step process as a referendum on the incumbent: first, does he or she deserve reelection, and second, would the other candidate do better? I think right now President Biden is losing the referendum, with voters disapproving of his job overall, and especially on the economy and immigration,” said McHenry. “But if the choice is between two candidates with 35 to 40 percent favorables, voters are likely to choose the one who had the better economy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 20:10

  • US Gives More Than $4.1 Billion In Grants For LGBT Initiatives Worldwide
    US Gives More Than $4.1 Billion In Grants For LGBT Initiatives Worldwide

    Authored by Jackson Elliott via The Epoch Times,

    During the past three fiscal years, $4.1 billion in federal money from taxpayers has been flowing to LGBT initiatives in the United States and around the world, an Epoch Times investigation has revealed.

    From Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2023, the U.S. government issued more than 1,100 grants to fund LGBT-promoting projects around the world, according to the Epoch Times review of a federal spending website.

    The scope of projects varies widely.

    Plans to create a “safe space for LGBTQ youth and adults to seek support and resources” earned a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. government in 2022 for the LGBT Life Center in Norfolk, Virginia.

    A proposal for encouraging “diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities by promoting economic empowerment of and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people in Serbia” also was a winning plan. To fund it, the U.S. government awarded Serbian activist group Grupa Izadji a grant of $500,000.

    An Armenian activist group, the Pink Human Rights Defender, received $1 million from the United States “to empower the LGBTI community” in Armenia, a tiny country next to Turkey.

    The federal spending website can be filtered to show entries that include specific keywords. A list of payouts filtered by using the keyword “LGBT” included 1,181 grants, 31 loans, and nine direct payments during the past three fiscal years.

    Overall, during the past fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the government issued 454,821 grants.

    Government grants provide free money for specific purposes. Federal loans can be repaid over long periods of time at low interest rates. Direct payments from the government give money to groups—they may be unrestricted, or for a specific use.

    Of grants connected to the keyword “LGBT,” individual payouts of at least $1 million totaled more than $3.7 billion combined. Many additional smaller grants also were awarded for LGBT initiatives but were not reviewed.

    When the list was filtered for grants including the word “transgender,” 574 were listed. In that category, grants that paid out at least $1 million totaled nearly $478 million. Seven direct payments and nine loans with the keyword “transgender” also were issued by the U.S. government.

    An independent researcher who asked to remain anonymous has been tracking how the federal government spends money on grants related to gender ideology.

    He started the work when he was laid off from his oil field job in the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. After doing some digging, he was shocked to learn that, while he and his friends got little relief from the federal government, taxpayer dollars poured into LGBT activist causes, he said.

    “I just couldn’t believe it,” he said. “We’re all getting laid off, getting exempted from all this COVID money that’s getting handed out to everybody, and nobody seemed to give a [expletive].”

    He now works at a politically left-wing oil company, he said. And his superiors likely would object to how he now presents his findings on social media, he told The Epoch Times.

    “I could write for 20 years about just the money that’s already been spent over the past three or four years,” he said.

    The oil worker-turned-investigator shares his findings on X under the handle Randoland.us. The account has more than 12,000 followers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

    “If you search for grants from the [U.S.] Department of Education with the word ‘equity’ in them, it’ll blow your mind how much money is being spent just on equity-aligned initiatives,” he said. He figures he’s uncovered about $240 million in “grants going toward equity initiatives.”

    Rainbow Revolution

    One discovery revealed an ongoing grant paid to Emory University so researchers can study “the rectal mucosal effects of cross-sex hormone therapy among U.S. and Thai transgender women,” The Epoch Times confirmed.

    Activists rallying to support people who identify as transgender gather on the steps of City Hall, in New York, New York, on Oct. 24, 2018. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    The project started in 2019 with a projected end date of July 2024. According to the government website, researchers will receive almost $3.5 million from the U.S. government to do the work.

    The project is categorized under “allergy and infectious diseases research,” with the stated purpose to “assist public and private nonprofit institutions and individuals to establish, expand, and improve biomedical research and research training in infectious diseases and related areas,” according to the federal spending website.

    Some small grants focus on studies that examine equally tiny portions of the population.

    One grant recipient examines the impact of alcohol on intimate partner violence in transgender and non-gender-conforming adults, The Epoch Times confirmed.

    A 2023 project received nearly $350,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to translate the Homosaurus—a thesaurus of LGBT terms—into Spanish.

    The Homosaurus website includes definitions for sexual terms such as: “anonymous sex,” “aromantic porn films,” “pederasts,” “children’s sexuality,” and “gay children.”

    The Homosaurus has reclassified as “fetishes” the words “gerontophilia,” “ephebophilia,” and “hebephilia,” Greek words that mean sexual attraction to the elderly, people 15-19, and children 11-14, respectively.

    The Epoch Times contacted the NEH about the grant but received no response.

    A rainbow flag hangs below the American flag near the entrance to the U.S. embassy in Moscow, on June 25, 2021. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)

    LGBT cultural projects in America that received funding include more than $333,000 for an LGBT radio and television “digitization and access project.”

    Another provided $324,000 to map “historical LGBTQ spaces through gay travel guides.”

    One grant offers $1 million “to advance the human rights and social inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people” worldwide. The money went to Outright Action, an American activist group dedicated to global LGBT advocacy operating in many countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine, the Philippines, Iran, and China.

    Another grant pays for a “social biography of same-sex desire in postcolonial Ireland.”

    One provides funding to chronicle contributions to “gender identity development” among Belarusian teenage girls in vulnerable families.

    LGBT Initiatives in Schools

    The government directed LGBT grants at American educational institutions, as well.

    And Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice isn’t happy about it.

    “The federal government is using the grant process to change the culture and climate in America’s public schools,” Ms. Justice told The Epoch Times.

    In her experience as a local school board member, she saw government-funded activist groups lead the ideological capture of schools, she said.

    “The grants go to ‘community partners,’ and ‘community partners’ then go in, and they work to change the procedure in the schools” to favor and teach LGBT activist worldviews, she said.

    Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty. (Tiffany Justice/Moms for Liberty)

    The federal government pursues this policy of “cultural revolution” against the will of more than 70 percent of Americans, according to polls by Moms for Liberty, Ms. Justice said.

    A recent poll by the group found that more than 70 percent of Americans want schools to teach basic educational skills and do not want gender ideology or sexual orientation instruction in classrooms, Ms. Justice said.

    Yet money flows to these projects.

    The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) gave $1.2 million to “LGBTQIA+ pride centers” in the San Diego Community College District.

    Another DOE grant of almost $1.6 million was awarded for North Dakota’s “indigenous, LGBTQIA+, rural and underserved school-based mental health needs.”

    A DOE grant gave $1.4 million to Boston College to study “mechanisms of health promotion in diverse youth through gay-straight alliances.”  In plain speak, the grant funded the promotion of gay-straight alliance clubs in Massachusetts middle and high schools.

    The Epoch Times contacted the DOE but received no response.

    “The federal government thumbs their nose at the American people and continues to push this ideology into our schools,” Ms. Justice said.

    “They’re doing it all over the world.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 19:45

  • McCarthy Would Entertain Return As Speaker In GOP Deadlock
    McCarthy Would Entertain Return As Speaker In GOP Deadlock

    Ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) isn’t ruling out a return to his old post if the House Republican Conference is deadlocked on a replacement.

    In a Monday interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, McCarthy – who lost his job as Speaker last week after eight House Republicans joined with Democrats, teased a return to the job.

    “Look, the conference has to make that decision. I’m still a member. I’m going to continue to fight and act,” said McCarthy.

    When Hewitt asked again what McCarthy would do if the eight GOP members who opposed him retreated, the former Speaker kept the door open.

    “Look, whatever the conference wants, I will do,” he said, adding “I think we need to be strong. I think we need to be united. The eight, in my view, don’t look to be — it was a personal thing.”

    He expressed frustration with the Republicans who voted against a GOP-only stopgap proposal. The party’s repeated failure to pass a temporary funding bill that included spending cuts and policy provisions prompted McCarthy to pass a “clean” stopgap to avoid a government shutdown, infuriating the hard-line GOP members who then voted to oust him. –The Hill

    “They’re the ones who wanted a government shutdown,” McCarthy said of the GOP holdouts. “We wouldn’t be paying our troops while we’re putting out a carrier strike fighter there – 30,000 American men and women in our armed services in the Middle East wouldn’t be being paid right now? I mean, what weakness would we be at?”

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    On Friday, McCarthy refuted a Politico report that he planned to resign before the end of his term.

    “No, I’m not resigning. I’m staying, so don’t worry,” McCarthy told reporters on Friday, adding “We’re going to keep the majority, I’m going to help the people I got here and we’re going to expand it.”

    House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) are the current frontrunners to replace McCarthy as Speaker.

    The House GOP will hold a candidate forum Tuesday, and an internal conference election Wednesday.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 19:20

  • Over 100 Bodies Found In Israeli Kibbutz; Biden Confirms 11 Americans Killed & "Likely" More In Captivity
    Over 100 Bodies Found In Israeli Kibbutz; Biden Confirms 11 Americans Killed & “Likely” More In Captivity

    Update(1905ET): The numbers of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas has been revised upward to an estimated 150. By Monday’s end at least 900 Israelis have been reported killed and nearly 2,400 wounded since the Saturday surprise assault from Gaza. Palestinian emergency sources report 560 dead and over 2,700 wounded in Gaza has heavy Israeli bombardment of the strip has continued.

    In one single kibbutz near the border, at least 108 bodies have been discovered amid the ongoing Israeli search, rescue and recovery efforts: 

    Israeli volunteer rescue organization ZAKA said Monday night that it had discovered more than 100 bodies in Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border.

    “Large teams cleared bodies all day from kibbutz Be’eri,” the organization said. “There were weapons everywhere, grenades, and RPGs. We cleared 108 bodies and we are not done yet.”

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    The New York Times has also begun to piece together eyewitness accounts of the Saturday invasion into southern Israel, as more identifies of the kidnapped have come to light:

    The hostages were seized from homes in towns along Israel’s border with Gaza — including the Kalderons’ small village of Kibbutz Nahal Oz — as well as from military bases and an enormous outdoor dance party.

    They include civilians, soldiers, people with disabilities, children, grandparents and even a 9-month-old baby. The hostages are also believed to include at least one Palestinian resident of Israel, a bus driver who spent the night near the outdoor party after driving Israelis there, his family said.

    The capture of so many Israelis by Palestinian militants has taken the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into uncharted territory — not only in the sheer number of hostages, but also in the dire threats Hamas is making against them.

    And The Washington Post has verified some of the horrifying footage to have emerged, including summary executions of Israeli hostages in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas/PIJ incursion: 

    At least four Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during their unprecedented incursion into Israel on Saturday were killed soon after being taken captive, according to videos reviewed by The Washington Post. Graphic video shared on Telegram on Oct. 8, and verified by The Post, shows multiple bodies in the street in Be’eri, a kibbutz in southern Israel, just yards from where Hamas militants were filmed walking with several civilians who appear to be those same hostages.

    Huge swathes of Gaza are under rubble…

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    Netanyahu in a Monday speech vowed, “What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”

    Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s involvement from the north appears to be growing.

    The US has issued a stern warning for the Lebanese Shia paramilitary group not to enter the conflict. President Biden on Monday said that at least 11 Americans were confirmed killed. He said there are “likely” more being held hostage. Many of these may be dual citizens. Here’s part of Biden’s statement:

    “It’s heart wrenching,” Biden said in a statement. “These families have been torn apart by inexcusable hatred and violence.”

    Biden said his administration is aware other U.S. citizens are missing and that they are working with Israeli officials to learn more about their whereabouts, though he didn’t elaborate on how many Americans are unaccounted for as the conflict rages.

    “The safety of American citizens — whether at home or abroad — is my top priority as President,” Biden said.

    “While we are still working to confirm, we believe it is likely that American citizens may be among those being held by Hamas,” he continued. “I have directed my team to work with their Israeli counterparts on every aspect of the hostage crisis, including sharing intelligence and deploying experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts.”

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    Below is a brief review of other developments of the last 24-48 hours, via Academy Securities:

    • Israel has seized control of the communities around Gaza that were at the center of the horrific attacks by Hamas over the past 48 hours.
    • Israel’s Ministry of Defense has ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza cutting off electricity, food, fuel, and water to the region and has called up 300,000 reservists.
    • Israel flew in munitions from the U.S. over the weekend, including GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs and the expectation is that Israel will ask for small arms, ammunition, tank rounds, and Tamir interceptors for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
    • The U.S. is also sending the USS Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean to show solidarity with Israel and to discourage other parties from getting involved/supporting Hamas in this conflict, i.e., Iran and Hezbollah.
    • Hezbollah exchanged artillery and rocket fire on Sunday with Israeli forces raising concern of an escalation of the violence, but Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah BouHabib said that his government has been assured by Hezbollah that it will not join the fighting unless Israel “harasses” Lebanon.
    • While unconfirmed by U.S. intelligence (and denied by Iran), Iranian security officials reportedly helped plan Hamas’s attack and gave the “green light” for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah.
    • Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that creating a Palestinian state was the “most reliable” solution for peace in Israel and could see Russia as a peacemaker (it has a relationship with all the parties involved).

    And thoughts on market-related impact via The Academy T-Report:

    How far does Israel go, given that this has shaken the nation to its core. The veil of safety has been pierced. Maybe the better question is how far can they go without turning a part of the world against them? While the most vicious and deadly battles will be fought in the streets (and underground) there will be information and misinformation campaigns trying to shift global opinion. Can you “win” the battle but risk “losing” the war? This will be tricky, and the relative small size of the Gaza Strip and a high population density will make it extremely difficult to be effective and not harm civilians. This will be a tough balancing act.

    Do others get involved? While many find it difficult to believe that Hamas acted alone, that remains the official line. This has not escalated into a battle for Israel on multiple fronts. Iran has not been brought into the war, which would up the ante significantly.

    While not directly part of this discussion, our increasing concern that our global adversaries understand that inflation has become an “Achilles Heel” and this will only make adversaries more aware of that.

    Over the next 48 hours, we should get answers to these questions, which will help from how the markets and global economy and companies will respond (many companies with operations in Israel have faced an incredibly difficult and scary weekend, that is continuing into this week).

    On markets fronts:

    Oil should be higher. There is risk to shipping. There is risk to whatever Iranian oil has been making its way to the market (especially if they are implicated in any way). The Saudis could increase production to help, but how this is being viewed on social media in the region could shape their behavior significantly (the information war will be important). Our inability, unwillingness, or lack of urgency in replenishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not helpful as our “insurance policy” was used and hasn’t been re-upped.

    Treasury yields lower. It doesn’t matter what oil does, yields will be lower. The price of oil is not in the Fed’s control right now, but the risk of economic slowdown is. The risk of escalation and spreading the violence is real and should keep investors focused on safety. Many (including us) thought treasury yields were too high before this, so look for a push to lower yields, regardless of what oil does. Oil is a secondary factor in the rates market right now.

    Stocks are a wildcard. I’ve been in the “bad news is good news” for stocks and that seemed to play out again today. I don’t know how much “bad news” stocks can take before the lower yields/higher stocks algos fail and we get a more traditional “flight to safety” like we had overnight. If things don’t escalate, stocks can continue to squeeze higher as so much negativity was priced in (while at the same time pricing in a hawkish Fed). I’d be reducing equity exposure here, still long, but this “bad news” has the risk of being really bad.

    * * *

    Update(1350ET): Casualties in the Gaza Strip are soaring (at over 560 dead) after a full day of very heavy, frequent airstrikes by the Israeli Air Force. For the first time Monday, Israel says it has pacified the border, with a military spokesperson announcing, “There are no terrorists crossing the fence from Gaza into Israel.” The confirmed death toll among Israelis is now over 900.

    “Since this morning, there have been a few encounters with terrorists. There have been none at all in the last few hours,” the military spokesman said. Israel earlier announced a full “siege” of Gaza, and there are signs a ground invasion could be imminent. Hamas and Gaza militants have announced holding at least 100 hostages, but now Hamas is threatening to execute them. Netanyahu on Sunday had warned Palestinian civilians to begin clearing out, but as some observers have noted, where will they go? 

    According to the latest from the Times of Israel on Hamas’ new threat to kill more Israelis:

    The Hamas terror group is threatening to begin executing hostages in response to Israeli strikes in Gaza carried out without warnings, the spokesperson for Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades says, according to Gaza’s Shehab news outlet.

    “From this hour, any targeting of our people in the safety of their homes, without warning, will be met with the execution of civilian hostages, which will be broadcast with video and audio,” says the spokesperson, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Obeida.

    A defense official reportedly told Knesset members in a briefing earlier in the day that Israel was not dropping dummy bombs on roofs of buildings set to be targeted, meant to warn civilians to flee.

    Via AP: A woman holds a photo during the ‘Jewish Community Vigil’ for Israel in London, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023.

    Many of these hostages, foreigners among them, are believed to have been kidnapped from the Saturday music festival which had been taking place in the southern desert, near the border with Gaza.

    Meanwhile more shocking footage has emerged as Hamas invaded the event and began shooting civilians at random: 

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    * * *

    Update (1100ET): Israel has confirmed its forces are now striking targets in southern Lebanon, as the conflict slides into the much-feared scenario of a two-front war… Hamas in the south, Hezbollah in the north. Interestingly, it seems that Gaza-based militants are trying to provoke Hezbollah’s entry into the war, given they need the firepower and for the IDF to be bogged down in the north:

    ALERT Palestinian Islamic Jihad claims Israel infiltration from Lebanon: official

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    According to CNN:

    Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a brief statement on Monday that its helicopters are currently striking in Lebanese territory. No further details were provided. 

    Earlier, the IDF said a “number of armed suspects” who “infiltrated” into Israel from Lebanon were killed, and that IDF soldiers were searching the area.

    The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers said in a statement on Monday that it has reported explosions near Al-Boustan in southwest Lebanon.

    There are also reports IDF heavy armor has been seen headed to northern border with Lebanon:

    Cross-border attacks are intensifying in the growing tit-for-tat:

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    * * *

    The total death toll among both sides as all-out war between Israel and Gaza militants enters its third day has topped 1,100 – with most of these deaths being Israeli, at an estimated 800.

    Israel’s defense minister has as of Monday ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza which alarmingly includes cutting off all supply of electricity, fuel, and food, but even water for a densely packed population of 3+ million people in the strip.

    Image via Fox

    Yoav Gallant said, “I have given an order – Gaza will be under complete siege.” He added: “We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.”

    At the same time a statement from energy minister Israel Katz confirmed, “I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately.”

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    Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have reportedly retaken all the southern towns and settlements which were hit hardest by Saturday’s shock invasion of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants from Gaza.

    A fuller picture of the devastation is still emerging. Israeli authorities have confirmed recovery of 260 bodies from the site of the desert music festival which was among the first to be invaded by Hamas gunmen…

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    Meanwhile, the IDF continues to pound the Gaza Strip on an unprecedented scale, with top Israeli officials increasingly voicing their approval for a ground invasion, which some say is imminent: 

    Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed at least 493, including dozens of children, and left 2,651 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

    An incursion by Gaza militants of this scale has not been seen in Israel since the nation’s founding in 1948.

    But if an Israeli ground assault does ensue, it will be deeply controversial inside Israel given the likely high casualties the IDF will take on (as has been the case in prior high-risk ground incursions).

    There are emerging reports that Gaza-based terrorists have beheaded IDF soldiers:

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    At the same time, Hamas and PIJ terrorists are now holding some 100 Israeli hostages taken in Saturday’s cross border raids.

    According to Reuters, Qatar is currently seeking to mediate hostage negotiations. The Palestinian side has demanded the release of some 5,000 of their own who have been held in Israeli jails, sometimes for years.

    There are believed to be Americans (or dual US-Israeli citizens) currently in captivity in Gaza:

    A spokesperson for the NSC said the agency can confirm the deaths of “several” U.S. citizens, but did not provide a specific number.

    “We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected, and wish those injured a speedy recovery,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement shared with The Hill.

    Additional US media sources reported that so far four Americans have been confirmed killed. And later in the morning on Monday the State Department announced nine Americans have been killed.

    U.S. STATE DEPT SPOKESPERSON CONFIRMS THE DEATH OF NINE AMERICANS IN ISRAEL

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    BBC is also reporting that at least 10 British citizens are feared dead or missing. According to Israeli officials, the numbers of Americans confirmed to be in captivity could grow as more details emerge:

    Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, confirmed American citizens were among those taken captive but gave no details about them or those who had been killed.

    “Unfortunately, I can’t,” he told CNN. “We have a lot of dual citizens in Israel. I suspect there are several, but we’re still trying to sort through all of all this information after this horrific surprise attack and we’ll make sure to put that information out so that the loved ones of these people who were killed and who are held hostage, they know as quickly as possible.”

    On Sunday the Pentagon announced it is sending an aircraft carrier and warships near Israel in a “show of support” – also as Americans as well as dual passport holders and tourists scramble to get out.

    Ben Gurion international airport has come under a barrage of rockets fired from the strip, disrupting all flights in and out.

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    developing…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 19:05

  • What If UFOs Have Been A Cover For High-Tech Human Defense Research Programs?
    What If UFOs Have Been A Cover For High-Tech Human Defense Research Programs?

    Authored by John Ruehl via AsiaTimes.com,

    Could the decades-long pursuit of unraveling the UFO mystery potentially function as a cover for advanced government research and testing programs for innovative forms of propulsion and craft design? Moreover, might the recent rollout of official government hearings signal a gradual disclosure of some of those capabilities?

    This scenario is worth considering, as the process of investigating UFOs comes into sharper public focus.

    This year, fascination with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) has spiked. David Grusch, a former intelligence official who led the analysis of UAPs within the US military, told a congressional hearing in July that the United States had been collecting non-human craft “for decades.”

    At the first Republican presidential debate on August 23, candidates were asked about the US president’s responsibility to provide information to the public about UFOs. And on August 31, the Pentagon launched a new website providing the public with declassified information about sightings.

    Mainstream intrigue surrounding UFOs was born after the 1947 Roswell incident, the crash of what was initially described by the US military as a “flying disc” in Roswell, New Mexico, but later attributed to a weather balloon.

    To quell public fear and speculation, official government studies to investigate UFO/UAP reports, including Project Blue Book, Project Sign, and Project Grudge, were launched. While the US government feared air warning systems could be overwhelmed by reports, it was also wary of Soviet attempts to boost false sightings and promote conspiracy theories that could instigate panic and allegations of a coverup.

    During the Cold War, UFO reports became common, often coinciding with missile and rocket tests (a habit that continues today). Several Soviet and US military personnel also testified that UFOs were able temporarily to take control over missile and nuclear facilities.

    Official disinformation

    However, in 1997, the US Central Intelligence Agency revealed that the military had lied to the public throughout the Cold War about many UFO sightings to obscure its black projects and keep Moscow in the dark about technological advancements. Blaming sightings on natural phenomena like ice crystals and temperature inversions fueled public distrust toward the government and its claims about UFOs/UAPs.

    Many secret military aircraft were frequently mistaken for UFOs, such as the U-2 reconnaissance plane, introduced in the 1950s, which featured a gray frame that often reflected the sun. The SR-71 “Blackbird” meanwhile started service in 1966 and wasn’t declassified until the 1990s. Its distinctive shape, speed, and altitude capabilities were often mistaken for a UFO.

    The B-2 Spirit, introduced in the late 1980s, also had a unique aerodynamic design and its ability to control lift, thrust, and drag at low speeds often gave the appearance that it was hovering.

    Since the Cold War, secretive experimental military aircraft have continued to generate UFO reports. But unexplained phenomena have also fueled conspiracy theories.

    In November 2004 off the coast of San Diego, US Navy pilots filmed UFOs demonstrating rapid acceleration, physics-defying sudden changes in direction, and other feats in videos eventually released to the public in 2017. And despite formalizing a UFO/UAP reporting process in 2019, navy pilots and other US military personnel who have witnessed them have been hesitant to come forward because of fear of ridicule or professional repercussions.

    The US military’s reluctance to disclose UFO/UAP information is often linked to the need to protect classified technology. Military agencies can choose neither to confirm nor deny such information exists.

    But when the government transparency website, the Black Vault, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the navy for more UFO/UAP videos, it was denied because it would harm national security and “may provide adversaries valuable information regarding Department of Defense/navy operations, vulnerabilities, and/or capabilities.”

    Releasing these videos without additional information may also be an effective way for the US military to hint at its own new technological capacities for various strategic, political, and scientific reasons. Suddenly revealing these technologies could result in rising geopolitical tensions and trigger a reaction, while merely hinting at it may also serve as a deterrence to adversaries.

    Gradually preparing the public for emerging technologies is equally as important, while encouraging speculation about UFO/UAPs could divert attention away from classified projects.

    By clandestinely testing experimental new technologies on their own defenses without resorting to lethal forces, military agencies can also gain valuable insights into their capabilities and vulnerabilities in real-world scenarios.

    A 2021 report by the DoD’s intelligence agencies also noted that many UFOs/UAPs were “technologies deployed by China, Russia, another nation, or a non-governmental entity.” The New York Times broke the story days before an updated version was provided to Congress in 2022.

    An ongoing investigation by The Warzone meanwhile suggests there are a large number of hostile drones mistaken for UFOs/UAPs that the US government has until recently failed to confront.

    Being unable to properly identify another country’s experimental aircraft, by labeling it a UFO/UAP, would also demonstrate shortcomings in US air defense systems. Similarly, releasing documentation of US surveillance of other countries’ stealth aircraft and other technology would give them a better idea of US military capabilities and would alert these countries that they were being surveilled.

    Corporate involvement

    In addition to other countries, companies are also responsible for a significant number of UFO/UAP reports.

    The first drones were manufactured more than a century ago in the UK and US, and the capabilities of the private sector have grown considerably since then.

    Camouflage technology has made commercial drones increasingly difficult to clearly identify, and hundreds of drones by China’s largest drone maker, DJI, were noted to have entered restricted airspace in Washington in 2022 alone. And, of course, commercial drones can be purchased and used by other governments.

    Nonetheless, many of the technological developments concerning advanced aircraft stem from the US military and other agencies.

    Since the 1970s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has expanded on ideas developed by scientist and engineer Arthur Kantrowitz to use lasers to launch satellites without fuel or an engine, with successful tests carried out in the late 1990s.

    The US Air Force and NASA have both continued developing this technology in the 21st century, while NASA has also explored plasma propulsion technology that may have caused numerous UFO/UAP reports.

    The US Navy has pushed the boundaries of technology further with the development of laser-induced plasma technology, patented in 2018. This innovation can generate extremely high temperatures in the air, creating plasma that can be harnessed to form intricate shapes and lifelike optical illusions, even simulating aircraft performing seemingly impossible maneuvers.

    Additionally, the US military has developed the ability to produce sound out of lasers, which would add an additional layer of realism to UFO/UAP sightings.

    Over the last few years, increasing attention has also been brought to projects by Salvatore Cezar Pais, an aerospace engineer and scientist who has worked for the US Navy and the US Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD).

    Despite lacking empirical evidence and rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific scrutiny, his alleged breakthroughs in propulsion and energy generation would serve as some of the most groundbreaking technological breakthroughs in history.

    Pais’ patents with the US Navy relate to the development of advanced propulsion systems that could potentially lead to rapid thrust technology and an abundance of clean energy generation. This includes a “craft using an inertial mass reduction device,” which was patented in 2018, while a patent for a “plasma compression fusion device” was also filed but later appeared to be abandoned.

    Nonetheless, documents retrieved by The Warzone through the US Freedom of Information Act reveal that his inventions are being considered for the Air Force, NASA, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

    Of course, like the late US president Ronald Reagan’s proposed “Star Wars” missile defense system in the 1980s, Pais’ patents could be designed to bait adversaries into a costly arms race. That is not to say that these countries are not already developing their own fascinating projects.

    China has been drastically increasing its development of plasma technology in recent years, and alongside the UK, Germany and Japan, is developing Active Flow Control (AFC) technology to improve aerodynamic performance in aircraft. European entities have also recently made breakthroughs in plasma propulsion technology, which may boost UFO/UAP reports across the continent.

    Amid these developments, it remains crucial for the public to stay engaged and informed about UFOs/UAP – the more publicly observed the evidence is, the harder it becomes to manipulate. Considering the history of government audacity in crafting political and war propaganda, we should remain skeptical of the entities shaping narratives about extraplanetary intelligent life.

    A shift toward de-stigmatizing and embracing a public approach to UFOs/UAP, both domestic and foreign, is essential.

    Alongside the Black Vault, initiatives like the open-data Galileo Project, spearheaded by Avi Loeb of Harvard University’s Astronomy Department, are actively seeking evidence of extraterrestrial life and pushing our understanding of outer space.

    By involving the public in the search for answers, we can bridge gaps in understanding and move closer to demystifying these phenomena.

    This article was produced by Globetrotter, which provided it to Asia Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 18:55

  • Rabies Vaccines Airdropped From Planes Throughout The Southeastern States In October
    Rabies Vaccines Airdropped From Planes Throughout The Southeastern States In October

    The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is now airdropping millions of doses of oral rabies vaccines (ORV) throughout several Southeastern states, as wild raccoons and other wildlife are reportedly spreading the disease.

    Oral Rabies Vaccination sachet dropped from airplanes. (Courtesy of USDA)

    The program to scatter the vaccines in the mountainous forests of the Western North Carolina region is being coordinated between the USDA and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS). Affected counties include Buncombe, Haywood, and Transylvania counties.

    “Avoiding contact with wild animals and vaccinating our domestic animals and pets is the best way to prevent rabies, which can often be fatal,” said Erica Berl, NCDHHS Deputy State Public Health Veterinarian, in a press release. “The wildlife rabies vaccination program prevents the spread of rabies among animals in the wild, which in turn prevents humans, pets, and other animals from becoming infected.”

    The vaccine, RABORAL V-RG, comes in a matchbook-sized plastic packet which is coated in fishmeal, or encased inside a fishmeal polymer coating.

    “Humans and pets cannot get rabies from contact with the baits, but if they encounter them, they should leave them undisturbed,” said the USDA. “Dogs that consume large numbers of baits may experience an upset stomach, but there are no long-term health risks. If adults or children come in contact with baits, immediately rinse the contact area with warm water and soap.”

    More via the Epoch Times‘ Matt McGregor;

    The program began in August distributing throughout the Northeast to mid-Atlantic regions such as Maine, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

    It continued into mid-September from mid-September to mid-October in Massachusetts.

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    Throughout October, the program will be dispersing vaccines by airplane, helicopter, and vehicle in the Southern states such as Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

    ‘A Serious Public Health Concern’

    According to the USDA, ORV distribution has taken place in the United States since 1990.

    In Canada, it’s been used since 1985, and in Europe, it began in 1980.

    There are 16 states in the U.S. distributing vaccines for raccoons.

    Texas uses them for gray foxes and coyotes.

    “Rabies is a serious public health concern,” the USDA said in an August press release. “While rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, it also is 100% preventable. Human exposures can be successfully remedied if medical attention is sought immediately following exposure.”

    Ninety percent of rabies cases in the United States are found in wildlife, the USDA said.

    “Costs associated with rabies detection, prevention, and control may exceed $500 million annually in the United States,” the USDA said.

    The goal of the program, according to the USDA, is to keep raccoons from spreading the virus to states where it hasn’t been found or isn’t widespread.

    This undated electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows rabies virions, dark and bullet-shaped, within an infected tissue sample. (F. A. Murphy/CDC via AP)

    How it Spreads, Symptoms

    The virus is carried in the infected animal’s saliva and transmitted usually through bites and scratches; however, the saliva can also spread through the eyes, nose, and mouth, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

    Rabies affects the central nervous system, the WHO said.

    “In up to 99% of cases, domestic dogs are responsible for rabies virus transmission to humans,” the WHO stated in a 2023 Fact Sheet.  “Yet, rabies can affect both domestic and wild animals.”

    Children between the ages of 5 and 14 are often victims of rabies, the WHO said.

    “The incubation period for rabies is typically 2–3 months but may vary from 1 week to 1 year, depending on factors such as the location of virus entry and the viral load,” the WHO said. “Initial symptoms of rabies include generic signs like fever, pain, and unusual or unexplained tingling, pricking, or burning sensations at the wound site. As the virus moves to the central nervous system, progressive and fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord develops. Clinical rabies in people can be managed but very rarely cured, and not without severe neurological deficits.”

    The two main types of rabies are furious rabies and paralytic rabies.

    Furious rabies causes hyperactivity, hallucinations, a fear of water and fresh air, excitable behavior, and ultimately, after a few days, death caused by cardiorespiratory arrest.

    Paralytic rabies is what is found in 20 percent of human cases, and is a kind that is more subtle than the former.

    “Muscles gradually become paralyzed, starting from the wound site,” the WHO said. “A coma slowly develops, and eventually, death occurs. The paralytic form of rabies is often misdiagnosed, contributing to the under-reporting of the disease.”

    Diagnosis for detecting a rabies infection is limited.

    “Unless the rabies-specific signs of hydrophobia or aerophobia are present, or a reliable history of contact with a suspected or confirmed rabid animal is available, clinical diagnosis is difficult,” the WHO said. “Human rabies can be confirmed intravitam and post mortem by various diagnostic techniques that detect whole viruses, viral antigens, or nucleic acids in infected tissues (brain, skin or saliva).”

    Rabies is present on all continents except Antarctica, the WHO said, with over 95 percent of deaths occurring in Asia and Africa, though cases aren’t frequently reported.

    In the U.S., hematophagous bats have become the primary source of human rabies deaths, the WHO said, because rabies in dogs has been contained.

    “Bat-mediated rabies is also an emerging public health threat in Australia and Western Europe,” the WHO said.

    “Human deaths following exposure to foxes, raccoons, skunks, jackals, mongooses, and other wild carnivore host species are very rare, and bites from rodents are not known to transmit rabies,” the WHO said.

    A fruit bat is hanging on a tree at the Amneville zoo, eastern France. Recently, Vampire bats infected with rabies have caused the deaths of several people in a remote part of the Amazonian rainforest. (Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/Getty Images )

    Post-Exposure Prevention

    The emergency response to rabies exposure, the WHO said, is called post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), which involves extensive washing with soap and water for 15 minutes, including direct treatment of the wound; the injection of a “potent and effective rabies vaccine that meets the WHO standards,” and the “administration of rabies immunoglobulin or monoclonal antibodies into the wound.”

    “This prevents the virus from entering the central nervous system, which would invariably result in death,” the WHO said.

    *  *  *

    Remember… if you are bitten by a rabid animal and you become afraid of water, it’s over.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 18:30

  • Thoughts On Proclamation 7463, Or "Digital McCarthyism" On The Move
    Thoughts On Proclamation 7463, Or “Digital McCarthyism” On The Move

    Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

    On September 14, 2001, George W. Bush, exercising “the power vested in [him] as President of the Untied States,” issued Proclamation 7463, a “Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks.” That got the ball rolling on the construction of the surveillance state.

    At the time, the extreme measure seemed justified. Three days earlier, the United States had suffered its most devastating terrorist attack in history.

    But how about this: On September 8, 2023, Joe Biden quietly renewed the Bush era emergency measures for another year. I was told there would be no math, but that makes 22 years and counting that a vast array of surveillance assets have been mobilized against—against whom?

    When George W. Bush was president, they were focused on al Qaeda and kindred groups.

    Today?

    Today, that fearsome governmental power is still assembled. Increasingly, however, it seems to be focused against those the administration fears or dislikes.

    Traditional Catholics, for example, or parents upset with their local school boards.

    At the head of the list of potential “domestic extremists” are the tens of millions of people who support Donald Trump (not to mention, of course, Trump himself). A couple of days ago, Hillary Clinton took to CNN (it would be CNN) to say that something needed to be done to silence those misguided people who supported Trump. “Maybe,” she said, “there needs to be a formal deprogramming” of MAGA “cult members.”

    Apparently the FBI agrees. According to a much-cited article in Newsweek, the agency has created a “new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers.” That article suggests that the FBI is struggling to combat genuine threats without attacking people who simply support Trump and other populist candidates. I wonder, though, how scrupulous they are being in protecting people’s Constitutional rights to free speech and political dissent.

    Actually, I do not wonder. It is quite clear, as The New York Post observed, that the agency is deploying “some of the same counterterrorism methods honed to fight al Qaeda” in its scrutiny of Trump supporters and “AGAAVE,” i.e., “anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism” (an acronym that, as the Post suggested, “looks like a typo for a sugar substitute”).

    Let me reprise here something I wrote back in April of this year: As a working principle, the conviction that things are always worse than they seem is hard to beat.

    Along with the observation from William Dean Howells that the problem for a critic isn’t making enemies but keeping them, that mournful conviction that things are worse than they seem has the twin clarifying advantage of being psychologically helpful and empirically true.

    Both have stood me in good stead.

    That is to say, if Johnny Mercer was right that one should “accentuate the positive,” one should also avoid the attitude of Dr. Pangloss who, Leibnizian that he was, taught that this is “the best of all possible worlds.”

    As readers of “Candide” will recall, that rose-colored sentiment didn’t do much to protect Cunégonde.

    I was reminded of this constellation of mottos while reading Jacob Siegel’s long and meticulously researched “Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.”

    Siegel’s brilliant if melancholy overview shows in exhaustive detail how the U.S. government, abetted by the mainstream media and what has come to be called “elite” or “ruling class” opinion generally, has repurposed surveillance tools developed to combat terrorism and turned them against the American people.

    I know that sounds dramatic. In fact, it’s actually an understatement.

    We have been vouchsafed glimpses of life behind the curtain for a while now. Hillary’s Clinton’s recent CNN rant and FBI’s new, extra-wide category of what counts as “extremism” or incipient terrorism show that the threat is metastasizing.

    Siegel focuses mostly on developments in the United States. But it’s worth noting that the story he unravels is an international concession, proceeding, for example, with initiatives such as the Davos-inspired “Great Reset.”

    I have written about various aspects of the phenomena that Siegel aggregates in his sinewy and alarming essay. For example, I wrote about Matt Taibbi’s exposé of “Hamilton 68,” a shadowy group of anti-Trump activists who succeeded in publicly branding anyone or anything they didn’t like as emanating from “Russian disinformation.”

    “Instead of tracking how ‘Russia’ influenced American attitudes,” Taibbi notes, “Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.”

    Simply in terms of volume, Taibbi estimates that Hamilton 68 “may go down as the single greatest case of media fabulism in American history.” Virtually every major news organization in America was involved: NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

    Even fact-checking sites such as Politifact and Snopes, Taibbi notes, “cited Hamilton 68 as a source. The people at Hamilton 68 simply targeted individuals they didn’t like, individuals such as Devin Nunes, Mike Flynn, Tulsi Gabbard, or Donald Trump—and then smeared them as witting or unwitting stooges of Vladimir Putin.

    The whole scheme, Taibbi shows, was a splendid example of “digital McCarthyism, taking people with dissident or unconventional opinions and mass-accusing them of ‘Un-American activities.’”

    But Siegel shows this was the but the tip of the censorship iceberg. His essay shows that kindred developments stood behind the state narrative about COVID-19, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the Capitol, “domestic terrorists,” as well as anything having to do with Trump.

    A critical moment was Jan. 6, 2017. It was then, in the waning days of the Obama administration, that Jeh Johnson, head of the Department of Homeland Security, placed the property of all 8,000 election jurisdictions under the control of the DHS.

    “It was a coup,” Siegel notes, that Johnson had been aiming at since 2016.

    At first, he was blocked by local authorities who explained that, as the Constitution stipulates, running elections was the sole responsibility of state legislatures. Johnson justified his action by invoking the emergency of (totally spurious) “Russian interference.”

    His success meant that in the final weeks of the Obama administration, “the new counter-disinformation apparatus scored one of its most significant victories: the power to directly oversee federal elections that would have profound consequences for the 2020 contest between Trump and Joe Biden.”

    But Siegel shows that the rot began much earlier. Remember the “Global War on Terror” mounted by the Bush administration following the terrorist attacks of 9/11?

    It was then that the Patriot Act and kindred initiatives (like  Proclamation 7463) licensed the construction of a sprawling surveillance network, ostensibly focused on foreign bad guys but soon repurposed in a way that “suspended constitutional rights and placed millions of Americans under a shadow of mass surveillance.”

    “The seamless transition from the war on terror to the war on disinformation,” Siegel writes, “was thus, in large measure, simply a matter of professional self-preservation. But it was not enough to sustain the previous system; to survive, it needed to continually raise the threat level.”

    And raise the threat level “it”—the deep state—has consistently done, such that anyone who challenges its diktats is regarded as an enemy. How did this happen? Americans didn’t choose to give up their liberties and constitutional rights. The choice was made for them.

    As Siegel writes: “Americans are no longer presumed to have the right to choose their own leaders or to question decisions made in the name of national security. Anyone who says otherwise can be labeled a domestic extremist.”

    Siegel’s essay is a tour de force whose richness and detail I can only hint at here. If I had to summarize his findings, I would emphasize three points.

    • First, that “after the pretense of fighting a foreign threat fell away, what was left was the core mission to enforce a narrative monopoly over truth.” We see that everywhere, whether the subject is Trump, Jan. 6, COVID, Russia, the joys of transsexuality, or the brittleness of the Constitution in the face of the perpetual emergency foisted upon us by the permanent state.

    • The second point follows that brittleness: “The pattern in these cases is that the ruling class justifies taking liberties with the law to save the planet but ends up violating the Constitution to hide the truth and protect itself.”

    • And that brings me to the third and most fundamental principle that Siegel has uncovered in this harrowing piece of work: That the ruling class, the elite that officiates over the ceremonies, perquisites, and directives of the deep state, are bound by one overriding conviction. “As a class,” Siegel concludes, “their highest principle is that they alone can wield power.” No one who reads this essay can doubt that this is true.

    As I say, things are always worse than they seem.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 18:05

  • Smith & Wesson Celebrates New Tennessee Headquarters After Ditching Massachusetts
    Smith & Wesson Celebrates New Tennessee Headquarters After Ditching Massachusetts

    Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson celebrated the grand opening of its new headquarters in Tennessee on Saturday after leaving its longtime home in Massachusetts for the more gun-friendly state.

    The company’s new digs in Maryville, TN are approximately 650,000 square feet, as part of the company’s $125 million relocation plan announced in 2021.

    The ribbon cutting event showcased renowned competitive shooter Jerry Miculek, who set an NRA record for hitting six steel plates with a 9mm revolver in 1.88 seconds.

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

    “From where I stand, the next 170 years of Smith & Wesson are looking pretty good,” Smith & Wesson President and CEO Mark Smith said on Saturday during the grand opening. “It is something special here in Tennessee.”

    He cited a welcoming regulatory environment and close collaboration with the Tennessee state government as a crucial piece of the plan to relocate. The company has said the new facility would create hundreds of jobs.

    Tennessee has moved to loosen gun restrictions in recent years under Republican leadership. In 2021, the state passed a law to allow most adults 21 and older to carry handguns without a permit that requires first clearing a state-level background check and training. –AP

    Smith & Wesson was established in 1852 in Connecticut, before soon moving its headquarters to Springfield, MA.

    Attendee view guns on display at the Smith & Wesson booth during the Latin American Aerospace & Defense (LAAD) conference and exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday, April 13, 2023.Photographer: Maria Magdalena Arrellaga/Bloomberg (Getty Images)

    “Congratulations to Smith & Wesson on their grand opening in Tennessee. This move is a testament to their enduring legacy, their commitment to firearm excellence, and to the importance of preserving America’s gun industry and Second Amendment rights in a fair environment,” NRA Executive Director of Advancement, Tyler Schropp, told Fox News.

    “Representing millions of NRA members and gun owners, the NRA was proud to be the tip of the spear for the passage and enactment of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that saved America’s firearm industry,” he continued, citing the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that prohibits firearms manufacturers from being held liable if their products are used to commit a crime.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 17:40

  • The Welfare-Warfare State's War On Income And Savings
    The Welfare-Warfare State’s War On Income And Savings

    Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    According to an article at CNBC.com, 60% of adults said they are living paycheck to paycheck. According to an article at Forbes.com, about a third of Americans were unable to save any money in the past year. According to an article at Yahoo! Finance, while financial advisors recommend savings of $1 million to $2 million for retirees, the average 70-year-old has only around $426,000 in savings. On top of that, consider how much the value of people’s money is debased each decade through the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve.

    Welcome to the welfare-warfare state way of life, which plunders and loots people’s income to fund the ever-increasing expenditures of welfare-state programs and the warfare-state programs of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

    If we think back to America’s founding principles with respect to income, wealth, welfare, and warfare, we find that our American ancestors chose a totally different way of life than today’s Americans have chosen.

    Consider, for example, 1890 Americans. They lived without an income tax and an IRS to enforce it. Just think about that: People were free to keep 100 percent of their income, and there was nothing the government could do about it. Imagine if you were free to keep everything you earned. Imagine if that had been case during your entire work life. 

    When Americans were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, they obviously were able to save a larger percentage of their income. Wouldn’t you be saving more money if suddenly you no longer had to pay any income taxes whatsoever?

    Internal Revenue Service. Licensed under Creative Commons.

    Interestingly, as our American ancestors found themselves saving lots of money, that actually led to a higher standard of living for everyone in society. That’s because those savings were put into banks, which then lent them out to businesses, which used the money to invest in tools and equipment that made their workers more productive. That increased productivity brought lower prices for consumer goods, increased profits for businesses, and higher wages for workers. Thus, there was a harmony of interests in the unlimited accumulation of wealth and higher standards of living for people.

    Twentieth-century Americans chose to go in an opposite direction. They traded the right to keep everything they earned for a welfare state and then, later a national-security state. The idea of the welfare state was to have the government take a large share of people’s income and then use the money to take care of people. The idea behind the national-security state was to have the government take a large share of people’s income to protect them from the communists and, later, the terrorists, Muslims, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, Russians, Chinese, and many others.

    Our American ancestors, of course, refused to make that trade. They didn’t want the government to take care of them. They wanted to take care of themselves, with their own money and on a purely voluntary, charitable basis. They also knew that a national-security state (or what they termed “standing armies”) would inevitably embroil them in endless wars and crises that would mean even higher taxes (and lower savings).

    At the same time, our American ancestors rejected the plunder and looting that comes with a system of paper money and the Federal Reserve. That’s why the Constitution required that gold coins and silver coins be the official money of the United States. The result was the soundest monetary system in history, one in which people felt secure in saving large percentages of their income in longterm bonds.

    The question is: Which system do we go with moving forward — America’s founding system, which led to a massive increase in income, profits, savings, and charity? Or today’s system, which has led to poverty, suffering, and a vast welfare-warfare racket that has led to impoverishment of finances and spirit?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 17:15

  • Desperate Disneyland Slashes Children's Ticket Prices By More Than 50%
    Desperate Disneyland Slashes Children’s Ticket Prices By More Than 50%

    Disneyland is slashing ticket prices for children ages 3-9 by more than 50% for park entry early next year.

    Visitors on Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A. in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 1, 2023. (Carol Cassis/The Epoch Times)

    The deal, which will go on sale Oct. 24, offers tickets for as little as $50 per child per day, and can be used between Jan. 8 through March 10 at Disneyland or Disney California Adventure. Current prices for children are $104 and up.

    The new deal is for 1, 2, or 3 day ticket packages.

    “These limited-time child tickets are a great value,” said spokesperson Kelsey Lynch on the Disney Parks blog.

    The deal provides significant savings compared to current children’s ticket prices, which are $270 for a 2-day pass and $340 for 3 days. Under the promotion, a 3-day child pass is $150.

    One-day kids’ tickets can sell for up to $179, which is the park’s “highest demand” date ticket, usually falling around Halloween or Christmas.

    The new deal has no blackout dates and will expire 13 days after the first day of use, if multiple days are purchased. That means customers will have to use their multi-day tickets within a two-week window after the first visit. -Epoch Times

    Adults will need to reserve their full priced tickets separately.

    That said, even lower prices aren’t going to convince many conservative parents to patronize the woke entertainment company.

    “I just don’t think we’ll be taking our kids back any time soon, especially after their new movie basically makes God into the bad guy,” one recent Disneyland visitor told the Epoch Times, referring to Disney Pixar’s latest movie reveal for “Wish,” which turns the movie’s God-like figure into an antagonist.

    In August, Disney came under fire for their upcoming Snow White remake, after the son of the man who animated and directed the original version called it a “disgrace” and labeled the “woke things” they’ve made up as “insulting.”

    David Hand—son of the animator and director of the original version who was known by the same name—issued a harsh rebuke of the remake, telling the Telegraph on Aug. 18 that Disney’s “woke” version is an insult to his father’s work.

    “It’s a whole different concept, and I just totally disagree with it, and I know my dad and Walt would also very much disagree with it,” Mr. Hand said.

    He said he disagrees with the entire concept, calling it a “disgrace,” suggesting that Disney is “trying to do something new with something that was such a great success earlier.”

    The aforementioned ticket discount also comes a week after the park lost a class action lawsuit alleging that Disney used deceptive practices over how they allocate reservations to annual passholders.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 16:50

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  • Korybko: Top 10 Takeaways From Hamas' Sneak Attack On Israel
    Korybko: Top 10 Takeaways From Hamas’ Sneak Attack On Israel

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    Everything that’s happened thus far has been eye-opening for everyone.

    Hamas launched an unprecedented sneak attack on Israel over the weekend that completely caught the self-professed Jewish State by surprise after all its security systems unexpectedly failed at the same time. The border wall was breached, some military bases were captured, and dozens of hostages were taken back to Gaza.

    Israel responded by launching airstrikes inside the strip and preparing a ground operation.

    Here are the top ten takeaways from everything that’s happened thus far in the latest Israeli-Hamas war:

    1. Israel’s Alleged Invincibility Was Dispelled As An Illusion

    For starters, nobody is under the illusion any longer that Israel is invincible. Up until this weekend’s sneak attack, some had continued to cling to the claim that its conventional military-technical capabilities and massive aid from America made it the regional hegemon, but that perception was just shattered.

    2. It Was Totally Unprepared For Hamas’ Hybrid War Tactics

    Upon the breaching of its border wall, which was the result of a colossal intelligence failure and subsequent collapse of all security systems, Israel proved that it was totally unprepared to counter Hamas’ Hybrid War tactics of lightning-fast squad assaults and rudimentary drone attacks.

    3. Political Infighting Likely Contributed To This Intelligence Failure

    Had Israel’s military and intelligence services not gotten involved in the political dispute over Netanyahu’s planned judicial reforms, which was exacerbated by the Biden Administration’s meddling as explained here, then they might have detected Hamas’ plans in advance and thus been able to foil them.

    4. It Also Didn’t Help That US Spies Are Distracted With Ukraine

    Israel must take full responsibility for its intelligence failures, but it also didn’t help any that its American ally’s spies have been distracted with Ukraine. If they weren’t so focused on that conflict, then they might have kept at least one satellite over Gaza that could have discovered Hamas’ military buildup.

    5. America Is Now In A Dilemma Over Who Gets Finite Military Aid

    Business Insider drew attention to America’s newfound dilemma over whether to give finite military aid, particularly artillery shells, to Ukraine as planned or redirect these resources to Israel instead. Its decision could have major implications for both conflicts since the choice between them is zero-sum.

    6. Saudi Arabia Will Probably Freeze Its Peace Talks With Israel

    Saudi Arabia is under immense pressure from the international Muslim community to freeze its reported peace talks with Israel after the latter’s strikes against civilian targets in Gaza. It’ll probably comply with these demands, which would then ruin the Biden Administration’s plans for a deal before the elections.

    7. The IMEC Megaproject Will Likely Be Put On Ice For Some Time Too

    The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) can’t be completed if Saudi Arabia and/or especially Jordan freeze their role in its construction to protest Israel’s involvement in the latest conflict, though this won’t harm India’s trade with any relevant party since it’s entirely conducted by sea.

    8. Russia & China’s Balanced Statements Surprised Some Observers

    Many in the Alt-Media Community wrongly thought that Russia and China favored Palestine, hence why those two’s balanced statements here and here surprised them. Even fewer knew that President Putin fully supports the IDF as proven by his official statements over the years that were documented here.

    9. The Debate Over Whether The Ends Justify The Means Has Re-Opened

    Hamas’ killing of IDF-trained settlers-civilians and kidnapping of children, women, and the elderly to swap for prisoners was justified by some Palestinian supporters as a legitimate means for pursuing national liberation while other supporters criticized these tactics for undermining their cause’s morality.   

    10. Hezbollah Is The Wild Card In The Latest Israeli-Hamas War

    Hamas’ sneak attack against Israel brought to life one of the latter’s worst nightmares, which might become even worse if Hezbollah decides to commence large-scale hostilities. In that event, Lebanon and possibly also Syria could be dragged into the fray, which could easily become existential for all parties.

    Everything that’s happened thus far has been eye-opening for everyone.

    The reputation of Israel’s security services has been shattered, Hamas’ has never been better in the eyes of most non-Western observers, and many among the latter finally learned that neither Russia nor China favor Palestine.

    Should the latest conflict become protracted, let alone expand into a regional one, then there’s a real possibility that the US will freeze the Ukrainian Conflict in order to redirect finite military aid to Israel.  

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 00:10

  • "Can You Be Extradited For Treason?": Former Army Soldier Arrested Over Attempted China Espionage Involving Classified Materials
    “Can You Be Extradited For Treason?”: Former Army Soldier Arrested Over Attempted China Espionage Involving Classified Materials

    A former US Army soldier has been arrested and charged with two felonies over alleged attempts to deliver national defense information to the Chinese Communist Party, as well as illegal retention of national defense information following his exit from the service.

    Joseph Schmidt, a former Sergeant, was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on Friday after a grand jury indicted him on Wednesday.

    Schmidt, who served as a team leader of an Army human intelligence squad supporting US espionage in the Indo-Pacific, is accused of attempting to spy for China following his departure from the service in February 2020.

    The “shocking” plot includes allegations that Schmidt’s search history includes “can you be extradited for treason?”

    During a trip to Istanbul the same month he left the military, Schmidt made nearly 30 Google searches related to defection and spilling military secrets, ranging from “countries with most negative relations with US” to “what is China’s intelligence agency?” and “soldier defect,” according to an FBI investigative report.

    Other search terms included “subreddit spying” and “looking for a subreddit about spy stuff.”

    Schmidt also queried Google Maps for driving directions from Beijing’s airport to the headquarters of China’s Ministry of State Security, which has a similar role to the CIA.

    On Feb. 24, 2020, Schmidt sent a message to the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul requesting a meeting, calling himself a United States citizen looking to move to China.”

    “I also am trying to share information I learned during my career as an interrogator with the Chinese government,” he wrote. –NY Post

    “I have a current top-secret clearance, and would like to talk to someone from the Government to share this information with you if that is possible,” Schmidt wrote.

    “Individuals entrusted with national defense information have a continuing duty to protect that information beyond their government service and certainly beyond our borders,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen in a prepared statement.

    “The National Security Division is committed to identifying and holding accountable those who violate that duty.”

    More via The Epoch Times;

    Mr. Schmidt served in the Army for five years, ending his service in 2020.

    His primary active-duty assignment was at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, where he served in the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion. He was given access to Secret and Top Secret information in his role there.

    After separating from the military, Mr. Schmidt is alleged to have illegally held onto classified intelligence about national defense matters that he had obtained as part of his duties. Mr. Schmidt then allegedly reached out to the Chinese consulate in Turkey and then through email to Chinese security services and offered the information to the regime.

    “As alleged by the government, Schmidt betrayed his promise and potentially placed our nation at risk in his attempts to pass national defense information to Chinese security services,” said FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Suzanne Turner.

    “The FBI and our partners remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting the American people and U.S. national security.”

    Two months after Mr. Schmidt’s separation from the Army, he traveled to Hong Kong where he allegedly told Chinese security services that he had access to a device that could access the United States’ secure military computer networks. It is alleged Mr. Schmidt offered to provide this device to the regime.

    Mr. Schmidt has resided in Hong Kong since 2020, but was arrested upon flying into San Francisco this week.

    “Members of our military take a sworn oath to defend our country and the Constitution,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman.

    “In that context the alleged actions of this former military member are shocking, not only attempting to provide national defense information, but also information that would assist a foreign adversary to gain access to Department of Defense secure computer networks.”

    Both of the alleged crimes are punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 23:40

  • Judge Denies Sidney Powell's Motion To Dismiss Charges In Georgia Election Case
    Judge Denies Sidney Powell’s Motion To Dismiss Charges In Georgia Election Case

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

    A Georgia judge on Thursday rejected lawyer Sidney Powell’s attempt to dismiss her charges in a racketeering case that also ensnared former President Donald Trump and multiple others.

    Lawyer Sidney Powell (C) speaks to media while flanked by President Donald Trump’s lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (L) and Trump campaign senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis at a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, on Nov. 19, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee denied her motion to dismiss the charges, coming after she alleged that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in her case.

    “I don’t see that as clearing just a procedural bar of being something that’s under the court’s authority,” the judge said as he denied Ms. Powell’s motion, the Washington Examiner reported. He added that it is the “jury’s job to decide contested issues” regarding her case.

    Ms. Powell is scheduled to go on trial later this month along with election lawyer Kenneth Chesebro. Several weeks ago, the two tried to sever their cases from each another, which Judge McAfee also denied, while the other 17 defendants—including President Trump—will go on trial at a later undetermined date.

    Both Ms. Powell and Mr. Chesebro have pleaded not guilty.

    “I can sympathize with the idea that someone who vigorously contests and believes in their innocence doesn’t want to sit through a long trial, but that is the state’s right to do,” Judge McAfee said in his remarks. “That’s simply the process as it stands.”

    Election Claims

    In August, Ms. Powell, a former federal prosecutor who drew headlines in 2020 for her “Kraken”-related claims about the 2020 election, was charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, and more after prosecutors alleged that she was involved in an unlawful breach of voting equipment in Coffee County, Georgia.

    Her motion to dismiss accused Ms. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, of misconduct because her “indictment represents troubling and unethical conduct by the prosecutors.”

    Ms. Powell’s lawyers also said Ms. Willis and her team of prosecutors likely violated Napue, referring to a 1959 Supreme Court decision about the knowing use of false testimony by a prosecutor, and therefore violated the due process clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

    The prosecutors “must have presented a misleading and false case to the grand jury, or the grand jury simply rubber-stamped the Indictment,” her filing in late September stated. “The State was in possession of substantial exculpatory evidence which it must not have presented, and this Court should carefully review the grand jury proceedings for Napue and ethical violations by the prosecution.”

    But the Fulton District Attorney’s Office vigorously opposed Ms. Powell’s motion to dismiss, saying Thursday that her claims about her innocence should be up to the jury.

    While reports have said that Ms. Powell was an attorney for President Trump after the 2020 election, she wrote in a filing that she didn’t serve on the former president’s legal team at the time. There was some confusion after she appeared alongside then-Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis in a news conference about election irregularities.

    After Judge McAfee’s ruling, Ms. Powell has not made any public comments.

    Powell’s Co-Defendants

    The ruling comes weeks after Ms. Willis’ team confirmed that attorney Lin Wood, who also made a number of claims around the 2020 election, would serve as a “state witness” in Ms. Powell’s trial. In a comment to The Epoch Times, Mr. Wood said last month that he did not flip on President Trump or others, saying: “I have no idea why I am being called as a witness in the [Sidney] Powell trial.”

    In the Georgia case so far, all the defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges except for one. Last week, bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty to multiple charges as part of a plea agreement that requires him to testify against the other co-defendants.

    His case relates to the incident in Coffee County, according to prosecutors. It’s not clear if Mr. Hall will be called to testify against Ms. Powell or the others.

    As for President Trump, he also faces state charges in New York City after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted him for allegedly falsifying business records in connection to the 2016 election. Federal prosecutors earlier this summer charged President Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House and for his actions following the 2020 election.

    Attorneys for President Trump last week made a court filing saying he won’t seek to move the Georgia case to a federal court, coming after he previously wrote in a court filing that he might do so.

    “This decision is based on his well-founded confidence that this Honorable Court intends to fully and completely protect his constitutional right to a fair trial and guarantee him due process of law throughout the prosecution of his case in the Superior Court of

    Fulton County, Georgia,” Trump attorney Steven Sadow wrote.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 23:10

  • What Was Behind Last Week's Stunning Drop In Oil, And Where Does Crude Go Next
    What Was Behind Last Week’s Stunning Drop In Oil, And Where Does Crude Go Next

    Oil prices have been a veritable rollercoaster in just the past 10 days.

    After soaring more than 36% from its June lows to a 1-year high just above $97 at the end of September, Brent tumbled $14 in just six sessions, including last Wednesday’s brutal plunge, which was the biggest one-day drop since the UK’s Mini-Budget fiasco of Sept 2022 when funds were literally blowing up and liquidating commodities to avoid collapse, and which ended up with another BOE bailout.

    What was behind the furious plunge? While there wasn’t one single catalyst, Goldman’s commodities strategist Callum Bruce views the tumble in oil as driven by three reasons:

    1. Overvaluation: Goldman’s inventory-based modelling suggests oil timespreads and flat price was already elevated versus the bank’s forecasted inventory draws. Discretionary positioning was the longest since the Russia-Ukraine war, and the market was very much overbought.
    2. Recession fears: Renewed fears in a rates-led recession saw significant sell-offs in the more deferred timespreads, implying concerns regarding next year’s demand; this was exacerbated by the strategically timed very weak US EIA weekly gasoline demand print, that as many have observed (and speculated about the EIA’s political mandates) were implausibly low. In response, Goldman maintains its relatively serene macro-economic outlook, with FCIs not overtightening and real incomes still rising. Retail prices similarly are not yet at demand destructive levels and demand is still tracking robustly.
    3. CTA unwinds: Mechanical selling of oil as prices hit sell-stop triggers for short term momentum flows. Admittedly much length likely remains here.

    Goldman commodity products trader Madhav Janakiraman chimes in and writes that while “not a lot has actually changed fundamentally…. the market created a bit of downside momentum because of government shutdown risk/chatter about Kurdish crude coming back to market/Russian diesel returning etc. Once that little push occurred, the positioning did the rest particularly because a decent chunk of the length was CTA style momentum following strategies and they were quite close on some of their signals turning. At the same time index, commodity ETFs saw decent outflows into month-end and earlier this week. So retail, pension fund type long term investors were also exiting the space. Discretionary playxers simply didn’t have the ability to stem the tide…”

    So while it is tempting to think this is silly CTA led washout and a huge buying opportunity, Janakiraman says that the path risks are still significant. China being out this week for Golden week hasn’t helped either in terms of liquidity. They also tend to be pretty aggressive buyers of physical molecules when they see flat price get to cheap levels. One could also argue at current price set Saudi Arabia is unlikely to bring back crude they have held out from the market “and so it is cheap.”

    Whatever the reason for the drop, Goldman has stuck to its view of steep deficits into next year driven by (1) robust demand, and (2) significant OPEC+ discipline and pricing power, allowing inventories to draw down to critically low levels once again. The bank also expects prices to reach $100/bbl by mid-24 – driven by deferred timespreads – while the back-end of the curve is kept anchored by plentiful spare capacity and cost deflation in US shale. Meanwhile, the sudden break out of the Hamas-Israeli war in the middle east will likely push oil prices higher and faster (for more see “Oil Could Spike Well North Of $150″: Here Are The Main Implications For Oil From The Israeli War“.)

    In retrospect, last week’s oil tumble now seems like ancient history, and after Saturday’s unprecedented events in Israel, oil has moved sharply higher after the weekend attack by Hamas against Israel, with Brent topping $88 a barrel to repair some of last week’s heavy losses, and according to some, set to continue rising until it tops $150.

    Here, courtesy of Bloomberg’s Jake Lloyd-Smith are five early highlights from the market’s reaction that will help to shape trading in the coming days.

    • First, the immediate fallout has been seen right along the curve, with timespreads widening. Among them, Brent’s prompt spread — the difference between its two nearest contracts — gapped out to $1.64 a barrel in backwardation, a bullish pricing pattern. Still, banks aren’t yet rushing to upgrade their price forecasts.
    • While the latest events in Israel don’t pose an immediate threat to supply, the risk of escalation across the region remains acute, especially the potential for Hamas-backer Iran to be drawn in. That could pose a risk to supplies from Tehran, particularly if the US enforces sanctions with greater rigor.
    • Market watchers are also putting the spotlight on the fallout for Riyadh, which has been both curbing output to bolster prices, while at the same time seeking to normalize ties with Israel. If the latter now proves to be a far tougher ask, the former voluntary supply restrictions could last for longer.
    • OPEC+ members are signaling that there’ll be no immediate change to their collective stance. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates’ energy ministers all stressed their support for OPEC+ policy, saying continued cooperation was needed.
    • While benchmark prices did take a tumble last week before the weekend assault, the global oil market remains very tight following OPEC+ supply cuts. Further draws in inventories this week, especially at the Cushing hub, could trigger a meaningful surge in prices.

    Finally, going back to Goldman, the bank’s preferred oil trade is one that is bullish yet net sells volatility. The bank is currently recommending buying a 90-95 Jun-24 Brent Call spread and selling a 80-100 Jun-24 Brent Straddle to benefit from convex and backwardated forward curves, contangoed vol structure, and rangebound price action. Such a strategy raises almost $8/bbl up front, for a max profit of $13/bbl, and currently make profits in the $72-$113/bbl range.”

    More on Goldman’s current positioning and proposed trades as discussed earlier in “

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 22:40

  • Alabama Deploys National Guard In Response To Illegal Immigration Crisis
    Alabama Deploys National Guard In Response To Illegal Immigration Crisis

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has pledged to send 275 National Guard troops to the southern border while blaming President Joe Biden’s policies for fanning the flames of the illegal immigration crisis.

    A Texas National Guard soldier watches as an illegal immigrant walks into a makeshift camp in El Paso, Texas, on May 11, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)

    With the move, Ms. Ivey joins other Republican governors in dispatching their military forces to help stem the tidal wave of people seeking to cross the border without authorization.

    “Every state has become a border state under the current policies,” Ms. Ivey said in a statement.

    “Alabama remains committed to being an integral part of the mission to protect our Southern Border,” she added.

    Earlier, Ms. Ivey joined 24 other governors in writing a letter to President Biden on Sept. 19, blaming his policies for incentivizing illegal immigration, which they said had risen exponentially under his watch, “in some areas by nearly 850%.”

    “States are on the front lines, working around-the clock responding to the effects of this crisis: shelters are full, food pantries empty, law enforcement strained, and aid workers exhausted,” Ms. Ivey and the others wrote, citing estimates that the annual cost of illegal immigration at federal, state, and local levels is at least $150.7 billion.

    Citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, the governors pointed out that there have been over 5.8 million illegal crossings since President Biden took office—and another 1.6 million gotaways who evaded capture.

    In September, CBP recorded over 260,000 illegal crossings at the southern border, marking an all-time high in a single month.

    An aerial view of migrants waiting to be processed on the Mexican side of the border in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2023. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/TNS)

    Biden’s Policies In Focus

    Republicans have blamed President Biden for gutting the policies of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, whose pledge to build a wall was a rallying cry for a series of actions that they credit for yielding comparatively low numbers of illegal border crossings.

    During his first 100 days in office, President Biden took dozens of executive actions on immigration, including ordering a halt to the construction of the border wall—which his administration is now rushing to resume in an embarrassing yet welcome about-face.

    In early 2021, when the Biden administration stopped the ongoing construction of the border wall, President Biden claimed that his predecessor’s focus on constructing the wall was misguided and an example of his supposed inability to manage immigration and secure the border.

    White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has denied that President Biden’s policies are to blame for the influx of illegal immigrants while accusing Republicans of turning the border issue into a “political stunt.”

    Illegal immigrants climb a section of the U.S.–Mexico border fence in Tijuana, Mexico, on April 29, 2018. (David McNew/Getty Images)

    ‘Invasion’ at Border

    One of the most outspoken critics of the Biden administration’s border policies is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who on Sept. 20 declared an “invasion” at the southern border due to the surge in illegal immigration while ordering the National Guard and law enforcement to assist with the crisis.

    “I officially declared an invasion at our border because of Biden’s policies,” Mr. Abbott, a Republican, wrote in a post on X.

    “We deployed the Texas National Guard, DPS, and local law enforcement. We are building a border wall, razor wire, and marine barriers. We are also repelling migrants,” he added.

    The governor’s office has also deployed more buses to ship illegal migrants to sanctuary cities, such as New York and Chicago, saying the state is “at capacity.”

    A Texas National Guard soldier speaks to illegal immigrants at a high-traffic illegal border crossing area along the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 20, 2022. (John Moore/Getty Images)

    While Republicans have long been tough on the problem of illegal immigration, Democrat governors are also getting fed up.

    ‘They’re Coming From All Over’

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, recently expressed frustration with the illegal immigration crisis gripping the Big Apple, telling would-be asylum-seekers to “go somewhere else.”

    “They’re coming from all over,” she told CNN in an interview. “But we have to let the word out that when you come to New York, we’re not going to have more hotel rooms. We don’t have capacity.”

    Illegal immigrants sleep outside the Roosevelt Hotel as they wait for placement at the hotel in New York on Aug. 1, 2023. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

    Saying that New York City has run out of space and is at a breaking point, Ms. Hochul also threw her weight behind an initiative by New York Mayor Eric Adams’ office to suspend a decades-old “right to shelter” law that basically says officials must give shelter to anyone who asks for it.

    According to New York City officials, over 110,000 illegal immigrants have come to the city over the past year, with around 60,000 living in the city’s shelter system, costing billions of dollars per year.

    Ms. Hochul, too, has called in the National Guard, but in New York’s case, the troops are being deployed locally to help with case management operations meant to get asylum seekers work permits and clear out some of the tens of thousands crowding the city’s shelters.

    New York City officials are pressing ahead with an effort to suspend the right to shelter law, asking the state Supreme Court to modify the mandate, which they have described as “onerous” and “demonstrably ill-suited to present circumstances.”

    So far, New York City has spent more than $2 billion dealing with the influx, and Mr. Adams’ office has said it expects that to climb to $5 billion by the end of the fiscal year.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 22:10

  • Oakland Police Tell Residents Not To Confront Auto Burglars
    Oakland Police Tell Residents Not To Confront Auto Burglars

    Police in Oakland, California are telling residents not to confront people breaking into their cars after seven suspects were arrested in three incidents late last month.

    “The individuals involved in locked auto burglaries have become extremely brazen. Something that’s typically a non-violent crime has become much more dangerous for police and for the community,” said Oakland interim assistant police chief, Tony Jones. “We want to caution the public. Don’t try to engage with these individuals who are breaking into your car.”

    During one of the incidents, officers caught thieves cutting a catalytic converter out of a vehicle in an underground garage. When officers approached, the suspects fled and rammed a police vehicle blocking the exit.

    “A lot of these individuals have guns, and they’re armed, and they’re dangerous,” said Jones. “[Our officers] got rammed, it could have gotten deadly, and so we don’t want people to risk their personal safety over personal belongings that they can acquire some other day. It’s just not worth it.”

    Jones says that officers have trained for such encounters, which allows them to respond without the use of lethal force.

    “This operation got a little dangerous, and our officers showed tremendous restraint,” he continued. “We have experienced an uptick in individuals ramming our police cars attempting to escape.”

    Following a chase which include a foot pursuit, police apprehended the catalytic converter thieves, discovering burglary tools and catalytic converters in their vehicle.

    In another case, criminals who switched license plates fled when officers attempted a traffic stop. Upon apprehending them they found several firearms in their car.

    According to Jones, stolen vehicles with swapped license plates are common.

    “We have to be just as vigilant in how we adapt to the different techniques they do,” he said, adding “We’re aware of the plates being switched, but you can’t switch the color of the car. You can’t turn a Honda into a Lexus.”

    There have been approximately 11,000 auto burglaries and 11,000 auto thefts in Oakland this year, a 40% increase over last year, according to OPD.

    “That’s a significant increase, and that’s why you’re seeing the police department take more of an initiative to focus on auto burglaries in the city,” said Jones. “We’re going to be out there a lot more, focusing on this, trying to prevent these crimes from occurring, trying to investigate these things and find people’s property that’s been taken.”

    Oakland residents have recently taken to complaints regarding calls for emergencies, with some saying they are put on hold for extended periods of time and often wait hours or days for officers to respond.

    The interim assistant chief acknowledged the predicament and said the department is working on solutions.

    “We are aware of the challenges with the 911 system, and we’re doing everything that we can to get the staffing up in the communications division so that those problems are rectified,” Mr. Jones said. “What’s more important is the personal safety of the people of Oakland.”

    With budgetary constraints facing the department, and the city failing to secure millions of dollars in public safety grants because they missed a state deadline earlier this year, the department is working to reallocate its budget to further investigate auto burglaries, he said.

    “We do have limited resources, but we can manage them in a way that allows us to do these operations regularly,” Mr. Jones said. -Epoch Times

    “We must and we will do more to hold accountable those individuals behind these crimes,” said Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao during a recent press conference. “This is harming our community at large. We take this very seriously.”

    In August, a recall effort was launched against Oakland’s Alameda County ‘Soros’ DA, Pamela Price, after several groups called out the rampant violence and lack of response.

    Members of a “Save Alameda for Everyone” (SAFE) filed a Notice of Intent with Alameda County officials to begin the recall process, following years of inaction by Price.

    “As crime spirals out of control on Alameda County streets, DA Price reduces sentencing for criminals and even refuses to charge violent felons with crimes,” reads a statement from the group which cites Oakland PD statistics stating that homicides are up 80% vs. pre-pandemic figures, and violent crime and burglaries are up 15% and 40% respectively over the same period.

    “African Americans are disproportionately hit the hardest by crime in East Oakland,” the group states, per KRON. “Women have been beaten and robbed by youths; hate crimes against Asian Americans are surging; street vendors have been assaulted, and basic services are under attack.”

    Earlier that month, the Oakland branch of the NAACP said that the city’s “failed” leadership had placed ‘everyone in danger.’

    “Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities. Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland. We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis,” reads the letter.

    “Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals,” reads the op-ed by Cynthia Adams, President of the Oakland Branch of the NAACP, and Bishop Bob Jackson of the Acts Full Gospel Church.  

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 21:40

  • China Markets Face Choppy Return From Holidays
    China Markets Face Choppy Return From Holidays

    By John Cheng, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

    Chinese markets are set to reopen after the Golden Week holidays against an uncertain global market backdrop, which may temper optimism from the spending boom at home.

    A lot has happened overseas while mainland markets were shut. Risk assets were hammered as renewed concern about higher-for-longer US interest rates spurred a Treasuries selloff that rippled through world markets, while the surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas added a fresh layer of uncertainty. On the domestic front, however, tourism revenue from the holidays surged year-on-year, adding to bets that China’s economy has likely bottomed.

    The conflicting signals set the stage for a choppy start for mainland equities on Monday. A gauge of Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong rose on Friday, helping trim its losses since Sept. 28 — when onshore markets last traded — to 0.3%. Meanwhile, an index of the nation’s US-listed stocks has gained 0.3% in the period. The offshore yuan has weakened about 0.2% against the dollar.

    “The Golden Week consumption data should give more confidence to markets that demand is stabilizing, which may help boost sentiment for consumer and service sectors,” said Marvin Chen, a strategist with Bloomberg Intelligence. “But easing domestic worries come with rising external headwinds from markets adjusting to higher-for-longer Fed rates.”

    Traders had been pinning their hopes on a holiday consumption boost to provide a new catalyst for the sluggish market. Travel and spending surged compared with lockdown-hit 2022, with 826 million travelers representing a 71% increase from last year. Spending jumping nearly 130%. Other key sets of data released during the break also showed the broader economy is on the mend, though far from roaring back.

    Investors will weigh these modest improvements against concerns about tighter Federal Reserve policy following a hotter-than-expected US jobs report. China is seen at particular risk as a wider interest-rate gap with the US can increase pressure on the yuan and accelerate a capital flight.

    The CSI 300 Index, a benchmark of onshore Chinese stocks, was down 4.7% for the year before heading into the break. A further 4.9% decline will see it erase all its gains from the reopening rally that took off in October 2022. Reaching that grim milestone may embolden China skeptics, who continue to shun the market due to deepening property-sector woes and geopolitical concerns.

    The housing market slump remains a major overhang, with the crisis embroiling debt-ridden developer China Evergrande Group and other key builders showing little signs of abating. Home sales continued to post double-digit declines from a year earlier in September, a traditionally busy season for builders, underscoring weak buyer confidence despite a recent slew of property easing measures.

     

    Some investors, however, say this year’s relentless selloff has created some buying opportunities. There are also hopes that the upcoming third plenum of the 20th Party Congress, a gathering of top leaders to discuss major economic and reform issues, will offer hints of further stimulus. The meeting, to be held toward the end of October and early November, could act as a positive catalyst, said Chen of Bloomberg Intelligence.

    “We can expect a recovery toward the end of the year or early next year with the economy coming toward the end of the de-stocking cycle, and as we see more coordinated policy efforts to tackle the weak economy,” said Elizabeth Kwik, investment director of Asian equities at abrdn Plc.

    For now, winning back foreign investors is proving to be hard. Global funds sold Chinese shares on a net basis for a second consecutive month in September, trimming their exposure to the lowest level since 2020. Pessimism is such that “short China equities” emerged as one of the biggest convictions among money managers in the latest Bank of America Corp. monthly survey.

    “We have economic data showing improvement so that’s a good start, but markets are skeptical given how confidence was badly damaged,” said Christopher Wong, FX strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore. It will take time for Chinese markets to recover, he added, as “sentiment needs to recover and confidence needs to be repaired.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 20:50

  • "There's Just Way Too Much Debt": This Is Now The Greatest Bond Bear Market In History
    “There’s Just Way Too Much Debt”: This Is Now The Greatest Bond Bear Market In History

    There was a remarkable chart in the latest Flow Show note from BofA resident bear Michael Hartnett: after peaking in July 2020 and in the subsequent 28 months drawing down by a record 25%, this is now the single greatest bond bear market of all time!

    Considering that BofA’s historical data goes back 236 years all the way to the founding of the republic, this is a jarring statistic, and a poignant reminder of the magnitude of the pain rippling through the financial world in the aftermath of an inflation shock and interest-rate surge that few saw coming… a shock which Deutsche Bank last week quantified as a $70 trillion Mark to Market hit to duration portfolios (while some may claim it’s not a loss unless you actually sell the bond, the truth is that any bond which is pledged as collateral in the repo markets or elsewhere is valued daily, and the cumulative haircut assuming all eligible duration was pledged is, drumroll, $70 trillion).

    Worse, the historical bond bear market also underscores the growing angst in some corners of Wall Street about the increasingly shaky state of US government finances. As a reference, it took the US government just 18 days to add more than $500 billion dollars in debt after rising above $33 trillion for the first time: a run-rate of $1 trillion in new debt in under 2 months. Also, it took the US until March 1975 to accumulate its first $500 billion. It just did the same in 18 days.

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    As Bloomberg Markets Live reporter Ye Xie writes, massive deficits as far as the eye can see seemed fine when the Federal Reserve had interest rates pinned at zero and was monetizing tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Treasuries every week. Free money can mask a lot of problems.

    But at today’s 5% rate, though, the math gets tricky. The government’s tab, and, as a result, the supply of bonds it needs to sell, adds up so fast that it can overwhelm what was long considered to be insatiable demand for the world’s safest investment.

    “There’s just way too much debt,” says Ed Yardeni, founder of Yardeni Research. And so, Xie goes on, the price on the 10-year Treasury bond is tumbling, driving its yield up to the highest level in 16 years. Investors, in other words, are demanding a discount to buy the debt, a dynamic that’s magnified by the Fed’s sudden exit from the market. Quantitative easing, as the Fed’s bond-purchase program was known, became untenable once policymakers deemed inflation was Enemy No. 1; it just pumped too much cash into an already overheated economy. Central banks in Brazil, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have also halted their US bond purchases. In some cases, they’ve taken to outright selling.

    The vacuum created by the central banks’ departure is once again empowering the traditional forces in finance: banks, hedge funds, insurers. Yardeni refers to this group as the bond vigilantes, a term he coined first back in the 1980s. Right now, he says, they’re back to doing their thing, pushing bond prices down and yields up, and sending a warning to Washington to rein in the deficit and inflation.

    This isn’t about the US defaulting on its debts. The periodic histrionics surrounding the debt ceiling and government funding deadlines are, for now at least, just that. The real concern is that by pursuing a fiscal policy that drives up yields so much, Washington is putting the squeeze on companies and consumers across America. Push yields too high, too fast and something in the economy will break, something both JPMorgan and Goldman agree on (see “Goldman, JPMorgan Pull The Alarm: As Yields Soar “Risks Are Growing Of A Sharp, Impulsive, Negative Feedback Loop… There Will Be A Financial Accident“.)

    Last March, it happened with SVB, and while nothing was fixed the problem of massive mark to markets bond losses was masked courtesy of the Fed’s BTFP facility which has hit new record highs every weeks since its inception (the facility is supposed to terminate next March; instead it will be greatly expanded). Yardeni frets it will happen again now, and potentially drag the economy into a painful recession in the process.

    “We’re getting pretty close to the level where something could break,” he says. A key level for him: 5% on the 10-year bond. Surpass that, he says, and the odds of a recession really pick up. The yield got as high as 4.89% last week. Just two months earlier, it was hovering around 4%. During the pandemic, it was as low as 0.3%.

    Meanwhile, Xie points to the latest Hartnett notes and reminds readers that the superlatives quantifying the bond rout are endless. One comparison being made is to the wipeout in stocks during the dot-com bust (in both cases, the losses reached 50%).

    Another startling reference is that at one point last quarter the spike in yields was the biggest since the increase that proceeded the 1987 stock market crash. The pain has started to spill into stocks this time, too, albeit to a far lesser extent. Corporate bonds have also slid while the dollar has rallied against most other currencies. Even oil, which had largely been impervious to broader economic forces throughout the summer, got sucked into the bond market vortex last week, posting losses that broke a months-long rally.

    What makes this moment all the more shocking to Wall Street veterans is that it disrupted years of Fed-orchestrated stability in the bond market. That comatose state, in which benchmark yields hovered around 2% day after day, year after year, had become known as the new normal. The US—and much of the rest of the world—had entered an era of low growth and low inflation in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, so rock-bottom rates made sense.

    Few on Wall Street saw much that might change that, not even when the pandemic unleashed a torrent of government spending. Now that change is here at such a radical pace, many of finance’s best and brightest are suddenly citing all sorts of economic forces that could keep yields high for years: global warming, the transition to green energy, deglobalization, demographic shifts and, of course, the ever-growing supply of government bonds. “We are in a world with a permanently higher cost of capital, and that does have consequences,” says Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management.

    The years from 2008 to 2020 were abnormal, even if at some point they came to feel normal, Slok says. The Bank of America strategists dug up another historical nugget to underscore the point: Global interest rates during this period were the lowest in 5,000 years. “The new world that we live in,” Slok says, “is really the normal world that we were in.”

    It’s a world in which Yardeni’s vigilantes, the bond traders, have a much bigger voice, the Fed has a smaller one, and consumers, corporate executives and Washington lawmakers have to confront a harsh reality: America’s free-money experiment is over.

    And while it is certainly admirable that central banks are, at least superficially, seeking a return to the old normal, the problem is that if the Fed truly hopes to put the QE years behind it, it better be prepared to also wipe away about 80% of the stock market gains since 2009.

    Of course, this will never happen, as the alternative would be the biggest depression in global history, one which promptly mutates into social unrest and civil and global war. Which is why it is amusing to watch the Fed play chicken on two front: inflation on one, and the threat of unprecedented capital markets collapse on the other.

    Amusing, because in the end everyone knows which alternative the Fed – an unaccountable, private entity owned by America’s private banks and financial interests…

    Classification of central banks by ownership

    Source: Bank of England

    … will choose, and it’s also why we are fully certain that within a few years the new inflation target in the US will be 3%, if not much higher.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 20:34

  • Rubin And Tribe Under Fire For Using The Massacre In Israel For Bizarre Attacks On Political Figures
    Rubin And Tribe Under Fire For Using The Massacre In Israel For Bizarre Attacks On Political Figures

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    In academia, one of the most common criticisms in research and discussions is that correlation does not mean causation.

    It refers to the logical fallacy for some who draw a cause-and-effect relationship between two events. The logical fallacy is captured in the Latin phrase cum hoc ergo propter hoc (‘with this, therefore because of this’). With the horrific attacks on Israel this week, some well-known commentators have been criticized for using the killing of hundreds by Hamas as a criticism of conservative figures or Republicans in general.

    That includes the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin who appeared to blame the GOP for inviting the attack and Professor Laurence Tribe who suggested (and later retracted) that the war was actually a “wag-the-dog” operation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to distract from corruption allegations.

    Rubin (who goes by the moniker “Jennifer Truthful, Not Neutral Rubin”) immediately attempted to use the attack as another attack on Republicans: “How about this: With US House in chaos and US military promotions on hold, Hamas struck. Republicans’ weakness invites terror.”

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    Putting aside the effort to use this tragedy as a political cudgel domestically, Rubin ignores the fact that the motion to vacate the chair succeeded due to a unanimous Democratic vote and just eight dissenting Republicans. The Democrats wanted to vacate the chair even though McCarthy was being criticized by the dissenters for working with them and they will now likely receive a far more strident speaker.

    Rubin has also called for expelling Republican members, who voted against certifying the 2020 election. She further declared that “we have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again.”

    The Washington Post has repeatedly failed to take down or correct columns containing false claims by Rubin. Instead, it has run her calls to end impartiality and neutrality in journalism.

    Now Rubin is suggesting that Hamas decided to launch this massive attack because there is an acting Speaker in the House until next week. It appears that Hamas was just waiting for the motion to vacate to pass.

    Laurence Tribe immediately used the massacre to attack Netanyahu.

    Citing the Washington Post, Tribe wrote “Is Netanyahu wagging the dog of war to take attention away from his own war on the independent judiciary? Can anyone put that past him?”

    The response was fast and furious.

    It was even too much for figures like Keith Olbermann who condemned Tribe stating, “Well this is a moronic and indefensible POV.”

    What was striking is that the media finally called out Tribe, who has regularly posted bizarre legal theories and personal attacks against conservative figures, including attacking Bill Barr (erroneously) over his faith. On MSNBC and other outlets, Tribe regularly makes profane or personal attacks against those who hold opposing views of constitutional interpretation, including myself. These attacks include false assertions that had to be later corrected.

    These controversies highlight the need to restore an element of maturity and civility to commentary. The “everything-goes” mentality has now taken hold of major media outlets, which regularly feature trash talking and sensational claims. If the target of these attacks is a conservative or Republican, there is a sense of license to remove the safeties in public engagements.

    Once again, it is possible to restore a modicum of civility and accuracy in our public discourse. All it takes is for people of good faith to turn away from the rage and return reason in our commentary.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 19:50

  • "This Is Unacceptable": Blue States Blast Biden Over Border Blunders As Backlash Intensifies
    “This Is Unacceptable”: Blue States Blast Biden Over Border Blunders As Backlash Intensifies

    Blue states buckling under the strain of hundreds of thousands of migrants bussed into their Democratic strongholds are blaming President Joe Biden for not doing enough to curb the influx of illegals.

    The latest politician to blast Biden is Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who told Biden in a Monday letter that his state is in an “untenable situation,” and that the feds need to take “swift action.”

    In August, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) joined with business leaders to implore the administration to do something about the “humanitarian crisis” that’s overwhelmed New York City with more than 100,000 migrants.

    The next month, NYC Mayor Eric Adams predicted that the migrant crisis “will destroy New York City.“

    Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D), meanwhile, issued a state of emergency in August in response to the illegal migrant crisis, telling DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a letter that her state has taken action “to address what sadly has been a federal crisis of inaction.”

     White House officials are scrambling to respond – and have already fumbled the ball on the border wall. Earlier last week, reports emerged that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, in an official document, that there is “an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers” along the US border- while the Biden administration waived 26 federal laws to build more border wall.

    Two days later, he backpedaled furiously, claiming “There is no new administration policy with respect to the border wall,” adding “From day one, this Administration has made clear that a border wall is not the answer. That remains our position and our position has never wavered. The language in the Federal Register notice is being taken out of context and it does not signify any change in policy whatsoever,” the statement continues.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to downplay the move, arguing that the government is following Trump-era laws but still does not believe in the wall’s effectiveness.

    “We believe that we need border technology that is modernized and land ports of entry. And that’s what we want to see,” she told reporters on Thursday, adding that Biden “does not believe it is effective. He has been very clear about that.”

    Jean-Pierre added that the wall funds were from a Trump-era border appropriations bill.

    “We asked Congress to reappropriate the funds,” she said, “But they’ve refused, and so now we’re moving forward.”

    More via The Epoch Times;

    Biden Trying to Appease Democratic Leaders: Border Experts

    The White House is acting in accordance with the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which forbids the President or other government officials from bypassing Congress in making funding decisions. This is not, however, the primary reason why the administration is restarting the construction of the wall, according to Andrew Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

    The decision is clearly “driven by a need to respond to concerns voiced by Democratic-elected officials in northern U.S. cities,” Mr. Arthur told The Epoch Times.

    “Barriers will help agents in the apprehension and processing of illegal entrants, but they will do nothing to discourage those migrants improper entries absent a concomitant policy shift—but at least the administration can claim that it is ‘doing something.’”

    ‘We’re Here Abandoned’

    Last month, Mayor Rolando Salinas of Eagle Pass, Texas, a Democrat, criticized President Biden for the border crisis. In an interview with CNN, he complained that the White House had not communicated with him while thousands of illegal immigrants poured into his small city.

    “We’re here abandoned. We’re on the border, we’re asking for help. This is unacceptable,” he said.

    In a recent letter to the White House, Gov. Pritzker also raised a similar concern, urging that “there be one person in the federal government” who works directly for the president and is in charge of overseeing efforts at the border.

    When asked about this request, Ms. Jean-Pierre said, “There are multiple folks” at the White House who have been in contact with governors across the country.

    “Look, let’s not forget, we provided a billion dollars to those counties, states, cities who are dealing with this issue,” she said. “It is an issue that’s incredibly important to this president.”

    Charlotte Cuthbertson contributed to this report.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 19:15

  • Strike To Start At 4 Prime Healthcare California Hospitals
    Strike To Start At 4 Prime Healthcare California Hospitals

    By Kelly Gooch at Becker’s Hospital Review

    Members of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals and Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West are set to launch a strike Oct. 9 at four Prime Healthcare facilities in Southern California.

    The unions represent about 2,400 workers at four Prime hospitals: St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center, and Encino Hospital Medical Center, according to union statements shared with Becker’s. Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare operates 45 hospitals and more than 300 outpatient locations in 14 states.

    Members of both unions, which include registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, medical assistants, emergency room technicians, respiratory therapists and others, have been in negotiations with Prime for new contracts at the four facilities. Union members contend that during negotiations, management has not adequately addressed workers’ concerns about issues related to alleged unsafe staffing and high turnover.

    “We are calling on Prime Healthcare to stop their unfair labor practices, bargain in good faith, and listen to the front-line healthcare workers that this community depends on,” Bernie Espinoza, an ultrasound tech at Prime Garden Grove Hospital, said in a statement. “Staffing has been so critically low that many caregivers have left. The remaining workers are stretched thin and rushed. We’re forced to take on more patients with less staff, which leaves much less time for quality one-on-one patient care.”

    In its statement, UNAC/UHCP claimed that Prime cut nurse salaries when it bought St. Francis in 2020 and that registered nurse turnover has doubled to more than 50% since then, leaving the hospital “dangerously understaffed.”

    Prime emphasized its commitment to bargain in good faith.

    “Proposals have been delivered to the unions that would increase wages and provide comprehensive benefit programs, including healthcare, that is among the best in the nation at little to no cost to employees,” the health system said in a statement shared with Becker’s. “We believe the current proposal benefits all our employees and hope to reach an agreement so we can continue our mission of providing compassionate, quality care to patients.”

    Prime also noted recognition its hospitals have received for care and service; efforts it has made to hire, recruit and retain staff; support and growth opportunities it offers through continuing education, tuition reimbursement, career development and other programs; and investments it has made in improvements to hospitals.

    Regarding St. Francis specifically, Prime said the hospital “has a special story having been rescued from bankruptcy during the pandemic. After millions in investments to improve technology, systems and infrastructure, the hospital has achieved nationally recognized patient safety and quality awards while providing vital care for its community, earning commendation from local and state leaders. None of this would have been possible without our dedicated staff.  We are committed to ensuring a workplace that honors their work and continues to provide lifesaving care for the most vulnerable.”

    At St. Francis, registered nurses represented by UNAC/UHCP will join other healthcare workers for a five-day strike beginning Oct. 9. SEIU-UHW healthcare workers plan to strike at the three other Prime hospitals at the same time.

    A strike could be averted if a deal is reached before Oct. 9.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 18:40

  • As "Most Important Election Of Our Lives" Looms, Trump Blasts "Weak & Ineffective" Biden For Hamas Attack On Israel
    As “Most Important Election Of Our Lives” Looms, Trump Blasts “Weak & Ineffective” Biden For Hamas Attack On Israel

    During a campaign rally on Oct. 7 in Waterloo, Iowa, former President Trump responded to the surprise attack on Israeli towns by the terrorist group Hamas earlier in the day, criticizing President Biden for being a “weak leader”.

    “We’re here today for a very important reason: to commit to caucus, we know what that means right, commit to caucus, exactly 100 days from now each and every one of you is going to cast the most important vote of your lives.

    I believe that too. I believe that this will be the most important election of our lives because this country is headed in a horrible horrible direction and you so what took place today in Israel.

    This country is just headed so badly [sic].”

    Trump made it clear who was to blame for the attacks in Israel:

    “The Israeli attack was made because we are perceived as being weak and ineffective and with a really weak leader and and uh the brutal murder of citizens is an act of savagery that must and will be crushed, has to be… It has to be dealt with very powerfully.

    This is a time where the United States needs leadership –  we don’t have leadership – but Israel is at War and the United States obviously is going to stick with Israel and strongly…”

    Trump concluded with a pitch for his caucus:

    “if we don’t take back our country, we’re not going to have a country. If we do take back our country, our country will be greater than ever before, I promise you that…”

    Watch the clip below:

    The Ron Paul Institute’s Adam Dick made an interesting point as Republican Party presidential candidates rushed out statements setting forth their related views, the statement of Donald Trump stood out as relatively noninterventionist.

    While placing blame on Hamas, Trump refrained from promising support for the government of Israel in the conflict. This set him apart from the other prominent Republican candidates who made comments pledging support for Israel.

    Here is Trump’s Saturday statement on the matter:

    These Hamas attacks are a disgrace and Israel has every right to defend itself with overwhelming force. Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden Administration. We brought so much peace to the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, only to see Biden whittle it away at a far more rapid pace than anyone thought possible. Here we go again.

    So far so good. Trump is not endorsing in his statement the United States government supporting the Israel government in this conflict. But, there certainly is much pressure on him to make such an endorsement soon.

    Other Republican presidential candidates, in contrast, jumped immediately at the opportunity to declare their support for aiding Israel in this new rising conflict. Tara Suter reported Saturday at The Hill on other prominent Republican candidates’ early statements on the matter. Every one of them took a step beyond Trump, pledging their support to the Israel government in the rising conflict.

    Below are excerpts from those candidates’ statements presented in Suter’s article.

    Doug Burgum: “Iran and its terror sponsors in Gaza are showing the world their true face: pure evil. Israel is at war with brutal terrorists and the United States must provide maximum support to our democratic ally.”

    Chris Christie: “We must do whatever it takes to support the State of Israel in its time of grave danger, and we must end the scourge of Iran-backed terrorism.”

    Ron DeSantis: “Israel not only has the right to defend itself against these attacks, it has a duty to respond with overwhelming force. I stand with Israel. America must stand with Israel.”

    Nikki Haley: “Israel has every right to defend its citizens from terror. We must always stand with Israel and against this Iranian regime.”

    Mike Pence: “Our prayers are with the families and soldiers of our most cherished ally. @netanyahu [Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu)] says Israel is ‘at war’ America Stands With Israel[.]”

    Vivek Ramaswamy: “Israel’s right to exist & defend itself should never be doubted and Iran-backed Hamas & Hezbollah cannot be allowed to prevail. I stand with Israel and the U.S. should too.”

    Tim Scott: “Israel has a right to defend itself and the United States must stand in support of its steadfast ally.”

    Can Trump continue to resist the pressure being put on him to declare that he does, and the US government should, “stand with Israel” in regard to this rising conflict?

    We’ll see.

    Taking a solitary course concerning this matter would be consistent with Trump’s apparent effort to run as the peace candidate among the contenders in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 18:05

  • Dollarization Puts Foreign Economies At The Mercy Of The US Regime
    Dollarization Puts Foreign Economies At The Mercy Of The US Regime

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    Argentinian presidential candidate Javier Milei – who could actually win in the general election later this month – has become famous for his fiery speeches and his libertarian views from central banking to government spending.

    Milei’s proposed policies – if he’s able to actually implement them – would do much to help the Argentinian economy recover from decades of malaise caused by runaway government spending and monetary inflation.

    Among Milei’s positions, however, is his call for the dollarization of the Argentinian economy. It is unclear if Milei seeks currency competition within Argentina or if he seeks “full-blown” dollarization. In the case of the former, the dollar would merely be permitted to openly compete with other currencies. Full-blown dollarization, on the other hand, would mean the complete abandonment of the Argentinian peso and the adoption of the US dollar as the state’s preferred currency.

    Here at mises.org, authors Simon Wilson and Kristoffer Hansen have already addressed some of the economic problems presented by dollarization. There are geopolitical problems that come with full dollarization, as well. Dollarized countries open themselves up to more ready control by the US regime should Washington decide it wishes to impose economic sanctions on a dollarized country. The impact of sanctions within a dollarized economy can have especially devastating effects on ordinary people who must use dollars in everyday transactions.

    At least, this is what happened in Panama in 1988 and 1989. The Panamanian economy had been fully dollarized for decades when the US government imposed economic sanctions on the country as part of the US government’s efforts to capture the Manuel Noriega. Full dollarization led in part to a severe economic contraction which did little to unseat Noriega but which impoverished ordinary dollar users in the country.

    While Argentinians may think it’s unlikely that the US will seek to impose sanctions on the country—and thus such geopolitical concerns are irrelevant—the US in recent years has been increasingly enthusiastic about using economic sanctions against regimes Washington doesn’t like. Any regime considering dollarization would do well to at least consider how dollarization can increase the US’s potential for direct political control over dollarized economies.

    Panama: A Case of Full Dollarization

    The nominal Panamanian currency is the balboa, but it only circulates as coins and is pegged to the dollar in a 1:1 ratio. The US dollar is used in most transactions, Panama has never had its own central bank, and the dollar has functioned as legal tender for more than a century in Panama. This means the Panama economy is now—and has been since economic liberalization in the 1970s—fully integrated into the US financial system. 

    This comes with some undeniable benefits. As Juan Luis Moreno-Villalaz has noted,

    The unified currency system eliminates foreign exchange risk, currency mismatches, and speculative attacks so common in other countries with central banks and “sovereign” money. The absence of “policy decisions” regarding monetary or exchange rate affairs reduces risk because less information is needed by outside investors.

    Because of this relative stability and economic integration, however, the role of dollar-denominated US banks in Panama is unusually large, and ordinary consumers and business owners use US banks and dollars to carry out everyday transactions. Because the US government can directly regulate these US banks and their payment systems, this makes Panama’s economy more directly affected by US domestic policy, including executive orders from US presidents.

    Not that non-dollarized economies are immune from this. In the modern world, even non-dollarized economies use dollars heavily. Dollars are key to the eurodollar economy—including petrodollars—and dollars are used extensively for international trade. Cutting off access to dollars can be used as a chokepoint against many countries should the US wish to impose economic sanctions against those countries. We have seen this phenomenon at work in recent years in the form of new US sanctions against Russia and Iran. Thus, one could reasonably conclude that the dollar can be weaponized against countries whether or not those countries have dollarized. This is true to an extent, but the Panama experience suggests that full dollarization magnifies and extends a foreign economy’s susceptibility to US policy. 

    Dollarization and US Sanctions Against Panama 

    The problem of dollarization for Panama became acute in 1988 and 1989 when the United States engaged in efforts to arrest General Manuel Noriega and try him for a variety of drug-related crimes in the United States. From the late 1970s to the mid 1980s, Noriega had been a valued unofficial agent of the CIA and the US regime. He funneled resources to the Contras in Nicaragua at the behest of the US government and allowed the CIA to carry out spy operations from bases in Panama. As the de facto ruler of Panama throughout much of the 1980s, he was, in short, one of the US regime’s many “strongman” allies in Latin America. When Noriega began to assert more independence from Washington, however, the US regime turned against him and sought his extradition.

    Economic sanctions were subsequently imposed in 1988. According to a 1989 report from the General Accounting Office, the State Department advised US banks “to not disburse funds to the Noriega regime.” The report continues:  “On March 11, 1988, the President [Reagan] …announced a program to reduce the flow of U.S. dollars to Panama. This included requiring that all payments due to Panama from the operation of the Panama Canal Commission be deposited into an escrow account established at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”  The US also assisted Noriega’s adversaries in Panama in an effort to “freez[e] Panamanian assets in the United States which ultimately led to the closure of domestic Panamanian banks in March 1988.” 

    The sanctions did not succeed in convincing Noriega to surrender, but they did damage the Panamanian economy considerably.  As political scientist Benjamin J. Cohen describes it,

    Panamanian assets in U.S. banks were frozen, and all payments and dollar transfers to Panama were prohibited, effectively demonetizing the economy. … The effect on the economy was devastating despite rushed efforts by the Panamanian authorities to create a substitute currency, mainly by issuing checks in standardized denominations that they hoped recipients would then treat as cash.

    The sanctions may have reduced Panama’s economic output by as much as 20 percent, yet it is notable that the US did not even employ its full arsenal of economic sanctions. Given the extensive dollarization of the Panama economy, the US could have easily further destroyed the Panama economy by “curtailing … inter-bank transfers of US dollars.” 

    Some historians and economists have investigated to what extent Panama’s dollarization put it at the mercy of US sanctions. Cohen concludes “In political terms … Panama has been especially vulnerable in its relations with Washington.” In a study titled “Full Dollarization: The Case of Panama,” the authors conclude 

    the suspension of payments (resulting from the freezing of Panamanian accounts in New York) could be a risk associated mainly with a dollarized economy, given that the dollarization regime leads to a large presence of overseas bank accounts. … It is true that the United States cut off the supply of new paper currency and froze Panamanian bank accounts in New York. The first action had little real adverse economic impact, however, while the efficacy of the second derived not from dollarization per se but from the large role of New York banks in the economy. But the latter was in part the consequence of the former” [emphasis added.]

    In other words, dollarization likely led to greater reliance on US banks which, in turn, increased the ability of the US to more effectively impose sanctions on Panama’s economy. 

    Perhaps one of the most notable effects of the sanctions in Panama’s dollarized economy was the fact the sanctions had such a large effect on ordinary Panamanians. In a non-dollarized economy, sanctions limiting access to dollars can take more time to be felt by the bulk of the population, especially those parts of the population not directly involved in international trade and finance. With dollars as the ordinary everyday currency, however, efforts to cut off the flow of dollars had a greater direct impact on the economy. In a 1990 study for the Army War College, Kay. B. Witt concludes “the average Panamanian bore the brunt of the sanctions,” and it might also be noted that the sanctions were most felt by law-abiding citizens who were not involved in the “informal” economy where dollars still flowed via illegal conduits. The Noriega regime had access to both the normal economy and the informal economy, however, and thus could continue to access dollars even as ordinary people greatly suffered at the hands of US policymakers.  Witt concedes, “the sanctions had no significant effect on General Noriega and his loyal followers.” 

    Noriega, of course, was eventually captured in early 1990 in the wake of a US invasion, and the sanctions were lifted. It is instructive, however, to note the speed and ease with which the US was able to devastate the Panama economy by cutting off dollars.

    Dollarization does indeed bring economic benefits, but Latin American policymakers might be well-advised to consider the geopolitical effects of dollarization as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 17:30

  • Iran Helped Hamas "Plot Israel Attack Over Several Weeks", Gave Green Light, WSJ Reports
    Iran Helped Hamas “Plot Israel Attack Over Several Weeks”, Gave Green Light, WSJ Reports

    Readers may recall that we ended our first post-mortem to the war between Israel and Hamas by speculation if Iran would get dragged in:

    Finally, there is some speculation that Iran may get dragged into what is rapidly emerging as the worst Middle-Eastern crisis in years, with various pro-Israeli hawks claiming that the Hamas attack would have only occurred with explicit Iranian backing. If Israel does indeed attack Iran, as it has hinted it would do for years, may we suggest you fill up your gas tank.

    That speculation has been all but validated moments ago when the WSJ reported that “Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday“, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.

    Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions, the WSJ reported citing its Hamas and Hezbollah sources.

    Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.

    At the same time, officials from the deep state blob – who have been desperate to appease both Iran and Venezuela in recent months in hopes of getting sanctions against the Tehran regime lifted so that it can officially supply extra oil to the US ahead of the 2024 elections (instead of just unofficially shipping oil to China), with Biden terrified what high gas prices may do to his reelection chances – say they haven’t seen evidence of Tehran’s involvement. In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship.”  This was echoed by an U.S. official of the meetings who said that “We don’t have any information at this time to corroborate this account.”

    A European official and an adviser to the Syrian government, however, both of whom are not bound by the price of oil in Nov 2024, gave the same account of Iran’s involvement in the lead-up to the attack as the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members.

    Some more details from the WSJ:

    A direct Iranian role would take Tehran’s long-running conflict with Israel out of the shadows, raising the risk of broader conflict in the Middle East. Senior Israeli security officials have pledged to strike at Iran’s leadership if Tehran is found responsible for killing Israelis.

    The IRGC’s broader plan is to create a multi-front threat that can strangle Israel from all sides—Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members and an Iranian official.

    Whether or not Iran actually did help Hamas plan and execute the attack, and whether Mossad – the world’s best intelligence agency – was really completely unaware of what was going on, is – for the time being – irrelevant. What matters is that the narrative is now being shaped so that the mainstream media will cast blame on Iran alongside Hamas, just as a US aircraft carrier arrives in the Gulf to provide support to Israel.

    The geopolitical implications are staggering, but once again we repeat our advice from Saturday morning: fill up your gas tank now.

    * * *

    Update(1345ET): For the first time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the government of Israel has issued a formal and legal “declaration of war” after Saturday’s devastating assault from Islamic militants out of Gaza, which according to the country’s health ministry has left over 700 Israelis dead and thousands injured. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer told CNN in a morning interview, “There will probably be more hundreds, several hundred more.”

    At least 350 have been killed on the Palestinian side, as a large-scale Israeli bombing campaign over Gaza ensues. Israeli officials are expected to embark on some kind of hostage rescue operation. According to Israeli media there are foreigners, likely including Americans, among the kidnapped hostages being held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad:

    The Government Press Office, a body that operates under the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said Sunday in a Facebook post that the number of hostages in Gaza was over 100.

    Among the kidnapped were small children, the elderly, and foreign nationals including 11 Thais working on farms near the border. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the State Department was attempting to confirm reports that Americans had been killed or kidnapped.

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    Currently, there are reports that internecine gunfire has erupted in different parts of Israel and the West Bank. Overnight there were also reports of sporadic shelling and exchanges of fire in the north, between Hezbollah and Israel’s military.

    Will a northern front open up? This would likely put Israel in an even greater state of panic as things spiral…

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    Below is a brief review of major events over the last several hours, courtesy of Academy SITREP:

    • Early this morning, Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel firing thousands of rockets in a coordinated air and land assault.
    • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country was now “at war” and has retaliated with massive airstrikes on Hamas targets.
    • Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia organization that fought a war with Israel in 2006, said that it was monitoring the situation but has not yet pledged its support to join forces with Hamas in this attack on Israel.
    • An adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that Iran supported the cross-border operation by Hamas, which is not surprising and could partially be in response to the ongoing Saudi Arabia /Israel diplomatic talks.
    • Netanyahu has spoken with President Biden and Secretary of Defense Austin said that “The Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”
    • While still early, initial reports are coming in indicting over 40 Israelis have been killed along with hundreds more injured.

    Fighting along Israel’s southern border with the Gaza Strip is ongoing Sunday:

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    Meanwhile, US Neocons clamoring for war and escalation by saying an attack on Israel is an attack on America…

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    * * *

    Among the most shocking images to come out of Saturday’s surprise deadly assault by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) out of Gaza was the scene of dozens of militants flying over the southern Israeli desert using motor-powered hang gliders.

    Some of the first footage to go viral soon after the broader cross-border assault was of militants parachuting down into a crowd of thousands of unsuspecting young Israeli partiers who were enjoying a rave concert in the southern desert. Foreigners, including Europeans and possibly Americans were also in attendance. The surreal scene looks like something out of the 1980s movie “Red Dawn”…

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    The above is being widely described as the moment it all started. The event was described as a “Music Festival for Peace” – ironically enough, but was very close to the Gaza border.

    Possibly dozens of festival goers were abducted and others were killed. There were seen huddled in the back of large trucks and driven into Gaza by armed militants. 

    Others, more fortunate, later fled across the desert by foot – and made it to their vehicles, as the below additional footage shows…

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    The whole paraglider aspect to the Hamas operation shows a high level of planning, coordination, and sophistication by the Gaza-based militant group. Many Western observers are questioning how Israel’s celebrated Mossad intelligence organization could have missed it, given clearly the operation was at least months or longer in planning.

    Hamas subsequently published high quality footage of its ‘special ops’ units launching the motorized paragliders…

    Later in the day, some of the captives – including apparently foreigners – were paraded by the Islamic terrorists in front of cameras. One particularly gruesome image included what looked like a young woman’s mangled, lifeless body face-down in the bed of a pick-up truck with a militant sitting on top of her (it’s as yet unknown whether she’s dead or alive).

    There are reports that she may be a German national and her family is said to be seeking information on her whereabouts. She remains missing and is possibly deceased:

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    Americans were also likely among the captives. On Sunday Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “We have reports that several Americans were killed. We are working overtime to verify that,” he told reporters. Here’s what the US top diplomat said:

    “Does the administration know at this point if U.S. citizens were among the dead or those taken hostage?” NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked Blinken.

    Blinken said: “So we have reports that several Americans may be among the dead. We are very actively working to verify those reports. Similarly, we’ve seen reports about hostages and they’re, again, we’re very actively trying to verify them, and nail that down.”

    Pressed again on whether some U.S. citizens could have been taken hostage as well, Blinken replied: “That’s correct.”

    Additionally Fox News correspondent Will Cain followed with, “Was just told by Israel’s Ambassador to the UN that there are dozens of American citizens among the hostages in Gaza.” He explained that many of these would be dual nationals. 

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    As more details emerge from the scene, there are unverified reports that multiple dozens of the festival attendees may have been killed or kidnapped – again among them international tourists and visitors.

    The Irish Times on Sunday reported that 22-year-old dual citizen Kim Damti was among the many unaccounted for.

    Ms Damti was attending an all-night outdoor rave with hundreds of others close to the Gaza border when the first rocket barrage hit close to 7am on Saturday, taking everyone by surprise.

    In the last phone call made by Ms Damti, at 7am on Saturday, she was running with a friend towards a car in an attempt to flee the rocket barrage. That was the last contact with her.

    More and more disturbing footage like the below has been trickling out.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 17:30

  • Most Americans Oppose Corporate Political And Social Campaigns; New Poll Finds
    Most Americans Oppose Corporate Political And Social Campaigns; New Poll Finds

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We have been discussing shareholder and consumer opposition to companies like Disney and BudLight tying their brands to social agendas and political questions. Now a Gallup survey shows that public support for these companies is continuing to fall, even among Democrats who still overall favor corporate messaging on social and political issues. Only 41 percent now approve of such corporate campaigns. However, neither public support nor sales were the driving forces behind these campaigns.

    The support for these corporate campaigns has dropped another seven percentage points since the last survey. Given the political alignment of companies like Disney, it is not surprising that they receive their greatest support among Democrats who would likely change their views if companies began to adopt opposing views. Currently 62% of Democrats believe businesses should take a public stance on current events. That is down from 75% just a year ago. Only 17% of Republicans and 36% of independents favor these corporate campaigns.

    Yet, even with the drop, these companies knew beforehand that roughly half of their consumer base opposed their entry into social and political messaging. Indeed, after BudLight imploded over its promotion featuring transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, other companies boldly moved forward with their own controversial commercials including shaving company Braun, clothing company North Face, shoe company Nike, and jeans company Levi’s.

    Disney, however, shows how resistant executives can be to consumer backlash. For years, Disney’s controversial movies and policies have driven away many families — and reduced profits. Now, CEO Robert Iger is saying that he wants to “quiet the noise” with the company’s fight with Florida and take a less controversial public position.

    Yet, earlier this year, I wrote that Disney would ultimately have to back down in a fight that it could not win in the long run. Instead, Iger moved aggressively against the state and threatened to pull out of major projects. At the same time, the company moved ahead with controversial retakes on classic movies. Revenues at the company have continued to fall and layoffs increased. Now, Iger apparently has had enough — at least in the fight with Florida.

    Indeed, some executives appear to dislike their base.  Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light,  appears to have cost the company billions after pledging to drop Bud Light’s “fratty reputation and embrace inclusivity.”

    She certainly succeeded in changing the entire view of the brand in less than a year on the job. Heinerscheid knew that the brand image sells the beer. That image is now unpalatable for many consumers. The social value of these campaigns is lost if consumers reject beer with the branding message.

    The Gallup poll again raises the question of who these companies are selling to. Like many media outlets that have written off half of the country, these campaigns are slashing the market for products in order for companies to sell political or social positions. Even many Democrats now want companies to get back to just selling their products and stay out of politics.

    The legal question, again, is whether shareholders have a claim to demand an accounting from the management over such campaigns.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 16:20

  • "Go Back To Jersey, You Migrant-Hating Creep": NYC Mayor Heckled In Unusual Trip To Colombia
    “Go Back To Jersey, You Migrant-Hating Creep”: NYC Mayor Heckled In Unusual Trip To Colombia

    New York City Mayor Eric Adams made an unusual trip to Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia this weekend, attempting to dissuade migrants from coming to supposedly ‘sanctuary cities’ in the US. Democrat mayors, like Adams, who months ago welcomed migrants with open arms, have made drastic U-turns on their immigration politics amid a flood of migrants. Now, the progressive mayor wants the migrants out, as well as other Democrats.

    During Adams’ visit to Central and South America, seemingly an effort by the Democrat party to address criticisms over their failed southern border policy – which many blame for the influx of undocumented immigrants and transforming some cities like NYC into a -world-like country, the mayor could not catch a break in Colombia and was heckled by protesters.

    “Shame on you Eric Adams!” a man shouted in English at Adams in the port town of Necoclí, Colombia, according to New York Post. 

    The man continued shouting: “It will increase the amount of violence against migrants across the United States!” The man referenced Adams’ recent comments telling migrants they were not welcomed in the Big Apple. 

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    NYPost said a number of other protesters gathered at the port town with one person holding up a sign that read, “Go back to New Jersey, you migrant-hating creep.”

    Source: AP News

    Adams told local media the migrant tour, led by Colombian officials and law enforcement, has given him a “true analysis” of the Darién Gap, a dangerous trail used by human smugglers to transport people from South America to the US.

    A recent NBC News poll now finds voters favor Republicans over Democrats for dealing with immigrants. 

    You know things are bad for the Democrats when Bill Clinton has to get on the radio and denounce NYC as a sanctuary city. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 15:45

  • Schumer Meets Shanghai Party Chief In Bipartisan Senate Trip To China
    Schumer Meets Shanghai Party Chief In Bipartisan Senate Trip To China

    Authored by Frank Fang and Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) met with Shanghai’s communist party boss in his first stop leading a bipartisan delegation to China, telling the latter he wants to see a level playing field as the two countries engage in economic competition.

    The meeting took place shortly after the senators’ arrival in Shanghai on an overcast and windy Saturday afternoon, which marks the first day of a three-country tour that will also take them to South Korea and Japan.

    “Many of our constituents feel that in instances China does not treat American companies fairly,” Mr. Schumer told Shanghai communist party secretary Chen Jining, adding that such feelings affect “America’s view of China.”

    “We believe we need reciprocity allowing American companies to compete as freely in China as Chinese companies are able to compete here,” he said. “We are prepared to compete but we do not seek to conflict.”

    The delegation is co-led by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idado). The four other senators on the trip are Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.).

    The Shanghai official in his public remarks avoided going into specific issues, stressing instead the importance of a stable China–U.S. relationship. Noting the over 5,600 U.S. companies in the Chinese city, he also offered windows to promote trade at the local level.

    Mr. Schumer also raised the issue of fentanyl, noting the supply of fentanyl precursors enabling the opioid’s production in Mexico.

    “They are fueling the fentanyl crisis that is poisoning communities across the United States,” he said. “Every one of us knows families who have lost young men and women to fentanyl.”

    U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-N.Y.) (R) and other members of the delegation arrive at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China, on Oct. 7, 2023. (Aly Song/Pool Photo via AP)

    Last month, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai found in its annual poll that U.S. firms’s China outlook was the worst in decades. Regulatory challenges facing U.S. firms included a lack of intellectual property protection, data localization, and other cybersecurity requirements.

    The senators’ trip comes after Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to China in August. During her trip, she said American companies had complained to her that China has become “uninvestable,” citing changes to counterespionage laws, exorbitant fines without any explanation, and Chinese authorities’ raids on foreign firms.

    In September, Ms. Raimondo told NBC in an interview that the United States was trying to “choke” China’s military capacity. “Certainly, on my watch, we are not going to sell the most sophisticated American chip to China that they want for their military capacity,” she said.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, have all visited China this year.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Oct. 5 that the Biden administration has been in touch with the senate delegation and “certainly support[s]” their visit to the region.

    The China trip also took place amid bilateral tensions in the backdrop. On Saturday, China’s commerce ministry complained about the new U.S. restrictions on 42 Chinese companies that allegedly supplied parts to the Russian military, claiming it was “a typical act of economic coercion and unilateral bullying.”

    ‘Xi Is an Adversary’

    Before the delegation arrived in China, several Republican senators took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to express doubts about engaging with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.

    “Nothing [Schumer] says will stop the CCP’s human rights abuses, shipping of deadly fentanyl to our border or theft of American resources,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote on Oct. 6.

    Mexico cartels have been buying precursor chemicals from China to make fentanyl and ship finished products to the United States. On Oct. 3, the Treasury Department sanctioned more than 20 entities and individuals in China involved in a network for manufacturing and distributing fentanyl and other drugs.

    On the same day, the Justice Department charged eight Chinese corporations and 12 Chinese nationals for allegedly illegally important fentanyl and related chemicals into the United States.

    In a separate X post on Oct. 6, Mr. Scott urged Mr. Schumer to ask CCP officials why they had recently placed a floating barrier at the entrance to the lagoon at Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing ground for Philippine fishermen.

    “He could ask them why they’re putting up illegal barriers to impede navigation and harm the fishers,” Mr. Scott wrote. “It’s acts of aggression like this that tell us precisely who Xi is, an adversary.”

    Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks during a press conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on July 11, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Also ahead of the delegation’s arrival in China, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) released a short clip, explaining that he couldn’t be on the delegation because he had been sanctioned by China.

    The CCP imposed sanctions on Mr. Rubio and several other lawmakers in 2020, in retaliation against U.S. sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms.

    Also in his clip, Mr. Rubio warned that the United States cannot accommodate the CCP.

    “In the end, [China’s] viewpoint is, no matter how much these politicians talk tough, they’re so addicted to what we can provide them, and in the end, they’re really limited to what they can do. And they will perceive these leadership trips as an indicator of us looking for an exit strategy and an accommodation on that front,” Mr. Rubio says in the video.

    Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said Mr. Schumer should not have traveled to China; instead, the Senate Majority leader should have canceled the Senate’s October recess and have the senators debate all 12 appropriations bills, to avert another government shutdown on Nov. 17.

    “The last thing Chuck Schumer should be doing is going to China to try to secure a meeting with Xi Jinping with the appropriations process unfinished,” Mr. Hagerty wrote on Oct. 6. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 15:10

  • Israelis Question "Catastrophic" Intelligence Failure
    Israelis Question “Catastrophic” Intelligence Failure

    Never in history has Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad been able to kill and kidnap hundreds of Israelis in a single day. Saturday’s assault was clearly well-planned, highly coordinated, and well-armed, and very likely was in preparation for months or even years. The Times of Israel is reporting an Israeli death toll of over 600, with the military confirming over 100 now in Palestinian captivity. 

    Israeli officials and media pundits now want answers: how could Israel’s most celebrated and storied intelligence organization Mossad have missed it? How did the military not have any foreknowledge that it was coming? How did the Gaza jihadists overrun several IDF outposts so swiftly and easily? 

    Heavily armed Islamic militants were able to penetrate deep into several Israeli towns and settlements on Saturday.

    Current and former Israeli officials are now decrying the “catastrophic” intelligence failure, and warn it may have serious lasting political ramifications. This whole war could even serve to destabilize the Netanyahu coalition government. 

    Chuck Freilich, Israel’s former deputy national security adviser, has told Politico: “This is a catastrophic failure in regards to Gaza.”

    “It’s a failure in terms of intelligence, operationally,” Freilich said. “It’s clear we were caught totally unprepared by this. The divisional headquarters responsible for Gaza was occupied, they’re in disarray, and so the whole response has been delayed.”

    He predicts far-reaching “political ramifications”…

    “There’s always a short-term rallying around the flag. But once the dust settles we’ll have major political ramifications,” Freilich said. “After the Yom Kippur war, it took three and a half years for [then Israeli Prime Minister] Golda Meir’s government to be toppled — I don’t think it will take that long this time.”

    Former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin compared Saturday’s raids to the “intelligence failure” of the Yom Kippur War – which famously saw the Egyptian and Syrian armies mount a surprise attack on Tel Aviv forces.

    The common Israeli public has been voicing outrage as well…

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    Military men are asking similar questions, with Eli Marom – the former head of the Israeli navy, stating in a national broadcast, “All of Israel is asking itself: Where is the IDF, where is the police, where is the security?… It’s a colossal failure; the hierarchies have simply failed, with vast consequences.”

    And among Western pundits, an op-ed in The Guardian says it was “unthinkable” and an “intelligence failure for the ages.” Peter Beaumont writes:

    Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel, on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, will be remembered as an intelligence failure for the ages.

    In the space of several hours, dozens of Gaza militants broke through the border fence into southern Israel, surprising local military positions.

    Gunmen kidnapped and murdered Israelis in the southern border communities, filming their assault as they advanced in numerous locations. In one instance, a Gaza television journalist delivered a standup report about one attack from inside Israel, an almost unthinkable moment.

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    Some have gone so far as to speculate that the Netanyahu government may have had awareness that something was coming, but planned to exploit any assault as a justification to wipe out Gaza and to launch a major ground war against Hamas. As of Sunday, PM Netanyahu formally declared war.

    “The war declaration was taken in accordance with Article 40 of Israel’s Basic Law, the Israeli government press office said,” according to CNN.

    Will a fight at Israeli’s northern border be next?

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 14:35

  • WEF: Somebody Has To Be In Charge Of Rationing Freedom
    WEF: Somebody Has To Be In Charge Of Rationing Freedom

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    That’s why only Central Banks can create digital currencies

    The Fed recently put out a white paper, Data Privacy for Digital Asset Systems, which contends that the expectation of privacy in digital currencies (read: CBDCs) stems from misunderstanding how digital systems work.

    “Concepts such as the desire for ‘cash-like anonymity’ are based on false underlying assumptions.”, is the crux of it (quick, somebody tell the Monero team, and everybody else already deploying anonymizing protocols and applications for digital assets).

    The subtext is that there can be some privacy and confidentiality safeguards built into CBDCs, but at the end of the day those would still be subject to being overridden or dispensed with. The paper doesn’t come out and say that, but it does make oblique references:

    “confidentiality implies that collected and stored data is protected from view in some manner, such as obfuscation or access restriction, and available only to authorized actors.”

    Which of course makes you wonder who exactly will be authorized and what will their capabilities be? It truly is the trillion dollar question.

    WEF: “Hold my beer”

    If we keep this paper in mind while we consider the World Economic Forum’s recent article on digital currencies, privacy and freedom, which put a finer point on it, while paying lip service to the desire for privacy in those characteristic WEF-speak euphemisms:

    “A digital cash replacement should not enable criminality, but there should be some freedom to transact with complete privacy.”

    “Some freedom” implies that any freedom will be subject to approval, because either you have complete freedom, or you don’t.

    “Some freedom” coming from the WEF especially, sounds a lot like their “Life in 2030” vision, which is mostly known for point #1: “You’ll own nothing and be happy”.

    Point #4 is “You’ll eat much less meat. An occasional treat, not a staple. For the environment, and for your health”.

    In other words, according to the WEF, digital currencies will afford some privacy and some freedom. Just like how in 2030 you’ll be able to eat some meat. (As long as you behave.)

    Throughout the piece the impetus toward digital currencies is ascribed to consumer preferences for convenience – that nation states and NGOs (including the WEF) are relentlessly pushing us there, along with digital IDs and health passports, is never mentioned.

    Through their preference for the convenience of electronic payments, we will inadvertently lose the historic freedom that only cash provides: to spend our money on what we want, with whom we choose.

    It’s always amusing to watch the Davos-darlings pretend to grapple with thorny ethical issues:

    As governments and central banks consider introducing retail central bank digital currencies (CBDC), they must therefore answer the following: Once the last cash payment is made, does this mean our historic right to make payments that are not observable or censorable by the state will end on the same day? Is that what we want?

    The answer, of course, is a resounding “yes” if we’re to remember some of the more breathless pronouncements from their conclaves:

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    “We are developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform? So, individual – carbon – footprint – tracker. Stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet, but it’s something we’re working on”.

    The WEF article tackles the conundrum:

    any system that allows people to make payments that cannot be traced or blocked is bound to attract criminals as well as facilitate personal liberty… A digital currency system should not mimic the “wild west”, but there should be some freedom to transact with complete privacy.

    And while the article acknowledges that,

    “if a CBDC doesn’t have some element of this capability, my prediction is it will fail in some major developed economies.”,

    the entire framing is that Central Banks are the only game in town, and they need to get it right:

    If the private sector could deliver a truly cash-like product itself, then we wouldn’t need this debate, but even a limited degree of cash-like behaviour would be incompatible with electronic payments laws. The reality is that only a central bank could deliver this type of product, thanks to the precedent set by their monopoly on the issuance of cash.

    This paragraph would be the so-called “money-shot”. There is no mention of Bitcoin, or that crypto-currencies and stablecoins are already becoming ceded territory within the regulatory frameworks of nation states. There is no acknowledgement that many holders of wealth and capital will simply end-run CBDCs for the very reasons they articulate.

    One of the WEF’s core tenets is that nation states are losing their position as the sole arbiters of power in this Fourth Industrial Revolution. That means they will have to coexist within a rubric of “Stakeholder Capitalism”, but what the WEF sending mixed messages:

    On the one hand, governments are losing their primacy (and thus, monopoly on money issuance and supra-national initiatives like digital id’s and health passports), while on the other, only they have the authority to bless ascendent monetary systems. Which is it?

    And how could you possibly publish an article like this without observing the elephant in the room: Bitcoin (and crypto-currencies, including stablecoins) have already entered the monetary landscape and have changed it in irreversible ways.

    As expected when it comes to the World Economic Forum, it’s a display of truly breathtaking hubris and nescience.

    *  *  *

    My forthcoming ebook The CBDC Survival Guide will give you the tools and the knowledge to navigate coming era of Monetary Apartheid. Bombthrower subscribers will get free when it drops, sign up today.

    Today’s post was an excerpt from the CBDC coverage section of the latest The Bitcoin Capitalist. TBC provides actionable intelligence on the macro forces shaping Late Stage Globalism and a tactical toolkit for preserving and growing your wealth as it plays out. Try it today here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 14:00

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Today’s News 8th October 2023

  • Escobar: Putin And The Magic Multipolar Mountain
    Escobar: Putin And The Magic Multipolar Mountain

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    There was a whiff of Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain’ at the 20th Valdai annual meeting this week at a hotel over the gorgeous heights of the Krasnaya Polyana. north-west of the picturesque resort Sochi.

    But instead of a deep dive into the lure and degeneracy of ideas in an introverted community in the Swiss Alps on the eve of the First World War, we immersed ourselves in powerful new ideas expressed by a community of Global Majority intellectuals on the possible eve of a psycho neocon-intended WWIII.

    And then, of course, President Putin intervened, striking the plenary session like lightning.

    This is an unofficial Top Ten of his address, before the Q&A which was characteristically engaging:

    “I even suggested joining NATO for Russia. But no, NATO does not need such a country (…) Apparently, the problem is geopolitical interests and an arrogant attitude towards others.”

    “We never started the so-called war in Ukraine. We are trying to end it.”

    “In the international system, lawlessness reigns supreme.”

    “This is not a territorial war. The issue is much broader and more fundamental: it is about the principles on which a new world order will be built.”

    “The history of the West is a chronicle of endless expansion, and a huge financial pyramid.”

    “A certain part of the West always needs an enemy. To preserve the internal control of their system.”

    “Perhaps [the West] should check its hubris.”

    “That era [of Western domination] is long gone. It’s never coming back.”

    “Russia is a distinct civilization-state”.

    “Our understanding of civilization is quite different. First, there are many civilizations. And none of them is better or worse than the other. They are equal, as expressions of the aspirations of their cultures, their traditions, their peoples. For each of us it is different.”

    On The Road to “Asynchronous Multipolarity”

    The theme of Valdai 2023 was, most appropriately, ‘Fair Multipolarity’. The key axes of discussion were presented in this provocative, detailed report. It’s as if the report had prepared the stage for Putin’s address and his carefully crafted answers to the questions from the plenary.

    The concept of multipolarity in the Russian space was first articulated by the late, great Yevgeny Primakov in the mid-Nineties. Now, the road to multipolarity is based on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s concept of “strategic patience”.

    In a crisscrossed cornucopia of nation-states, larger blocs, security blocs and ideological historic blocs, we’re now deep into mega-alignments – even as the political West cultivates its universalist ambitions. The Eurasian “non-bloc” is in fact a mega-alignment, as much as the revitalized Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which finds its expression in the G77 (actually formed by 134 nations).

    The ideal path to follow might be horizontalism – in a Deleuze-Guattari sense – where we would have 200 equal nation-states. Of course the collective West won’t allow it. Andrey Shushentov, Dean of the School of International Relations at MGIMO University, proposes the notion of “asynchronous multipolarity”. Radhika Desai of Manitoba University proposes “pluripolarity” – borrowing from Hugo Chavez.

    The risk, as expressed by Turkish political scientist Ilter Turan, is that by trying to build a replica of the present system via, for instance, BRICS 11, we may be racing towards a parallel system that simply cannot organize itself as the leader of a new order. So, a clearly possible outcome is a bipolar system – considering the impossible convergence of common values.

    At the same time, a South-east Asian perspective, expressed by the President of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, Pham Lan Dung, points to what is really relevant for middle and small countries: everything should proceed on the basis of South-South friendships.

    The BRICS Bank: It’s Complicated

    In one of the key panels on BRICS as a prototype of a new international architecture, the star of the show was Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr, who drew on his vast former experience at the IMF and as Vice-President of the NDB – the BRICS bank – for a realist presentation.

    The key problem of the NDB is how to maintain unity while navigating power politics and reaching the upcoming stages of de-dollarization.

    Batista outlined how a new international financial architecture may imply a future common currency. He stressed the success of implementing two practical experiments: a BRICS monetary fund (called the Contingent Reserve Agreement, CRA) and a multilateral development bank, the NDB.

    Progress though “has been slow”. The monetary fund “has been frozen by the five Central Banks”, and must be expanded. Links with the IMF “must be severed”, but that incurs “fierce resistance” by the five Central Banks of BRICS members (and soon there will be 11).

    Turning the NDB around will be a Sisyphean task. Disbursement of loans as well as project implementation have been “slow”. The US dollar “is the unit of account for the bank” – which in itself is counter-productive. The NDB is far from being a global bank: only three countries so far have joined. Current NDB President Dilma Rousseff has only two years to turn it around.

    Batista remarked how the common currency idea first came from Russia, and was instantly embraced by Lula when he was Brazil’s President in the 2000s. The R5 concept – the currencies of all current five BRICS members start with a “R” – may endure; but now that will have to expand to R11.

    The first substantial step ahead, after revamping the NDB, should be a currency from an issuing bank backed by bonds guaranteed by member countries, freely convertible, with currency swaps denominated in R5.

    A healthy prospect is that Russia will appoint the next bank President starting in 2025. So the way forward substantially depends on Russia and Brazil, Batista emphasized. At the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in south-west Russia next year, “a key decision should be made”. And during the Brazilian BRICS presidency in 2025, “the first practical steps should be announced”.

    Looking For a New Universality

    Almost all panels at Valdai focused on how to develop an alternative system, but the two main themes were inevitably the lack of democracy in current international institutions and the weaponization of the US dollar. Batista correctly observed how the US itself is the main enemy of the US dollar when using it as a weapon.

    At the Q&A, Putin addressed the key issue of economic corridors. He noted how BRI and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) might have different interests: “Not true. They are harmonious and complement each other”. This is reflected in how they are geared to “ensure new logistic routes and industrial chains”, and all that “complemented by the real productive sector”.

    Going forward, there’s a pressing need to coin a new terminology for this emerging new “universality” – even as nations continue to behave most often by following national interests.

    What’s clear is that the collective West’s “universality” is not valid anymore. A remarkable panel on ‘Russian Civilization Through the Centuries’ showed how the notion of “universality” actually entered Western civilization through St Paul – after his Damascus moment – whereas the Indian notion of equilibrium inbuilt in the Upanishads would be way more appropriate.

    Still, we are now in hot debate over the notion of the “civilization-state”, as configured mostly by India and China, Russia and Iran.

    Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of the iconic General, expanded on the French notion of universality, embodied in the much-quoted slogan “liberté, egalité, fraternité” – not exactly upheld by Macronism. He made a point to stress he was the “sole representative of France” at Valdai (only a handful of European academics came to Sochi, and no diplomats).

    De Gaulle reminded everyone how Saint Simon was a Russophile and how Voltaire corresponded with Catherine the Great. He alluded to the deep Franco-Russian cultural ties; a “shared community of interests”; and “the bond of Christianity”.

    In contrast, crucially, “the US never accepted that Russia could develop under a different model”. And now that is illustrated by “how little today’s intellectual elites in the West know about Eurasia.”

    De Gaulle emphasized the “tragic mistake is to see Russia through Western eyes”. He invoked Dostoevsky as he lamented the current “destruction of family values” and “existential void” inbuilt in the process of manufacturing consent. He pledged to “fight for independence”, just like his grandfather, under the seal of “faith, family and honor”, and stressed “we must rethink Europe”, inviting “war profiteers to come to Russia”.

    Top of The Hill: a Cathedral or a Fortress?

    Beyond Valdai, and especially throughout the crucial year of 2024 – while Russia holds the presidency of BRICS – there will be much further discussion about “poles” of ancient civilizations. A broad coalition of states that support multipolarity actually do not support the “civilization” concept; instead, they support the notion of people sovereignty.

    It was up to Dayan Jayatilleka, former Sri Lankan plenipotentiary ambassador to Russia, to come up with a brilliant formulation.

    He showed how Vietnam faced a proxy war against the hegemon successfully – “using 5,000 years of Vietnamese civilization”. That was “an internationalist phenomenon”. Ho Chi Minh took his ideas from Lenin – while enjoying full support from students in the US and Europe.

    Russia might therefore learn from the Vietnamese experience how to conquer young hearts and minds across the West for its quest towards multipolarity.

    It was clear to the overwhelming majority of analysts at Valdai that the concept of Russian civilization is an “existential challenge” to the collective West. Especially because it includes, historically, the radical universality of the Soviet Union. Now is time for Russian thinkers to work hard on refining the internationalist aspect.

    Alexander Prokhanov came up with another startling formulation. He compared the Russian dream with a cathedral on the top of a hill, whereas the Anglo-Saxon dream is a fortress on the top of the hill, engaged in constant surveillance. And if you misbehave, you “will receive some Tomahawks”.

    The conclusion: “We will always be in conflict with the West”. So what? The future, as I discussed off the record with Grandmaster Sergey Karaganov, one of the founders of Valdai, is in the East.

    And it was Karaganov who arguably posed the most challenging question to Putin. He stressed how nuclear deterrence does not work anymore. So should we lower the nuclear threshold?”

    Putin replied, “I am well aware of your position. Let me remind you the Russian military doctrine has two reasons for the possible use of nuclear weapons. The first is if nuclear weapons are used against us – as retaliation. The response is absolutely unacceptable for any potential aggressor. Because from the moment a missile launch is detected, no matter where it comes from – anywhere in the world’s oceans or from any territory – in a retaliatory strike, so many, so many hundreds of our missiles appear in the air that no enemy will have a chance of survival, and in several directions at once.”

    The second reason is “a threat to the existence of the Russian state even if only conventional weapons are used.”

    And then came the clincher – actually a veiled message to the characters whose dream is “victory” via a first strike: “Do we need to change that? Why? I see no point. There’s no situation when something can threaten the existence of the Russian state. No sane person would consider the use of nuclear weapons against Russia.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 23:40

  • Biden Admin Returns To Supreme Court In Ongoing 'Ghost Gun' Battle
    Biden Admin Returns To Supreme Court In Ongoing ‘Ghost Gun’ Battle

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    The ongoing legal battle over “ghost guns” has returned to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Biden administration aims to regain authority over these “untraceable firearms,” following a recent victory for Second Amendment advocates.

    A “ghost gun” is displayed before the start of an event about violence involving firearms in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on April 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    On Thursday, roughly two months after it last brought this case to the Supreme Court, the Biden administration once again asked the justices to reinstate Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulations on “ghost guns.”

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that on Sept. 14 a lower court, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, effectively undermined an Aug. 28 order by the nation’s highest court.

    “This is the rare application where this Court has already applied the relevant legal standard in the very same case and determined the government should obtain emergency relief,” wrote Mr. Prelogar in her petition.

    “The Court’s answer should be the same as it was two months ago,” she added, having argued that without the Supreme Court’s relief, “untraceable ghost guns will remain widely available.”

    The prior Aug. 28 high court order in question was an administrative stay issued by Justice Samuel Alito that allowed the enforcement of an ATF rule designed to regulate “ghost guns” by defining them as firearms.

    “Ghost guns” is a pejorative term for partially completed frames and kits that can be purchased and assembled into functional firearms. The Biden administration wants to impose a rule that makers of these “ghost guns” must obtain licenses, mark their products with serial numbers, maintain transaction records, and conduct background checks.

    This rule was first blocked nationwide by Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, on July 5. This ruling was then challenged in the Supreme Court, where Justice Alito intervened, issuing a temporary administrative stay.

    Demonstrators gather for a Second Amendment rally at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia, Wash., on March 20, 2021. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

    ‘Biden Admin Is Now in the Worst Place They Could Be’

    Following the high court’s stay, two of the plaintiffs, a pair of firearm frame and receiver makers, returned to the Texas district court, asking it to enjoin the ATF from enforcing the rule specifically against them pending appeal.

    Judge O’Connor granted this extraordinary relief on Sept. 14. Furthermore, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently partially upheld the district court’s ruling.

    “[C]ourts should be able to review ATF’s 98-page rule, and the decades of precedent it attempts to change, without the Government putting people in jail or shutting down businesses,” the Firth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling stated.

    This ruling effectively allowed the two plaintiff companies, Defense Distributed and 80 Percent Arms, to hold a monopoly as the only businesses allowed to sell firearm frames and kits to make “ghost guns” while appeals proceedings play out—a fact they touted in gloating statements following the ruling.

    “The Biden admin is now in the worst place they could be: The true believer fanatics in this industry have achieved [a] commercial monopoly. Oops,” Defense Distributed stated in a blog post on Sept. 14.

    “Ghost guns” seized in federal law enforcement actions are displayed at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) field office in Glendale, Calif., on April 18, 2022. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

    In an Oct. 2 statement, 80 Percent Arms said they remain unwaveringly dedicated to “champion[ing] the right of every law-abiding citizen to privately craft firearms.”

    In appealing the district court’s decision, Ms. Prelogar told the justices in her filing that Judge O’Connor relied on the same facts that had been considered by the Supreme Court, “yet reached diametrically opposing conclusions.”

    “The district court insisted that the government is unlikely to succeed in reversing the court’s vacatur, that barring the government from enforcing the Rule would impose no irreparable harm, and that the balance of the equities favors respondents,” she wrote in her filing.

    “The Fifth Circuit then relied on substantially similar reasoning to deny the government’s motion to vacate the injunction, dismissing the argument that the injunction violates principles of vertical stare decisis,” Ms. Prelogar continued.

    The solicitor general acknowledged that the district court’s injunction “is narrower” than the prior July 5 ruling. However, she argued that it should be vacated because it “imposes essentially the same harms on the government and public” because the two companies continue to sell their products online “without background checks.”

    President Joe Biden holds up a ghost gun kit during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on April 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    The ATF’s updated rules, which went into effect in August 2022, redefined terms like “firearm,” “frame,” and “receiver” under the Gun Control Act of 1968 to address the proliferation of “ghost guns” assembled from kits.

    The government argues that having no requirements for background checks, serial numbers, and other factors makes them attractive to criminals. On April 11, 2022, President Joe Biden vowed to crack down on “ghost guns.”

    “These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals,” he said in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 11, 2022. “We’re going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice and, when we find them, put them in jail for a long, long time.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 23:05

  • FBI Denies Targeting 'MAGA Extremists' Ahead Of 2024 Election
    FBI Denies Targeting ‘MAGA Extremists’ Ahead Of 2024 Election

    The FBI has denied a Newsweek report from veteran journalist William Arkin claiming that the agency has created a special category of extremists to target Trump supporters ahead of the 2024 election.

    According to Newsweek, the FBI created a category to evaluate threats for anti-government and/or anti-authority violent extremism for those who don’t fall under an anarchist, militia or sovereign citizen groups. The report cited more than a dozen current and former officials who say that the program targets Trump supporters.

    In a statement to the Epoch Times, however, the FBI denied the allegations.

    “Any allegation that the FBI targets individuals solely for their political beliefs is categorically false,” said the agency.

    ‘Solely,’ eh?

    “The FBI investigates those who commit acts of violence or threaten violence, and we do not take action based on political belief or any First Amendment protected activity,” the statement continues.

    According to the spokesperson, the “threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly,” adding that “The FBI’s goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence, and threats of violence.”

    “Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism [AGAAVE] is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI’s top threat priorities,” the statement continues. “This threat includes anarchist violent extremists, militia violent extremists, sovereign citizen violent extremists, and other violent extremists—some of whom are motivated by a desire to harm those with a real or perceived association with a political party or faction.”

    Those so-called extremists “have targeted both Republican and Democratic members of Congress,” the spokesperson said, without elaborating. “We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person’s political beliefs or affiliations,” the statement said.

    In the Newsweek report, neither President Trump nor his Make America Great Again (MAGA) slogan were assigned to the aforementioned threat category. The article, however, claimed that unnamed “insiders” said that it applies to alleged “political violence ascribed to the former president’s supporters.” -Epoch Times

    That said, one anonymous FBI official told Arkin that Trump supporters are the “greatest threat of violence domestically …politically … that’s the reality and the problem set.”

    “But whether Trump and his supporters are a threat to national security, to the country, whether they represent a threat of civil war? That’s a trickier question. And that’s for the country to deal with, not the FBI,” the official continued.

    According to the FBI’s data leaked to Arkin, the number of domestic extremism cases has dropped since Jan 6, but that “Sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.”

    So – while the threat that the FBI has encouraged agents to inflate may have fallen, they’re on the lookout!

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 22:30

  • Support For A New Third Party Gains Ground
    Support For A New Third Party Gains Ground

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

    The 2024 election cycle is likely to be the most chaotic election cycle that we have ever seen. 

    So will this create an opportunity for a new third party to try to pull off a historic upset? 

    Unless something really dramatic happens, Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee and Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee in 2024.  But I don’t think that they will be the only two choices. 

    There are rumors that one or two prominent third party candidates could soon enter the race, and it appears that large numbers of Americans may be willing to embrace such a candidate.  In fact, a Gallup survey that was just released discovered that a whopping 63 percent of U.S. adults believe that “a third major party is needed”…

    Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do “such a poor job” of representing the American people that “a third major party is needed.” This represents a seven-percentage-point increase from a year ago and is the highest since Gallup first asked the question in 2003.

    This certainly does not mean that 63 percent of U.S. adults would actually vote for a third party candidate.

    But what this does mean is that conditions have never been more favorable for such a candidate to emerge.

    If you go back 20 years ago, only 40 percent of U.S. adults felt that a third party was needed…

    In 2003, a record-low 40% called for a third party when 56% thought the parties were doing “an adequate job of representing the American people.”

    Times have clearly changed.

    And it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that independents are more interested in a “third major party” than anyone else…

    Typically, political independents are most likely to favor a third party, and that is the case this year, with 75% expressing this view. No less than 70% of independents have said a third U.S. party is needed since 2013.

    But who could run as a third party candidate and actually win?

    In recent days, there have been rumors that RFK Jr. is considering launching an independent bid as a third party candidate.

    And if he did go that direction, polls show that he would have quite a bit of support…

    An American Values Poll conducted Zogby Strategies of likely general election voters shows that in a three-way race between Kennedy, Trump, and Biden, RFK Jr. enters the contest at 19% with Biden and Trump at 38% each. Kennedy would be the highest-polling independent or 3rd party candidate to enter a presidential election in the modern era, starting off where Ross Perot finished—after spending an enormous amount of money.

    “If this Poll shows anything,” said Tony Lyons, Co-Chairman of American Values 2024, “it’s that Kennedy can win as an independent candidate in 2024.”

    In a three-way race, RFK Jr. would probably take more votes away from Trump than he would from Biden.

    There are also rumors that No Labels is preparing to “mount a third party bid for the White House”…

    Political organization No Labels, which has been pushing for a bipartisan ticket to mount a third party bid for the White House, is urging state Democratic Party officials not to interfere with its efforts after President Biden said its leaders had a “democratic right” to do what they’re doing.

    Following Biden’s remarks, former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (I), former Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) and former head of the NAACP Benjamin Chavis Jr. called for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to end what they characterized as an “anti-democracy” campaign against the group.

    I think that No Labels does intend to make such a move, and it is likely that Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia will be their candidate.

    If that is the case, Manchin would definitely take more votes away from Biden than he would from Trump.

    We shall see what happens.

    In my opinion, I think that this will be the first election cycle in ages when there is at least one viable third party alternative.

    And that will almost certainly greatly impact the outcome of the election.

    Of course we don’t have to wait until next year for high stakes political drama.

    Kevin McCarthy just lost his spot as Speaker of the House in a stunning turn of events, and some Republicans are suggesting that Donald Trump should replace him.

    When asked about this, Trump didn’t completely dismiss the idea…

    “Lot of people have been calling me about speaker, all I can say is we’ll do whatever is best for the country and for the Republican Party,” Trump said Wednesday while at a Manhattan courthouse for the third day of his civil fraud trial. Trump, his adult sons and his businesses are being sued for up to $250 million in penalties stemming from what New York authorities describe as persistent business fraud.

    Despite the trial, Trump took a minute to answer reporters’ questions about the possibility of a speakership bid.

    “My focus is totally on [the presidency]. If I can help them during the process, I’ll do it. But we have some great people in the Republican Party that could do a great job as speaker,” Trump said.

    But it is not likely to happen.

    Instead, either Steve Scalise or Jim Jordan will almost certainly get the job.

    For the moment, Patrick McHenry temporarily has the gavel, and one of his first acts was to order Nancy Pelosi “to vacate her Capitol hideaway office”…

    Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) ordered Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to vacate her Capitol hideaway office so he could take it over, just hours after becoming acting Speaker, Pelosi’s office said Tuesday.

    McHenry became acting Speaker after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted from the role Tuesday, the first time a Speaker has been voted out of the job.

    McHenry’s office requested that Pelosi vacate her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday because it was being reallocated “for speaker office use,” the message, first reported by Politico, reads. A small number of senior representatives have “hideaway offices” inside the Capitol Building.

    Needless to say, Nancy Pelosi did not like this at all.

    I expect animosity between the two major parties to continue to rise throughout the next year.

    And adding a prominent third party candidate or two to the mix will certainly make things more interesting.

    Our nation is more divided today than ever before, and the coming election will only deepen those divisions.

    If you are concerned about where all of this is ultimately heading, you are definitely not alone.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 21:55

  • Hunter Biden Raided Daughter's College Fund For $20,000 To Buy Hookers And Drugs: Report
    Hunter Biden Raided Daughter’s College Fund For $20,000 To Buy Hookers And Drugs: Report

    Hunter Biden raided his daughter’s college fund to the tune of $20,000 after his bankers said he had just 44 cents left in his account amid a months-long drug and hooker binge.

    On Dec. 17, 2018, Hunter’s money managers warned of his extremely low balance, according to records obtained by the Daily Mail. That’s exactly when, according to Hunter’s Memoir, he was in his “penultimate odyssey through full blown addiction,” when he was dropping thousands of dollars on prostitutes and crack cocaine.

    In response to the warning, Hunter ordered the bankers to transfer $20,000 from his daughter Maisy’s educational savings account, early withdrawal  consequences be damned.

    “liquidate what you can’ and ‘Live [love] you both,” Hunter wrote.

    At the time, Maisy, now 22, was in her final year of high school. She and her two older sisters, along with Joe Biden and First Lady Jill, had tried to stage an intervention just weeks earlier at the President’s Delaware home to get Hunter to go back to rehab.

    He promised to go, but instead ended up smoking crack in a hotel, he confessed in his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things.

    Emails and messages from his laptop show money he took from Maisy’s educational savings account went in part to paying various suspected prostitutes who visited him at hotels in the following days, his Porsche 911 car loan, sex webcam subscription fees, and other personal expenses. 

    Hunter’s assistant Katie Dodge plaintively emailed him on December 28 that year that he had University of Pennsylvania tuition bills of $27,945 due (likely for his eldest daughter, Naomi), a $1,700 payment for his Porsche, $4,244.70 for Maisy’s high school Sidwell Friends, her $3,000 paycheck and $1,000 for another employee.

    Hunter tersely told Dodge to pay for the Porsche and his health insurance, but that she would only be getting half her paycheck – and that he would ‘deal with tuitions when time comes.’ -Daily Mail

    “If you haven’t noticed Katie my business partner is now a prisoner on death row in China,” Hunter barked at Dodge, referring to CEFC chairman Ye Jinanmang, his Chinese partner who had been arrested on corruption charges in Beijing that year.

    Hunter’s private bankers at Wells Fargo sent him an email on December 17, 2018 warning that he had just 44 cents left in his account, according to records obtained by DailyMail.com from his abandoned laptop

    Hunter responded with a jumbled reply, ordering them to transfer $20,000 from his daughter Maisy’s educational savings account

    Hunter told his wealth managers: ‘liquidate what you can’ and ‘Live [love] you both’

    According to IRS Criminal Investigation agent Joseph Ziegler, an investigation into Hunter’s financial dealings was stonewalled before he blew the whistle to Congress – where he revealed that Hunter ended up looting Maisy’s entire college savings account – and never paid taxes on it.

    Ziegler testified that Hunter “failed to report the income related to a distribution he had taken from one his children’s 529 [educational savings] Plan in 2019, additional income of approximately $39,820,” adding “He also had personal distributions he had claimed as business deductions totaling approximately $12,791.

    “As of today’s date, this alleged additional income of approximately $52,611 has not been reported to the IRS and the alleged additional taxes of approximately $22,860 has not been paid to the IRS,” Ziegler said in an August 2, 2023 affidavit.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 21:20

  • San Francisco's Newly Approved Homeless Plan 'Most Expensive' Ever: Legislative Analysts
    San Francisco’s Newly Approved Homeless Plan ‘Most Expensive’ Ever: Legislative Analysts

    Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The San Francisco City Council voted Oct. 3 to approve a plan extending the lease on a safe parking site at Candlestick Point, south of downtown, for 35 vehicles and those living in them at a cost of nearly $13 million over two years, with residents receiving access to meals, wi-fi, and laundry services.

    A homeless man in San Francisco on Feb. 23, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Legislative analysts, in a report, recommended the extension, but suggested the council explore cheaper options next year.

    “We have a responsibility to keep communities clean and safe,” and this provides us an opportunity to do both,” Shamann Walton, San Francisco supervisor said Sept. 29 in the Homelessness and Behavioral Health Select Committee meeting, which voted unanimously to approve the proposal. “This is an expensive endeavor, but we cannot afford the alternative.”

    At issue is the Bayview Vehicle Triage Center, established in January 2022 to provide a safe parking space with amenities for some homeless individuals living in their vehicles.

    Officials say they hope, in time, up to 69 vehicles and their owners can use the space, once fire suppression methods and power—only diesel generators, thus far, have been available for limited use—are installed.

    Space at the triage center is assigned by invitation only, with the city’s Healthy Streets Operation Center and the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team managing the process.

    Statistics from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing—the city agency overseeing the site—indicate that 96 individuals from 73 households stayed at the site in the fiscal year 2022–23, with an average stay of 218 days.

    The department contracts services with two San Francisco-based nonprofits, the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation—focused on homelessness, substance abuse, and mental health services—and Urban Alchemy, founded to address homeless and transform distressed communities, and is the recipient of several multi-million dollar city contracts for a variety of projects. The groups operate the facility, coordinate referrals, and support groups and activities to facilitate exit strategies for those living there.

    Homeless people in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The former provides two daily meals—prepared fresh and delivered to the site because the lack of power prevents people from cooking—and offers case management, engagement, and exit planning.

    Also noted in the analyst’s report were several findings last year that brought into question the role of the foundation. It is one of two contracted nonprofits in the city listed as a cause for “elevated concern” by the city controller, though the report concluded that steps are being taken to address issues raised—including high turnover, lack of compliance with grant agreements, and invoicing for costs not yet incurred.

    Urban Alchemy receives the bulk of the funding, with nearly $8 million slated between January 2024 and January 2026. The group is responsible for site maintenance, laundry services, storage, and entry and exit processes.

    A representative of the nonprofit spoke at the committee hearing of the need to keep the facility operating, for the benefit of those living and working there.

    “This program really, really works. They need this. We need this. Because we all bond together,” Otis Hughes said. “I could be homeless in a situation just like them, but fortunately, I’m not. They help me be a better human being.”

    The agreement with the San Francisco-based organization, which was founded in 2018, includes $312,000 in annual rent and approximately $12.2 million in operating costs. Another $900,000 is anticipated for law and parking enforcement costs.

    Funding is provided by Proposition C, a gross receipts tax on businesses with revenues of more than $50 million in annual revenue passed by San Francisco voters in 2018.

    $400 per Car per Night

    Calling the proposal “by far the most expensive homeless response intervention,” the analysts’ report described the cost per vehicle as approximately $140,000 per year, or $400 per night.

    Analysts noted the city paid $105 a night in 2021 for a similar site in a different location on San Jose Avenue. However, they said the site—which is now closed—did not have on-site case management, which they estimate at an additional $117 per night.

    Critics point out the disparity between paying nearly $12,000 per space as compared to market rent prices in San Francisco—with a median cost of less than $3,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to online real estate listing company Zillow.

    While the report recommended supervisors explore options to lower costs next year, analysts ultimately decided to recommend the proposed resolution because it supported established city guidelines.

    The triage center in question was developed from a 2019 ordinance passed by supervisors directing the homelessness department to establish what they called a Safe Overnight Parking Pilot Program.

    Following through, the city identified the parking lot at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. Approximately $4.6 million in grant funds were spent to prepare the site, including installing perimeter fencing, solar lighting, potable water, portable toilets, and a guard shack, among other things.

    “There’s a lot that goes into making it a safe, dignified location,” said Emily Cohen, deputy director for the homelessness department, at the committee meeting.

    San Francisco City Hall on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    More than a dozen individuals spoke in support of extending the lease, in person and on the phone, with several telling supervisors that the site has been life-changing for them.

    “It makes me feel safe,” one man said. “For me, it works, and we need more of these.”

    Several supporters talked of reducing costs when capacity is expanded to allow more vehicles, though one caller questioned the logic of such an assumption.

    “It’s not working, folks. When has that ever happened in San Francisco?” Bay Area native Russel Marine said. “It costs more per site than my mortgage in San Francisco. The cost is going to go up.”

    He also said the spot the city chose is detrimental to public safety, as it is near a park where children play.

    Of concern to some opposing the extension of the safe site is the lack of an environmental review for it. The California Environmental Quality Act requires that all projects that could impact the environment undertake a rigorous review process, and none was ever conducted for the site before it was developed—though no comment was made during the committee meeting about such.

    One Bayview resident said that things are no better now than before the triage center opened, with inhabited vehicles still parked, though no longer in the same locations.

    “All of the things we experienced before are still there,” she said. “They’re just spread across the Bayview.”

    Point-in-time count statistics from 2022 revealed 4,400 unsheltered homeless in the city, with 24 percent sleeping in vehicles. A July 2023 count found 1,058 inhabited vehicles.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 20:45

  • Airlines Cancel Flights To Tel Aviv As War Erupts 
    Airlines Cancel Flights To Tel Aviv As War Erupts 

    It’s very puzzling that the Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, also known as Mossad, one of the world’s most advanced intelligence agencies, had no advance warning about the biggest Hamas assault on Israel in decades.

    Hamas’ attack unleashed thousands of rockets on Israel. Then, Palestinian terrorists demolished parts of the Gaza-Israel border fence and flooded the country. Terrorists were seen seizing military outposts, tanks, and settlements while killing anyone in their path. 

    “We are at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared earlier on Saturday. He said, “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” adding Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”

    Typically, in the event of a conflict, airlines reroute or entirely halt flights to the affected region to prevent the potential downing of a passenger aircraft. This is currently the situation, as reported by CNN:

    US airlines are diverting and canceling flights bound for Israel’s main international airport as fighting rages between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.

    United Airlines Flight 954 left San Francisco International Airport Friday night and diverted over Greenland about seven hours into the more than 13-hour-long journey, according to data from flight tracking site FlightAware. The flight is due to land back in San Francisco around 2 p.m. ET.

    FlightAware shows that United has canceled a flight on the same original schedule for Saturday.

    Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have canceled Saturday and Sunday Israel-bound flights scheduled to depart from New York’s JFK, according to FlightAware. -CNN 

    According to FlightAware data, about 14% of flights inbound for Tel Aviv have been canceled Saturday. X users are reporting airlines worldwide are beginning to cancel Tel Aviv flights: 

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    “Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza: We continue to closely monitor the security situation. Ben Gurion Airport remains open, but the security situation and staff availability could affect flights. Check with the airlines on the availability of flights and flight status,” the US State Department wrote in a post on X. 

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    Current scenes at Tel Aviv Airport:

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    *Developing… 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 20:10

  • Appeals Court Rules For Trump Amid NY Fraud Trial
    Appeals Court Rules For Trump Amid NY Fraud Trial

    Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    After a hearing on Friday, an appeals court granted a stay, or pause, on a judge’s order that former President Donald Trump’s businesses be dissolved.

    Former President Donald Trump (C) sits inside the courtroom for the third day of his civil fraud trial in New York on Oct. 4, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    This was only a partial victory for President Trump, as the appeals court said the trial that began this week could continue.

    The prosecutors had opposed the request for a delay, accusing the defense attorneys of attempting “to sow chaos” and disruption.

    The Trump Organization issued a statement after the pause, calling the judge’s order to cancel the Trumps’ business certificates “overzealous.”

    “Judge Engoron’s order erroneously sought to adjudicate the rights of non-party business entities that employ nearly 1,000 hard-working New Yorkers, have never been accused of any wrongdoing and, were never given their day in court – in clear violation of their fundamental Constitutional rights and Due Process.  We will continue to vigorously defend our company and our incredible employees from this politically-motivated persecution,” the statement reads.

    Appeal

    President Trump’s attorneys appealed the civil fraud case against him on Oct. 4 and Oct. 5, filing a 1,154-page document in a bid to pause the currently ongoing trial.

    “[New York] Supreme Court’s Sept. 26 and Oct. 5, 2023 decision impose unauthorized, undemanded, overbroad relief without proper factual or legal predicate, which will result in significant, irreparable harm,” states the reason for requesting a stay on the case.

    President Trump had already previously sought to delay the trial, and the appeal had been denied just days before the trial began.

    New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s Sept. 26 decision not only found President Trump liable for fraud, but ordered the dissolution of the Trump Organization and related LLCs, which means the 45th president will lose his entire real estate empire in a matter of days unless the appeal is granted. Furthermore, attorneys argue, hundreds of employees will be affected.

    “Supreme Court clearly does not comprehend the scope of the chaos its decision has wrought,” the filing reads, describing the summary judgment as a “miscarriage of justice.”

    Judge Arthur Engoron

    Case and Penalties

    President Trump’s business certificates have already been canceled, and the judge’s Oct. 5 order requires him to notify the court before applying for a new one, even outside New York. His sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., executive vice presidents in the Trump Organization, face similar penalties.

    The buildings they stand to lose include Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, the Seven Springs family estate upstate, and private residences belonging to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

    The case began when President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen made claims that his boss inflated his net worth. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who declared that she would sue the former president for fraud when she was campaigning for her position, brought forth a civil lawsuit in September 2022 accusing him of defrauding the state by artificially inflating his net worth to get more favorable terms from insurers and banks.

    The lawsuit included seven claims, one of which Justice Engoron ruled on about a week before trial, finding President Trump liable for fraud.

    The trial began on Oct. 2, during which President Trump made a surprise appearance and spoke with the press at length. He attended again the second day, and stayed part way through the third. The trial will deal with the amount in penalties President Trump owes, as well as proving out the remaining six claims of fraud in the prosecutor’s lawsuit.

    The appeal itself runs over 30 pages, the remaining 1,000-plus pages being case precedents cited.

    Hundreds of Employees Face Job Loss

    The latest appeal argues that the court exceeded its jurisdiction and “abused its discretion” in the penalties ordered, pointing out that the prosecutors never sought the dissolution of Trump Organization in its petition.

    Ms. James had instead asked for $250 million in penalties, and to bar President Trump and his sons from holding executive business posts in the state for five years. She also did not cite the law that would have enabled the judge to order dissolution as relief, the attorneys argue.

    “The consequences of enforcing the MSJ Decision [summary judgment on Sept. 26] are dire, and once done, cannot be undone,” the attorneys wrote.

    They pointed out that “innocent nonparties and employees who depend on the affected entities for their livelihoods” are being swept up in the “overbroad” ruling. The decision was without process, statutory authority, or trial, and “renders impossible the lawful operation of multiple businesses and threatens termination of hundreds of New York employees without any jurisdiction or due process.”

    “These non-parties are impacted without finding of any wrongdoing on the part of businesses,” they wrote. “Perhaps worst of all, it seeks to impose the corporate death penalty with no statutory authority for such remedy.”

    When Justice Engoron made the decision, he admitted he did not know what the scope of repercussions would be when attorneys asked what it meant for certain properties like Trump Tower, or Eric Trump’s home.

    But the Sept. 26 order will take place imminently, the attorneys argue, and the judge’s Oct. 5 order did not address any of the questions attorneys had raised. The attorneys also argue they had no opportunity to present their case before the Sept. 26 order.

    Statute of Limitations

    The attorneys also made additional arguments about the judge extending the statute of limitations during the trial.

    A June appeals court decision had defined the statute of limitations to allegations from 2014 onwards. The prosecutors’ original lawsuit covered the decade from 2011 to 2021.

    During the trial, the judge acknowledged the statute of limitations, but said he would allow evidence from before 2014 if the prosecutors could connect it to later crimes. The prosecutors had argued for bringing in this evidence under the “continuing wrongs doctrine.”

    In the appeal, President Trump’s attorneys argue that the doctrine does not delay or extend the period allowed, citing other court rulings. Furthermore, the court is now treating the individual financial statements as “separately actionable claims,” rather than “continuing wrongs,” they argued.

    If the statute of limitations is applied correctly, the majority of the prosecutor’s claims are “subject to dismissal as untimely,” the

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 19:35

  • CME Head Duffy Says Chicago Needs To Get Its Act Together
    CME Head Duffy Says Chicago Needs To Get Its Act Together

    Last month Cboe Global Markets CEO Ed Tilly warned that if Chicago slaps the financial industry with transaction taxes, amid a crime wave that has employees afraid to come in to work.

    Chicago Board of Trade building

    “We don’t want to leave… But we cannot be disadvantaged in the world’s most competitive markets,” Tilly said in light of an $800 million tax proposal from Mayor Brandon Johnson aimed at plugging a $538 million budget deficit projected for next year, and increasing costs driven by a cocktail of inflation and rising numbers of destitute asylum seekers.

    Now, CME Group, Inc. – which has over a century of history rooted in Chicago, is warning much the same. According to CEO Terry Duffy, they’ll cut bait and drop Chicago like a hot stone – and in fact, have begun the process of uncoupling from the dysfunctional city.

    CME CEO Terry Duffy

    “I liquidated every piece of real estate in the state,” Duffy said in an interview last week, according to Bloomberg. “I have leases where I am in an advantageous position, because now I can renegotiate. They’re all coming due. We like Chicago. There’s no reason for us to want to leave. But at the same time, if the atmosphere gets to the point where it’s intolerable, we have no choice.“

    His commitment to Chicago is being tested as stubbornly high crime rates and a slew of taxes — including a financial-transaction levy proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson — have him considering his options. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has already said he opposes the tax proposal, but he won’t be at the helm forever, Duffy said.

    As for the mayor, Duffy said he’s met with Johnson once since he was elected in April and is willing to throw his arms around him to help him succeed. But “we don’t agree on anything,” Duffy said.

    Below is a summary of an interview Duffy gave on the subject:

    Challenges in Chicago:

    • Duffy underscores the difficulties in Chicago, highlighting the absence of commerce and the potential financial pitfalls of vacant buildings.
    • He emphasizes the crucial need to strategize bringing people back into cities and reviving societal norms and operations.

    “You can’t walk outside and not have commerce in one of the largest cities in the world. Who’s going to pay the taxes on these large buildings that are now vacant? You need to figure out ways to get people back into the cities.“

    Tax Perspective:

    • Duffy expresses his inclination to alter tax approaches, proposing the elimination of sales tax in physical stores to better compete with online platforms.

    “Let people not pay a sales tax and compete with online. If you want to sell it online then you pay a tax, and in the store where you’re employing people, you don’t pay a tax.”

    Potential Move to Texas?

    • Despite Texas Governor Greg Abbott extolling the benefits of firms moving to Texas, Duffy remains non-committal, acknowledging the pros without indicating any solid intent to relocate.

    “I have a lot of clients in Texas. I like working with my clients that come out of Texas. That was the end of my conversation. He didn’t offer me anything. I didn’t ask for anything either.”

    Acquisition Strategies:

    • Duffy sheds light on CME’s sound financial standing and its strategic approach to acquisitions, emphasizing safeguarding shareholders’ interests.

    “I am a triple A-rated institution with very little debt. I get shopped a lot of deals. We have the capacity if we thought it was right to do it. We run the firm for the benefit of the long-term. So when it comes to acquisitions, I would never do anything that I didn’t think was in the best interest of my shareholders.“

    Dismay over FTX’s Collapse:

    • Contrary to feeling vindicated by FTX’s collapse, Duffy expresses disappointment, acknowledging the potential of cryptocurrencies to eliminate or reduce friction in the financial system.

    “I feel depressed by it. We’ve got to evolve and change, and crypto could be a vehicle to help eliminate friction. Whether it will or not, I don’t know. I don’t want to see anything be eliminated from the possibilities of making the world a better place tomorrow.”

    FTX’s Proposals and Regulatory Vision:

    • He maintains that FTX’s proposals held merit and insists on the establishment of comprehensive regulatory frameworks around such innovative concepts.

    “I never said any of the proposals did not have merit. I just said let’s write some rules around it. And I believe that today.

    “I still see potential that it could be another way to eliminate friction. Right now, I think the best system is the Futures Commission Merchants, but I don’t know if that’s going to be there forever.”

    Cautious Technological Deployment:

    • Adopting a cautious perspective on technological implementations, Duffy is particularly reserved about deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) in market operations.

    “You don’t want to be last and you don’t want to be first. You’ve got to be really careful how you roll this stuff out.”

    Duffy’s Future at CME:

    • With a contract that expires in a year and a half, Duffy’s future at CME is yet to be decided, with deliberations with the board planned for the upcoming year.

    “I have another year and a half left in my contract. I will discuss with my board what they want to do sometime early next year and go from there.”

    Let’s see where CME is a year from now…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 19:00

  • Netanyahu Tells Gaza Residents To Clear Out, Says IDF "Will Use All Its Strength" To "Destroy" Hamas
    Netanyahu Tells Gaza Residents To Clear Out, Says IDF “Will Use All Its Strength” To “Destroy” Hamas

    Update (1835ET): Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned residents of Gaza to “leave now, because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”

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    Continued…

    Hamas wants to murder us all. This is an enemy that murders children and mothers in their homes, in their beds, an enemy that abducts the elderly, children and young women, that slaughters and massacres our citizens, including children, who simply went out to enjoy the holiday.

    What happened today is unprecedented in Israel – and I will see to it that it does not happen again. The entire government is behind this decision.

    The IDF will immediately use all its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities. We will destroy them and will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on Israel and its citizens. As Bialik wrote: ‘Revenge for the blood of a little child has yet been devised by Satan’.

    All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble.

    I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.

    At this hour, the IDF is clearing the terrorists out of the last communities. They are going community by community, house by house, and are restoring our control.

    I embrace and send heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families whose loved ones were murdered today in cold blood and endless brutality.

    We are all praying for the well-being of the wounded and all those who are being held hostage. I say to Hamas: You are responsible for their well-being. Israel will settle accounts with anyone who harms one hair on their heads.

    I appeal to the residents of the south: We all stand alongside you. We are all proud of your heroism and your fighting.

    To our beloved IDF soldiers, police officers and security forces personnel, remember that you are the continuation of the heroes of the Jewish people, of Joshua, Judah Maccabee and the heroes of 1948 and of all of Israel’s wars.

    You are now fighting for the home and future of us all. We are all with you. We all love you. We all salute you.

    To the medical and rescue teams, and the many volunteers in a long list of places, the people of Israel salute you. With your spirit, we will overcome our enemies.

    *  *  *

    Update(1430ET): Former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) international spokesperson Jonathan Conricus has summed up what this day means for Israel, calling in the country’s “Pearl Harbor” moment.

    “The entire system failed. It’s not just one component. It’s the entire defense architecture that evidently failed to provide the necessary defense for Israeli civilians,” he told CNN of the surprise invasion from Gaza militants. “This is a Pearl Harbor type of moment for Israel, where there was reality up until today, and then there will be reality after today.”

    Via AP: “Palestinians terrorists transport an abducted Israeli civilian [covered in a sheet] from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip.”

    Town-by-town and farm-by-farm fighting is still underway given Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) reportedly control swathes of southern territory and even military outposts in Israel.

    Netanyahu and his cabinet now must be contemplating what will surely be a high-risk rescue operation and potential ground incursion.

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    Every hour results in even more incredible, shocking footage being released of dead Israeli soldiers and civilians. The Times of Israel is reporting that over 200 Israelis have been killed, and at least 1,000 injured. The death toll is also mounting into the hundreds on the Gaza side as Israel retaliates.

    In some instances, there are what look like Israeli soccer moms and their families being escorted barefoot across the border.

    Video footage suggests at least dozens of Israelis have been taken captive, possibly even hundreds.

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    Grandmothers, men, women, children – the young and old – are being paraded in front of Hamas and PIJ cameras…

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    At the same time, the expected Israeli aerial assault has begun. In some instances entire apartment housing blocks have been leveled. 

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    There are reports saying that the IDF has taken back some of the bases seized by small teams of Palestinian militants earlier in the day.

    …all of this after what was clearly a well-coordinated attack long in planning:

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    But what the world woke up to at the start of Saturday were unprecedented scenes of Israelis in retreat…

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    Rockets have continued to reach Tel Aviv from Gaza, and air raid sirens are active across many parts of the country.

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    Gaza apartments flattened by Israeli strikes…

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    * * * 

    Palestinian militants on Saturday morning launched an “unprecedented” infultration attack on Israel, the biggest in years, sending fighters over the border from Gaza, firing thousands of rockets and killing dozens of Israelis. In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a call-up of reservists and said “we are at war.” 

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    Here are the latest highlights from the rapidly changing situation:

    • Militant group Hamas launched a sustained barrage of more than 5,000 rockets in a coordinated attack by land, sea and air. According to the NYT, the Hamas assault from Gaza on southern Israel has had few precedents in its complexity and scale, invading several Israeli towns and firing thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.
    • The Israeli military said that at least 2,200 rockets had been fired into Israel by 11 a.m. on Saturday and that armed gunmen had crossed the border fence in several locations along Israel’s perimeter with Gaza, a poor coastal enclave that has been under blockade by Israel and neighboring Egypt for 16 years.
    • In addition to land, the militants also crossed into Israel by sea and air, according to the Israeli military. By late morning, at least 22 Israelis had been killed in the surprise attacks from Gaza and hundred more injured according to Israel’s main ambulance service, and Israel had retaliated with massive strikes on Gazan cities, killing at least one Palestinian, according to local reports.
    • Palestinian militants infiltrated at least seven Israeli communities and army bases this morning, according to the Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht. He said militants had reached the city of Sderot; the small towns of Kfar Azza, Nahal Oz, Magen, Beeri; the military bases of Reim and Zikim, which are close to towns of the same name; and the militarized border checkpoint at Erez. Fighting was ongoing at or near the at least three of those places, he said.
    • Israel’s emergency services said 22 people have been killed in the surprise attacks from Gaza and hundred more injured.
    • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was now “at war” and that he had convened the heads of the security forces and instructed them to first clear all Israeli villages of Palestinian militants who had entered from Gaza.
    • Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that there was a military operation “in defense of the Aqsa mosque,” the hotly contested holy site in Jerusalem that thousands of Jews have visited in recent weeks, and against the Israeli blockade.
    • Israeli hospitals said they had received hundreds of wounded. Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba had admitted more than 80 people, with some “in very difficult condition,” a hospital spokeswoman said. The ambulance service, Magen David Adom, issued an urgent call for blood.
    • Israel Defense Forces said they were carrying out strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza in response to the attacks on Israel.
    • Air-raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem, while explosions were heard in Tel Aviv

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    More details:

    The ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land and sea, catching the country off guard on a major holiday.

    Several hours after the invasion began, Hamas militants were still fighting gunbattles inside several Israeli communities in a surprising show of strength that shook the country. Israel’s national rescue service said at least 22 people have been killed, dozens of Israelis taken hostage, and hundreds wounded, making it the deadliest attack in Israel in years. 

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    At least 561 wounded people were being treated in Israeli hospitals, including at least 77 who were in critical condition, according to an Associated Press count based on public statements and calls to hospitals.

    There was no official comment on casualties in Gaza, but Associated Press reporters said they witnessed the funerals of 15 people who were killed and saw another eight bodies arrive at a local hospital. It was not immediately clear if they were fighters or civilians.

    As the AP also reports, social media was replete with videos of Hamas fighters parading what appeared to be stolen Israeli military vehicles through the streets and at least one dead Israeli soldier within Gaza being dragged and trampled by an angry crowd of Palestinians shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

    Hamas has invaded towns in southern Israel and is shooting people (warning: disturbing)…

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    Videos released by Hamas appeared to show at least three Israelis captured alive. The military declined to give details about casualties or kidnappings as it continued to battle the infiltrators.

    “We are at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address, declaring a mass army mobilization. “Not an ‘operation,’ not a ‘round,’ but at war.” “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” he added, promising that Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”

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    At a meeting of top security officials later on Saturday, Netanyahu said the first priority was to “cleanse the area” of enemy infiltrators, then to “exact a huge price from the enemy,” and to fortify other areas so that no other militant groups join the war.

    The serious invasion on Simchat Torah, a normally joyous day when Jews complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll, revived painful memories of the 1973 Mideast war practically 50 years to the day, in which Israel’s enemies launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

    Comparisons to one of the most traumatic moments in Israeli history sharpened criticism of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who had campaigned on more aggressive action against threats from Gaza. Political commentators lambasted the government over its failure to anticipate what appeared to be a Hamas attack unseen in its level of planning and coordination.

    The Israeli military struck targets in Gaza in response for some 2,500 rockets that sent air raid sirens wailing constantly as far north as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. It said its forces were engaged in gunfights with Hamas militants who had infiltrated Israel in at least seven locations. The fighters had sneaked across the separation fence and even invaded Israel through the air with paragliders, the army said.

    Israeli TV broadcast footage of explosions tearing through the Gaza-Israel border fence, followed by what appeared to be Palestinian gunmen riding into Israel on motorcycles. Gunmen also reportedly entered on pickup trucks.

    It was not immediately clear what prompted Hamas to launch the attacks, which would have likely required months of planning. But over the past year Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

    The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, announced the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.” The Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam, and is located on the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.

    “Enough is enough,” Deif, who does not appear in public, said in the recorded message, as he called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight. “Today the people are regaining their revolution.”

    In a televised address, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that Hamas had made “a grave mistake” and promised that “the state of Israel will win this war.”

    The infiltration of fighters into southern Israel marked a major escalation by Hamas that forced millions of Israelis to hunker down in safe rooms. Cities and towns emptied as the military closed roads near Gaza. Israel’s rescue service and the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza appealed to the public to donate blood.

    “We understand that this is something big,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesman, told reporters. He said the Israeli military had called up the army reserves.

    Hecht declined to comment on how Hamas had managed to catch the army off guard. “That’s a good question,” he said.

    Ismail Haniyeh, the exiled leader of Hamas, said that Palestinian fighters were “engaged in these historic moments in a heroic operation” to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

    Israel has built a massive fence along the Gaza border meant to prevent infiltrations. It goes deep underground and is equipped with cameras, high-tech sensors and sensitive listening technology. Israel has maintained a blockade over Gaza since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. The bitter enemies have fought four wars since then. There have also been numerous rounds of smaller fighting between Israel and Hamas and other smaller militant groups based in Gaza.

    The blockade, which restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, has devastated the territory’s economy. Israel says the blockade is needed to keep militant groups from building up their arsenals. The Palestinians say the closure amounts to collective punishment.

    The escalation comes after weeks of heightened tensions along Israel’s volatile border with Gaza, and heavy fighting in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

    Saturday’s wide-ranging assault threatened to undermine Netanyahu’s reputation as a security expert who would do anything to protect Israel. It also raised questions about the cohesion of a security apparatus crucial to the stability of a country locked in low-intensity conflicts on multiple fronts and facing threats from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.

    Meanwhile, Hezbollah congratulated Hamas on Friday, praising the attack as a response to “Israeli crimes” and saying the militants had “divine backing.” The group said its command in Lebanon was in contact with Hamas about the operation.

     

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    The timing of the assault was striking, hitting Israel at one of the lowest moments in its history. It followed months of profound anxiety about the cohesion of Israeli society and the readiness of its military, a crisis set off by the government’s efforts to reduce the power of the judiciary. And the violence came 50 years and a day after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Israel was also surprised by a complex Arab attack, leading to huge Israeli losses and soul-searching about the state of the country.

    Muhammad Deif, the leader of the military wing of Hamas, the Islamic militant organization that controls Gaza, said in a recorded message that the group had decided to launch an “operation” so that “the enemy will understand that the time of their rampaging without accountability has ended.”

    In response to the Hamas attack, the Israeli military said it launched strikes against 17 military compounds and locations connected to Hamas’s leadership in Gaza. The army released videos of strikes on cars, Palestinian militants and other targets. Dozens of air force jet fighters launched the attacks, the Israeli military said.

    The Israel Defense Force has 169,000 active-duty troops and 465,000 reservists and remains the Middle East’s most formidable force, supplied with some of the most advanced drones and other weapons from Israel’s technology sector and from the U.S., which provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military assistance.

    The Israeli military has conducted frequent raids in Palestinian cities and refugee camps, with bloody confrontations ensuing with well-armed militants. The army also flooded southern Israel with ground troops to manage the incursion, it said.

    The IDF said it had named the counter offensive against Hamas operation swords of iron.

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    Meanwhile, as the WSJ details, the declaration of war by Israel against Hamas comes at a time of turmoil in Israeli politics.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced a backlash against legislation introduced to limit the power of the Supreme Court. His coalition passed the first part of the law in July, prompting mass protests and raising fears about Israel’s national security.

    Thousands of military reservists said at the time they would quit as a result of the change to the law, and union leaders and medical professionals threatened mass work stoppages. Military officials have warned that the legislation was undermining unity within the military.

    The law takes away the Supreme Court’s ability to nullify government decisions it finds “unreasonable in the extreme”—a concept that lawmakers in Netanyahu’s coalition said was nebulous and allowed liberal judges to overturn the will of an increasingly right-wing electorate.

    The effort to overhaul the judiciary has been the governing coalition’s priority since Netanyahu was re-elected last year. Coalition members have said the government plans to move ahead with the next part of the overhaul, which would aim to change the way judges are appointed, after the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, reconvenes in mid-October. The law is being challenged in Israel’s Supreme Court.

    * * *

    Western nations condemned the incursion and reiterated their support for Israel, while others called for restraint on both sides.

    “The U.S. unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians,” said Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council. “We stand firmly with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks.”

    Watson said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, has spoken with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi.

    Saudi Arabia, which has been in talks with the U.S. about normalizing relations with Israel, released a statement calling on both sides to exercise restraint. The kingdom said it had repeatedly warned about “ the dangers of the situation exploding as a result of the continued occupation (and) the Palestinian people being deprived of their legitimate rights.”

    * * *

    Finally, there is some speculation that Iran may get dragged into what is rapidly emerging as the worst Middle-Eastern crisis in years, with various pro-Israeli hawks claiming that the Hamas attack would have only occurred with explicit Iranian backing. If Israel does indeed attack Iran, as it has hinted it would do for years, may we suggest you fill up your gas tank.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 18:35

  • Johnstone: The Top Ten Dumbest Things Empire Propagandists Ask Us To Believe
    Johnstone: The Top Ten Dumbest Things Empire Propagandists Ask Us To Believe

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    When you live under an empire that’s held together by lies, you’ll be asked to believe a lot of intensely stupid bullshit.

    Here are the top ten dumbest things the propagandists of the US-centralized empire try to get us to swallow.

    1. That the US war machine has been surrounding its top two rivals China and Russia with war machinery as an act of defense, rather than an extremely provocative act of aggression.

    2. That the war in Ukraine simultaneously (A) was completely unprovoked, and (B) just coincidentally happens to massively advance US strategic interests and therefore should be funded as much as possible.

    3. That, okay, all those other wars were based on lies and resulted in disaster, but that couldn’t possibly be the case for this current war.

    4. That your country’s foreign policy is determined by your official elected government, even though the foreign policy remains the same regardless of who is in office.

    5. That it is only by pure coincidence that your nation’s population remains in a perpetual 50–50 deadlock which prevents anyone’s votes from changing the status quo, and the status quo just happens to be perpetually frozen along lines that hugely advantage the rich and powerful.

    6. That the only reason anyone could possibly be critical of the most dangerous impulses of the world’s most powerful and destructive government is if they are a secret agent working for the enemies of that government.

    7. That the western empire which spent the last two decades murdering Muslims in the Middle East suddenly cares very deeply about the Muslims in China.

    8. That Putin invaded Ukraine solely because he is evil and hates freedom, and that the empire is pouring weapons into Ukraine because it loves Ukrainians and wants to protect their freedom and democracy.

    9. That foreign propaganda and influence operations are significantly manipulating the way westerners think and vote, but the plutocrats who fully control all the most influential platforms in the western world are not.

    10. That we need to be worrying about tyrannical enemies in Beijing and Moscow, instead of tyrannical enemies a lot closer to home.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 18:25

  • Another Problem? iPhone 15 Users Report "Rattle Or Crackle" In Audio
    Another Problem? iPhone 15 Users Report “Rattle Or Crackle” In Audio

    Apple rolled out a software update on Wednesday to fix the overheating issue in the new iPhone 15. Yet, even as one problem is addressed, another emerges: Some iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max users report that their built-in speakers emit crackly and rattly sounds.

    “My iPhone 15 Pro Max arrived launch day, and from out of the box, full volume speaker calls rattle the speaker and sound like liquid inside, and same for music above like 80%, below 80% you can notice the rattle with the phone up to your ear. Software bug maybe? I think I should get the phone swapped out…… It literally sounds like a liquid-damaged blown speaker at high volumes,” one Redditor said. 

    After a replacement phone from the Apple Store, the Redditor said, “Replaced phone through Apple, and the replacement has the same issue, this time worse!”

    Another Apple user, TikToker Milesabovetech, said his iPhone 15 Pro Max had been replaced three times because of speaker issues. He said: “The iPhone 15 launch has me feeling like we were beta testers.” 

    @milesabovetech The iPhone 15 launch has me feeling like were beta testers #iphone #android #iphone15promax #techtok #tech #techgagets #apple #milesabovetech ♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs – Skittlegirl Sound

    https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

    He shared a video of the second iPhone replacement on X, indicating, “So I got my 2nd replacement for my iPhone 15 Pro Max from Apple and it still has the same top speaker issue?!?! When the volume is above 80% with some songs and videos the speaker rattles and cracks like it has water in it. I tried this at BestBuy too and they had the same issue.” 

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    It’s unclear how widespread the problem is. Others have reported similar issues:

    “If it’s a hardware issue and speaker components are to blame, Apple will likely fix the problem at the manufacturing level,” said tech blog BGR, adding, “Considering that Apple has already confirmed the overheating issues for the iPhone 15 Pro models, I’d expect the company to also address the sound problems in the near future. That’s if the speaker issue is as widespread.” 

    Seems like iPhone 15 users are beta testers…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 17:50

  • Victor Davis Hanson: A 50th Anniversary War?
    Victor Davis Hanson: A 50th Anniversary War?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

    A 50th Anniversary War?

    Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians – one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?

    And how were the killers able to enter Israeli proper in enough numbers to kill what could be hundreds and perhaps eventually wound what could be thousands?

    a) Ostensibly, radical Palestinians wanted to stop any rumored rapprochement between the Gulf monarchies – the traditional source of much of their cash—and Israel, by forcing the issue of Arab solidarity in times of “war”, especially through waging a gruesome attack aimed at civilians and encompassing executions and hostage taking. Iran likely was the driving force to prompt the war—given its greatest fear is a Sunni Arab-Israeli rapprochement.

    b)  Arab forces have had only success against Israel through surprise attacks during Israeli holidays, as in the Yom Kippur War (i.e., was it any accident that the present attack began 50-years almost to the day after the October 6, 1973 beginning of the Yom Kippur War?). And so they struck again this Saturday during Simchat Torah, coming at the end of a weeklong Jewish celebration of Sukkot—in hopes that others will join in as happened in 1973. (So much for the Arab warnings not for Westerners to conduct war during Ramadan).

    c) Hamas may have reckoned that recent Israeli turmoil and mass leftist street protests over proposed reforms of the Israeli Supreme Court had led to permanent internal divisions and thus a climate of domestic distraction if not an erosion of deterrence.

    But, more importantly, in a larger sense the Biden administration has contributed both to the notion that Hamas was a legitimate Middle East player, and to the perception that the U.S. was backing away from its traditional support for Israel – to the delight of Hamas – based on the following inexplicable policies:

    1) In February Secretary of State Blinken had bragged that not only had the Biden administration resumed massive aid to the PLA cancelled by Trump, but cumulatively had transferred $1 billion – even as Palestinian authorities bragged that they would continue to pay bounties to the families of “martyrs” (i.e., those killed while conducting terrorists attacks against Israel).

    And millions of American dollars also went into Gaza, run by Hamas – despite the Biden administration’s efforts to keep mostly quiet the resumption of such inexplicable support. In this regard, note the current shameful State-Department (“U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”) website news release that was posted after today’s attack. It ended with this quite embarrassing, morally equivalent admonition:

    “We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

    “All sides?” “Refrain from retaliatory attacks?”

    So Israel is the moral equivalent of terrorists executing civilians and brutalizing their corpses? And the IDF then is not supposed to retaliate against these killers?

    This Biden State Department insanity cannot stand. So expect some apparatchik to take down this Munich-like posting as soon as possible.

    2) The Biden administration had recently released some $6 billion to Iran through a prison swap deal that saw South Korea hand over embargoed Iranian money to Qatar – despite Tehran’s  increased anti-Israeli rhetoric and its loud brag about the escalation. We should assume money for rockets (Hamas claims they have launched 5,000, and have received 100,000 of them via the Damascus airport) and weapons in general for Hamas were supplied by Iran, which again is likely the chief catalyst for this surprise attack.

    3) Almost immediately, after his inauguration Biden mobilized to resume the bankrupt Iran deal. And in unhinged fashion he appointed the anti-Israeli bigot, pro-Iranian journalist Robert Malley as America’s chief negotiator. Note that Malley is now under FBI investigation for security breaches, involving disclosing classified U.S. documents and also for allegedly helping pro-Iranian activists and propagandists land influential billets inside the U.S. government.

    In short, there was a general Hamas and Iranian perception that the Biden administration had resumed the discredited Obama madness of empowering Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. This discredited agenda was to “balance” the power of Israel and the moderate Arab Gulf governments to achieve “creative tension”, exacerbated by Biden’s loathing of the government of Benjamín Netanyahu (who has been snubbed by Biden and never invited for an official visit).

    Note as well that the Biden administration has siphoned off key weapons and munitions from stockpiles inside Israel to transfer them to Ukraine. The so-called “War Reserve Ammunition—Israel” is all but depleted of just the sorts of weapons needed in the present crisis.

    In this regard is there not a pattern here?

    Upon the ascension of Biden and his woke military agendas, we saw the following:

    • the complete humiliation of the U.S. in Kabul in its most shameful flight in 50 years and greatest abandonment of equipment in its history;

    • followed by Vladimir Putin’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine;

    • followed by China’s new belligerence and escalating threats to Taiwan;

    • followed by Turkey’s new de facto alliance with Russia and recent drone encounter with the U.S. air force in Syria;

    • followed by the Hamas/Iranian inspired attack on Israel – with more to come unfortunately.

    And will Biden finally get the message from the attacks on the Ukraine and Israeli borders, that borders matter and we too are being invaded, with the encouragement of the Mexican government and to the advantage of the cartels whose fentanyl exports kills 100,000 Americans a year?

    What to expect in Israel?

    Expect the following:

    • the usual Hamas/terrorist selling and/or execution of Israeli hostages,

    • the use of Israeli hostages as “human shields” in Gaza, 

    • the bargaining/sale of the remains of Israeli dead,

    • occasional killings of Jews inside Israel by Arabs who falsely believe there will be a winning Middle East-wide existential war against Israel.

    • And finally, a devastating Israeli counter-response that will eventually earn a U.S. rebuke.

    What should the U.S. instead do?

    It should quit talking to Iran and restore full sanctions against it.

    It should cut off all aid immediately to all the Palestinians.

    It should undertake a 1973-like massive arms lift of key munitions to Israel and warn Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and others in the Middle East not to intervene or else, given that Israel will need several weeks to deal with Hamas and Gaza.

    And if it shows any hesitation or weakness, other terrorist groups will opportunistically jump in.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 17:15

  • Will The Electric Car Mandates Battle Decide The 2024 Election?
    Will The Electric Car Mandates Battle Decide The 2024 Election?

    Authored by Duggan Flanakin via RealClear Wire,

    Let’s see just how long this auto workers’ strike lasts. It’s not really about the 46% pay raise, but the 2009 Obama deal that took away cost-of-living adjustments. It’s not really about the short run, either.

    But let’s see what the auto workers get in the face of President Biden’s unrealistic demand that would force us to buy Chinese-battery-powered vehicles.

    The sheep will remain loyal – just as they are to every other radical idea – because to resist is to be uncool or, worse, deplatformed from woke society.

    But the “irredeemable deplorables” (who buck the system) are getting restless about an all-out plunge into the uncharted waters of EV world – a world dominated by China and its forced laborers in Xinjiang and Congolese child laborers.

    Funny how bedfellows make strange politics. The UAW bosses are all in with the EV mandate, but the rank and file just cheered an Orange man in a red elephant jacket. But if you think this is merely an American phenomenon, you’d be wrong.

    This – this is the battle of the century, between those seeking to control all thought and action and those who only seek to control some (controversial) thought and action – a real-world game of thrones. Power, not progress, or even prosperity, is the goal. And, of course, big money.

    Every day the dangers of total reliance on electricity generation and transmission at a level twice that of today are exposed. And every day these warnings are ignored by the media and lampooned by the Karines of the world.

    In Pakistan, lightning hits a warehouse full of electric vehicles and batteries causing a fire and explosions that killed a 15-year-old boy and injured 163 others. Five electric vehicles were destroyed at Sydney’s airport when a detached EV battery from a luxury vehicle burst into flames.

    Taxpayer-subsidized Proterra’s bankruptcy has left the entire eight-vehicle Jackson (Wyoming) bus fleet grounded for months. Parts are not available. Naturally, Jackson’s bureaucrats plan to buy more electric buses. Greenie points!

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a five-year delay on banning new gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles (till 2035), citing “unacceptable costs” on ordinary people. All across Europe the battle is raging over the “transition.” Unless “net zero” is modified, predictions are that “the base car market will either vanish or will not be done by European manufacturers.”

    Those “ordinary people” are speaking with their pocketbooks. Prices for used EVs have been slashed by nearly 25% “as drivers lose confidence.” Over half of British drivers deem EVs too expensive, and nearly half fear shortages of charging stations.

    No wonder American auto workers are striking!

    But that’s not the worst!

    British auto insurer John Lewis Financial Services has “temporarily” paused issuing polices on battery-powered vehicles until its underwriter analyses risks and costs (and raises rates). Another insurer, Aviva, reportedly is refusing to insure Teslas, while other EV owners saw premiums go up 1,000% in just one year (up to £4,000 more).

    Costs for EV repairs have risen sharply, and there is a shortage of technicians with the skills to carry out repairs – meaning EV owners may wait weeks with their toy in the shop. No wonder a J.D. Power survey reports 76% of new EV sales come from the luxury market – mainstream buyers cannot afford them.

    Nonetheless, the Association of British Insurers reassured the elites and deplatformers that, “Our members fully support the roll-out of electric vehicles and efforts to transition to Net Zero.” With the caveat that, “Whether to offer insurance, and at what price, is a commercial decision for insurers based on their risk appetite.”

    The “rosy scenario” (if tomorrow’s EV sales match today’s non-EV sales) predicts a loss of 117,000 automotive jobs to “the transition.” Thousands of jobs are already lost as automakers gear up to meet political demands – despite public resistance.

    These numbers, however, do not factor in the 75% reduction in private vehicle ownership demanded by Klaus Schwab and his fellow gazillionaire would-be gods.

    Nor do they factor in massive losses in petrochemical industry and other manufacturing jobs – at least 6,000 products use byproducts of gasoline and diesel production. Those industries, too, will be devastated by an end to fossil fuel production – and nobody in the power structure cares.

    Yes, horse-related jobs disappeared as automobiles replaced saddled animals on American roads. But such comparisons are political spin. American auto workers – like former American appliance and electronics workers — watch production move to Mexico and China as our auto industry is crippled by regulations and mandates that make no economic or geopolitical sense.

    Despite the acquiescence by automakers to Biden’s diktat (do any mainstream reporters still drive ICE vehicles?), there are signs of a burgeoning revolt, and not just from Trump-loving auto workers.

    The House just sent to the Senate the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act, crafted by Rep. John Joyce (R, PA) to prevent governments from bans on ICE vehicle sales. Says Joyce, “The last thing my constituents want is another oppressive Biden administration mandate that puts a radical environmental agenda and far-left special interests above their individual freedoms.”

    (Meanwhile, in France, 41% (and 59% from ages 18 to 24) approved the idea of limiting people to four airplane flights over their entire lifetime.)

    Analyzing the British marketplace, Telegraph city editor Ben Marlow suggests that “the time has come to accept that the economics of net zero are more fantasy than reality.”

    Despite London mayor Sadiq Khan’s infamous Ultra-Low Emissions Zone scheme that forced ICE vehicle drivers to pay £12.50 per day just to enter downtown London, an initial spike in EV sales petered out quickly, leading to layoffs at EV assembly plants, carlots full of unsold EVs, and a price war by frustrated dealerships.

    In the U.S., Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley addressed the United Auto Workers’ demands, acknowledging that, “we want everyone to participate in our success, but if it prevents us from investing in this transition to EVs … then everyone’s job is at risk if we don’t invest.”

    Really? Ford is losing $4.5 billion in its EV division this year despite President Biden’s welfare-for-the-rich scheme of massive subsidies for EV purchases, $12 billion for retrofitting auto plants for EV production, and $7.5 billion for charging stations. If Schwab has his way, Ford may soon find itself out of business or relegated to manufacturing nameplates for Chinese “Fords.”

    Will Americans understand that the auto workers (who just want a big paycheck before their forced retirement) are the canary in this nation’s coal mine – that if their industry dies, the nation’s economy dies with it?

    It will take great courage to stand up to teacher unions, indoctrinated children, the deplatforming media, the Justice Department, and hate speech from on high to demand an end to the climate hysteria that elitists use to scare people into accepting a massive decline in their prosperity.

    But that is the battle – more than immigration, funding foreign wars, or even “structural racism” – that ought to be the dividing line in 2024. Like 2020’s vaccine mandates, EV mandates force tremendous losses of personal freedom. And our children are being taught that freedom – speaking out against government and the ruling class – is a bad thing.

    But so is darkness.

    Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and a frequent writer on public policy issues.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 16:05

  • Watch: Netanyahu Delivers Remarks After Hamas Attack
    Watch: Netanyahu Delivers Remarks After Hamas Attack

    Update (1525ET): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers remarks following the Hamas attack:

    Watch live:

    *  *  *

    President Biden delivered a boilerplate series of remarks on the attack in Israel, including that the US commitment to them is “rock solid,” and leaving before answering any questions (the first one of which was whether there was an intelligence failure leading up to it).

    Watch:

    The US says it ‘stands firmly’ by its partner Israel after it came under large-scale attack by Palestinian fighters from Gaza, happening nearly 50 years to the day of the historic 1973 Yom Kippur war.

    “The U.S. unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians,” spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council, Adrienne Watson, said in a statement. “We stand firmly with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks.”

    President Biden held a phone call with Netanyahu Saturday:

    “This morning, I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu about the horrific and ongoing attacks in Israel,” Biden said in a statement. “The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel.” 

    “Terrorism is never justified. Israel has a right to defend itself and its people. The United States warns against any other party hostile to Israel seeking advantage in this situation,” he continued. “My Administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.”

    Additionally, the Pentagon says it will support Israel after Netanyahu earlier declared war.

    “Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “Over the coming days the Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”

    Gaza militants have not only taken control of multiple Israeli military outposts near the southern border, but have launched more than 2,000 missiles in an attack by “air, land, and sea”. Gaza media is meanwhile warning “hell’ is coming to Tel Aviv. 

    Israel’s national rescue service has confirmed at least 40 Israeli deaths due to the attack. Regional reports are saying this death toll could be over 100. A large-scale Israeli air campaign has ensued over Gaza City, with entire apartment blocks and buildings being leveled. 

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    Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Jerusalem has issued a “shelter in place” order for all US diplomatic personnel and their families. 

    “The U.S. Embassy is closely monitoring the security situation as a result of rockets fired from Gaza across southern and central Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the infiltration of Hamas militants,” the statement reads.

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    The embassy says it’s “aware that there have been casualties as a result of these incidents” and cautions US citizens to “remain vigilant and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness.”

    Israeli leaders look rattled as they attended an emergency security cabinet meeting today:

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    Some observers are asking how such a clearly well-coordinated attack could have happened. At the very least, this is a monumential failure on the part of Israeli intelligence…

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 15:29

  • Hezbollah Next To Attack? War Could Spiral Into Biggest In Decades
    Hezbollah Next To Attack? War Could Spiral Into Biggest In Decades

    By Saturday afternoon (local time), some 200 Palestinians have been killed, with over 1600 wounded as the Israeli military begins its response to the ‘invasion’ of southern Israel launched by Hamas.

    After about ten hours of fighting, over 40 Israelis have been reported killed, and over 800 wounded. Hamas also has captured possibly scores of Israeli soldiers and civilians, including what it says are IDF military commanders.

    What’s becoming clear given the shocking scenes currently coming out of southern Israel, is that this is set to be the biggest, most devastating Israeli-Palestinian in decades.

    It appears at the very least, we are in the midst of a third intifada. But one big question will linger in the coming days and weeks as Israel is sure to escalate its response into a ground invasion Gaza: will the war escalate beyond Gaza and southern Israel?

    Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, via Tehran Times

    Already both Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran have sent “congratulations” messages to Hamas and the Palestinians. Hezbollah’s statement in particular condemned Arab states who have normalized relations with the Jewish state. 

    The Wall Street Journal reports on Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s statement as follows:

    Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which like Palestinian militant groups also vows Israel’s destruction, praised the operation by Hamas inside Israel, according to Arab media.

    Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said it served as a warning against recognizing Israel.

    “It sends a message to the Arab and Islamic world, and the international community as a whole, especially those seeking normalization with this enemy, that the Palestinian cause is an everlasting one, alive until victory and liberation,” Nasrallah said in a statement.

    At the moment Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah remains quiet, but if a shooting war starts out of southern Lebanon, Israel will find itself in a war on two fronts.

    Already there are allegations from Western pundits that Iran is financing this expanded Hamas operation…

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    Below: while we couldn’t make out any Farsi in the audio of the below disturbing footage, allegations like IRGC operatives being involved will only grow…

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    A potential broader war could also draw in Syria, given already Israeli jets have struck the country almost on a weekly basis. Israel has long said it is attacking Iranian targets and assets inside Syria. 

    If Hezbollah and Israel enter a war, this would increase the likelihood of it expanding into already war-torn Syria.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 14:35

  • Moms Shine Spotlight On Harms Caused By Youth Transgender Movement
    Moms Shine Spotlight On Harms Caused By Youth Transgender Movement

    Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The transgender movement has recently gained significant national attention for a number of reasons, including the controversy surrounding big corporations like Budweiser and Target’s support for the movement as well as widespread public opposition to transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.

    A girl undergoes a transgender surgery in a still from the documentary “Gender Transformation.” (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    To raise awareness about the harms caused by the movement, Moms For America, an advocacy group for family rights, hosted a virtual screening and panel discussion of the Epoch Original docudrama “Gender Transformation: The Untold Realities” on Oct. 5 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

    The event explored the complex issues surrounding gender confusion, transgenderism, and their effect on young people. It also informed parents about growing extremist behavior in schools across the country.

    After watching the movie for the first time, Moms For America founder and president Kimberly Fletcher felt moved and decided to host a screening.

    “I think when people see this, they will realize that this is really a billion-dollar business that’s set up to mutilate our children,” she said in an interview with NTD TV, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.

    By following the journeys of several former transgender youths, The Epoch Times film unpacks the complexities behind the rise of the transgender movement and the role played by institutions, from schools to medical and pharmaceutical companies.

    As the documentary highlights, parents are often confronted with a challenging dilemma during their children’s gender identity crises: “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?”

    Parents, however, recognize that the answer to this heartbreaking question is far from simple.

    Jan Jekielek, senior editor with The Epoch Times and host of the EpochTV show “American Thought Leaders,” stated that the film and the panel discussion “serve as a valuable resource, even offering possible solutions for parents and their children when they are faced with gender confusion.”

    The live panel discussion following the film screening featured Ms. Fletcher, Mercedes Schlapp, senior fellow at the American Conservative Union Foundation, January Littlejohn, licensed mental health councilor, Mark Trammell, executive director and general counsel of the Center for American Liberty, Katherine Welch, physician and collaborating clinician for the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, and Laura Perry Smalts, author of “Transgendered to Transformed.”

    The live panel discussion focused on some of the stories of what families have experienced and what they can do to protect their children.

    “This issue of gender ideology, I think, has been so toxic for American culture. And it’s spreading,” Ms. Schlapp told NTD TV during the event.

    “If we lose our children, if we become a genderless society, if we continue to create confusion here in America, it will be the fall of this great country,” she added.

    Mercedes Schlapp, a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union Foundation, speaks during a live panel discussion after The Epoch Times “Gender Transformation: The Untold Realities” documentary screening in Washington on Oct. 5, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Moms for America provides various resources for parents to tackle this issue, including a book called “Gender Confusion.” The book explains what parents need to know to protect their children from the transgender movement.

    “We want everyone to know this is not normal,” Ms. Fletcher said of the transgender movement during the panel.

    “What’s happening is that they’re creating the problem, because then they get paid for the solution. So, it’s really important that we help everyone understand where this is coming from.”

    Emotional Trauma

    Former transgender Laura Perry Smalts was one of the panelists at the event. Ms. Smalts decided to transition at the age of 25 and endured years of cross-sex hormone therapy as well as two significant “gender-affirming” surgeries. However, she regrets going through it and wishes to warn others.

    “Nobody ever told me that this wasn’t real, that this was all just an aesthetic appearance. I had no idea the profound effect it would have on my body,” she said.

    “I was so depressed and became suicidal. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be a woman, but I knew I’d never be a man. I was caught somewhere in between.”

    She eventually realized that an emotional trauma she experienced as a child was the driving force behind her decision to transition to a male.

    “But thankfully, by the grace of God, the Lord began to rescue me. I had so many people praying for me. I know it’s only by God’s grace that I’m here.”

    January Littlejohn was one of the panelists at the event. Ms. Littlejohn drew national attention after suing a Florida school for secretly assisting her daughter in changing her gender.

    Ms. Littlejohn’s fight against the school prompted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to approve legislation prohibiting schools from making decisions regarding a student’s health and well-being without consulting parents.

    “The one thing I tell parents is that you are the expert on your child, not the school, not the therapist,” she said during the panel discussion.

    “It is critically important to maintain an attached and healthy relationship with your child through the teen years.”

    The Center for American Liberty is an organization that represents parents who oppose school secrecy policies.

    “We never charge our clients a penny,” Mark Trammell, executive director and general counsel for the Center for American Liberty, said during the panel.

    “We’re able to exist because we have donors across the country who support our organization and make it possible to file these public interest lawsuits.”

    About the Docudrama

    The Epoch Times film examines the complex issues surrounding transgenderism and explains the roles played by the education system, the medical and pharmaceutical industries, the financial interests behind the transgender movement, and the societal and political mechanisms at work.

    The docudrama tells the real-life stories of several former transgender youth who started the gender transitioning process and their experiences at various stages of the journey through interviews and re-enactments.

    Experts interviewed in the film reveal the life-altering medical and psychological impacts of the experimental medication used, including the irreversible side effects of puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgeries that are often ignored by the media.

    In the docudrama, award-winning director Tobias Elvhage brings to light the untold realities and implications of the transgender movement on American children and youth. His most recent awards include Best Short Film at the 2023 LA Documentary Film Festival and Winner of the 2023 European Cinematography Awards.

    “This is a big night and a very important movie about gender confusion,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said in a video message during the panel discussion. “I’m so thankful to the people that created this movie to spread awareness of this unbelievable evil that has come all across America, and it’s targeting our children.”

    The congresswoman introduced a bill that makes gender-affirming care for any child under the age of 18 a felony.

    “This is not a battle against any adult’s rights to self-identify or change their sexuality. This is not an us against them situation,” Vanessa Faura, executive director of Moms For America, said during a press briefing ahead of the event.

    “My message today is simple: all children are sacred. And there should be no room for any agenda that harms them in any way, shape, or form. They will not be indoctrinated. They will not be groomed.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 14:00

  • Bill Maher: "Democrats Look Like Sanctuary City Hypocrites" 
    Bill Maher: “Democrats Look Like Sanctuary City Hypocrites” 

    “Real Time” host Bill Maher blasted President Biden and ultra-radical progressives for their massive policy U-turn on the southern border this week. He said border state Republicans who bused migrants to sanctuary metro areas (mainly in the Northeast) “called the Democrats’ bluff about sanctuary cities,” and the Democrats “look like sanctuary city hypocrites.” 

    “Here’s how serious the situation is: You know, they’ve been busing the migrants to the cities now. They kind of called the Democrats’ bluff about sanctuary cities, and they said oh, you love them so much? Here you go. And the cities don’t like it so much. NYC Mayor Eric Adams said this is going to destroy our city … Eric Adams … went to Mexico today. He’s going to Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia, I think door-to-door, no, really, just to tell people personally, we don’t have room, I’m not kidding, don’t come. That’s pretty amazing. No, he’s telling these people, we don’t have room. This is New York City. Don’t you know our catchphrase? We’re the Little Apple. And our theme song, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, so go anywhere, don’t come here,” Maher said in his opening opening monologue on Friday evening. 

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    Maher continued, “The border crisis has become a national crisis. It was always something like oh, it’s down there, and yes, it’s bad. But it’s – and now it’s all over the country because they’ve been busing the migrants and so forth.”

    He said this all “feels like a disaster for the Democrats.” 

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    The Biden administration’s reversal to now support former President Trump’s southern border wall comes as radical progressives, for years, called anyone who praised Trump’s wall ‘racist’ and other terrible names. The policy U-turn by the president and radical leftists comes as it appears polling data is not moving in their favor ahead of the election cycle, as disastrous open border policies have transformed many metro areas into chaotic areas that resemble third-word-like conditions. 

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    … and you know it’s bad for Democrats when Bill Clinton has to come out and oppose NYC’s sanctuary city. 

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    or this… 

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    Maher said, “Trump today said he wants Biden to apologize because it looks like Biden was adopting his policy. This does not look good for the Democrats.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 13:25

  • EU Says It Can't Support Ukraine Without The United States
    EU Says It Can’t Support Ukraine Without The United States

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The EU’s top diplomat on Thursday said the European bloc could not provide Ukraine with enough support without the US amid uncertainty about when Congress might authorize the next tranche of spending on the proxy war.

    “Europe cannot fill the gap of the US,” Josep Borrell said after arriving in Spain for a gathering of European leaders, according to POLITICO.

    AFP via Getty Images

    The EU is close to approving a new economic aid package for Ukraine worth 50 billion euros that would cover 2024-2027, although Hungary could further delay the package. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the massive aid package should be approved within the next few months but said US support still remains crucial.

    Von der Leyen also said she was “confident” that the US would continue supporting Ukraine but acknowledged she wasn’t sure when new spending would be authorized.

    According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the US has another tranche of economic aid worth over $1 billion to fund the Ukrainian government through the month of October. If a new aid package isn’t authorized by Congress in the next month, the funds will dry up.

    The Pentagon has said it still has $5.4 billion in funds to send weapons to Ukraine but has warned it’s running out of money to replace weapons sent to Ukraine. Because of the uncertainty, the Pentagon has said it’s restricted the flow of some arms to the US’s own forces.

    The majority of Congress still supports the proxy war, but it’s not clear when they will pass a new Ukraine aid bill after the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as House speaker.

    President Biden is looking for an additional $24 billion in spending and has acknowledged he’s worried about the situation, although he also hinted there are other ways to get the money.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 12:50

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Oct 07

Today’s News 7th October 2023

  • Some Embalmers Say White, Fibrous Clots Showing Up; Others Say It's A Conspiracy Theory
    Some Embalmers Say White, Fibrous Clots Showing Up; Others Say It’s A Conspiracy Theory

    Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Embalming a body involves replacing the blood with chemical solutions to preserve it and slow decomposition.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    Some embalmers say that starting in 2021, they suddenly began seeing an “anomaly” during that process—a phenomenon of long, rubbery, white masses inside the blood vessels.

    Others say they have seen nothing new.

    The Epoch Times contacted embalmers and funeral directors from around the world to understand the disparity.

    An Oklahoma mortician responded, saying, “Yes, the embalmers at this funeral location have all encountered this phenomenon, each multiple times during embalming in the last two years.” A funeral director in Pennsylvania told The Epoch Times: “We’ve seen this stuff—absolutely. We’ve seen it enough to discuss it within the company.”

    The mortician said his company thought the white, fibrous clots were just an anomaly.

    “What do I attribute it to? I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it previously,” he said.

    “As far as numbers, it’s hard to say. When we first started noticing it in 2021, it was like, ‘Oh, wow, I wonder if their cholesterol was off the charts.’

    On the other hand, many of the respondents to The Epoch Times’ survey said that not only had they not seen the fibrous masses in the bodies they embalmed, but they considered the reports from other embalmers and funeral directors to be “nonsense.”

    An embalmer wears personal protective equipment while preparing a deceased person in Shipley, England, on May 21, 2020. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

    “It’s all nonsense, COVID vaccine conspiracy-theory [expletive],” a Canadian embalmer told The Epoch Times in an email. “We embalm over 400 bodies yearly and have never seen [this].“

    Several respondents from Canada, Australia, and the UK said they haven’t seen any of the white, fibrous clots, with one calling it “ridiculous claptrap.”

    However, responses from 11 embalmers in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand tell a similar story of white fibrin masses clogging the circulatory systems of the newly deceased since 2021.

    Some speculate that the obstructions have something to do with COVID-19 or the COVID-19 vaccines, although no research exists to substantiate such a connection.

    Dr. Ryan Cole, an Idaho pathologist who said he’s conducted “a lot” of autopsies in his career, said normal post-mortem blood clots are red and jelly-like.

    “They’re not white and rubbery,” he said in a 2022 interview on “American Thought Leaders.”

    Dr. Cole attributes the absence of public dialogue within the medical community regarding the clots to “institutional fear.”

    Grassroots Survey

    When retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Thomas Haviland began hearing about the strange phenomenon in various media, he conducted his own international email survey this year of funeral homes.

    Mr. Haviland sent questionnaires via Survey Monkey to funeral homes in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Of the 179 active embalmers who responded to the survey, 119 confirmed having seen the clots.

    Mr. Haviland said that he designed the survey to be as unbiased as possible. Nowhere in the survey instructions nor in the survey questions are the words “Covid” or “Covid vaccines” ever mentioned.

    Mr. Haviland said he only asked the embalmers if they saw the white fibrous clots, when they saw them, where on the body, and in what percentage of the bodies they embalmed.

    Despite the fact that the survey never mentions the COVID vaccines, many of the 42 U.S. embalmers and 12 Canadian embalmers who responded to an optional “Comments” box at the end of the survey either implicated the COVID vaccines as the cause of the white fibrous clots, or they defended the vaccines while denying the existence of these unusual clots.

    “The main consensus of embalmers is that these white, fibrous clots first appeared in the year 2021 and continue still to date. Embalmers see these clots in a significant percentage of corpses—up to 50 percent or more in some cases,” Mr. Haviland said.

    The Epoch Times independently contacted the 1,700 embalmers and funeral directors surveyed by Mr. Haviland to corroborate the findings. Nine responded, saying they’ve encountered the white, fibrous masses, and five responded saying they haven’t.

    Embalmers Responses

    Canadian embalmer Laura Jeffrey thought it bizarre to be pulling long, rubbery, white masses from the veins and arteries of the deceased at the beginning of 2021.

    “I knew from the get-go something was wrong,” Mrs. Jeffrey said.

    In one case, she found a white, stringy mass literally “hanging out” of a deceased woman’s artery—”like eight inches long—all branched,” she told The Epoch Times.

    “You could see the pathologist’s cut in it. So you can’t tell me it wasn’t there when they did the autopsy. I had to pull it out as the embalmer.”

    Mrs. Jeffrey said her job became increasingly tricky trying to work around the obstructions. She decided to consult with her colleagues, but came up against an inexplicable “code of silence.”

    A morgue in Madrid, Spain, on March 30, 2020. (Comunidad de Madrid – Handout/Getty Images)

    More than 8,000 miles away from Mrs. Jeffrey’s home in Ontario, a New Zealand embalmer confirmed similar findings.

    “For obvious reasons, I am most reluctant for my colleagues to know I am responding,” the embalmer said, on condition of anonymity, in an email to The Epoch Times.

    “My workplace feels this is a conspiracy theory and is unwilling to engage in conversation. To say I was shut down when I tried to bring it up is an understatement.“

    A funeral director in Colorado told The Epoch Times: “We are finding these white, fibrous blood clots in decedents of all ages.

    “For example, one case was autopsied in their late 20s. The death was not related to clots (no family history), and this person was healthy and took care of themselves. I found two large white clumps in their lower arteries. These should not have been there, especially with the manner of death.”

    The funeral director said before the embalming process, they’ve begun asking if the person had been vaccinated and boosted.

    An embalmer prepares embalming instruments before operating on a body, inside the morgue of Veronica Memorial Chapel in Manila, Philippines, on Oct. 30, 2016. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

    “Depending on the case, we are not finding these clots in non-vaccinated decedents, just normal blood clots and good drainage,” the director said.

    “For the vaccinated ones, we are finding larger clots that are changing the consistency of the blood itself. We have never seen so much stringy blood before that really disrupts the drainage.”

    The embalmer at New Zealand funeral home who was among the survey recipients and who reached out to The Epoch Times described how six months into his training, he saw his first “fibrin clot.”

    The supervisor he had at the time said she “didn’t know what it was.”

    “She has been an embalmer for about 20 years. I then asked my manager, who is also an embalmer, and he said he had seen them prior to COVID, and there was no link,” the embalmer said. Since the first discovery, he says he still sees the strange white masses “fairly regularly—in various sizes, with and without the fatty clots, and normal red blood clots.”

    Body bags in the morgue at the Pima County medical examiner’s office in Tucson, Ariz., on Oct. 13, 2016. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

    “I am not privy to the vaccination status of the deceased or their recent health issues beyond [the] cause of death, so I cannot say if there is a link between a recent COVID infection or vaccination,” the embalmer said.

    He said he tried to discuss his findings with other colleagues—not to “stir up trouble,” but to learn what they were looking at.

    However, “just like with any other unusual presentation on my table … there is a definable ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ feeling around the topic,” he said.

    A funeral director at a high-volume mortuary in Texas said she has seen the clots in several embalming cases but needs to know more about them before commenting further.

    Reads more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 00:00

  • "They Took My Sushi": Lawmakers Sleeping In US Capitol Due To 'Very Dangerous' Crime Wave
    “They Took My Sushi”: Lawmakers Sleeping In US Capitol Due To ‘Very Dangerous’ Crime Wave

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

    A Republican House lawmaker on Wednesday said that some lawmakers have been sleeping inside the U.S. Capitol due to fears of crime in the District of Columbia.

    The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on July 4, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said that he and other unnamed lawmakers have slept in their offices at the Capitol because Washington, D.C., is “very dangerous” at night. He did not elaborate.

    “I don’t want to walk back and forth from an apartment in D.C. at night or in the morning—early morning—to get to work,” Mr. Burlison told Todd Starnes on his radio program. “It’s not a safe environment.”

    He made reference to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) having recently been carjacked in the district just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The Democratic lawmaker was unharmed but his car was stolen by three armed assailants, police said.

    “It’s insane to even own a car in D.C. because wherever you park, it is going to cost you a fortune and it’s likely to get broken into and you’re likely to get carjacked,” Mr. Burlison said.

    As for Mr. Cuellar, he was back at work in the Capitol on Tuesday morning. Recalling the incident on Sunday night, he said that the assailants appeared from “out of nowhere” and “pointed guns at me.”

    “I looked at one with a gun, another with a gun, and I felt one behind me,” Mr. Cuellar said. “They said they wanted my car, and I said, ‘Sure.’ You got to keep calm under those situations, and they took off.”

    The congressman was approached by three young black males in black clothing and black masks, according to a statement Mr. Cuellar gave to Capitol officials.

    “According to the victim’s statements, the suspects ‘swarmed [the victim’s] vehicle, pointed firearms in his face and demanded the keys to the car.’ Thankfully there were not any injuries,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. “A witness told investigators three males in knit caps and ski masks were involved. The witness reported that the suspects were 5’10” black males who may have been around the age of 16 due to their build.”

    Republican Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri arrives at the Hyatt Regency in Washington in a file photo. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

    Mr. Cuellar’s chief of staff Jacob Hochberg released a statement Monday night saying: “As Congressman Cuellar was parking his car this evening, 3 armed assailants approached the Congressman and stole his vehicle. Luckily, he was not harmed and is working with local law enforcement.”

    Monday’s carjacking was the second assault on a member of Congress in the District of Columbia this year. In February, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) was assaulted in her apartment building, suffering bruises while escaping serious injury. Her chief of staff said the attack did not appear to be politically motivated.

    Mr. Cuellar thanked the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department for their work, saying the “message is very simple: You’ve got to support law enforcement.”

    He said the attackers were masked, but he could still see that they were young. “They recovered the car, they recovered everything, but what really got me upset is they took my sushi,” he joked.

    White House press secretary Karine-Jean Pierre called the carjacking “unacceptable” and said President Joe Biden spoke to the congressman today.

    “We will always continue to speak out against any sort of violence. We’ve been consistent here in this administration,” she said. “We are certainly grateful and relieved that the congressman is unharmed, and we are thankful to law enforcement for having reacted so quickly.”

    The 68-year-old Texas Democrat’s car was recovered about two miles away in the Anacostia neighborhood, according to a report from a local NBC affiliate station.

    Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) speaks to reporters on Capital Hill on Oct. 3, 2023. (CNN/Screenshot via NTD)

    Crime on the Rise

    Homicides in Washington, D.C., are likely going to reach highs not seen in decades, with officials reporting 215 murders so far this year. In comparison, there were 157 homicides in all of 2022, police data show.

    In late September, the capital city hit the 200 murder mark, according to officials, which drew a response from the D.C. Police Union on social media.

    “We are still short 100s of cops and the responsible policing that used to address this has been prohibited by misguided legislation,” the union wrote on X, formerly Twitter, more than a week ago.

    Earlier this year, Republicans criticized the leaders of Washington, D.C., during a House hearing, portraying the capital as a Democrat-run city that has long been mismanaged and fallen into a state of disarray due to left-wing bail reform rules. In May, they passed a measure that would overturn a so-called police reform package that was passed by the D.C. Council amid the nationwide riots and protests in 2020.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 23:30

  • US Cellphone Radiation Tests Are 'Rigged,' Ignoring Long-Term Health Effects: Expert
    US Cellphone Radiation Tests Are ‘Rigged,’ Ignoring Long-Term Health Effects: Expert

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    France’s recent ban on sales of the iPhone 12 due to radiation concerns has sparked apprehension throughout Europe about the health risks of cellphone radiation exposure. While U.S. tests focus narrowly on whether phones heat tissue, some experts argue they fail to show the whole picture.

    “The way they’re tested is to see whether or not they heat you up, and not for the chronic long-term effects that have been demonstrated,” Devra Davis, a cancer epidemiologist who holds a doctorate in science studies and a master’s in public health in epidemiology, told The Epoch Times. “Particularly the effects on sperm and lower testosterone, among others.”

    (Chikena/Shutterstock)

    Cellphone Radiation Tests Are ‘Rigged’: Expert

    According to Ms. Davis, the biggest problem with U.S. testing is that it’s not conducted with the phone against the body. She compared it to the “Dieselgate” scandal involving Volkswagen, where the company rigged its tests to show lower exhaust emissions than the vehicle actually produced.

    “The same thing is happening here,” she added, noting that the tests were initially set up with spacers, as if phones were in holsters or holders.

    When the French government tests cellphones as they are actually used, “like in your hand [or] next to your body,” Ms. Davis said, the phones exceed European Union (EU) radiation limits. France has pulled or required software updates for 42 other cellphone models that emit excessive radiation since 2017, The Telegraph reported.

    The United States lacks this oversight, according to Ms. Davis.

    The telecommunications industry has almost complete control of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), according to a report published by Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics (pdf). A telecom lobbying group executive boasted its lobbyists meet FCC officials 500 times annually, the report stated.

    “We don’t have any programs to test phones after they’ve been approved,” Ms. Davis said. “And the approval process is self-regulated because of this revolving door that takes place between the FCC and the telecom industry.”

    Ms. Davis said if phones underwent drug testing, they’d be illegal. She warned of the danger cellphones pose, similar to certain drugs found to cause cancer and other health problems, in her 2010 book, “Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family,” and still stands by it today.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to comment on this story, but they have not yet replied.

    17 Minutes of Daily Cellphone Use Increased Cancer Risk

    Heavy cellphone use has a “possible” association with increased brain cancer incidence, especially in research not funded by telecoms, according to a review of 23 case-control studies in 2009 published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

    “Our government, however, stopped funding research on the health effects of radiofrequency radiation in the 1990s,” study author Joel Moskowitz, the director of the Center for Family and Community Health and Community Health at the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley, said in a press statement in July 2021. “Our main takeaway from the current review is that approximately 1,000 hours of lifetime cellphone use, or about 17 minutes per day over a 10-year period, is associated with a statistically significant 60% increase in brain cancer,” Mr. Moskowitz wrote.

    The 2009 review was updated in 2020 to include 46 studies with similar findings.

    Cancer Linked to Living Near Cell Towers

    The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields warned in 2022 (pdf) that radiofrequency radiation (RFR) exposure limits established in the 1990s don’t adequately protect the public, especially from novel 5G technology lacking health studies.

    Several bills pending in Congress give the telecom industry “free range” to put their towers wherever they want them, including “right by your bedroom window” if you’re living in an apartment building, according to Ms. Davis.

    A review of scientific studies published in 2022 found that most of the research found increased rates of cancer and radiofrequency sickness in people living within close proximity to mobile phone base stations. A recent study from Brazil found cancer mortality rose with population exposure to radio base station frequencies.

    “I think 5G belongs in the medical and military places, wired in [Ethernet], but not in homes,” Ms. Davis said. “The real problem is that in order for 5G to work, we need one million new antennas.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 23:00

  • Syria, Russia Pound Idlib After Terror Attack Killed 80 People At Homs Military College
    Syria, Russia Pound Idlib After Terror Attack Killed 80 People At Homs Military College

    Overnight and into Friday the Syrian Army pummeled Idlib province with artillery and missiles, in retaliation for a Thursday drone attack conducted by the region’s al-Qaeda groups which scored a direct hit on a crowded military graduation ceremony at Homs military college.

    Syria’s health ministry in the immediate aftermath said the drone attack killed 80 people and wounded 240 more. Al Jazeera and other regional sources have cited over 100 dead, which included military officers and their family members. At least six children were among the deceased, in what may be the single deadliest terror attack inside Syria in years.

    Scene of the crowded military grounds just before the drone attack.

    Multiple videos later circulated of major counterattacks by Syrian forces on al-Qaeda occupied Idlib, in a rare large assault.

    Various hardline jihadist groups have held Idlib since 2015, at which time they were helped in the takeover by the United States and its allies, in an operation directed out of southern Turkey.

    A Syrian military statement alluded to insurgents having received help from “international forces” in the past:

    Syria’s military said in an earlier statement that drones laden with explosives targeted the ceremony packed with young officers and their families as it was wrapping up. Without naming any particular group, the military accused insurgents “backed by known international forces” of the attack and said “it will respond with full force and decisiveness to these terrorist organizations, wherever they exist.”

    NATO member Turkey continues to be a main backer of the jihadist insurgents who hold Idlib province. 

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    Regional sources have said Syrian had help from Russia allied forces in pounding Idlib, which is ongoing into Friday. “Airstrikes pounded the positions of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and the Emigrants Brigade, foreign extremist militias consisting of Chinese Uyghur and Chechen militants,” wrote The Cradle.

    “Syrian fighter jets, in coordination with the Russian air force, targeted the Al-Ghab plain and the town of Areeha in the Idlib governorate, as well as the city of Jisr al-Shughour – which fell to US-backed extremist groups in 2015,” the publication added.

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    It is believed that the TIP and Emigrants Brigade “are the two armed groups that have the technological capabilities to conduct drone attacks”; however, Damascus didn’t name a specific group as being behind the devastating drone attack. In prior years whenever Syrian and Russian forces prepared to retake Idlib province from the armed insurgents, the the United States and its allies have threatened military intervention.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 22:30

  • DC's Revolving Door Is Swinging Briskly For The Eco-Green Eyeshade People
    DC’s Revolving Door Is Swinging Briskly For The Eco-Green Eyeshade People

    Authored by Kevin Mooney via RealClear Wire,

    Washington’s revolving door is getting a fresh green paint job: Federal architects of a controversial new rule requiring businesses to measure their carbon footprints throughout their supply chains have joined a start-up company poised to reap millions by performing those calculations.

    At least three ranking Securities and Exchange Commission officials have joined Persefoni, a company formed in 2020 for the purpose of measuring such footprints of large business enterprises. 

    Documents show that the SEC relied on input from the for-profit company to draft the proposed rule. Some critics argue that the estimates from Persefoni low-balled the price tags unrealistically for such accounting to make them more politically palatable.

    Persefoni, billing itself as “The Platform for Carbon Accounting – Built For Climate Disclosure,” and similar outfits are emerging as their own service industry as they stand to profit from the new rule, since most companies do not have the staff or expertise to calculate their carbon footprints.

    While environmentalists have hailed the rule as an important step in forcing companies to grapple with their impact on the climate by exposing it to the public, critics argue that it goes far beyond the SEC’s core mission of protecting investors. In voting against a draft of the proposal, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, a Trump appointee, said it “forces investors to view companies through the eyes of a vocal set of stakeholders” – as opposed to traditional shareholders – “for whom a company’s climate reputation is of equal or greater importance than a company’s financial performance.”

    The SEC and Persefoni each declined to comment for this article.

    Persefoni appears to have had great influence over the proposed rule. Public records from the SEC show the commission held six meetings with representatives from Persefoni and Ceres – a prominent investor advocacy group that supports such climate disclosure – from September 2021 to June 2022. These include:

    • Meetings on Sept. 14, Nov. 23, and Nov. 30 between Persefoni and the SEC office of the chair, Gary Gensler;
    • Meetings on March 28 and April 5 between Ceres and the Office of Commissioner Allison Herren Lee;
    • And one joint meeting involving Persefoni, Ceres, and ERM with the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, the Division of Corporation Finance, and the Office of the Chief Accountant.

    Lee, a Democrat who joined the SEC as a staff attorney in 2005, was appointed by President Trump as one of the SEC’s five commissioners in 2019 – filling a Democratic vacancy on the commission, which was structured to be nonpartisan. President Biden named her as acting chair in 2021, and she took charge of the public comment period for the proposed rule.

    Lee stepped down on March 15, 2022, just six days before the commission unveiled its proposed climate rule. In May 2023, she joined Persefoni as a member of the firm’s “sustainability advisory board.”

    At Persefoni, she reunited with Kristina Wyatt, who joined the company’s board in March 2022. Previously, Wyatt had served the SEC as senior counsel for climate and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). In this capacity, she worked directly on developing the proposed rule. Wyatt was also listed as the direct contact when the commission circulated a request for information from the public regarding climate-change disclosures.

    In December 2022, Persefoni hired another SEC alum, Emily Pierce, to serve as associate general counsel and vice president of global regulatory climate disclosure.

    By all accounts, the SEC leaned heavily on Persefoni’s cost-benefit analysis of the pending rule, which essentially establishes a parallel disclosure regime for the SEC – all in the name of mitigating climate change.

    The SEC proposal has many parts, but the most controversial and cumbersome involves the requirement that larger companies must provide soup-to-nuts calculations of their carbon emissions, including those from thousands of their suppliers operating across hundreds of countries.

    As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported, to come up with numbers for Cocoa Puffs cereal, General Mills might have to calculate the emissions from “cocoa farms in Africa, corn fields in the U.S., or sugar plantations in Latin America. Then thousands of processors, transporters, packagers, distributors, office workers, and retailers join the supply chain before a kid in Minnesota, where General Mills is based, pours the cereal into a bowl.”

    Since most of the emissions that must be measured are not directly generated by the companies, the calculations amount to a herculean task. This is where an outfit like Persefoni comes in.

    When the commission first published its proposal in March 2022, it provided corporate compliance cost estimates that ranged from $460,000 to $640,000 during the first year. Accurate estimates are crucial for companies to determine if they are equipped to comply. But there is considerable doubt on that front.

    Persefoni stands out as the only source that provides any estimate anywhere close to the SEC’s $640,000 figure, for which the commission does not provide any citations or methodologies to show how it arrived at its estimates. Persefoni is cited within the proposal nine times, but the firm is not cited in connection with the SEC’s stated ranges for compliance costs on page 373. In fact, no source is cited or linked as a resource for the SEC’s figures.

    Rupert Darwall, an author and energy policy analyst affiliated with the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the RealClearFoundation, has been critical of what he views as a lack of transparency and accountability on the part of the SEC, which gives cover to outside partners that stand to gain once the rule takes effect.

    “Persefoni has a glaring conflict of interest in low-balling cost of compliance estimates to the SEC, which the SEC should have disclosed and been mindful of. Instead, the SEC put undue weight on these implausibly low estimates,” Darwall said. Estimates of indirect emissions across supply chains “are especially risky for filers as there’s no limiting principle and, contrary to longstanding accounting principles, multiple companies account for the same emission.” Darwall also makes the point that Persefoni’s low-cost estimates are “at odds of what it’s been telling investors about the revenues it projects from the rule.”

    In early 2022, the carbon accounting firm partnered with the environmental activist group Ceres to commission from consulting firm ERM a compliance cost study, which was published in May 2022. This is where Persefoni produced estimates in line with the SEC’s $640,000 figure. That same month, Persefoni submitted a comment letter in response to the SEC proposal, which included its joint study with Ceres.

    Although the letter is dated May 20, 2022, the SEC did not publish it until the final week of the comment period ending June 17, 2022, curtailing the period for public scrutiny of the Persefoni estimates.

    With Persefoni’s letter intermixed with roughly 1,140 other comments, some saw this as an effort to bury the firm’s relationship with the SEC.

    One critic is Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

    “The collusion between the SEC and a select group of outside parties gives new meaning to the term climate cartel,” Cohen said in an interview. “Not only is there a hand-in-glove relationship between the SEC and outfits like Persefoni, Ceres, and ERM that stand to benefit financially from the climate disclosure rule the agency is set to release. They also appear to have had a hand in drafting that rule. The SEC and its cronies are so closely entangled that they are effectively acting as one.”

    Knowing Which Way the Windfall Blows

    While the SEC and Persefoni would not comment for this article, Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, told RCI that there is not any conflict of interest at work. He pointed out that Ceres has been advocating for a climate disclosure rule with the SEC for the past two decades.

    “The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission received 15,000 public comments around this rule,” Rothstein said in an email. “Among the most comments than any in the SEC’s 90-year history. Everyone has a vested interest in the future of their investments and retirement savings. The comments will make the final rule stronger and more robust. The investment community is overwhelmingly supportive of more climate information as a way to reduce material financial risk.”

    Persefoni executives have not been reticent to discuss the windfall they expect to experience if the rule is finalized. Speaking to CNBC in March 2022, Kentaro Kawamori, the firm’s CEO, discussed the advantages that would likely accrue from having a software platform that enables companies to analyze, manage, and account for their carbon footprint. Kawamori draws a comparison with Salesforce, the cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco.

    “You’re going to have a Salesforce-type of success,” he said. “Just like Salesforce created the system of record for the customer record, companies like us – you will have one or two big winners – will create a system of record for the carbon accounting piece.”

    Persefoni’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Tim Mohin, went even further, telling Politico that larger companies will almost certainly need outside help to comply. “Really they have a very short runway to get their act together,” he said. “We’ve gotten lots of calls from these large companies saying, ‘Tell us about what you do and how we can work with you.’”

    Mohin went on to describe Persefoni as the “TurboTax of greenhouse gas reporting.”

    As it stands, Persefoni is already doing pretty well. On Oct. 28, 2021, Persefoni announced a $101 million raise in its Series B financing round with its long-time investor, NGP Energy Technology Partners, returning to participate. But the oversized influence Persefoni apparently has been exerting within the SEC is beginning to attract congressional interest.

    In June, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-K.Y.) and Senate Banking Committee ranking member Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) sent a joint letter to the SEC requesting documents and information, including “all nonpublic records referring or relating to the climate consultancy, climate accounting, or sustainability-related organizations Persefoni, Ceres, ERM, or South Pole since January 20, 2021.”

    As for the rule itself, Cohen, the policy analyst with the National Center, sees “an effort by the SEC and its climate-cartel cronies to fashion a climate accounting standard to fit the inherently amorphous notion of a carbon footprint.”

    He continued: “Companies will have to disclose their ‘climate impacts’ in accordance with the SEC’s purely arbitrary requirements. The arrangement will put more power into the hands of the SEC, enrich the likes of Persefoni, and condemn regulated businesses to climate serfdom.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 22:00

  • Alan Dershowitz & Elon Musk On Free Speech & Anti-Semitism
    Alan Dershowitz & Elon Musk On Free Speech & Anti-Semitism

    Via The Gatestone Institute,

    • No country in history has ever really tested free speech: has seen whether the marketplace of ideas works or whether we can really have a society without censorship; where every idea is tested only on its merits, rather than for political benefit. This cannot be a right-left issue. — Alan Dershowitz.

    • You [Elon] are trying, for the first time, a great experiment to see whether we can survive with a marketplace of ideas, without censorship, where all thoughts and all ideas are treated equally. — Dershowitz

    • What we need is to create a circle in which things that are illegal, such as abusing children, are outside the circle, but anything else has to be inside the circle. So if something is permitted for one idea or “-ism,” it has to be permitted for the others. This is exactly what universities are failing to do. They are creating a line on which favored groups fall on one side and disfavored groups fall on the other side. — Dershowitz.

    • People will always want to censor but not be censored. — Dershowitz.

    • I am in favor of no prior censorship except things that are overtly illegal. Let the marketplace decide and make sure that there is an opportunity for everyone to answer. One cannot draw a line on hate speech. One person’s hate speech is another person’s love speech. It is important to open up the marketplace of ideas. — Dershowitz.

    • [Y]ou can post anything on the platform [“X”] even if it is hateful, provided that it is lawful. But then there is a separate question of what is promoted or not promoted…. Our current approach is to say, okay, you can say things that are hateful but legal on the platform, but we are not going to recommend them to others. — Elon Musk.

    • Advertisers, certainly, have a right to say what content they will appear next to because that’s their right too, but not to dictate what can be said on the platform. — Musk.

    • Today the greatest danger to free speech comes from the left…. At the moment, it is the left that is educating our future leaders, so the left poses a far greater danger of censoring free speech and of skewing the marketplace of ideas. “X” has to be perceived as equally open to both sides. — Dershowitz.

    • That is our aspiration, that is our goal. Now the reality of it for anyone who is paying attention — and I’m sure you saw this — was that prior to the acquisition, Twitter was very left and getting even more left. They had a massive thumb on the scale on elections. Frankly, worldwide on the side of left, and would suppress Republican voices at a rate, sometimes perhaps an order of magnitude greater than Democrats. There was a tremendous amount of bias. Now we are moving from a system where there was a massive electoring bias to a system that is now more inclusive, where at least, say, 80% of America — perhaps the world — could be on the platform and feel that it is finally a level playing field, fair to people with a wide range of views. That is our goal and that is what we are doing now. — Musk.

    • If you start on the left and you move to the center, you are necessarily moving right. Our goal is not to move to the right; it is that we are moving right in order to get to the center. — Musk.

    • [Y]our historic neutrality might be destroyed if “X” is not perceived as being from the center. So everything you do needs to be designed to create a neutral space… where the only answer to false speech is true speech, and where the marketplace determines how many people listen to it… We have to have more confidence in our ability to answer bad speech. I do not want to censor my enemies. — Dershowitz.

    • [W]e actually have massively broadened what can be said on the platform… but we have tried to guide our or algorithm to promote things that are positive more than things that are negative; frankly, to have a love bias, if you will. This is not in terms of what can be said, but in terms of what is promoted to others. If somebody wants to accuse me of saying it is wrong to have a slight bias towards love and positivity, then I am rightly accused of that. — Musk.

    • As I have said, I think the overarching goal is how do how do we make this platform serve as a positive force for humanity. I think the free exchange of ideas does result in a positive force for humanity — if somebody feels that even if their ideas are wrong, they are not being squashed or censored. I think being squashed and censored breeds hatred and resentment and simply sends people to “hate echo chambers” that are outside of the mainstream. I think where you get the sort of people who go kill and do mass shooting, is because they are in some sort of “hate echo chamber.” — Musk.

    • I believe one is always wrong to some degree; we simply aspire to be a little less wrong over time and eventually we can get to a really good place. The idea is how do we make “X” a positive force for humanity where we can increase the sum of human knowledge. It’s a place where I hope people would know that if their ideas are based on false premises, especially hateful ideas, that perhaps we can point out that the reason that they have this hatred is because of things that are not true. It is like actually you are hating this or that group for things that are not true, or perhaps, in some cases, things that happened a long time ago for which it was a great-great-grandfather or something, that that did the bad thing. — Musk.

    • I think there is a lot of wisdom in forgiveness and turning the other cheek… I think it is actually a sign of strength. By the same token if you turn the other cheek and you’re just getting slapped all day, at a certain point you stop turning the cheek, but the general notion of forgiveness is incredibly important. Do not hold some grudge for you know a long time, in some cases centuries. Let it go and, to take another take a quote from the New Testament, the truth shall set you free, as John said. — Musk.

    Elon Musk and Alan Dershowitz. (Photos by Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images and Mario Tama/Getty Images)

    Alan Dershowitz: Let me start with a statement that many will disagree with. No country in history has ever really tested free speech: has seen whether the marketplace of ideas works or whether we can really have a society without censorship; where every idea is tested only on its merits, rather than for political benefit. This cannot be a right-left issue. Elon, you may be the first person who has really tried. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln all compromised. You are trying, for the first time, a great experiment to see whether we can survive with a marketplace of ideas, without censorship, where all thoughts and all ideas are treated equally. For instance, where there are judgments on the basis of whether something is pro-right, pro-life, anti-Jewish, pro-Christian, anti-Christian. What we need is to create a circle in which things that are illegal, such as abusing children, are outside the circle, but anything else has to be inside the circle. So if something is permitted for one idea or “-ism,” it has to be permitted for the others. This is exactly what universities are failing to do. They are creating a line on which favored groups fall on one side and disfavored groups fall on the other side.

    Can one define the kind of speech that must be permitted — the legal kind — without focusing on the content of the speech itself? Can one do that without focusing on whether it is right or left or politically correct or anything of that kind? One has to create a framework that is absolutely neutral. Then maybe fewer people will want to censor because they will realize that they will not be able to have “free speech for me but not for thee.” People will always want to censor but not be censored.

    No idea should be censored. Oliver Wendell Holmes put it well. He said every idea is an incitement. There should be no lines between advocacy and incitement. We fail every time we have tried to do that — most recently, with former President Trump’s ill-advised, but in my view, but constitutionally protected “January 6 speech”. We also failed during McCarthyism as well as in trying to distinguish between lawful advocacy of revolution and unlawful incitement of violence.

    Do not listen to special pleaders on behalf of minorities. Do not listen to the people who are self-serving and want, say, to serve the Jewish community, or serve Israel or the Palestinians. I am in favor of no prior censorship except things that are overtly illegal. Let the marketplace decide and make sure that there is an opportunity for everyone to answer. One cannot draw a line on hate speech. One person’s hate speech is another person’s love speech. It is important to open up the marketplace of ideas. If everyone is allowed to express ideas openly, no one is going to censor the “enemy” when they know that next, he or she will be the one being censored.

    Elon Musk: We are experimenting with this idea of freedom of speech, but not reach. Meaning that you can post anything on the platform even if it is hateful, provided that it is lawful. But then there is a separate question of what is promoted or not promoted, what enters into our recommendation engine, and if so, with what promise? Our current approach is to say, okay, you can say things that are hateful but legal on the platform, but we are not going to recommend them to others. This is the current approach that we have.

    Alan Dershowitz: That can be abused and become a form of censorship too.

    Elon Musk: I agree. Advertisers, certainly, have a right to say what content they will appear next to because that’s their right too, but not to dictate what can be said on the platform.

    Alan Dershowitz: I would agree with that. There is one other danger: of “X” being perceived as a right-wing reaction to left-wing censorship. I am — and identify — more with the left than the right, but I oppose strongly efforts by both the left and the right to censor. It would be a very serious mistake if “X” or you were perceived as some way implicitly favoring the right over the left. Perhaps you might have a small group of advisors, who represent different perspectives. Today the greatest danger to free speech comes from the left.

    Elon Musk: Yes, agree.

    Alan Dershowitz: Violence comes from both sides. The right-wing attack abortion clinics and kill Jews in synagogues. The 2020 “summer of love” came from the left: they burned down parts of cities, tore down statues, vandalized buildings; according to reports, numerous Americans were killed, including retired police Captain Daniel Dorn; thousands of police officers were assaulted, many sustaining injuries.

    At the moment, it is the left that is educating our future leaders, so the left poses a far greater danger of censoring free speech and of skewing the marketplace of ideas. “X” has to be perceived as equally open to both sides.

    Elon Musk: That is our aspiration, that is our goal. Now the reality of it for anyone who is paying attention — and I’m sure you saw this — was that prior to the acquisition, Twitter was very left and getting even more left. They had a massive thumb on the scale on elections. Frankly, worldwide on the side of left, and would suppress Republican voices at a rate, sometimes perhaps an order of magnitude greater than Democrats. There was a tremendous amount of bias. Now we are moving from a system where there was a massive electoring bias to a system that is now more inclusive, where at least, say, 80% of America — perhaps the world — could be on the platform and feel that it is finally a level playing field, fair to people with a wide range of views. That is our goal and that is what we are doing now.

    Given that it started so far off the left, it is accurate to say that it is moving right because it is moving to the center. So technically it is true that it is moving right. Not that it is suddenly popped over and instantaneously became, you know, from a left-wing propaganda arm to a right-wing propaganda arm but necessarily if it was pretty damn far on the left, it is going to have to move to the right in order to get to the center, and that is that is our goal.

    As Einstein would say, all motion is relative. If you start on the left and you move to the center, you are necessarily moving right. Our goal is not to move to the right; it is that we are moving right in order to get to the center.

    Alan Dershowitz: But some people perceive this as a movement to right. You might want to make it absolutely clear that you are the only platform in the world that does not take a “left -right” position — that yours is the platform that is pro-free speech, and that you are the first person in history ever to try to create a true marketplace of ideas. John Stuart Mill advocated it, Jefferson advocated it. But nobody ever achieved it. You are in a position where you can achieve it. I am just concerned that your historic neutrality might be destroyed if “X” is not perceived as being from the center. So everything you do needs to be designed to create a neutral space — a marketplace of ideas where the only answer to false speech is true speech, and where the marketplace determines how many people listen to it.

    We have to have more confidence in our ability to answer bad speech. I do not want to censor my enemies.

    Elon Musk: Absolutely, and to be clear we actually have massively broadened what can be said on the platform. But we have — and perhaps you disagree with this — but we have tried to guide our or algorithm to promote things that are positive more than things that are negative; frankly, to have a love bias, if you will. This is not in terms of what can be said, but in terms of what is promoted to others. If somebody wants to accuse me of saying it is wrong to have a slight bias towards love and positivity, then I am rightly accused of that.

    I think our overlap in agreement is very high so I would certainly value your opinion in the future because this is something that we should debate frequently. As I have said, I think the overarching goal is how do how do we make this platform serve as a positive force for humanity. I think the free exchange of ideas does result in a positive force for humanity — if somebody feels that even if their ideas are wrong, they are not being squashed or censored. I think being squashed and censored breeds hatred and resentment and simply sends people to “hate echo chambers” that are outside of the mainstream. I think where you get the sort of people who go kill and do mass shooting, is because they are in some sort of “hate echo chamber.”

    Alan Dershowitz: I think we all should sacrifice our own parochial interests, even on issues like anti-Semitism, to a far greater humanitarian interest in promoting open and complete dialogue. Complete free speech in the marketplace of ideas: only you can do that.

    Elon Musk: Well, thank you. I’ll do my best here and your sort of advice would certainly be very much appreciated. I believe one is always wrong to some degree; we simply aspire to be a little less wrong over time and eventually we can get to a really good place. The idea is how do we make “X” a positive force for humanity where we can increase the sum of human knowledge. It’s a place where I hope people would know that if their ideas are based on false premises, especially hateful ideas, that perhaps we can point out that the reason that they have this hatred is because of things that are not true. It is like actually you are hating this or that group for things that are not true, or perhaps, in some cases, things that happened a long time ago for which it was a great-great-grandfather or something, that that did the bad thing.

    I think there is a lot of wisdom in forgiveness and turning the other cheek. When I was younger, I actually thought turning the other cheek was not a sign of weakness. Now, I think it is actually a sign of strength. By the same token if you turn the other cheek and you’re just getting slapped all day, at a certain point you stop turning the cheek, but the general notion of forgiveness is incredibly important. Do not hold some grudge for you know a long time, in some cases centuries. Let it go and, to take another take a quote from the New Testament, the truth shall set you free, as John said. I am a big believer in that the road to morality is truth and curiosity. And if you care about truth and you are curious, I think this is a natural outflowing from that.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 21:30

  • The Problem Isn't Book "Banners", It's Public Schools…
    The Problem Isn’t Book “Banners”, It’s Public Schools…

    Authored by Neal McCluskey via RealClear Wire,

    This week is Banned Books Week. Supported by several groups, including the American Library Association and the National Book Foundation, the week is intended to alert the public to threats to what Americans read, especially in public schools. Long a rather quiet affair, over the last few years “banning” has become a major issue, with one group often portrayed as the culprit: conservatives.

    But it is not conservatives, or “banners” of any political stripe, that are the problem. It is public schooling itself.

    You are probably familiar with the typical battle: parents at school board meetings calling for the removal of books from libraries, recommended reading lists, or class assignments. Members of Moms for Liberty, founded by three mothers and former school board members, might be the best known activists fighting to restrict books such as Gender Queer: A Memoir, about author Maia Kobabe’s journey of sexual discovery.

    The many battles that have been fought over Gender Queer, which free expression watchdog PEN America reports was the fifth most challenged book in the last school year, are classic culture war: a clash of irreconcilable values.

    Supporters of stocking the book argue that kids of all genders need to see people like themselves in schools, and other students need to understand that people of all genders are full parts of society. Supporters are driven by values – tolerance and inclusivity.

    Opponents argue that the book, which includes illustrated depictions of sexual activity, is inappropriate for children too young to thoughtfully grapple with it, and pornographic. They too are driven by values – the desire to protect children’s innocence, and a belief that some sexual activity is inherently immoral.

    But why must groups such as Moms for Liberty attack such books in public schools?

    Because conservative families, just like liberal, must pay for public schools – government schools – which are inherently politically controlled. To get what they think is right – schools where children cannot peruse, or be taught from, books with immoral content – they must keep liberals from getting what they think right: inclusive collections.

    Liberals have also sought to sideline books, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird which include the “N-word” and some say promote white saviorism. In 2020, the Burbank school district in heavily blue California told English teachers that they could not teach those books and several others. In 2022, the Mukilteo district in solidly Democratic Snohomish County, Washington, ended required reading of Mockingbird.

    Conflict over literature in public schools is not one-sided. It also is not new.

    Founding-generation luminaries Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster, in promoting the idea of public schooling, disagreed whether reading the Bible in schools should be encouraged because religion was essential, or discouraged because using scripture as a pedagogical tool cheapened it. A few decades later, as public schooling started to grow, Roman Catholics and Protestants got into heated, sometimes even bloody, conflicts over whose version of the Bible would be allowed..

    And books are just one of numerous public schooling culture war battlegrounds.

    Teaching the origins of life is arguably the quintessential conflict, immortalized in the play Inherit the Wind about the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. These fights—either an intelligent being created life or not—pit religious conservatives against many liberals., and while they have subsided somewhat, in the mid-2000s the town of Dover, Pennsylvania was wrenched apart by a dispute over whether students should be told that evolution is a “theory,” not a “fact.” In February of this year, a bill was introduced in West Virginia to let teachers discuss Intelligent Design.

    Today we see constant culture war in public schools. The Cato Institute’s Public Schooling Battle Map contains more than 3,700 fights, including recent throwdowns in Florida over Advanced Placement African American Studies and the state’s African American history standards, the latter of which includes an item saying that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” They are fights not just over facts, but whether the country is inherently good or bad.

    Of course, there’s sex education. New Jersey, for instance, created new standards in 2020, including on gender identity, and numerous districts have been embroiled in conflicts over adopting them. Then there are battles over prayer, pitting religious devotion against secularism, which we have seen in districts from North Carolina to California.

    Book “banning” in public schools does not spring from some conservative cabal. As battles fought all over the county attest, such actions are inevitable when people with opposing values – any values – must all pay for government schools.

    Neal McCluskey directs the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and is the author of The Fractured Schoolhouse: Reexamining Education for a Free, Equal, and Harmonious Society

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 21:00

  • Why Do People Start Businesses In Every US State?
    Why Do People Start Businesses In Every US State?

    People have various motivations for starting their businesses.

    Some seek higher income. Others are looking for a balance between family life and career. In some situations, entrepreneurship may be the only way to fight unemployment.

    In this infographic from Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, OnDeck uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Annual Business Survey to highlight the most unique reasons for why people start businesses in each U.S. state.

    Editor’s note: The map tracks the most popular unique reasons to start a business. In this case, “unique” is defined by how much a particular reason stands out from the U.S. average across all states. For example, in Delaware, more respondents said they started businesses because they “couldn’t find jobs” (11.6%) than in any other state (U.S. average: 7.3%). So, even though it’s not numerically the most popular reason overall, it is the unique reason that stands out the most for that state.

    The Most Popular Unique Reasons to Start a Business

    According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, entrepreneurship rates in the U.S. have been trending upward over the past two decades.

    In fact, despite multi-billion dollar companies getting the spotlight, 99.9% of businesses across the U.S. are small businesses, employing over 60 million people.

    Wanting to make more income is the biggest unique factor in starting a business in 14 states, including some of the states with the highest unemployment rates, like New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Alabama.

    In Utah, a higher percentage (65.4%) of entrepreneurs start businesses to achieve a work-life balance than in any other state. Notably, Utah is known for having the largest average family size, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, and has a strong religious presence.

    On the other hand, in Florida, more business founders (69.2%) start their businesses to become their own bosses than anywhere else.

    New York and California are states where entrepreneurs mentioned that they couldn’t find a job as a key unique reason to start a business. In fact, both states lead as the worst for job seekers, as shown in another Visual Capitalist graphic.

    Small Businesses to Remain Vital

    Despite all the different reasons to start a business, the fact is that entrepreneurship is still crucial for the U.S. economy.

    Over the last 25 years, small businesses have added over 12.9 million jobs. For perspective, that’s about two-thirds of the jobs added to the economy.

    In 2021, a record-breaking 5.4 million new business applications were filed in the U.S.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 20:30

  • Biden Defends Use Of Pre-Allocated Funds For Extending Texas Border Wall
    Biden Defends Use Of Pre-Allocated Funds For Extending Texas Border Wall

    Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    President Joe Biden defended his administration’s decision to waive federal statutes in South Texas to allow for the construction of 20 miles of U.S.-Mexico border wall, stating on Oct. 5 he had no choice but to use previously approved federal funds for the project.

    President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the administration’s efforts to cancel student debt at the White House on Oct. 4, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

    President Biden said that he had tried to “redirect” the money from the border wall project—allocation under the Trump administration.

    “The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money,” President Biden said in his address. “They didn’t. They wouldn’t. In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that,” he said.

    When the president was asked a follow-up question about whether he thought the border wall was effective, he replied with a firm “no.”

    Similarly, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered a clear answer to reporters about the administration’s stance during an Oct. 5 press briefing, saying: “We believe there are better, effective ways to secure the border.

    “We asked Congress to reappropriate the fund, but they refused to do it. We need better technology, not a wall.”

    When asked repeatedly about the issue, the press secretary seemed frustrated, insisting that the president has been consistent in his approach to border security.

    White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt later said in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “The funds for 20 miles of border reinforcements were appropriated in 2019 before [Biden] took office.

    “He called on Congress to reappropriate the funds for smarter, more effective enforcement uses. Congress failed to do so,” LeBolt added.

    “Rule of law requires the project be completed in 2023.”

    Announced Changes

    The Biden administration announced on Oct. 5 that 26 federal laws were waved in South Texas to allow border wall construction, signaling the administration’s first use of broad executive power to pave the way for building more border barriers.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted the announcement on the U.S. Federal Registry with few specifics regarding the construction in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a Border Patrol sector with “high illegal entry.”

    DHS has waived a number of federal rules—including the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act—in order to begin construction using 2019 appropriations from Congress to build a wall along the southern border.

    Environmental law violations that could otherwise be reviewed and possibly litigated are waived.

    The announcement did not include any maps, but one that was made public during the comment period showed that the construction might extend the current border barrier system by as much as 20 miles.

    About 450 miles of barriers were constructed along the southwest border between 2017 and January 2021, all under the Trump administration.

    After the Biden administration temporarily halted them at the beginning of his presidency, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott revived them as part of his immigration crackdown at the state level.

    The DHS’s decision on Oct. 4 stands in stark contrast to the rhetoric of the administration, which declared a stop to construction on Jan. 20, 2021, arguing that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”

    Border Insecurity

    A recent report by El Paso’s Mayor Oscar Leeser indicates that the border city is “at a breaking point” amid a massive increase in illegal immigration.

    The dramatic increase has brought them to a point where more than 2,000 people a day are seeking asylum, exceeding shelter capacity and straining resources, according to Mr. Leeser’s comments at a news conference in late September.

    The influx of primarily Venezuelan asylum seekers is part of a larger influx of illegal immigrants who traveled perilous bus and freight railroad routes to Mexican border towns near San Diego, California, and the Texas cities of El Paso and Eagle Pass.

    Mr. Lesser stated that El Paso intends to open a new shelter and chartered five buses on Oct. 7 to transport illegal immigrants to New York, Chicago, and Denver.

    Similarly, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared an “invasion” at the southern border due to the surge in illegal immigration, pointing at President Biden’s policies and ordering the National Guard and law enforcement to assist with the crisis.

    “I officially declared an invasion at our border because of Biden’s policies,” Mr. Abbott wrote in a post on X, on Sept. 20.

    “We deployed the Texas National Guard, DPS, and local law enforcement. We are building a border wall, razor wire, and marine barriers. We are also repelling migrants.”

    The governor’s office has also deployed more buses to ship illegal migrants to sanctuary cities, such as New York and Chicago, saying the state is “at capacity.”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 20:05

  • First Peru, Now Ecuador: US Southern Command Escalates Its "War On Drugs" In South America
    First Peru, Now Ecuador: US Southern Command Escalates Its “War On Drugs” In South America

    Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

    In 2009, Ecuadorians voted in a referendum to remove all US military presence from the country. Now, thanks to an agreement signed in the dying days of Guillermo Lasso’s corruption-tainted government, US troops are coming back. 

    Just ten days ago, I reported in my post, “Back to Business As Usual: The US Is Once Again Vigorously Stirring the Pot in Its Own ‘Backyard‘”, that the US is seeking to escalate its war on drugs in Latin America, as a pretext for trying to regain strategic dominance of the region. It is doing so one country at a time, with the apparent ultimate endgame being direct, overt military  intervention against Mexico’s drug cartels — on Mexican soil.

    In mid-September, the head of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), Army Gen. Laura Richardson, visited Peru, a country that is in the grip of arguably its worst political crisis of this still-fledgling century. A few days later, the Peruvian government, which has virtually zero democratic legitimacy and is under investigation for human rights violations, signed an agreement with US Homeland Security Investigations to collaborate in transnational criminal investigations through the establishment of a Transnational Criminal Investigation Unit (TCIU).

    Now, less than a month later, Peru’s Andean neighbour, Ecuador, is on exactly the same path. Last Friday (Sept 29), the country’s outgoing President (and former senior banker) Guillermo Lasso held a closed-door meeting with senior officials of the US Coast Guard and Department of Defense in Washington. The outcome of that meeting was two status agreements, one that will allow the deployment of US naval forces along Ecuador’s coastline while the other will permit the disembarking of US land forces on Ecuador’ soil, albeit only at the request of Ecuador’s government.

    All with the ostensible aim of combatting drug trafficking organizations.

    Obviously, that is not what this is really about. If Washington were serious about tackling the violence generated by the drug cartels, the first thing it could do is pass legislation to stem the southward flow of US-produced guns and other weapons. But that would hurt the profits of arms manufacturers. And if it were remotely serious about tackling the major cause of the drug problem — the rampant consumption of narcotics within its own borders — it would never have let Big Pharma unleash the opium epidemic. And once it had, it would never have let the perps walk free with the daintiest of financial slaps on the wrists.

    The primary goal of this latest escalation in the US’ decades-old war on drugs, as with all previous escalations, is to achieve or maintain geostrategic dominance in key, normally resource-rich regions of the world while keeping the restive populace at home in line — or in prison, generating big bucks for the prison industrial complex.

    Radio Silence

    From what I can tell, this latest escalation has so far received little media coverage in Ecuador and almost zero coverage in the English-language press, apart from one solitary article in the Washington Examiner:

    The State Department has not publicized the agreements in any of the more than 30 press releases issued since Wednesday, but a State spokesperson confirmed to the Washington Examiner on Friday that it had signed status of forces agreements and maritime law enforcement agreements. Senior representatives from the Department of Homeland Security’s military branch, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Defense Department attended the signing.

    The maritime agreement allows U.S. military vessels to be present in the waters off the northwestern coast of South America, which Colombian drug cartels use to move cocaine. The ability to move military vessels into the area will “strengthen cooperative law enforcement activities and build mutual capacity to prevent and combat illicit transnational maritime activity,” according to State.

    The second agreement was a less common one, according to Adam Isacson, who heads defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America and has worked on Latin American issues since 1994.

    Status of forces agreements outline the terms by which members of a foreign military, in this case the Defense Department, can operate or are expected to conduct themselves while in another country.

    “That doesn’t mean we’re doing it, but it means we can and it means that they’re making a very clear signal to us that they want us more involved,” Crenshaw said.

    History Repeating

    Presumably, the reason why this story is getting such little attention, not even affording a press release by the State Department, has a lot to do with recent Ecuadorian history. You see, Ecuador is one of the few countries in the world to actually successfully close down all US military bases on its territory and force all US soldiers to withdraw. In 2009, when the US Air Force’s 10-year lease on the Manta base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast came up for renewal, Rafael Correa’s government held a referendum on the issue. The people overwhelmingly voted for the base to be closed.

    According to article in the Washington Examiner, the US withdrew all of its forces from Ecuador. In reality, they were evicted. From Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus:

    The last personnel left the base on 18 September, and the facilities used for a decade by the American military were all returned to Ecuador.

    At a ceremony marking the American withdrawal, Foreign Minister Fander Falconí made the following strong statement: “The withdrawal of the American military is a victory for sovereignty and peace. Never again foreign bases on Ecuadorian territory, never again a sale of the flag.”1

    Meanwhile, a relieved Defense Minister Javier Ponce commented: “I am glad that President Correa has fulfilled his election pledge and preserved the constitution.”

    On the same day in the capital Quito, the citizens’ group Anti-Bases Coalition Ecuador held a concert of celebration. In exuberant Latin style about 200 people celebrated the American military withdrawal with singing and salsa dancing at an amphitheater. Messages of congratulation were read out from anti-base movements across the globe, starting with Japan, and each was greeted by loud applause.

    At the closing ceremony, Martha Youth, a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Quito, announced that together with other Forward Operating Locations in Central and South America, a total of 700 tons of drugs with a value of 35.1 billion USD had been seized. “We’ve done good work in cooperation with the Ecuadorian authorities”, she said.

    However, Pablo Lucio Paredes, head of CONADE (Comisión Nacional de Control Antidopaje del Ecuador) begged to differ.

    “Our country has received no benefits from American operations out of the Manta base these ten years. From the outset, the base’s real purpose was linked to the American geopolitical strategy to involve our country in the civil war in neighboring Colombia.”

    “Plan Ecuador”

    Ecuador’s prior eviction of US forces is now being quietly undone. President Lasso has been requesting US help in creating a “Plan Ecuador” to combat the rising lawlessness in the country for over a year. The plan, he said, would be modelled on Plan Colombia, the disastrous drug-eradication program that burnt through $15 billion of US “aid” funds during more than two decades, worsened the violence in Colombia, bathed more than a million hectares of farmland in a rich brew of toxic chemicals, including Monsanto’s “probably” carcinogenic weedkiller glyphosate, exacerbated illegal mining while overseeing a significant upsurge in coca production.

    From the first moment it was unveiled, at the 2022 Summit for the Americas in Los Angeles, the plan was hugely controversial, as I reported in May:

    Plan Colombia was such a costly debacle that it become effectively unexportable to other parts of Latin America and beyond, says Adam Isacson, lead investigator of the Washington Office on Latin America’s Defense Oversight program, which monitors U.S. cooperation with Latin America’s security forces: “The US looked at the Plan Colombia experience and hoped that it had found something it could apply in Afghanistan, or in Mexico, or Central America, and found out that it didn’t work there.”

    But nobody seems to have told this to Lassa, who said in LA last summer:

    The background is the same. We could probably call it something else, but in effect, Ecuador wants to present a Plan Ecuador to the United States.

    Even Voice of America reported that Lasso’s comments had stoked controversy at the Summit as well as among many lawmakers back home. Ecuador’s former Foreign Minister María Isabel Salvador said the proposal “betrayed a lack of understanding and comprehension of what Plan Colombia meant in practice for that country.”

    If the idea was controversial last year, it is far more so today given that Lasso is in the process of withdrawing from political life following a raft of corruption, tax evasion and money laundering allegations that almost led to his impeachment. To ward off that threat, he dissolved parliament in May and called new elections in which neither he nor his party would participate. Lasso’s popularity, like that of Peru’s current President Dina Boluarte, had already hit rock (16% in April) and he has effectively been ruling Peru by decree since May.

    One of the allegations Lasso faces is that his presidential campaign was partly financed by the Albanian mafia, which controls the cocaine routes between South America and Europe. As revealed in the “Gran Padrino” (Great Godfather) investigation by independent news outlet La Posta, Lasso’s brother-in-law, Danilo Carrera, a well-connected banker, was not only running key government departments but was also doing business with Ruben Cherres, a notorious businessman with ties to the Albanian mafia who had been caught on tape boasting about removing and replacing members of the government at will in exchange for money and favours.

    In March, Cherres was found dead alongside the bodies of his girlfriend, a friend and his security guard at a house on the Punta Blanca coast, just a few hundred yards from Lasso’s holiday home. Days later, a number of international intelligence agencies alerted journalists at La Posta that members of the Albanian mafia had entered Ecuador with the intention of taking revenge for the dismantling of the corruption network installed within the Lasso’s government. One of the organisation’s co-founders and a senior journalist left the country after receiving death threats.

    In other words, the US has just signed an agreement to wage war on the drug cartels with a government that appears to be in league with at least one of those cartels. Luis Eduardo Vivanco, another co-founder of La Posta, recently told El Economista: “the line dividing the mafia from the government has become increasingly blurred” during the Lasso government. Following La Posta’s revelations of rampant corruption in the Lasso government, five US congressmen wrote a letter urging the Biden administration to reconsider the US government’s relationship with Ecuador. A couple of paragraphs (though the letter itself is well worth a full read):

    Ecuador is now in the midst of a political and social crisis that is driven, in large part, by credible allegations of corruption at the highest levels of government. Investigative journalists have uncovered what appears to be a web of corruption that ties key associates of Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso to organized crime figures. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that one of these individuals – Danilo Carrera – as well as President Lasso himself have been using U.S. jurisdictions to hide assets and avoid taxes, in violation of Ecuadorian law…

    Corruption and criminal activity appear to have deeply penetrated Ecuador’s security apparatus, prompting the U.S. ambassador in Quito to denounce the country’s “narco-generals.” The general security situation has plummeted since Lasso took office with the country’s homicide rate nearly doubling.

    Predictably, the Biden administration appears to have taken no notice of the letter. Rather than reconsidering relations with Ecuador, it is intensifying them.

    Lasso himself only has ten days left in government and is currently visiting New York for personal reasons. The second round of Ecuador’s presidential elections will take place on October 15 and most opinion polls are predicting a close race between Lisa González, the leader of former President Rafael Correa’s left-leaning Citizen Revolution Movement party, and Daniel Noboa, the Miami-born 35-year old son of Álvaro Fernando Noboa Pontón, Ecuador’s richest man, banana plantation owner and former presidential candidate.

    Unsurprisingly for a country that saw the number of violent crimes almost double last year and recently witnessed the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, the most important electoral issue is security. But whether Lasso’s “Plan Ecuador” plays any part in the next government’s national security agenda will depend on who wins the election, with González likely to rip it up in her first few days while Noboa will probably do the opposite. But that’s just an educated guess.

    With Ecuador’s national assembly currently dissolved by Lasso, his plan must also be submitted for approval to Ecuador’s Supreme Court. In the meantime, the US will be scoping Latin America for other governments with whom to strike up similar military partnerships, with Uruguay and oil-rich Guyana seemingly high up the list.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 19:40

  • Let's Examine Some Real Crimes Committed By Presidents
    Let’s Examine Some Real Crimes Committed By Presidents

    Authored by Connor O’Keeffe via the Mises Institute,

    Former president Donald Trump is facing ninety-one criminal charges as he seeks to win back the White House in 2024. The indictments are the latest battle in a roughly six-year crusade against Trump that first sought to remove him from power through the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, then with espionage charges and impeachments, and that now aims to block him from becoming president again. The mantra we hear from those in politics and media who support these efforts is that nobody is above the law.

    But there’s an entire class of people above the law. Or who at least act like they’re above the law—the political class. The hypocrisies of their effort to convict Trump and block him from holding office again reveal that the motivations are purely political—not born of some commitment to a higher moral or legal principle.

    Two broad schools of thought make up Western legal philosophy. They are natural law theory and legal positivism. Natural law theory says that law exists regardless of the dictates of states. That justice is derived from nature and common to all humans. Simply put, natural law theorists argue that a crime is a crime regardless of what the state says. That makes killing another human with malice aforethought murder, for example, even when it’s done with the blessings of government officials.

    Many libertarians, such as Murray Rothbard, ground their moral opposition to state power in appeals to natural law. There is no special status that someone can attain that allows them to commit crimes.

    The idea that nobody, not even the president, is above the law is right in line with this view. But, taken to its logical Rothbardian conclusion, equality under the law is a denial of political authority. So, it’s bizarre to hear the political class use this slogan as a rallying cry when all their wealth, power, and status is built on political privilege. And they can’t rightfully go after Trump for how he used his political authority because that’s not unique to Trump.

    The political class prefers legal positivism, which separates law from morality. According to legal positivists, law is what the sovereign political authority says it is. There may be just laws and unjust laws. But they are all valid laws in this view. Legal positivism enshrines the political class’s privileged legal status above the rest of us.

    Therefore, the way to get Trump is not to show he did anything immoral or wrong but to prove he technically broke some rule made up by members of an earlier political class. That way he can be driven out of public life without threatening the regime’s authority. But the problem hasn’t been finding crimes committed by Trump but finding crimes unique to Trump. Because all recent presidents have broken the law.

    President George H. W. Bush launched a war on Iraq without congressional authorization. That is illegal according to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, the set of rules Bush swore an oath to uphold. President Bill Clinton did the same, overseeing illegal military operations in Somalia, Serbia, and Iraq.

    President George W. Bush conducted warrantless surveillance on American citizens, which is illegal according to the Fourth Amendment, and committed torture, which is prohibited by Section 2340A of Title 18 of the United States Code. His administration also launched undeclared, and therefore illegal, wars in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq.

    President Barack Obama conducted more illegal wars in Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Mali, and Yemen. In many of those wars, Obama expanded George W. Bush’s policy of giving support to al-Qaeda, which is treason according to Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution. Obama also ordered the assassination of an American citizen in Yemen who had not been tried or even convicted of a crime. The Sixth Amendment makes that illegal.

    Combined, these illegal wars have killed millions of people. They are appalling crimes of which Trump is also guilty. His administration continued the wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen despite his running on a more isolationist foreign policy. Yet he’s not being charged for any of that. The crimes he’s facing charges for are far less serious, but they are more unique to Trump.

    In New York, Trump is charged with mislabeling some business expenses during the 2016 election. In Georgia, he’s charged with conspiring to overturn an election prosecutors claim he knew he’d lost. Federally, he’s charged with claiming to have won an election he allegedly knew he’d lost, which prosecutors say incited the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He’s also charged with keeping classified documents after leaving office and conducting a “scheme to conceal” them from the federal government.

    By refusing to bring charges against Trump that could also be brought against the presidents they like, the political class has shown that its aims are political. If they were committed to the rules that they swore an oath to uphold, they’d have to indict many of their own. And if they genuinely believed that nobody exists above the law, they’d have to give up a whole lot more.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 19:15

  • Watch: Left-Wing College Kids Demand More War Funding Even As Polls Confirm 'Ukraine Fatigue'
    Watch: Left-Wing College Kids Demand More War Funding Even As Polls Confirm ‘Ukraine Fatigue’

    It’s been no secret that support among the American public for funding and arming Ukraine has been steadily slipping, particularly after over the summer it became clear that the counteroffensive was a failure.

    Reuters introduced the latest findings of a new poll this week by calling it a “warning sign for Kyiv”. The publication wrote: “Support is falling among Americans of both major political parties for supplying Ukraine with weapons, a warning sign for Kyiv, which relies heavily on U.S. arms to fight against a Russian invasion, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.”

    Illustrative NPR file image: a prior college campus demonstration

    The new poll found only 41% believe the US government should continue sending arms to Ukraine, at a moment the Biden White House is trying to pass its $24 billion aid package to keep it flowing through next year. 

    Support is fading compared to prior polling from last spring, says Reuters:

    The two-day poll, which closed on Wednesday, showed only 41% of respondents agreed with a statement that Washington “should provide weapons to Ukraine,” compared to 35% who disagreed and the rest unsure.

    Support for U.S. weapon shipments is down from May, when a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 46% of Americans backed sending arms, while 29% were opposed and the rest unsure.

    We previously cited a member of the Ukrainian Parliament as saying, “We are freaking out. For us it is a disaster.” This is because the shift in public sentiment in the West is clearly translating to more hesitancy for supporting Kiev from political leaders.

    Lately, hawkish Congressional leaders and pundits who want to ‘confront Russia’ in Ukraine have shifted their argument. Increasingly we hear that Washington must support Ukraine as a ‘message’ to China or other autocrats in the world. Another argument has been that it all benefits American companies, particularly the arms industry. Democrats as well as Republican hawks have been making these arguments, but which have nothing to do with America’s actual defense, security, and prosperity. 

    Watch: the antiwar left has all but disappeared, but instead we are left with pathetic scenes of college kids demanding more weapons to be sent to fuel yet another ‘forever war’ – such as in the below encounter with presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy…

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

    One recent ad put out by the “Republicans for Ukraine” has even asserted the “war is good” because it ultimately hurts China and weakens Russia. 

    “The more Ukraine weakens Russia, the more it also weakens Russia’s closest ally China. America needs to stand strong against our enemies, that’s why Republicans in Congress must continue to support Ukraine,” the ad says.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 18:50

  • Reaping What You Sow: The American Regime In Chaos
    Reaping What You Sow: The American Regime In Chaos

    Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

    The word “chaos” has been the buzzword this week in Washington, largely directed toward Rep. Matt Gaetz’s successful coup against former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and the resulting void in Republican leadership. In an era where most outcomes in Washington are predictable, best illustrated by yet another kick-the-can-down-the-road continuing resolution on spending passed the preceding weekend, the first successful use of a motion to vacate the speakership in American history greatly shocked the system.

    In hindsight, it should not have been. For more than a decade, there has been a constant tension between Republican voters and the priorities of its leadership. McCarthy similarly saw his previous two Republican predecessors resign from their positions after it was clear they lost the support of their conferences. Even Donald Trump, who maintains a strong hold on the Republican electorate, oversaw a government culpable for most of Red America’s frustrations with Washington: runaway spending, the devastation of covid tyranny, systemic corruption, and general impotency from the federal government in acting on conservative concerns from border security to the administrative state and the progressive capture of all levels of education.

    Ironically, it was The CARES Act signed by Trump that provided $400 million in funding to help “fortify” the 2020 election.

    In contrast, the Democratic Party has been the dominant federal force in achieving major policy wins. Obamacare was passed and then found to be unmovable. Enormous subsidies have been created to enrich loyal areas of support, including green energy sectors, Big Pharma companies, teachers’ unions, and a rainbow of various “minority empowerment” initiatives around the country. Even the military-industrial complex, once a reliable source of support for the GOP, has become a patron class of the American Left. A recent analysis of political donations from major sectors of the American economy illustrates the degree to which the most powerful interests in the United States view the Democratic Party as a better bet to forward their self-interests.

    For those familiar with Murray Rothbard’s analysis of the Progressive Era, this would not be a surprise. As he illustrates, the success of progressive ideology resulted in the rise of cartelized trusts that benefited from the protection and support of state privileges. Protections on trade emboldened attempts to monopolize industries like sugar. The push for central banking was driven by large financial interests. The progressive capture of both American political parties led Rothbard to suggest that late nineteenth and early twentieth-century politics could best be understood as a clash between rival oligarch factions led by the Morgans and Rockefellers.

    Yet, given the massive institutional advantages and relative unity enjoyed by the political left, the Democratic Party finds itself engulfed in chaos of its own, largely resulting from the consequences of its own political victories.

    Violent crime is on the rise in deep-blue cities, highlighted this past week by the brutal killing of two left-wing activists in Philadelphia and New York who advocated for “criminal justice” reform that resulted in more criminals with violent records being released on the streets. In response, progressive advocacy groups have sought to further undermine private reactions to this loss of public safety, attacking attempts at private security solutions under their familiar complaints of “racism.”

    Immigration, counted on as a powerful tool to ensure future political dominance for the Democratic Party, has also become a festering issue for Democrat politicians. As Republican state leaders responded to historic waves of border crossings with relocation programs to progressive “sanctuary cities,” areas like Chicago and New York are facing severe strains of public resources and growing hostility from residents. Meanwhile, left-wing cultural crusades have increasingly alienated nonwhite communities, resulting in situations like a Muslim-majority Michigan city council banning the transgender pride flag from government buildings.

    In a remarkable pivot this week, the Biden administration this week expedited the construction of border walls in Texas, but the greatest threat to the regime’s stability, of course, is the economic system that has enriched the progressive political class at the expense of the productive sectors of the economy. The failure of the fiscally conservative Tea Party movement to capture enough political will to alter the trajectory of Washington spending has made a fiscal crisis inevitable, and that moment is quickly approaching. America’s debt clock currently rests at north of $33 trillion dollars and is due to pass the $34 trillion mark by the end of the month without factoring in the additional future costs of unfunded liabilities.

    The greatest short-term threat to the regime’s stability is a threat few in Washington have yet to notice, the consequences of the Federal Reserve’s pivot away from its long role as a dutiful enabler of the Fed’s fiscal hedonism. As the recklessness of DC’s economic response to covid created an inflation shock even the carefully trained government statisticians couldn’t mask, the Fed has been forced to push interest rates well beyond its most aggressive projections. The true impacts of the hikes are just now starting to bear fruit. As the interest rates rise and rates for new debt insurances increase, the value of older bonds is being devastated.

    This week US bond markets are hitting historic losses of over 40 percent. Total losses on the value of bonds are estimated to stand at over $1.6 trillion and growing. Similar dynamics fueled the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank this March and threatened more banks in the future. Moody’s recently downgraded 10 regional banks in August, with more expected.

    The meltdown of US bonds threatens systemic insecurity in the financial system, threatening the balance sheets of insurance companies, pensions, and other nonbank institutions that sought security in the form of US bonds. The end of the era of low interest rates means that assumptions that guided the investment strategies of most of the world’s largest financial institutions were made with bad information. The size of the systemic risks to the system is currently unknowable, but the policy response to the great recession has sowed the seeds for the next financial crisis to be far larger.

    Despite these seismic shocks happening in financial markets, the political class seems characteristically clueless. A few weeks ago, a Republican presidential debate featured no mention of the growing credit crisis. The Federal Reserve was not mentioned until the last twenty minutes and only superficially touched on by Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis.

    It would, however, be a mistake for Americans to confuse the cracks in the stability of the regime as a catalyst for its retreat. Weak regimes are particularly dangerous.

    Just this week, it was released that the FBI had made explicit what was long implicit, now categorizing supporters of Donald Trump as a unique category for potential “extremism.”

    The modern regime successfully used the cover of the War on Terror to arm itself with powerful tools and weaponize nominally private client actors. As its own policy victories have planted the seeds of social unrest, it should be expected that it will unveil new tools of harsh power. Already, the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe have escalated attacks on alternative media platforms that give average citizens the ability to out their crimes.

    The political class may be more concerned about delayed Ukraine funding than the financial crisis brewing at home, but the regime is prepared to do what it does best: violently preserve itself at the expense of everyone else.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 18:25

  • The Dangers Of Investigating Big Pharma
    The Dangers Of Investigating Big Pharma

    Commentary by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    My family is from Texas (since 1830), so I have a focused interest in the well-being of that state. But I quickly got lost in the strange thicket of confusion when Attorney General Ken Paxton was impeached by the Texas House.

    (angellodeco/Shutterstock)

    In a series of wild allegations, they accused him of misconduct, including bribery, obstruction of justice, and misappropriation of public resources.

    In an instant and with no warning about what was coming, Paxton had to pack up his things, was blocked from doing his duties, and was forced to step aside from the office that the people had three times elected him to hold.

    Last week, he was exonerated of all charges and his name was fully cleared. Hardly anyone can even explain what the charges were. From a distance, it sure looked like a big political takedown attempt, but why?

    Paxton just sat for an extended interview with Tucker Carlson, who now runs the planet’s most-watched show, which appears on X, formerly Twitter, and has no advertisers at all. In one portion of the interview, Mr. Paxton explained that three weeks before the impeachment, he had initiated an investigation against the COVID-19 vaccine makers for engaging in deceptive trade practices under the laws of Texas.

    I recall being very excited about this at the time as a hugely important step. At the national level, the vaccine manufacturers are completely indemnified against liability from harms, which are plenty and also well-documented. Millions were forced to have this product injected into their bodies, and when something goes wrong, there’s no one to sue. It isn’t the way we are supposed to do business in America.

    Paxton was all over the case and ready to start a serious inquiry.

    “As soon as I did that,” he told Mr. Carlson, “that blew up my world. I became a target of Big Pharma, Big Tech, and obviously the Biden administration.”

    Mr. Carlson then asked him why that would be the case.

    “Big Pharma gives a lot of money. … I was doing it because the federal government has this immunity for them. This is wrong,” Paxton said. “They didn’t test this thing. They didn’t tell us about the side effects. They had an obligation to test it, even if they weren’t liable.

    “They had an obligation to tell my people there are some risks here. You should decide but here are the risks. Instead, they said everything is good, it prevents it, you won’t spread it. None of that was true. That’s a deceptive trade practice. If they did that …”

    Mr. Carlson interrupts and says, “It seems like they did that.”

    Then. Mr. Paxton says he will know more in the coming weeks and months, because he’s picking up the case again. He should watch his back.

    We need to be clear on what might be going on here. A state attorney general merely decided to apply existing law to the vaccine makers who provide most of the revenue to the drug approval side of the Food and Drug Administration. They fund 75 percent of television advertising and have moles embedded at all the commanding heights.

    They are so powerful that they manage to get Congress and the president to grant them full freedom from liability for any of the effects of a vaccine. That only incentivized the firms to call gene therapy a vaccine even though it didn’t work like any vaccine in history.

    How can it be possible that such tax-funded corporate agents, which own the patents to their drugs, and can even force their product on unwilling customers, can unseat a duly elected official in a state? It’s amazing … and terrifying.

    But that might be only the start of it. Mr. Carlson’s show on Fox was canceled just after he started asking hard questions about the vaccine, while Russell Brand was smeared the world over as he started to raise questions. It’s happened to many public figures.

    Look at the unseating of the founder of Project Veritas’s James O’Keefe, which occurred after he exposed a Pfizer employee bragging about how much money the company would make by creating new strains of viruses against which they can vaccinate. It was easily the most spectacular exposé of the institution’s history—and then, boom, he was fired.

    Now, Mr. O’Keefe runs his own outfit that continues to chase down pharma executives.

    As for Project Veritas, it just pulled the plug and fired all but a few employees. It has ceased operations, which isn’t surprising. When you get rid of the highest-performing person, the fumes you are left with don’t last long.

    Think about it: This awesome operation was wrecked because some powerful people got squeamish about exposing the vaccine makers.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the biggest and most learned critic of Big Pharma on the planet, faced what might have been an assassination attempt last week. It didn’t even make the newspapers (The Epoch Times excepted). Meanwhile, he’s still being denied Secret Service protection even though he’s a serious candidate and faces non-stop threats on his life.

    As president of Brownstone Institute, I see examples several times a day of what happens to doctors, professors, statisticians, or anyone who asks questions about this industry, which somehow has emerged as among the most powerful in U.S. politics. The dirty dealings of the industry in canceling critics are legion. Any study that questions the effectiveness, safety, or necessity of their products is nearly always rejected by the mainstream journals. Even letters to the editor that expose statistical errors end up in the dustbin.

    As for Big Tech, they too are fully beholden. We have ironclad proof that Facebook and Twitter blocked any posts critical of vaccines. They went so far as to block “true information” about vaccine side effects that might contribute to an environment of “vaccine hesitancy.”

    We must ask again: How did Big Pharma buy control of so many governments?

    At this point, this problem has become a genuine threat to democracy and freedom. No industry has greater power to extract tax funding of its operations, retain intellectual property control over the results, enjoy indemnity from harms, and then even force its products on consumers. This is indefensible.

    Any warrior who dares stand up to this deserves the support of everyone who believes in what was the American system.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 17:40

  • McCarthy Denies Plan To Resign Before End Of Term
    McCarthy Denies Plan To Resign Before End Of Term

    Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has denied a report that he’ll resign before the end of his term, after Politico reported that he would do so after the next Speaker election.

    “No, I’m not resigning. I’m staying, so don’t worry,” McCarthy told reporters on Friday, adding “We’re going to keep the majority, I’m going to help the people I got here and we’re going to expand it.”

    Earlier, Politico reported that McCarthy told GOP members in a closed-door meeting: “I’m going to spend time with my family,” adding “I might have been given a bad break, but I’m still the luckiest man alive.”

    At the same time, some Republicans are reviving his name as a speaker candidate, even as it remains unclear whether he’d accept it.

    They argue no one else could get the 218 Republican votes needed to be speaker, they argue, as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise enter next week’s race as frontrunners that still might not be able to get over the top.

    The “only workable outcome is to restore Kevin McCarthy as Speaker under party rules that respect and enforce the right of the majority party to elect him,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said in a statement on Thursday. “This depends entirely on several of the dissidents to disenthrall themselves from their decision and to repair the damage before it is too late. I appeal to them to act while there is still time.” -Politico

    “I’ll do anything I can to help almost all of you. Don’t worry, I’ve raised a helluva lot of money in the last hour,” McCarthy told his members during a Tuesday closed-door conference meeting.

    Looks like Kevin’s sticking around.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 17:20

  • Portland Residents Told Not To Call Police For Help
    Portland Residents Told Not To Call Police For Help

    Authored by Michael Letts via American Thinker,

    Portland officials were proud of themselves in 2020 when they defunded the Police Bureau by $15 million instead of increasing it by $3 million as planned. One commissioner was even upset that the council didn’t remove more from the budget.

    “Please take a moment to celebrate this victory, and let it fuel your fire, because we’re not done,” Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said at the time.

    Along with the $15 million, another $12 million was cut because of pandemic-caused economic shortfalls. “As a result, school resource officers, transit police and a gun violence reduction team — which was found to disproportionately target Black Portland residents during traffic stops, according to an audit in March 2018 — were disbanded,” PBS reported.

    A year later, the council was trying to add funding and retain the city’s police officers. “The added police spending is occurring amid a year of a record number of homicides, the city’s greatest police staffing shortage in decades and reform recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Justice,” PBS reported.

    It was too little, too late. The damage was done, and the city has yet to recover. In fact, the city government is telling residents not to call police unless their lives are at risk. Given how dangerous Portland has become, it might not affect the volume of calls to police because more residents’ lives are at risk from criminal activity than ever before.

    Commissioner Rene Gonzalez told residents that the city’s 911 system is overwhelmed with people calling about addicts on the streets suffering fentanyl overdoses. This is not a Portland-only problem. The state of Oregon decriminalized drug use three years ago. Gonzalez urged people on X (formerly Twitter), “Our 911 system is getting hammered this morning with a multiple person incident — multiple overdoses in northwest park blocks. Please do not call 911 except in event of life/death emergency or crime in progress (or change of apprehending suspect).”

    Over the past year, the city has experienced 104 homicides and 529 arrests were made for drug offenses, according to Portland Police. The city’s homeless population has also grown by 50 percent since 2019, topping more than 5,000 people.

    “Portland’s neighborhoods have been overrun with crime, homelessness, and drugs since the pandemic — and despite pouring funds into relief initiatives, little change is occurring on the streets of the city,” the Daily Mail reported.

    The people of Portland are understandably upset that crime is out of control, leaving their property and lives at risk. I really want to feel sorry for those residents being forced to live under those conditions. However, this is what those people voted for.

    They continue to elect the same types of progressive politicians who believe the same failed policies will somehow work if they try them enough. They are the same people who, even if they didn’t participate in the 2020 riots, supported them.

    If they truly want things to change for the better for the city, they need to vote for change and change their way of thinking. Change will bring change.

    Michael A. Letts is the CEO and Founder of In-VestUSA, a national grassroots non-profit organization helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 17:00

  • Bank Loan Volumes Tumble Despite Surge In Deposits, Money-Markets Funds Hit New Record High
    Bank Loan Volumes Tumble Despite Surge In Deposits, Money-Markets Funds Hit New Record High

    After two weeks of relatively quiet flows, last week saw a massive $64BN inflow into money-market funds – the biggest inflows since the SVB crisis – to a new record high…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Both retail and institutional funds saw massive inflows last week…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The Fed’s balance sheet continued to contract, down $46BN last week to its lowest since June 2021…

    Source: Bloomberg

    But banks’ usage of The Fed’s emergency funding facility remains at its record high around $108BN…

    Source: Bloomberg

    So with banks balance sheets being plugged – and after last week’s crazy divergence between SA and NSA deposit flows – we wait with baited breath for what The Fed has in store for us this week…

    On a seasonally-adjusted basis, total deposits jumped $40BN last week (following the prior week’s $48BN SA inflow), back to its highest since the SVB crisis…

    Source: Bloomberg

    For once, non-seasonally-adjusted deposits went in the same direction, with a $52BN inflow – after last week’s $85BN outflow…

    Source: Bloomberg

    And removing foreign bank flows, domestic banks saw inflows on both an SA and NSA basis…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The gap between SA and NSA deposit outflows since SVB remain high (around $116BN)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On the other side of the ledger, despite the big deposit inflows, both large and small banks saw loan volumes decline…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The key warning sign continues to trend lower (Small Banks’ reserve constraint), supported above the critical level by The Fed’s emergency funds (for now)…

    After an ugly week (for bonds), following an ugly month and even uglier quarter…

    …we sure hope these banks are making plans to fill the $108BN hole in their balance sheets they are filling with expensive Fed loans.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 16:40

  • Kunstler: It'll Be Hard To Gaslight The Nation Anymore When This Happens
    Kunstler: It’ll Be Hard To Gaslight The Nation Anymore When This Happens

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    Comes The Dancing Skeleton

    “We’ve conflated politics and bad mental health until they are indistinguishable.”

    – Scott Adams

    By some hidden working of unseen forces, legions of ghouls and demons are bursting out of the ground in every other front yard of small-town America. Supposedly hard-up working-class people go all-out constructing Halloween shrines to the totem figures of decay and death, as in some depraved cargo cult competition aimed at hastening our country’s descent into chaos. The end can’t come soon enough, seems to be the message. Something in the zeitgeist is prompting us to do this.

    Year to year, these morbid displays of slavering werewolves, hooded skeletons, grinning mummies, pirate corpses, horned devils, giant spiders, flapping crows, and glowing skulls far surpass in scale the once-exuberant displays of Christmas time — as if to say the celebration of horror and terror has way more meaning in America these days than the message of peace-on-earth, angels-on-high, the boundless generosity of Santa Claus, and the humble birth of a loving god. Kind of reminds you of what Mr. Dylan said more than a half-century ago: “…he not busy being born is busy dying.

    This Halloween month, America looks super-busy preparing for the death of something, maybe itself. Surely many now live in terror of the malevolent blob that the US government has become, led by a very paragon of ghouls, “Joe Biden.” This week, the blob declared in a “leak” to Newsweek magazine, that supporters of Donald Trump, the Golden Golem of Greatness, are now officially deemed to be enemies of the state. So, the blob that has lately subsumed the state, explicitly targets Trumpists (the MAGA crowd) for wholesale persecution, cancellation, de-personing, and incarceration. That is, opponents of the blob regime organizing for the coming election will be systematically neutralized and / or liquidated, taken off the game-board one way or another, by any means necessary.

    The blobistas would do well to take heed of those Halloween lawn displays. A stupendous, howling rage is building across this land in revolt against the blob’s monumental insults to a once proud and productive people. Soon, that plastic totem army of stock mythological monsters cavorting in the front yards will be superseded by real flesh-and-blood Americans aiming to shred the blob and scatter its quivering tatters to the four winds — as John F. Kennedy once remarked of the CIA in 1962, before it killed him in retaliation.

    Coincidentally, a scion of the JFK generation now running for president on an as-yet-to-be-specified independent party seeks to do exactly what his uncle promised to do. As you gaze on this developing battlefield, you will now see two sizable armies marshaling against the unholy hosts of blobbery — Mr. Trump’s MAGAs and Bobby Kennedy’s emerging division representing the old stoic virtues betrayed by vicious blob tyrants. The plausible outcomes on this battlefield are in flux thirteen months before the election. But it looks a little like the blob is outflanked; hence, its growing desperation.

    The psychodrama in the House of Representatives this week looked like a possible inflection point in the blob’s war against the American people. Mr. Gaetz evicted the quisling Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a rather brave gambit, opening up the possibility of unifying his party against the programmatic wickedness of the post-Covid-19 era — the suicidal spending, the insane and unnecessary Ukraine proxy war, traitorous refusal to control the southern border, the official DOJ lawfare waged against half the citizenry, the disgusting official censorship campaign, and the ongoing criminal conspiracy between the pharma companies, the US public health officialdom, and shadowy globalist forces embedded in the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, and scores of sinister multinational organizations ranging from George Soros’s Atlantic Council to the Sinaloa Cartel.

    In the background of all that — a true-life horror — lies the crumbling bond market, the foundation of the money-and-banking system that is supposed to support the on-the-ground economy that produces things of value like food and roofing shingles.

    The bond market is wobbling badly. As rates rise, banks’ collateral melts away and they go bust, liquidation moves to stock markets, derivatives implode, and the vast reservoirs of capital vanish. There’s your stealth true Halloween psychodrama sneaking up on the scene. Gradually, then all at once, the quarreling nation finds itself stone broke, and even the blob shrinks from the scene in horror.

    It will be hard to gaslight the country anymore when that happens. That will be the sobering moment when all the preposterous, mendacious, criminally insane propositions of recent years stand nakedly exposed. That’s when “Joe Biden” begins to be seen as a dancing skeleton.

    *  *  *

    Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 16:20

  • Big Squeeze Saves Stocks From Bond Bloodbath
    Big Squeeze Saves Stocks From Bond Bloodbath

    ‘Hard’ data collapsed further this week with ‘soft’ data staying near cycle highs as today’s jobs data offered something for everyone with stalling wage growth (yay, we beat inflation), a jump in job gains (yay, growth and a soft landing), but a scratch or two below the surface of the 6-signa headline beat and things are not so pretty after all…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Financial Conditions continued to tighten aggressively this week, having turned after the July FOMC and now near the tightest it has been during this cycle…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Today saw a hawkish shift in rate-change expectations but on the week, 2023’s curve moved higher (slightly higher chances of more hikes) and 2024’s curve was flat to slightly lower (modest chance of more cuts)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    US stocks were bolstered in morning trading by the largest buy imbalance since mid-July and short cover. Momentum can beget more upside momentum in stocks.

    Around 1140ET a massive buy program hit and smashed stocks higher…

    Source: Bloomberg

    At the same time, the ‘most shorted’ stocks basket also went vertical…

    Source: Bloomberg

    By the end of the week, thanks to today’s meltup, Nasdaq ended significantly higher on the week (along with the S&P). The Dow ended the week marginally lower while Small Caps lagged 2% in the red…

    Tech and Healthcare were the only sectors green on the week with Energy the ugliest horse in the glue factory…

    Healthcare was helped by the GLP-1 Analogs going bid…

    Source: Bloomberg

    VIX didn’t even make it to 20 this morning as payrolls hit and stocks and bonds dumped. And then it just collapsed down to bear 17 the figure….

    One big options trader potentially had a bad day. Chatter was a large VIX Call buyer stepped in early this morning ahead of the payrolls print, betting on a blowout number…

    They got the blowout number, and for a split second things looked good, then everything reversed lower

    And the aggressive positioning and reversal can be seen in SpotGamma’s HIRO indicator as the trader was forced to unwind his calls at a loss…

    Still, at least he wasn’t long bonds this week!

    Bonds were clubbed like a baby seal this week, most notably the long-end, but today’s chaotic reversal put a little lipstick on the bond pig…

    Source: Bloomberg

    It all had a very technical feel with yields spiking on the payrolls print and running stops from earlier in the week before collapsing back lower…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The yield curve (2s30s) bear steepened most of the week, surging back up to a key level… next stop ‘un-inverted’

    Source: Bloomberg

    The dollar ended higher on the week, even with today’s pump-and-dump…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Bitcoin was its usual chaotic self this week, but ended higher (Friday to Friday), back above 28k…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Gold (spot) ended lower on the week, despite today’s bounce…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Ugly week for the energy complex with WTI puking down to a $81 handle intraday – 6-week lows…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, Goldman notes that The 60bp increase in 10-year Treasury yields this year is starting to have an impact on stock valuations as the S&P 500 is now down about 7% from the 2023 high it hit back in late July. But higher rates don’t just impact how much you pay for a company. Higher rates can also weigh on the amount of money a company earns…

    …and as the chart above shows , this year, S&P 500 companies are staring down the biggest increase in borrowing costs since 2006.

    Making 5%-plus lending money to the US government certainly raises the bar for the level of corporate performance needed to attract investors…

    Source: Bloomberg

    …TINA’s not back yet.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 16:00

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Oct 06

Today’s News 6th October 2023

  • Trump To Endorse Jordan For Speaker
    Trump To Endorse Jordan For Speaker

    Update (2320ET): After teasing himself for Speaker of the House following Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s extremely short tenure, former President Donald Trump will endorse Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid.

    “Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) posted on X, adding “He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party. I fully support Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House.”

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

    Trump posted the following on Truth Social:

    Jordan currently chairs the House Judiciary Committee, as well as the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Federal Government.

    *  *  *

    Former President Donald Trump will attend a GOP closed candidate House forum next Tuesday, where Republicans will discuss potential nominees to replace Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

    So far, Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise have thrown their hats in the ring, however many have floated the prospect of ‘Speaker Trump.’

    On Wednesday, Trump posted the above photo of himself in the Speaker’s chair holding a gavel, however as the NY Post reported the same day, there’s a little-known House GOP rule barring anyone with a felony indictment against serving in the role.

    “A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years’ imprisonment may be imposed,” according to the Republican Conference Rules of the 118th Congress.

    That said, the rules could be altered to make way for Trump.

    Despite the gavel post, however, it appears Trump doesn’t actually want the job – and may just be attending to help steer the process. In a Thursday Truth social post, he said:

    I am running for President, have a 62 Point lead over Republicans, and am up on Crooked Joe Biden, despite the Democrat Party’s massive Law-fare, Weaponization, and Election Interference efforts, by 4 to 11 Points, but will do whatever is necessary to help with the Speaker of the House selection process, short term, until the final selection of a GREAT REPUBLICAN SPEAKER is made – A Speaker who will help a new, but highly experienced President, ME, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

    So, Jordan or Scalise?

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 23:17

  • Macleod: Unwinding The Financial System
    Macleod: Unwinding The Financial System

    Authored by Alasdair Macleod via SchiffGold.com,

    This article looks at the collateral side of financial transactions and some significant problems which are already emerging.

    At a time when there is a veritable tsunami of dollar credit in foreign hands overhanging markets, it is obvious that continually falling bond prices will ensure bear markets in all financial asset values leading to dollar liquidation. This unwinding corrects an accumulation of foreign-owned dollars and dollar denominated assets since the Second World War both in and outside the US financial system.

    Furthermore, collapsing collateral values, which are increasingly required backing for changing values in over $400 trillion nominal in interest rate swaps are a new driver for the crisis, forcing bond liquidation, driving prices down and yields higher: we are in a doom-loop.

    What action can the authorities take to ensure that counterparty risk from widespread failures won’t take out inadequately capitalised regulated exchanges?

    It seems that they acted some time ago by giving central security depositories (The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, Euroclear, and Clearstream) the right to pool securities on their registers and lend them out as collateral. Your investments, which you think you may own can be absorbed into the failing financial system without your knowledge.

    This seems particularly relevant, given the appointment of JPMorgan Chase as custodian of the large gold ETF, SPDR Trust (ticker GLD). In a test case in the New York courts concerning Lehman’s failure, JPMC was given legal protection should it seize its customer’s assets.

    This important erosion of property rights is poorly understood. But as the financial distortions are unwound, leading to unintended consequences such as bank failures and ultimately the collapse of the dollar-based fiat currency regime, the implication is that holders of physical gold ETFs will be left owning an empty shell at a time when they might have expected some protection from the collapse of the value of credit.

    Introduction

    In today’s complex markets it is difficult for the layman to understand their workings. It has always been about the expansion and limitation of bank credit, which must never be confused with money, and which from the dawn of history has been physical metal, particularly gold. But that is the medium of exchange of last resort, hoarded by individuals, and in recent centuries by central banks. And the layman’s understanding is further undermined by state propaganda which has dominated markets particularly since the suspension of the gold standard in America in 1933, which had lasted a century. Subsequent events have intensified monetary disinformation, leading to a global fiat money system based on the US dollar.

    In order to give us all the illusion of price stability the Breton Woods Agreement was designed to promote the dollar as a gold substitute for all other currencies. That aspect of the illusion ended in 1971. Since then, to maintain the dollar’s credibility the US Government increasingly resorted to market manipulation. First, they tried selling gold into the market in the early seventies, which was readily bought and failed to stop the gold price from continuing to rise. The next wheeze was to create artificial demand for dollars in an attempt to support its purchasing power, measured against commodities and other currencies. This led to the expansion of derivative markets, which diverted speculative demand for commodities thereby suppressing their prices below where they would otherwise be. The expansion of the London bullion market which created paper gold, and the general adoption of the dollar not just to settle cross-border trade and commodity pricing but to replace gold in central banks’ reserves was all part of the deception.

    Over the fifty-two years since Bretton Woods was suspended, huge imbalances accumulated. In last week’s article I showed a table of bank and shadow bank dollar balances, onshore and offshore, which I repeat below.

    The offshore element is considerably larger than that registered in the US Treasury’s TIC numbers, which in itself tells us that foreign interest in onshore dollar investments and bank balances exceeds US GDP by a fair margin on its own. The offshore element is based on the Bank for International Settlements analysis of dollar deposits and obligations outside the US financial system which we can equate with the eurodollar market. In the main, they are currency forwards and swaps where one leg is in US dollars.

    Now that the financial bubble inflated by zero and negative interest rates is being lanced, these credit balances are bound to diminish. We can see why this is the case just with onshore long-term securities, comprised of bonds and equities, to which we must add the estimated $10.7 trillion of eurodollar long term bonds. That’s nearly $37 trillion in foreign-owned long-term investments overhanging US financial markets as bond yields start soaring, which is already in process. Including offshore eurodollars, it is a tsunami of dollar debt threatening to break on America’s shores.

    The role of collateral in the LDI crisis

    What is generally not understood by the layman is that it is inflated investments which underpin many over-the-counter derivative positions by acting as collateral. A problem arises when the value of collateral falls, triggering further calls. This attracted public attention in the UK when rising gilt yields threatened liability driven investment schemes, an example that we can use to improve our wider understanding of the role of collateral in derivative contracts, and the dangers presented by a collapse of the entire collateral system.

    Liability driven investment (LDI) was being used by UK pension funds to enhance their returns. Defined benefit schemes faced with expensive final salary commitments to their beneficiaries were unable to meet these commitments from their investments when central banks reduced interest rates to the zero bound and through QE suppressed bond yields to minimal levels. The only solution for these DB schemes was to enhance their returns through leverage.

    Typically, this was being achieved through a LDI scheme. It allowed a pension fund to protect itself from falling interest rates, which increases a pension fund’s future liabilities through net present value calculations. An LDI scheme provided leverage, so that the income on a gilt would be multiplied three of four times, allowing a pension fund to cover its future liabilities.

    The pension fund invested in an LDI scheme has effectively entered into a leveraged interest rate swap with the LDI provider. A rising interest rate imparts a negative value to the swap, fixed income stream becomes worth less than the yield offered in the market. This requires the pension fund to put up collateral to the LDI provider. And leverage multiplies the collateral called. But pension funds tend to be fully invested, and don’t have that liquidity to hand, and were exposed to a radical increase in bond yields.

    The crisis was triggered when markets became spooked by Liz Truss’s proposed budget in September 2022. Yields for the 10-year gilt rapidly rose from 3.88% to 4.5%. And for the 30-year maturity from 2.7% to 4.8%. In the latter case, the value of this gilt fell by 13% in a matter of days.

    This forced pension funds to liquidate assets, including their gilts which is why the Bank of England had to step in to support the gilt market. And only when it was apparent that the authorities were stabilising gilt prices, panic among pension fund managers and LDI providers subsided.

    LDI is going global

    Gilt yields have now risen to even higher levels today, with the ten-year gilt yielding 4.63% and the 30-year 5.07%, so far without the LDI panic returning. Obviously, that episode alerted pension fund managers to the dangers, and they will have addressed their LDI risk accordingly. But the same cannot be said for the wider use of collateral in international markets, for which the 10-year US Treasury note is the “risk-free” yardstick. And in Europe, it is the ten-year German bund against which other euro-area bonds are compared. The chart below shows how these yields have risen recently.

    LDI contracts are essentially interest rate swaps, exchanging a floating rate (in their case volatile gilt yields) for a fixed rate, usually enhanced through leverage. These characteristics are similar to those of the global interest rate swap market, which is enormous. According to the Bank for International Settlements at end-2022 it amounted to a nominal value of $405.5 trillion, of which $145.5 trillion is in dollars and $109.3 trillion equivalent in euros. With a shift in the global inflation and interest rate outlook, this is leading to mounting collateral demand from those who have taken the fixed rate leg. It is developing into a major crisis which probably requires much more than central bank intervention, such as that deployed by the Bank of England in the case of LDIs.

    Furthermore, collateral values backing these derivatives and other leveraged commitments have fallen sharply, adding to enormous and escalating amounts of collateral top-ups being required. And this is occurring at a time when bank credit is tightening, which is bound to lead to higher market rates for bond yields anyway, even without collateral demand from interest rate swaps being unwound.

    This is rapidly turning into a doom-loop, similar to that exposed by the UK’s LDI crisis, but involving the dollar, the euro, and all other major currencies. Additionally, US banks are probably heading towards a trillion dollars in mark to market losses on their bond positions, and as borrowing costs continue to rise the damage to their P&L accounts funding their bond holdings is increasing.

    Perhaps this persuaded the Fed to go easy on interest rate policy, the FOMC having put it on pause last month. If so, it didn’t work, because US Treasury note yields rose sharply in the wake of the last FOMC statement. And then there is the commercial real estate crisis in America, to which regional banks are particularly exposed. This is a situation which is already out of control, with escalating collateral demand forcing liquidation of bonds, driving borrowing costs and bond yields inexorably higher.

    It is becoming rapidly apparent to lenders that collateral values are likely to continue to fall, particularly for longer durations, and that leverage is the road to disaster. One question this raises, is that in their long-term planning have the authorities foreseen a possible collateral crisis of this sort and taken action to deal with it if it becomes reality. This question, but not the motivation is addressed in a new book by David Rogers Webb, The Great Taking.

    The taking of your securities for collateral

    Webb’s analysis initially centres on the dematerialisation of securities from certificate form into book entry on the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation. It is the forerunner of Europe’s Clearstream and Euroclear. These are central securities depositories, closely allied to central clearing counterparties. Without the investing public being aware of the implications, certificated property ownership of securities has been replaced with a “security entitlement”.

    The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation also has a securities financing transaction clearing facility. From its website, we see that:

    “The SFT Clearing service introduces central clearing for equity securities financing transactions, including lending, borrowing and Repo to:

    • Support central clearing of institutional clients’ equity SFTs intermediated by sponsoring members.

    • Support central clearing of equity SFTs between full service NSCC members.

    • Maximize capital efficiency and mitigates systemic risks by introducing more membership and cleared transaction opportunities for market participants.”

    This confirms that pools of collateral are made available to institutions, without the knowledge of those who possess securities entitlements that there is another claim on them. They no longer have clear title to their investments.

    Since the US’s Uniform Commercial Code enacting these changes was introduced, other jurisdictions such as the European Union and UK have followed suite. Besides the erosion of property rights for owners of securities, the objective appears to be to give institutions and hedge funds access to everyone’s property for collateral purposes. And where losses occur such as in a systemic failure, instead of the central securities depository taking the losses, it is those with the newly defined securities entitlements: in other words, you and me.

    Undoubtedly, the framers of the Uniform Commercial Code had the protection of thinly capitalised exchanges in regulated markets in mind. We expect our transaction settlements to be guaranteed by regulated exchanges. But in a financial crisis leading to multiple counterparty failures, regulated markets cannot extend this protection. The solution has been to take this risk away from them and centralise it in central securities depositories, giving them the power to use the pools of securities under their control to ensure deliveries can continue under all circumstances. Not only does this allow collateral lending, but it transfers systemic risk from regulated exchanges to pools of securities entitlements.

    It appears that the corruption of security holders’ rights doesn’t stop there, as the Safe Harbour clause in US bankruptcy law legislation can also apply. The relationship between central securities depositories, such as the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, and central clearing counterparties such as a systemically important bank enables this to happen.

    In a test case in New York between Lehman Brothers creditors and JPMorgan Chase which acted as Lehman’s clearing agent, the creditors sought to reclaim $8.6bn from JPMorgan Chase.[ii] This was the amount which was seized by the bank as if it was collateral in the days leading to Lehman’s failure. Prior to the seizure, it was an obligation to Lehman in the form of deposits and securities without a lien. Indeed, in the 92 page ruling, there were many references to the legal status of these obligations.

    It could be argued that without the safe harbour provisions in US bankruptcy law, the seizure of these assets would have been illegal. Indeed, this is the situation demonstrated under UK law, when JPMorgan was fined £33.32m by the Financial Services Authority in June 2010 for failing to ensure that client money, in other words funds which were custodial, was not properly segregated from the bank’s liabilities.

    We learn two things from these different rulings. The first is that following the precedent of the US court in New York, JPMorgan has the power to ignore the distinction between assets held as collateral and assets which the bank has an obligation to discharge to a depositor. And secondly, this US bank, which happens to be the largest and the Fed’s primary conduit into commercial banking has failed to distinguish between that relationship in US law and its legal and regulatory obligations in other jurisdictions, such as the UK.

    JPMorgan’s relationship with gold

    At the outset, it is worth noting that regulatory bodies tend to give large banks the benefit of the doubt, only looking closely at their compliance activities when they can no longer be ignored. Consequently, large banks have been known to act as if regulations don’t exist. The example above, where it was absolutely plain that JPMorgan Chase was in breach of the regulations with respect to custodial client money in London may or may not have been an exception. We are entitled to assume that some of the smartest lawyers and compliance officers are employed by JPMorgan Chase who should have known better.

    This lack of respect for the law was demonstrated in an important case in the gold market, when JPMorgan Chase’s global head of precious metals trading and board member of the London Bullion Market Association was found guilty of attempted price manipulation, commodities fraud, wire fraud and spoofing prices in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures. And it is not as if this was an isolated case: it had been going on for eight years involving thousands of unlawful trading sequences. And another colleague heading up the New York gold desk was also found guilty. That was in July 2019. Finally, in 2020 the bank itself pleaded guilty to unlawful trading in precious metals futures markets and was heavily fined.

    Inexplicably, with this track record JPMorgan Chase Bank was recently appointed joint custodian of SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) alongside HSBC. This ETF is the largest in existence by far and its sponsor is a subsidiary of the World Gold Council. Why the WGC sanctioned the appointment of a bank whose senior dealers in precious metals have been found guilty of manipulating gold prices and jailed is a mystery. It is not as if having one custodian represents more risk than two. Furthermore, HSBC stores all GLD bullion in its London vaults, so that it is subject to English property law and securities regulation in every respect.

    JPMorgan Chase is reported to be considering the transfer of GLD’s bullion to its vaults in New York. It is thought that their vault is linked underground to the Fed’s vault, with the Fed on the north side of Liberty Street and Chase Bank across the road.[iii] It is in this context that we return to David Webb’s analysis of central counterparties, ownership of securities as property being replaced with a “security entitlement”, and the free use of that security entitlement as collateral without the knowledge or agreement of the entitled. And according to the ruling of the New York court effectively extending this facility to JPMorgan Chase as a central clearing counterparty, we may be assembling a picture which will allow JPMorgan Chase to use GLD’s bullion as collateral, or perhaps to lease or swap it, or alternatively to dispose of it in return for a book entry credit.

    Our suspicions will be increased when we think through the implications of the proximity of JPMorgan Chase’s vault to the Fed’s vault across the road and circumstantial evidence of a tunnel between the two. Stored in the Fed’s vault is gold for the New York Fed, earmarked for foreign central banks. And when we remember the difficulty Germany had getting the New York Fed to return a paltry 300 tonnes, doubtless our suspicions will go into overdrive.

    Undoubtedly, GLD’s trustee The Bank of New York Mellon and the World Gold Council have some serious questions to answer as to why JPMorgan Chase was appointed a custodian. Here are just a few suggestions:

    • Did the Trustee of the World Gold Council come under pressure or recommendation from any government organisation or monetary authority to appoint JPMorgan Chase a custodian to the SPDR Trust?

    • Were the Trustee and Council not aware that JPMorgan Chase has a history of market manipulation in gold contracts, and that the bank had pleaded guilty. According to the Office of Public Affairs in the US Department of Justice: “In September 2020, JPMorgan admitted to committing wire fraud in connection with: (1) unlawful trading in the markets for precious metals futures contracts; and (2) unlawful trading in the markets for U.S. Treasury futures contracts and in the secondary (cash) market for U.S. Treasury notes and bonds. JPMorgan entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement through which it paid more than $920 million in a criminal monetary penalty, criminal disgorgement, and victim compensation, with parallel resolutions by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities Exchange Commission announced on the same day.”

    • Furthermore, that two of their senior staff were on trial when JPMorgan Chase was appointed custodian, one of which served on the board of the LBMA and ran JPMorgan’s global precious metals desk, and the other an executive director and trader on the New York precious metal desk? And that both men were subsequently jailed and fined for market manipulation in August?

    Almost certainly, the Trustee and the World Gold Council’s management won’t be called upon to answer these questions. But the legal position of GLD shareholders’ underlying property assets is compromised by these developments.

    Furthermore, authorised participants can borrow their shares from a centralised securities depository and redeem them for physical gold. By hedging their position in futures or London’s forward markets, they are under no pressure to return the gold and close their stock loan. Given this facility, far from GLD being a secure investment in gold bullion, it may already be being used as a source of liquidity for bullion dealers.

    Conclusion

    There can be little doubt that access to GLD’s property would be a partial solution to urgent problems arising from over fifty years of official suppression of the gold price. As I have written before, after extensive and careful research, analyst Frank Veneroso concluded as long ago as 2002 that between 10,000 and 14,000 tonnes of central bank gold were either leased or swapped. And he further concluded that much of that gold “was adorning Asian women” so would not be returned.

    We know that the Bank of England arranges these contracts for its central bank clients. We can only assume that the New York Fed similarly arranges these income generating activities on behalf of earmarked gold in its custody. Worse still is the thought that the New York Fed might have sold off earmarked gold into the markets, which would explain why it refused to let Bundesbank representatives inspect its gold, and initially proved extremely reluctant to return only 300 tonnes out of 1,536 tonnes of Germany’s gold supposedly held in the New York vault. And presumably, it was the Bundesbank’s experience which prompted the Dutch Central Bank to repatriate 122 tonnes of its gold from New York, leaving 190 tonnes behind at the New York Fed.

    With the failing of the fiat currency regime, the chickens of gold leasing and price suppression are now coming home to roost. It is becoming apparent that at a minimum the stagflationary conditions of the 1970s are returning, when gold rose from the official rate of $35 per ounce to over $800. And the Fed funds rate rose from about 6% to nearly 20%. After fifty-two years of currency debasement, the starting point for a new rise in the gold price is somewhere between $1500—$2000. And arguably, the dollar is in a far worse position today than it was when President Nixon suspended the Bretton Woods Agreement.

    The legal position in the US is shared with the EU and UK, whereby holders of shares in ETFs could find the property in them plundered through the agency of JPMorgan Chase and other central clearing counterparties, where, it seems, their status permits them to deploy bullion and other private property as they see fit.

    The bullion banks are currently trying to close their paper shorts and to go long, benefiting from the ignorance of speculators, who believe that higher interest rates are bad for gold. That may be true in markets devoid of systemic and inflation risks, but only these fellows below would take this seriously in the developing situation.

    Currently, bond yields are rising strongly, which means that collateral values are falling. It amounts to a credit contraction of up to 30% on longer dated bonds so far. And where collateral backs leveraged interest rate swap positions, calls can be catastrophic.

    Fairly quickly, the gold price can be expected to reflect systemic and currency risks, which will trump any meme the three wise monkeys might come up with. Driving the dollar’s falling value measured in goods will be the funding outlook for the US Government. With interest costs likely to rise to $1.5 trillion in the fiscal year just started and the onset of economic stagnation if not outright recession, the budget deficit could easily top $3.5 trillion, perhaps eight or nine per cent of expenditure. And this is at a time of diminishing foreign appetite for US Treasuries.

    This takes us back to the enormous mountain of dollar credit in foreign hands, quantified in the table at the beginning of the article. Long term investments, totalling $26.113 trillion, plus a further $10.7 trillion in Eurobonds will all fall in value as interest rates continue to rise. There can be no doubt that foreigners will sell these positions down. Their only problem is what to do with cash dollars, which already amount to over $100 trillion. Other currencies are mostly less attractive than the dollar. There is only one thing to be done, and that is to follow the Singaporeans, who have the prescience to accumulate hard real money without counterparty risk, which is physical gold.

    And finally, there are geopolitical considerations. The deteriorating collateral position is surely being observed with concern in Asia and the Global South. The sudden rise in US Treasury bond yields is signalling that a global version of the UK’s liability driven investment debacle is already developing, in which case the collapse of financial market values could escalate rapidly from here.

    It is against this background that Russia and Saudi Arabia are driving up energy prices, leading to rising CPI inflation and expectations of higher interest rates to come. Commercial banks will almost certainly intensify credit restrictions as well. Viewed from outside America, it all amounts to intolerable pressures on the US and Eurozone credit systems. And if Russia, perhaps followed by China decide to deploy their gold reserves in order to secure the value of their currencies, it is bound to be the coup de grace for the fiat currency system.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 23:05

  • Homebuyers Under 25 Are Flocking To The Midwest
    Homebuyers Under 25 Are Flocking To The Midwest

    It’s official: the newest generation of homebuyers are flocking to the midwest. Cities with the most homebuyers under the age of 25 are located in this more affordable part of the country, a new study released by Construction Coverage found. 

    The study used data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s 2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and researchers at Construction Coverage “calculated the share of all home purchase loans taken out by applicants under 25 years old.”

    The study says that only “conventional home purchase loans originated in 2022 were considered for this analysis”.

    The key points of the study found:

    • The total number of conventional home loans originated in 2022 was down across all age groups from the year prior. Among all age cohorts, 65–74 year-olds experienced the largest percentage decline, decreasing by 22.3%. Notably, the under-25 age group only experienced a 12.3% decline, the smallest of all cohorts and a sign of persistent housing demand from younger generations despite economic headwinds.
    • Many of the states with the highest shares of home purchase loans from adults under age 25 are found in the more affordable Midwest, led by Iowa at 11.5%. The same trend holds at the local level, with many of the top metropolitan areas for young homeowners also found in that region.
    • In contrast, high-cost coastal states including Hawaii (1.6%) and California (1.9%) have much lower shares of home purchase loans from young adults. In these areas, would-be young homebuyers face more expensive homes and higher living costs, creating a higher barrier to entry in these real estate markets.

    As the study notes, millennials—those born from 1981 to 1996—now representing the largest age group in the United States and entering their prime years for acquiring their first or even second homes. These dynamics contribute to a surge of buyers vying for a diminishing pool of available properties. Freddie Mac reports that even before the pandemic hit, the housing market was facing an all-time low in supply.

    While there are indications that the feverish pace of the residential real estate market may be slowing after its unprecedented surge amid the COVID-19 crisis, the path to homeownership remains steep, the study says. The competitive landscape and escalating home prices pose particular challenges for younger individuals entering the market for the first time.

    The moderation in the housing market is further underscored by a decline in the issuance of conventional home loans in 2022, a trend that spanned all age brackets compared to the previous year. Among the various age groups, individuals aged 65–74 witnessed the most significant reduction, with loan originations plummeting by 22.3%. Conversely, younger buyers exhibited more resilience. Specifically, the cohort under 25 years old saw only a 12.3% drop in home loan volume, the least among all age groups. This suggests a sustained demand for housing from younger generations, even in the face of economic challenges.

    The study notes that before 2022 even came into focus, there had been a rising trend in homeownership interest among younger purchasers. In 2020, the rate of homeownership for those below 25 hit 25.7%, equaling a prior high point set during the 2005 housing bubble. While this percentage experienced a minor decrease in 2021, it rebounded to 25.4% in 2022. This is notably higher than the rates documented in the 1980s and 1990s, indicating a sustained enthusiasm for homeownership among the youngest cohort of adults.

    For those young adults eyeing homeownership, geographic disparities offer both opportunities and challenges. The Midwest states, spearheaded by Iowa at an 11.5% share, are notable hotspots for home purchase loans among individuals under 25. Lower housing prices in this region make it a more feasible option for younger buyers, who often have less equity compared to older home seekers. This pattern also persists at the city level, with numerous Midwestern metropolitan areas ranking high for young homeowners due to affordability.

    On the flip side, coastal states with high living costs, such as Hawaii and California, boasting meager shares of 1.6% and 1.9% respectively, present significant obstacles for young potential homeowners. The steep prices and elevated cost of living in these states construct a formidable barrier to entering their real estate markets.

    You can review the full study’s findings and sort by metro size here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 22:35

  • Exxon "Days Away" From Buying Shale Giant Pioneer In "Seismic Deal" That Will Reshape US Energy
    Exxon “Days Away” From Buying Shale Giant Pioneer In “Seismic Deal” That Will Reshape US Energy

    In a deal that would be transformational for the US energy sector, and spark another shale revolution, the WSJ writes that US supermajor, the largest US energy E&P and formerly the world’s largest company by market cap, Exxon – the company that according to the Big Guy made more money than God in 2021, is closing in on a deal to shale giant Pioneer Natural Resources, a blockbuster takeover that could be worth roughly $60 billion and reshape the U.S. oil industry.

    The deal, which the WSJ first leaked back in April and has described as “seismic” (metaphorically but also literally, ha ha)  could be sealed in the coming days, though it is still possible there won’t be one, sources told the Journal.

    After posting a record profit in 2022, and flush with cash, Exxon has been exploring options that would push it deeper into West Texas shale. An acquisition of Pioneer, with a market cap of around $50 billion, would be Exxon’s largest deal since its megamerger with Mobil in 1999, and would give Exxon a dominant position in the oil-rich Permian Basin, a region the oil giant has said is integral to its growth plans.

    Such a deal would not only eclipse the U.S. oil industry’s most recent blockbuster, Occidental’s 2019 acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum for about $38 billion, and top Exxon’s 2010 purchase of XTO Energy for more than $30 billion, it would make Exxon the second most important energy company in the world after Saudi Aramco.

    It would also be a legacy-shaping move for Exxon CEO Darren Woods, whose tenure at the company has seen its peaks and valleys.

    Woods, an Exxon-lifer who became CEO in 2017, initially promised to dramatically grow Exxon’s oil production only to see his plans felled by the pandemic. An oil-market collapse in 2020 led to Exxon’s first annual loss in decades—more than $22 billion. It lost a historic proxy fight in 2021 to investment firm Engine No. 1, which excoriated Exxon’s finances and argued it had no long-term strategy.

    And yet, without any handouts from the Biden admin unlike so many of its unionized corporate peers, Exxon rebounded to a record profit of $55.7 billion last year, propelled by soaring global demand for oil and gas as economies reopened. Exxon has used its prolific cash flows to reward investors with buybacks and dividends and pledged disciplined spending, though many wondered whether the company would dip into its coffers for a megadeal in the oil patch.

    We now know the answer. The acquisition marks Woods’s second significant acquisition, coming only a few months after Exxon scooped up CO2 pipeline operator Denbury for $4.9 billion. It would add vast swaths of West Texas acreage considered the core of the U.S. shale boom.

    As the WSJ notes, Pioneer’s acreage in the Midland Basin (the eastern portion of the Permian Basin, which straddles West Texas and New Mexico) is one of the largest collections of fertile oil land in the U.S., and the company holds one of the largest numbers of untapped drilling locations of any Permian player, analysts have said. In the wake of the pandemic, Pioneer snapped up two other large Permian operators, Parsley Energy and DoublePoint Energy, for a combined $11 billion in 2021.

    The tie-up will presage a wave of consolidation among shale companies. The industry has shifted from the rapid growth it pursued for more than a decade to a mature business underpinned by fiscal restraint and hefty investor payouts. But producers are contending with dwindling drilling locations. Drilling for new oil discoveries has fallen out of favor with investors, leaving many companies with few options other than to acquire rivals to extend their runway.

    Producers have deep coffers at their disposal to pursue deals after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year sent global prices soaring to more than $127 a barrel. Prices have retreated and been volatile since then. Exxon’s acquisition of Pioneer could be the first of a series of deals in the Permian, which contains shale wells that produce rapidly and don’t bind companies to decadeslong megaprojects that have fallen out of favor with some investors who fear a future decline in oil demand.

    The best news, however, is that Exxon just slapped the progressive lobby in its sanctimonious face. While environmentalists, lawmakers and others have hoped oil and gas companies would invest their record profits into green energy, that won’t be happening. And while Woods has pledged Exxon will invest $17 billion through 2027 in cutting the company’s carbon emissions and building a business that would help other companies reduce theirs too, investing in areas including carbon capture, biofuels and lithium mining, all that the shrewd CEO is doing is getting to the front of the line of the government’s green handouts.

    The bottom line: Exxon’s move to purchase Pioneer, even after its acquisition of Denbury, the CO2 pipeline operator, signals the company is still primarily planning to lean on its traditional oil-and-gas business for decades.

    That said, nothing is guaranteed in the energy sector which together with crypto, has emerged as the most hated industry of the so-called Democrats. In 2020, when the price of oil collapsed, and when many were doubting that Exxon would avoid bankruptcy, it subsequently emerged (again via the WSJ) that Exxon was considering a merger with Chevron, the energy sector’s 2nd largest company.  Back then, talks between Exxon and Chevron were preliminary and yielded no result.

    Then again, if Exxon manages to become not only the biggest it has ever been but also a cash flow machine and the world’s 2nd most important energy company under a Democratic administration, one can only imagine what will happen in 13 months time when the senile teleprompter reader is finally kicked out.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 22:07

  • Japan Splits Management Of The Impossible Trilemma: MOF For The Currency, BOJ For The Yields
    Japan Splits Management Of The Impossible Trilemma: MOF For The Currency, BOJ For The Yields

    Observing the cartoonish circus that is Japan’s central bank and ministry of finance, Bloomberg’s Masaki Kondo writes that Japan’s hesitation to let go of the yen means the BOJ is managing monetary policy amid an almost impossible trinity of outcomes. In the end the yen will probably take precedence over bonds with 10-year yields likely to climb toward 1%.

    The Mundell-Fleming trilemma stipulates a nation can’t achieve the free flow of capital, independent monetary policy and a fixed exchange rate simultaneously. The fact that Japan’s apparent reluctance to let JPY weaken despite the nation’s open capital account is putting the BOJ in this trilemma, to a certain degree.

    This difficulty is pronounced by the BOJ’s bond-purchase operation; the central bank may want to buy more bonds to keep yields low, but concern over a further weakness in the yen is preventing the BOJ from doing so. Japan’s way to get around this problem is to split the tasks: the MOF for the currency and the BOJ for yields.

    Whether this will work or not remains to be seen. But the initial rebound higher for USD/JPY after Tuesday’s slide suggests Japan’s authorities need to be even more convincing.

    * * *

    Meanwhile, continued yen weakness means one thing: inflation will keep rising and rising as real wages keep falling and falling… and just hit a record low.

    And there will come a point when even the world’s most compliant and sheepish society says enough.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 21:40

  • COVID-19 Shot May Be Linked To Unexpected Vaginal Bleeding: Study
    COVID-19 Shot May Be Linked To Unexpected Vaginal Bleeding: Study

    Authored by Mary Gillis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Syringes filled with COVID-19 vaccine sit on a table at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic on April 06, 2022 in San Rafael, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    Norwegian scientists have discovered an unusual side effect in COVID-19-vaccinated women who don’t menstruate: atypical vaginal bleeding after injection with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

    Researchers studied close to 22,000 women across different reproductive aging stages over about nine months and found that 3.3 percent of postmenopausal, 14.1 percent of perimenopausal, and 13.1 percent of premenopausal women experienced at least one unexpected bleed after receiving the COVID-19 shot, according to the authors of the study published in Science Advances.

    About half of the bleeds were said to have occurred within the first four weeks of getting the vaccine. Postmenopausal women’s risk of bleeding was two to three times higher during the 28 days after injection than before receiving the shot. The link was stronger in perimenopausal and premenopausal women, with both groups showing a three- to fivefold elevated risk. Perimenopausal women are typically in their 40s and have begun experiencing some menopause symptoms but can still get pregnant, while premenstrual women have no menopause symptoms.

    Researchers also found a difference in women’s susceptibility when given one shot over the other. Premenopausal women were at a 32 percent higher risk of vaginal bleeding after a dose of the Moderna vaccine than the Pfizer.

    How Is Vaccination Linked to Bleeding?

    Study author Kristine Blix and her colleagues at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo drew from questionnaire data from an ongoing population health survey to investigate COVID-19 vaccines and unexpected bleeding in the three groups.

    “We had already, from the early pandemic, biweekly questionnaires going out to cohort participants to monitor effects of the pandemic,” Ms. Blix told Nature.

    Responses to the 2021 questionnaire indicated that some women experienced unusually heavy menstrual bleeding after receiving the vaccine. “This urged us to ask for bleeding patterns in a structured manner,” she said.

    Ms. Blix’s team didn’t investigate the reasons for the unexplained bleeding, and no conclusive evidence supports that the shot caused it. However, one theory is that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the vaccines may be a culprit.

    “Increased risk after both Comirnaty (Pfizer) and Spikevax (Moderna) suggest a mechanism related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein and not to other vaccine components,” the authors wrote in the paper. “This is also supported by a higher risk observed after Spikevax in premenopausal women.” Possible pathways to induce the bleeding may stem from a spike protein-related immune response or an endometrial expression of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors that serve as the virus’ entry point, they continued.

    Additional Studies

    A study published in February that examined close to 8,000 women found abnormal bleeding to be a common side effect of the Pfizer vaccine. Most women experienced excessive bleeding between their vaccination date and their next menstrual period, authors wrote in the paper, recommending further investigation into the events and the possible long-term consequences of vaccine-induced vaginal bleeding.

    In 2022, The Lancet published a study where researchers showed that a cohort of nearly 64,000 respondents ages 18 and older experienced menstrual irregularities or vaginal bleeding in the form of altered menstruation timing and severity of menstrual symptoms to menopausal bleeding and resumption of menses.

    In contrast, a 2023 study published in Vaccine showed premenopausal women vaccinated for COVID-19 were no more likely to report irregular menstrual cycles or heavier bleeds after the shot than unvaccinated women. However, the authors acknowledged about a one-day delay or one-day longer cycle in vaccinated versus unvaccinated women.

    Possible Causes of Irregular Vaginal Bleeding

    Irregular bleeding may be caused by several factors ranging from stress to more serious underlying medical conditions, including:

    • Endometriosis.
    • Pelvic inflammatory disease.
    • Polycystic ovary syndrome.
    • Primary ovarian insufficiency.
    • Thyroid or pituitary gland disorders.
    • Uterine or ovarian cancer.

    Medications and pregnancy complications may also cause irregular bleeding. These include:

    • Birth control pills.
    • Medications including steroids or blood thinners.
    • Miscarriages or an ectopic pregnancy.
    • Surgeries, scarring, or blockages in a woman’s uterus, ovaries, or fallopian tubes.

    FDA Still Recommends the Vaccine

    On Sept. 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized an updated COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use—one “formulated to more closely target currently circulating variants and to provide better protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.”

    “Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a press release. “The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 21:20

  • Education Shock: 200 Maryland Public Schools Have <5% Students Proficient In Math 
    Education Shock: 200 Maryland Public Schools Have <5% Students Proficient In Math 

    Investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore revealed Thursday morning another bombshell report on the massive grade scandal in the progressive state of Maryland:

    FACT: Current state of Maryland public schools. More than 200 schools (according to state data) have 5% or fewer students proficient in math. Meaning, in at least 200 schools, at best 95% of students are NOT math proficient. Seems unbelievable, but true.

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    Papst wrote in the report, “There are at least 200 schools where, according to the state’s data, the percentage of students proficient in math is five percent or less. More than 77,000 Maryland students took the test in those roughly 200 schools. There’s a chance none are proficient in math. Project Baltimore only has the raw data for Baltimore City schools. So, taxpayers will never know because the state won’t tell you.”

    Papst said for over a decade, the Maryland State Department of Education has redacted test scores in what they say is “enhanced deidentification.” The redactions replace test score data with asterisks so the public will never know students’ progress, while state officials can boast about spending the most ever on education. 

    Sean Kennedy from the Maryland Public Policy Institute told Papst in April: “The State Education Department is instituting a cover-up of what’s going on in public schools; it’s outrageous.” 

    In February, Papst revealed that 23 Baltimore City Schools had zero students proficient in math from an inside source in the school system. And again, last month, he found 13 Baltimore City High Schools had zero students proficient on the state math exam. 

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    State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury is anticipated to step down over the grade scandal on Friday.

    It’s absolutely absurd that education officials appear to be covering up failing test scores across the leftist state while robbing the younger generation blind of an education. Maybe they care more about their paychecks and bonuses than the future. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 20:55

  • Nancy Pelosi Evicted From Her Private Office By Acting House Speaker
    Nancy Pelosi Evicted From Her Private Office By Acting House Speaker

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

    Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks during her final weekly news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Dec. 22, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) ordered Democrats who recently left leadership positions to vacate their private offices in the U.S. Capitol shortly after becoming acting speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

    Mr. McHenry ordered Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was speaker until January, to vacate her hideaway office, Ms. Pelosi said.

    “One of the first actions taken by the new speaker pro tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol,” she said in a statement.

    “Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time.”

    Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) died on Sept. 29 at age 90.

    Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) speaks to the press after meeting President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit at the White House in Washington on May 22, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Ms. Pelosi said that the eviction was “a sharp departure from tradition,” referencing that she allowed former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to keep his private office “for as long as he wished.”

    According to reports, an email from Mr. McHenry’s office to Ms. Pelosi states that he was going to reassign the hideaway “for speaker office use.”

    “Please vacate the space tomorrow,” the email reportedly reads.

    Ms. Pelosi said, “Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them. Now that the new Republican leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important for the American people.”

    Democrats Cry Foul

    Ms. Pelosi was one of the members who didn’t vote on the motion earlier on Oct. 3 to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as speaker.

    Mr. McCarthy, who was ousted from the speaker position and apparently allowed Ms. Pelosi to keep her private office, didn’t return an inquiry.

    Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who held a leadership position until January, was also told to vacate his hideaway office by Mr. McHenry, a spokeswoman for Mr. Hoyer told The Epoch Times via email.

    Mr. McHenry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    Democrats decried the move.

    “While Nancy Pelosi is in California mourning the loss of her longtime friend, Patrick McHenry does this. From top to bottom the House GOP are classless and shameful people who are desperate to score cheap political points rather than govern,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

    Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) leaves the House Chamber after being ousted from his position in Washington on Oct. 3, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Mr. McHenry became speaker pro tempore after the House approved a resolution to remove Mr. McCarthy. Eight Republicans, not including Mr. McHenry, sided with Democrats to approve the resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

    Mr. McCarthy compiled a list of members who would serve as speaker pro tempore if he were ousted, under rules passed by the House. Mr. McHenry, known as an ally of Mr. McCarthy, was at the top of the list.

    Mr. McHenry, as acting speaker, will exercise authorities such as presiding over proceedings of the House, including a vote for the next speaker. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) told reporters that Mr. McHenry’s main task will be to “get us a new speaker.” Anything further would spark a move to oust Mr. McHenry as well, he said.

    What’s Next

    Until a new House speaker is installed, it’s unlikely that further action will be taken on bills to fund the government, with lawmakers facing a Nov. 17 deadline to provide more money or face a partial government shutdown.

    Although the speaker sets the overall legislative agenda in the House, it’s the House majority leader who schedules specific bills to be debated and voted upon in the chamber.

    Republican lawmakers said they would need at least a week to choose a new speaker, which will eat into the time necessary to pass that needed legislation.

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 12, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Democrats can also put forth a candidate and are expected to offer Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

    Mr. Jeffries lost the race to Mr. McCarthy in January. That race went 15 rounds and took days to resolve.

    To win, a candidate needs the votes of a majority of members present.

    Mr. McCarthy, the first speaker removed by a motion to vacate in U.S. history, said he wouldn’t run again. He remains in the House and can vote in the upcoming speaker election.

    Under the U.S. Constitution, the House speaker doesn’t have to be a member of Congress, so some Republicans have floated the name of former President Donald Trump for the position, even though he’s running for president and has said he doesn’t want the job.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 20:30

  • Putin Claims Successful Test Of Nuclear-Powered 'Global-Range' Cruise Missile For 1st Time
    Putin Claims Successful Test Of Nuclear-Powered ‘Global-Range’ Cruise Missile For 1st Time

    Each year, Russian President Vladimir Putin uses the occasion of the Valdai Discussion Club hosted in Sochi to present on a wide range of foreign policy issues in an off the cuff manner, which most often comes out in Q&A format. He did the same Thursday at this year’s Valdai event, and one of the statements which is grabbing the attention of Western officials was related to testing nuclear weapons, at a sensitive moment where the last nuclear weapons treaty with Washington is set to fail.

    “I think no person of sound mind and clear memory would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia,” Putin began in that segment of a speech before Russian foreign policy officials. That’s when he made a statement being widely perceived as signaling openness to resumption of nuclear testing: 

    “I hear calls to start testing nuclear weapons, to return to testing,” he added. “I am not ready to say whether we really need to conduct tests or not.”

    Illustrative, via BBC

    He also raised eyebrows in immediately touting completed work on the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, with the former being identified as a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

    “We conducted the last successful test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered global-range cruise missile,” he said. This weapon hasn’t been publicly mentioned by Putin since 2018, and suddenly he’s revealed it’s been successfully tested.

    Code-named Skyfall by NATO, the consensus among Western analysts has long been that the technology is likely too hard to achieve given unreliability and volatility of such a nuclear propulsion engine. On the deep significance of the ‘threat’ to possibly put the Burevestnik on combat readiness, Mario Nawfal comments:

    Putin also declined to rule out the possibility it could carry out weapons tests involving nuclear explosions for the first time in more than three decades. Today, Putin warned the West of a ‘response’ to the pressure, and his willingness to ‘end the war’:

    “There is permanently increasing military and political pressure [from the West]. We have to respond. I have said many times that it was not us who started the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we are trying to end it.”

    “The West has lost the sense of reality. Ukrainian conflict is not about territories. The issue is about global order.” Zelensky warned Europe that if Ukraine loses, Russia will attack other counties as well. Is Russia posturing again, as we’ve seen in the past, or is this not a bluff?

    * * *

    Other interesting moments from Putin’s words before Valdai are as follows…

    Putin: Not against Ukraine’s EU aspirations, but categorically against NATO membership.

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    West is now crossing all boundaries in the proxy war:

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    He additionally reiterated that Russia has not only resisted US-Europe led sanctions, but he is optimistic for the future of a thriving Russian economy…

    “In general, the situation is stable. We have overcome all the sanctions-related issues, and have started the next stage of [economic] development on a new basis, which is fundamentally important,” Putin stated.

    The West always needs an enemy, he further stated:

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    He also stressed the usual themes of US unilateralism and “colonialism” – and hegemony at the expense of the rest of the globe:

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    Putin also at one point asserted that he’s not seeking to expand the war to other countries – contrary to what many pundits in the West have claimed.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 20:05

  • Victor Davis Hanson: Our Establishment's Alternate Realities
    Victor Davis Hanson: Our Establishment’s Alternate Realities

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    One common denominator that explains why previously successful societies implode is their descent into fantasies. A collective denial prevents even discussion of existential threats and their solutions.

    Something like that is happening in the United States. Eight million illegal immigrants have entered the United States by the deliberate erasure of the southern border.

    Apparently, the Biden administration sees some unstated advantage in destroying U.S. immigration law and welcoming in would-be new constituents.

    Yet, the more the millions arrive, the more Joe Biden and his Homeland Security director Alejandro Mayorkas flat out lie that “the border is secure.”

    They both live in a world of make-believe, passed off to the American people as reality.

    And the more the Americans are lied to that the border is secure, the more they poll—currently 77 percent—that it is not.

    Biden apparently has reversed course and begun using the former pejorative “Bidenomics” as a term of pride.

    He now praises this three-year effort to borrow $6-7 trillion, and spike interest rates threefold to 7% on home mortgages—even as prices on essentials like food and fuel have spiked 25-30% since he entered office.

    The more that Biden brags about what he did to the economy, the more people poll—over 60%—dissatisfaction with his alternate reality of “Bidenomics.”

    Do we remember the humiliation in August 2021 in Afghanistan?

    The more Gen. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Joe Biden assured that the American military presence was stable, the more swiftly it crumbled and descended into the worst mass flight of an American army since Vietnam.

    Consider natural gas and oil. The Biden administration waged war on both by canceling pipelines, drilling on federal lands, and entire oil fields.

    When the price soared and the 2022 midterms neared, Biden suddenly begged formerly shunned illiberal regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela to pump all the hated oil they could to lower the price.

    A desperate Biden drained much of the strategic petroleum reserve—he has yet to refill it—simply to lower the price of gasoline and thus win voters back to the Democratic Party.

    When the midterms passed, Biden resumed his attack on once bad, then good, and now bad again fossil fuels—at least until the 2024 election.

    Stranger still is the denial of the current crime wave in our major cities. Predators and thugs have turned once iconic downtowns into either war zones or ghost towns or both.

    Smash-and-grab swarming of stores and matter-of-fact shoplifting are destroying commerce in our major cities.

    Unsustainable stores either leave or shut down. Communities who vote for politicians who defund the police blame the stores for leaving—but not the criminals whose brazen thefts made it impossible to do business in the inner city.

    Now modern-day pirates with impunity storm, sink, and rob boats of all kinds in the Oakland marina and estuary.

    Leftwing journalists and activists, and even Democratic politicians, who all supported defunding the police, now cannot escape the resulting street violence and unleashed murderous predations.

    Everyone knows the culprit is the post-George Floyd effort—with Biden administration complicity—to defund the police, end cash bail, institutionalize catch-and-release of criminals, and show more sympathy toward victimizers than victims.

    Yet neither state nor local officials nor Joe Biden himself even admits to a crime wave. The more the public is attacked and avoids major downtowns, the more it polls furor over the crime wave.

    The more our officials, in gaslighting style, claim such alarm is all in our collective heads, the more they themselves are attacked by the very criminals their policies empowered.

    Sometimes the fantasies extend to the trivial. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn) for months has dressed like an utter slob while on the Senate floor. As a gesture of approval, Democrats junked the dress code so he could wear his sloppy cut-offs and hoodie.

    Americans were to assume his slovenly costume was normal apparel—and they were hypercritical for thinking otherwise.

    Recently Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) pulled a Senate fire alarm to disrupt and delay a vote on continuing the funding of the government. But he got caught on a Capitol surveillance video committing the crime.

    Bowman whined that he got confused. He preposterously claimed by pulling the alarm he thought he was opening a door to go vote.

    All of that was pure fantasy. The alarm was clearly marked. A sign in front of the door warned not to enter. And the door itself was placarded with cautions that any attempt to open it would set off emergency alarms.

    No matter. Bowman assumed by calling his critics “Nazis” and using the race card, he could invent a virtual reality.

    Despite our epidemic of fantasy, there remains reality.

    And we will soon rediscover it all too soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 19:40

  • Mapping The Gerontocracy
    Mapping The Gerontocracy

    The passing of California Senator Dianne Feinstein at the age of 90 is throwing a spotlight on America’s political establishment, not only with the government narrowly escaping shutdown, but on questions of ageism, representation, and fitness for office.

    Feinstein had a noteworthy career. As the longest-running woman in the Senate’s history, she served the nation’s most populous state.

    Yet, as Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld details below, Feinstein’s growing health complications along with two incidents of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell freezing while speaking this year highlight the growing trend of America’s aging leadership.

    The above graphic shows the age of U.S. senators, by state as of October 5, 2023.

    How the Age of U.S. Senators Breaks Down

    Today, 66% of senators are over the age of 60.

    While senators have historically been older than the American population, consider how the median age in the U.S. is 39 according to the 2020 U.S. Census, and the median age of the Senate prior to Feinstein’s passing was 65.

    We can see in the below table how the Senate has become growingly older, influenced by longer lifespans and the increased likelihood of members running for re-election (and winning). In addition, members in the Baby Boomer generation, ages 58 to 77 years old, often have more resources and wealth to help secure their seat.

    Name Senator Age State Party
    Grassley, Chuck 90 Iowa Republican
    Sanders, Bernard 82 Vermont Independent
    McConnell, Mitch 81 Kentucky Republican
    Risch, James E. 80 Idaho Republican
    Cardin, Benjamin L. 80 Maryland Democratic
    King, Angus S., Jr. 79 Maine Independent
    Durbin, Richard J. 78 Illinois Democratic
    Blumenthal, Richard 77 Connecticut Democratic
    Markey, Edward J. 77 Massachusetts Democratic
    Carper, Thomas R. 76 Delaware Democratic
    Shaheen, Jeanne 76 New Hampshire Democratic
    Welch, Peter 76 Vermont Democratic
    Manchin, Joe, III 76 West Virginia Democratic
    Romney, Mitt 76 Utah Republican
    Hirono, Mazie K. 75 Hawaii Democratic
    Warren, Elizabeth 74 Massachusetts Democratic
    Wyden, Ron 74 Oregon Democratic
    Stabenow, Debbie 73 Michigan Democratic
    Reed, Jack 73 Rhode Island Democratic
    Schumer, Charles E. 72 New York Democratic
    Murray, Patty 72 Washington Democratic
    Boozman, John 72 Arkansas Republican
    Crapo, Mike 72 Idaho Republican
    Wicker, Roger F. 72 Mississippi Republican
    Fischer, Deb 72 Nebraska Republican
    Hickenlooper,
    John W.    		 71 Colorado Democratic
    Kennedy, John 71 Louisiana Republican
    Blackburn, Marsha 71 Tennessee Republican
    Cornyn, John 71 Texas Republican
    Barrasso, John 71 Wyoming Republican
    Brown, Sherrod 70 Ohio Democratic
    Scott, Rick 70 Florida Republican
    Collins, Susan M. 70 Maine Republican
    Menendez, Robert 69 New Jersey Democratic
    Tuberville, Tommy 69 Alabama Republican
    Braun, Mike 69 Indiana Republican
    Moran, Jerry 69 Kansas Republican
    Capito,
    Shelley Moore    		 69 West Virginia Republican
    Lummis, Cynthia M. 69 Wyoming Republican
    Warner, Mark R. 68 Virginia Democratic
    Graham, Lindsey 68 South Carolina Republican
    Rounds, Mike 68 South Dakota Republican
    Johnson, Ron 68 Wisconsin Republican
    Tester, Jon 67 Montana Democratic
    Whitehouse, Sheldon 67 Rhode Island Democratic
    Rosen, Jacky 66 Nevada Democratic
    Merkley, Jeff 66 Oregon Democratic
    Murkowski, Lisa 66 Alaska Republican
    Hoeven, John 66 North Dakota Republican
    Cassidy, Bill 66 Louisiana Republican
    Smith, Tina 65 Minnesota Democratic
    Hassan,
    Margaret Wood    		 65 New Hampshire Democratic
    Kaine, Tim 65 Virginia Democratic
    Van Hollen, Chris 64 Maryland Democratic
    Peters, Gary C. 64 Michigan Democratic
    Cantwell, Maria 64 Washington Democratic
    Hyde-Smith, Cindy 64 Mississippi Republican
    Hagerty, Bill 64 Tennessee Republican
    Klobuchar, Amy 63 Minnesota Democratic
    Casey,
    Robert P., Jr.    		 63 Pennsylvania Democratic
    Marshall, Roger 63 Kansas Republican
    Tillis, Thom 63 North Carolina Republican
    Cramer, Kevin 62 North Dakota Republican
    Thune, John 62 South Dakota Republican
    Baldwin, Tammy 61 Wisconsin Democratic
    Daines, Steve 61 Montana Republican
    Coons,
    Christopher A.    		 60 Delaware Democratic
    Paul, Rand 60 Kentucky Republican
    Kelly, Mark 59 Arizona Democratic
    Cortez Masto,
    Catherine    		 59 Nevada Democratic
    Ricketts, Pete 59 Nebraska Republican
    Bennet, Michael F. 58 Colorado Democratic
    Sullivan, Dan 58 Alaska Republican
    Scott, Tim 58 South Carolina Republican
    Gillibrand, Kirsten E. 56 New York Democratic
    Duckworth, Tammy 55 Illinois Democratic
    Lankford, James 55 Oklahoma Republican
    Warnock,
    Raphael G.    		 54 Georgia Democratic
    Booker, Cory A. 54 New Jersey Democratic
    Fetterman, John 54 Pennsylvania Democratic
    Ernst, Joni 53 Iowa Republican
    Rubio, Marco 52 Florida Republican
    Cruz, Ted 52 Texas Republican
    Lee, Mike 52 Utah Republican
    Heinrich, Martin 51 New Mexico Democratic
    Luján, Ben Ray 51 New Mexico Democratic
    Young, Todd 51 Indiana Republican
    Budd, Ted 51 North Carolina Republican
    Padilla, Alex 50 California Democratic
    Murphy, Christopher 50 Connecticut Democratic
    Schatz, Brian 50 Hawaii Democratic
    Schmitt, Eric 48 Missouri Republican
    Sinema, Kyrsten 47 Arizona Independent
    Cotton, Tom 46 Arkansas Republican
    Mullin, Markwayne 46 Oklahoma Republican
    Laphonza Butler 44 California Democratic
    Hawley, Josh 43 Missouri Republican
    Britt, Katie Boyd 41 Alabama Republican
    Vance, J.D. 39 Ohio Republican
    Ossoff, Jon 36 Georgia Democratic

    On the other end of the spectrum are nine senators under the age of 50, including Democrat Jon Ossoff of Georgia, at 36, and Republican senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, at 39. Laphonza Butler, 44, the newly appointed senator to replace Feinstein, also falls within this camp.

    This trend of an older Senate may have policy ramifications.

    Studies show that lawmakers’ identities can influence legislative behavior. Older members of Congress have been shown to have a higher likelihood of introducing legislation on prescription drugs and long-term care, and other issues affecting seniors.

    Other studies show that racial minorities, women, and veterans are more likely to intervene in Congress in the interest of these groups.

    Top U.S. Senators, by Time in Office

    Along with the trend of an older Congress, the average number of years served has also increased.

    Today, senators in the 118th Congress have served 11.2 years on average as of January 2023. Over the 20th century, turnover has decreased due to more senators seeking re-election, which stands in contrast to the Senate’s early history when turnover happened more frequently.

    Below, we show the currently serving senators that have held office the longest, based on their time in both the Senate and the House:

    Name State Party Number of Years in Office
    Grassley, Chuck Iowa Republican 48 years
    Markey, Ed Massachusetts Democrat 46 years
    Wyden, Ron Oregon Democrat 42 years
    Schumer, Charles E. New York Democrat 42 years
    McConnell, Mitch Kentucky Republican 38 years

    Together, the top five U.S. senators have served a combined 216 years in office.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 19:20

  • "As I Look Into The Future, I See Anarchy"
    “As I Look Into The Future, I See Anarchy”

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    One of my favorite investors that I love reading and following, Harris Kupperman, has offered up his thoughts on what his next big bet could be.

    Harris is the founder of Praetorian Capital, a hedge fund focused on using macro trends to guide stock selection.

    Harris is one of my favorite follows and I find his opinions – especially on macro and commodities – to be extremely resourceful. I’m certain my readers will find the same. I was excited when he offered up his latest thoughts, published below (slightly edited for grammar, bold emphasis is QTR’s).

    Please be sure to read both my and Harris’ disclaimers, located at the bottom of this post.

    The Great Macro Dreamscape Part 1

    In late March of 2020, one of the greatest wealth transfers of my lifetime began. It remade our world—or at least it remade my world. Those who recognized Covid as a hoax, were there to reap the rewards. Others who cowered in fear, were my victims. While I pressed the accelerator on exposure and risk, others sought safety in rapidly depreciating cash, or worse, shorted risk assets while they hid from benign germs. Our disparate account statements stand witness to the decisions we each made.

    Now, as we enter the great macro dreamscape, I realize that Covid was simply a warm-up for what seems almost inevitable. Rarely has the world’s only superpower undergone a self-immolation of its multi-faceted role in the global order.

    Gone are our desires to be the global hegemon, support the world’s reserve currency, or even be seen as a respected adult. As we’re increasingly banished to the kid’s table of global discourse, the macro landscape is spiraling at an ever-faster pace. Our bond market is drifting off, doomed by our precarious fiscal balances. Our place in the world is questioned after Afghan goat herders and then Russian convicts faced off against our military machine with great success.

    Meanwhile, our institutions, long hailed globally, descend into corruption, nepotism and incompetence. America isn’t dead, but it needs to be totally reinvented. However, that’s all in the future; as macro investors, we only deal in the present. Nothing is carved in stone, but the outcomes, while path-dependent are increasingly becoming unavoidable.

    Empires rise and fall. They follow an arc. The path downward can be graceful, or clumsy—gradual or sudden. This uncertainty is what creates the current opportunity. Meanwhile, the inevitability of this path, sets in action one of those rare wealth transfers that comes along only once or twice in an investor’s career.

    I intend to take more than my fair share. I intend to be a pig at the trough.

    As an inflection trader, with a focus on second-tier macro trends, I suffered through the 2010s. It was a miserable time for investors like me. Sure, I made a bunch of money, I cannot cry too hard, but it was tough to squeeze Alpha from stone. The trends were mere whispers, and the rewards weren’t always discernable.

    I had to hop around, scavenge at opportunities, and suffer through long periods with little to do. It was frustrating—especially as the Globalist Cucks hid out in large cap tech stocks, that seemed to appreciate endlessly, with single-digit realized volatility.

    Then Covid came along, awakening all the dormant imbalances in the global order. The overreaction of governments finally tipped things out of stasis. For a fleeting moment, there was a fissure in the universe. They opened the skies and money rained down upon my portfolio. I grabbed it until my arms grew so tired that I couldn’t reach out and grab any more. I literally had to force myself to stay in the game, to stay engaged, to focus and push the envelope—especially after the boredom of the prior decade. I also knew it wouldn’t last—I had to maximize the opportunity.

    50% OFF ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS: Subscribe and get 50% off and no price hikes for as long as you wish to be a subscriber.

    Then, the mana became scarce. Opportunity disappeared. Tech resumed its dominance and inflections became rare. I’ve spent the past six quarters wondering if we’re back in the narrative of the past decade, or just traipsing through an extended intermission.

    I’m increasingly of the view that we’re in the eye of the storm, a moment to catch one’s bearings and reassess everything that was previously upheld as the truth. The rules are no longer the rules.

    The Globalists have tried to resurrect their eminence following the Peak Globalist cluster-fuckery that was Covid. Yet, in the process, they’ve shattered their own image, while not realizing it. That revelation is still oncoming. Now freed from a need to uphold their aura of magnanimity, they’ll unleash their most insidious and aggressive attacks on the natural order.

    This will be their final undoing, accompanied first by great suffering for those who are not part of their clique. There is no retreat for the Davos Crowd, they will only push forward, their evil will metastasize. Fortunately, it’s impossible to be a diabolical leader when the peasants laugh at your acronyms and meme your propaganda. The world simply will not congeal to their mold. The tussle to win at all costs will consume them and the nations that they represent.

    Today’s malaise in equity markets is simply an echo bubble; peak beneficent Globalism has already passed us by. Soon, it all comes crumbling down. There’s nothing to replace it. Rather, there’s a fight amongst those who’d gladly inherit the world—yet none are particularly ready to bear that mantle.

    Now, as I look into the future, I see anarchy. Said another way, I see opportunity. Covid was the dry run. Now we’re into the main event. Will the US go down in a supernova of stupid? Or will we stand and fight?

    Will we cower from carbon and affix rainbows to every physical structure, defying the laws of progress? Or will we get on with it and try our best to avert the tailspin? I have no answers, but I know storm clouds when I see them; the storm wall is visible and approaching. How our leaders face these demons, or incite them in fury, will set the tone for this decade’s capital markets.

    I’m not here to say what’s right or wrong. I’m merely focused on the mission at hand. I’m an observer of events, a trader of markets. I believe we’re now entering the golden age of global macro.

    Old orders are collapsing, pulled down by the weight of their hubris. New orders aren’t yet ready to take their place. Chaos is the eager ally of traders with an open mind. Great traders have a fluidity that adjusts to new realities, while conjuring visions of tail events. I expect a proper clusterfuck, full of fury, violence and volatility. While I recognize the suffering that this will bring, I also know that my mission is to stretch my arms out wide and grab as much as I can.

    It’s about to rain opportunity for Macro traders. Unfortunately, it won’t be wealth creation, it will be a wealth transfer. This isn’t my choice, I’m simply a creature of the environment thrust upon me. Those who are ill prepared, are about to be victimized by those who not only understand what’s coming but have educated themselves on how to profit from it. This is my moment!

    War, famine, pestilence, and other biblical plagues are mere phenomena when compared to the pernicious nature of inflation. Unless you’ve lived in a country with persistent inflation, you cannot understand how it works, how it infects society, or how it re-orients prior relationships amongst the political class, the economy and capital assets. Books are mere curios; they cannot really explain the social effects of inflation, the lives destroyed by bad decisions, nor those who profited through it. You need to see it yourself; you need to experience it. Inflation is the great leveler.

    My focus in college was late Roman decline. I am a fatalist at heart—Gibbon was the relative optimist. At the same time, I see opportunity everywhere. Many will say, “then why don’t you just buy gold?” That’s the lazy man’s hedge for what’s coming. Hugo Stinnes is the man to study, not the parasites selling you collapsing mining schemes.

    Come along on this journey into the abyss of the socialist nation-state in its death-rattle. New worlds will be formed. New rules invented. A new hope. But first, the walls must tumble around us. We cannot get too many steps ahead in this adventure. The extreme amplitude of opportunities, the binary nature of bad decisions, they all haunt me, as I know what’s coming.

    When you’re treading on the quicksand of a collapsing global order, every trade may be your last. One cannot get distracted—one must stay focused. A better world will come out of the ashes. I want to invest in that world. Investing in chaos has a melancholy to it. However, I’m a trader—I trade the world that I see. That world is shifting and fast. Castles are crumbling. Everything we’ve held sacred in finance is turning upside down. The pace of change will now accelerate, the oddity, the confusion, the old rules vaporizing—they’ll bury speculators who cannot adapt. I plan to prosper.

    The next few years will be when winners simply keep winning, because they’re grounded in history, with a healthy dose of cynicism and libertarian ethos. The many will grab for wealth, yet mostly end up with fistfuls of rapidly depreciating sand. Last generation’s winners will surrender everything. The laws of finance and even nature itself will be re-invented. Open your mind to the possibilities. You are on this phantasmal voyage; even if you try and disembark—the choice isn’t yours. It’s simply part of the cycle. Instead, embrace it. Prepare for it. Love it.

    It’s about to get wild…

    I’ve waited my whole life for this. I’ve studied. I’ve prepared. I’m ready. Bring it on!

    If you enjoy this content, we’d love to have you on our subscription list. 

    QTR’s Disclaimer: I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

    Harris’ Disclaimer: Past performance of Praetorian Capital Fund LLC and its feeder fund Praetorian Capital Offshore Ltd. (collectively, the “Funds”) is not indicative of future results. No representations or warranties of any kind are made or intended, and none should be inferred, with respect to the economic return or the tax consequences from a potential investment in the Funds. Each investor should consult their own counsel and accountant for advice concerning the various legal, tax and economic matters concerning their investment. The information provided herein does not constitute an offer to sell an interest in the Funds. Such offer can only be made to qualified investors pursuant to the Funds’ Confidential Private Placement Memorandum (“Offering Memorandum”), the Subscription Documents relating thereto and the Limited Liability Company Agreement, as applicable, which set forth the complete terms of the offer. 

    No representation or warranty (express or implied) is made or can be given with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the information found within this website. Certain information constitutes “forward-looking statements” about potential future results. Those results may not be achieved, due to implementation lag, other timing factors, portfolio management decision-making, economic or market conditions or other unanticipated factors. Nothing contained herein shall be relied upon as a promise or representation whether as to past or future performance or otherwise. Please read Harris’ full disclaimer here.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 19:00

  • Starbucks Closing 7 San Francisco Locations Amid Crime Wave (But Swears It's Unrelated)
    Starbucks Closing 7 San Francisco Locations Amid Crime Wave (But Swears It’s Unrelated)

    In July of 2022, Starbucks announced the closure of 16 profitable locations due to dangerous incidents involving drug use and “other disruptions” in cafes. In a leaked video, former interim CEO Howard Schultz said that the US “has become unsafe,” and that Starbucks is a “window to America.”

    Now, the company is closing seven locations in San Francisco. And while they didn’t cite the explosion in crime in the Golden Gate City (and no leaked videos to shed light), the move comes amid a shocking survey that found roughly 97% of San Francisco’s restaurants have experienced some form of graffiti or property crime in the past month.

    “Each year as a standard course of business, we evaluate the store portfolio to determine where we can best meet our community and customers’ needs,” a spokesperson told the NY Post on Wednesday. “This includes opening new locations, identifying stores in need of investment or renovation, exploring locations where an alternative format is needed and, in some instances, re-evaluating our footprint.”

    Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, some 40 retail stores have ditched the once-bustling Union Square section of downtown San Francisco — in addition to the dozens of others that have pulled up stakes from surrounding regions of the city.

    Nordstrom, CB2, Anthropologie, Whole Foods, Old Navy, Saks Off 5th, Office Depot, Athleta, Abercrombie & Fitch, Disney, Marshall’s, H&M, and Gap have either closed stores within San Francisco city limits or announced plans to do so. -NY Post

    In June, a study by personal finance website WalletHub ranked San Francisco as the worst-run city in the country, which is no surprise considering that a commercial real estate crisis is unfolding in the downtown area as building owners are defaulting on properties. Crime is out of control, forcing businesses to flee. And Democrats who control the town appear to have no interest in enforcing law and order. 

    What’s more, SF office space has plummeted in value, while Moody’s has lowered the city’s credit rating outlook to negative amid a $780 million budget shortfall due to shrinking tax revenues.

    And now, the city’s homeless residents have seven fewer places to call home.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 18:40

  • Johnstone: When Even The Nazis Aren't Nazis
    Johnstone: When Even The Nazis Aren’t Nazis

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    In what Matt Taibbi has described as “the worst op-ed in history”, Politico Europe has published an astonishing article titled “Fighting against the USSR didn’t necessarily make you a Nazi”, which defends the scandal of the Canadian parliament applauding a literal SS Nazi veteran as a “complicated” issue that is being exploited by “propagandists”.

    Last year liberals were calling their political opponents Nazis and comparing Putin to Hitler. This year they’re defending Nazis and saying you can’t hate someone just because he swore allegiance to Hitler.

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

    ❖

    I used to think Nazis were bad but then the mainstream press explained to me that many of the Nazis had reasons for wanting to be Nazis.

    ❖

    For generations the US empire has been manufacturing a cultural obsession with the second world war in order to frame all its subsequent wars as “Good Guys vs Hitler Guys”, then the millisecond that framework became inconvenient it’s “Actually the Nazis weren’t all that bad if you think about it.”

    ❖

    So let’s recap.

    Jeremy Corbyn supporters: Nazis.

    Palestinian rights activists: Nazis.

    People who criticize Israel: Nazis.

    People who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton: Nazis.

    Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi insignia and Nazi ideology: not Nazis.

    Actual SS Nazis: not Nazis.

    ❖

    The war in Ukraine is a giant field demo for war profiteering corporations to show prospective buyers and investors how effective their products can be at ripping apart human bodies. The whole country’s been turned into a giant advertisement for the military industrial complex.

    Ukraine is the Superbowl for arms industry ads, except instead of costing millions of dollars to advertise there, it costs rivers of human blood.

    ❖

    Super excited for a future Republican president to eventually end the US proxy war in Ukraine and get celebrated as an antiwar hero and then immediately take all those military resources and direct them at China.

    ❖

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

    Oh no China’s threatening the US-led liberal world order that destroyed Vietnam and Iraq and Libya and Syria and Yemen and Ukraine and keeps ramping up nuclear brinkmanship and working to topple any government who disobeys it and crushing the world to death with an iron fist.

    ❖

    In the last cold war the media talked about the risk of nuclear war all the time, even at points when the risk wasn’t very high. In the new cold war the media barely talk about the risk of nuclear war at all, even at points where the risk is skyrocketing.

    We don’t talk enough or think enough about the fact that the last cold war brought us inches from nuclear annihilation multiple times due to unforeseeable and unpreventable occurrences, yet we’re plunging headlong into a new cold war with two separate nuclear powers.

    The list of nuclear close calls shows that we survived the last cold war by sheer dumb luck. There’s no evidence-based reason to believe we’ll get lucky again. But here we are, spinning the cylinder of the revolver and putting it to our temple once again. The last cold war showed us in no uncertain terms that nuclear brinkmanship entails far too many small moving parts to accurately predict and control what will happen. And now we’re moving into a high-tech multi-front nuclear standoff with far more small moving parts than before.

    ❖

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    It’s just fascinating how everything gets shifted to the right over the decades. Mother Jones is a centrist propaganda rag. Martin Luther King has been historically revised as an innocuous shitlib. George W Bush is just a harmless old painter. Nazis are just brave heroes protecting their homeland.

    ❖

    I doubt I’ll ever care about any US president being investigated for corruption or misconduct or collusion with a foreign nation. All US presidents are corrupt liars, and that will always be the least of their crimes. Get back to me when they’re jailed for war crimes and mass murder.

    You can care about partisan point-scoring over shit like Trump falsifying business records or Biden engaging in corrupt activities with his son all you want if that’s what excites you, but don’t ask me to. It looks like both parties are going to be trying to impeach each other’s presidents back and forth for the foreseeable future; that’s just what US politics looks like now. Meanwhile the US empire marches on completely unhindered amid all the vapid partisan vitriol.

    ❖

    Trying to fix crime without addressing the underlying causes of crime is like treating an infection with nothing but painkillers. The factors which give rise to crime are no mystery: trauma, poverty, inequality and despair. Just throwing people in prison addresses none of these.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 18:20

  • SEC Sues Elon To Compel Him To Testify; Musk Responds It's Time For Punitive Action Against Regulators Who "Abuse Power For Political Gain"
    SEC Sues Elon To Compel Him To Testify; Musk Responds It’s Time For Punitive Action Against Regulators Who “Abuse Power For Political Gain”

    The SEC, (which stands for either Suck Elon’s C**k or the Securities and Exchange Commission depending on who you ask)…

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    … has sued Elon Musk (again), this time to compel – or at least try – the billionaire CEO of Tesla to testify regarding his purchase of Twitter last year, CNBC reported Thursday. 

    The SEC alleged in a complaint filed in the Northern District of California that Musk didn’t appear for testimony that was required via a subpoena that was served to Musk in May 2023. 

    An official litigation release from the Securities and Exchange Commission, filed on Thursday, said: 

    If a person or entity refuses to comply with a subpoena issued by SEC enforcement staff pursuant to a formal order of investigation, the Commission may file a subpoena enforcement action in federal district court seeking an order compelling compliance. According to the SEC staff’s filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the testimony subpoena to Musk relates to an ongoing investigation by the SEC regarding, among other things, potential violations of various provisions of the federal securities laws in connection with (a) Musk’s 2022 purchases of Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”) stock, and (b) Musk’s 2022 statements and SEC filings relating to Twitter.

    The SEC also claimed that Musk skipped out on testimony just days before he was supposed to show up: 

    “According to the filing, Musk failed to appear for testimony as required by the investigative subpoena served by the SEC, despite: (1) agreeing to appear for testimony on a mutually agreed upon date in September 2023; (2) having been served with a subpoena in May 2023 requiring his appearance for testimony in the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office on that mutually agreed upon date; and (3) raising no objection to the subpoena from May 2023 until two days before his scheduled testimony date in September 2023, when Musk notified the SEC that he would not appear.”

    The SEC complaint says: “Musk’s ongoing refusal to comply with the SEC’s administrative subpoena is hindering and delaying the SEC staff’s investigation to determine whether violations of the federal securities laws have occurred. Accordingly, the SEC now asks the Court to compel Musk to appear for investigative testimony.”

    The SEC said it tried to meet Musk in Fort Worth, Texas, “the closest SEC office to Musk’s current personal residence”, and that multiple dates were offered for both October and November of this year. Lawyers for the SEC said Musk refused to comply with the subpoena due to “several spurious objections, including an objection to San Francisco as an appropriate testimony location.”

    “These good faith efforts were met with Musk’s blanket refusal to appear for testimony,” the SEC claims in its suit. It also claimed its “staff is continuing its fact-finding investigation and, to date, has not concluded that any individual or entity has violated the federal securities laws.”

    In response, Musk was – as usual – laconic and to the point, commenting on the same twitter X that he bought, that what is actually needed is “a commission to take punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 18:00

  • Civil Rights Agency Sues 2 Businesses That Fired Workers Over COVID Vaccine Refusal
    Civil Rights Agency Sues 2 Businesses That Fired Workers Over COVID Vaccine Refusal

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

    COVID-19 vaccines in a file photograph. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has sued two businesses for firing workers who had sought religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

    United Healthcare Services, a Cleveland-based health care provider, and Arkansas-based Hank’s Furniture violated federal law when denying the exemption requests and firing the workers, according to the suits.

    Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination over religion and requires businesses to accommodate a worker’s religious practice unless doing so would cause “undue hardship.”

    “Once an employer is on notice that an employee’s sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance prevents the employee from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, the employer must provide a reasonable accommodation unless it would pose an undue hardship,” Debra Lawrence, a regional attorney for the EEOC, said in a statement. “Neither healthcare providers nor COVID-19 vaccination requirements are excepted from Title VII’s protections against religious discrimination.”

    Marsha Rucker, another EEOC attorney, said the suit against the furniture retailer “should remind employers they must communicate with employees requesting accommodation for religious beliefs and try to accommodate those beliefs whenever reasonably possible.”

    She pointed to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found in favor of a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier who sued after the service refused to accommodate his request not to work on Sundays.

    “There is now a higher bar for employers to meet when denying a religious accommodation,” Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, a law firm that brings similar cases, said in a statement. “People should not have to choose between their faith and their job.”

    The EEOC said in 2021 that businesses could impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates but would need to provide religious and medical accommodations.

    United Healthcare told The Epoch Times in an email that it plans to “vigorously defend ourselves” against the suit.

    “Among other things, the EEOC’s contention that the employee in question was a remote worker with no in-person job responsibilities is inaccurate,” the company said. “We continue to respect individual beliefs, while working to ensure the health, well-being, and safety of our colleagues and those we are privileged to serve.”

    Hank’s Furniture didn’t have lawyers listed on the court docket and couldn’t otherwise be reached.

    Remote Worker Fired

    Amanda Stone, who started working for United in 2014, was promoted in 2016 to a supervisory position. She was transitioned to work full time from home in 2018 due to budget cuts. Since then, Ms. Stone’s job hasn’t involved any face-to-face duties or a need to enter United facilities, according to one of the suits.

    Along with many other U.S. companies, United Healthcare in October 2021 announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The vaccination requirement was purportedly only for workers who needed to enter the company’s facilities or meet face-to-face with customers, suppliers, or members. United specified that it didn’t apply to people who worked remotely.

    Ms. Stone, though, received word that she needed to get a shot, the suit said.

    Ms. Stone is a Christian who said she has sincerely held religious beliefs, including an opposition to abortion that prevents her from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. The shots were developed with or tested using cell lines derived from aborted fetuses.

    Ms. Stone submitted a religious exemption request on Oct. 6, 2021, outlining her objections to vaccination. United issued a denial on Oct. 26, 2021.

    Ms. Stone asked her boss how to appeal the decision. She was told she couldn’t appeal but could try again. Ms. Stone did so and was denied a second time. She wasn’t informed either time why she was denied.

    United told Ms. Stone on Nov. 30, 2021, that she was being placed on leave for not complying with the mandate. United said if she didn’t receive a vaccine, she might be terminated. United fired her on Jan. 2, 2022.

    The U.S. court in southern Ohio was asked to block United from discriminating against people on the basis of their religion, ordering United to give Ms. Stone back pay with interest, front pay, or reinstatement, and provide compensation for losses resulting in its discrimination.

    Company Said It Would Never Grant Exemption

    Kaitlyn O’Neal started working for Hank’s Furniture in 2020 and was promoted in 2021 to be an assistant manager.

    Ms. O’Neal was informed by the company in July 2021 that it planned to encourage employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the other suit. The company wanted all managers to immediately receive a shot.

    Ms. O’Neal said she didn’t plan to get the vaccine.

    Several weeks later, Ms. O’Neal informed the company that she had sincerely held religious beliefs that would prevent her from getting vaccinated, and asked for a religious exemption.

    Hank’s Furniture sent her online articles in an attempt to change her mind, according to the suit. When contacted by the company, Ms. O’Neal said she hadn’t. When she inquired about how to submit a written request for a religious exemption, the company didn’t respond.

    When Ms. O’Neal complained, her manager and supervisor said Hank’s Furniture didn’t care about her reasons and that the company would never grant an exemption, the EEOC said.

    On Aug. 20, 2021, Hank’s Furniture announced that its policy of encouragement had become a vaccine mandate. Workers who didn’t receive a vaccine by Oct. 31, 2021, would be fired, it said.

    Ms. O’Neal submitted a written request for an accommodation, which was ignored by the company.

    After she followed up, the company said her request was “severely lacking” and was rejected. Ms. O’Neal asked for help in filing a proper request, but the company refused, before firing her on Oct. 31, 2021.

    The EEOC asked the U.S. court in northern Florida to award Ms. O’Neal back pay with interest and order Hank’s Furniture to pay front pay or reinstatement, compensation for losses, and damages. The company should also be blocked from discriminating against workers on the basis of religion, the agency said.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 17:40

  • Putin On Prigozhin Death: Wagner Leaders Got Drunk, High, & Played With Grenades Aboard Plane
    Putin On Prigozhin Death: Wagner Leaders Got Drunk, High, & Played With Grenades Aboard Plane

    President Vladimir Putin just floated the most interesting – and let’s say, colorful – theory to date on why Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane went down outside Moscow on August 23. While much of Western reporting and even Russian media itself have described the Wagner chief’s death as due to either an anti-air missile or a planted bomb being detonated, Putin told an annual meeting of the Valdai Club in Sochi on Thursday that Prigozhin and his men likely got drunk or possibly high, and were playing with grenades.

    Bloomberg, which picked up on the unexpected public comments, wrote: “Russian President Vladimir Putin said pieces of grenade were found in the bodies of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and other mercenary leaders who died in a plane crash, as he hinted that the man who led an armed revolt against the Kremlin’s military leadership had been a drug user.”

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    Putin said, “In the bodies of those who died in the air crash fragments of hand grenades were found.” 

    The Russian leader expressed regret that toxicology tests weren’t conducted on the recovered bodies at the crash site, as they “found not only $10 million in cash, but 5 kilograms of cocaine” in a subsequent raid on Wagner PMC’s main offices in St. Petersburg.

    In total 10 passengers as well as crew were killed aboard the Embraer SA Legacy 600 private jet. US sources have speculated it was likely a bomb that was placed on the plane, and detonated midair. There’s also the Russian shootdown theory, ordered by either Putin or the military as ‘revenge’ for the June Wagner mutiny.

    Broadly, Western sources have viewed the whole killing as an assassination ordered by Putin himself, but which the Kremlin has denied as an “absolute lie”. 

    But given the nonchalant and casual way Putin just told an audience of top Russian officials that it boils down to irresponsible mercenaries getting drunk and high and deciding to play games with hand grenades, it seems Putin could simply be openly taunting his enemies here. Is he trolling?

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    The Thursday comments on Prigozhin’s death were widely reported in international headlines soon after Putin saying them. It came during a lengthy Q&A session with the Russian leader, as is typical of the Valdai format. Putin certainly knows US and European press and officials closely watch and monitor his words at these events.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 17:20

  • Iraq To Fully De-Dollarize Cash Transactions By Year's End
    Iraq To Fully De-Dollarize Cash Transactions By Year’s End

    Via The Cradle,

    The Iraqi government will ban all cash withdrawals and transactions in the US dollar as of January 1st 2024, according to Mazen Ahmed, director-general of investment and remittances at the Iraqi Central Bank (CBI).

    The CBI official says that people who deposit dollars into banks before the end of 2023 will still be able to withdraw these funds in dollars next year. However, dollars deposited in 2024 will only be available in local currency at the official rate of 1,320 dinars.

    “You want to transfer? Transfer. You want a card in dollars? Here you go, you can use the card inside Iraq at the official rate, or if you want to withdraw cash, you can at the official rate in dinars… But don’t talk to me about cash dollars anymore,” Ahmed told Reuters.

    He also claimed the move is meant to “stamp out the illicit use” of about 50 percent of the $10 billion that Iraq imports in cash each year on semimonthly cargo flights from the New York Federal Reserve.

    With more than $100 billion in reserves held by US banks, Baghdad heavily relies on the goodwill of US officials to ensure the economy doesn’t collapse. Furthermore, since 2003, all Iraqi oil revenues have been paid into an account with the US Federal Reserve, allowing Washington to control the Iraqi economy and pressure its government.

    On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that US officials last month refused to approve the transfer of an extra $1 billion in cash to Iraq from the country’s oil sales proceeds.

    “After the US denied Iraq’s initial appeal last month, the [CBI] last week submitted a formal request, which the [US] Treasury is still considering,” a senior Iraqi official told the WSJ.

    The move reportedly angered Iraqi officials, who said they need access to their oil revenues to protect Iraq’s cash reserves after recent restrictions from the White House “set off panic buying of greenbacks and hoarding of dollars by exchanges.”

    US Treasury officials reportedly told CBI officials that “sending a large extra shipment is contrary to Washington’s goal of reducing Iraq’s use of US banknotes in favor of more easily traceable electronic transactions.”

    With more than $100 billion in reserves held hostage by the US, Washington has significant leverage over the Iraqi economy and banking system. In July, the US Treasury sanctioned fourteen Iraqi private banks accusing them of facilitating US dollar transfers to Iran, a country whose economy Washington seeks to suffocate via sanctions. As a result of this, nearly a third of Iraq’s 72 banks are now banned from facilitating dollar transactions.

    In 2022, Iraq’s central bank enforced tight regulations under US pressure to ensure dollars do not reach Iran. Bank clients wishing to transfer dollar funds must apply through an online platform and provide detailed information on end recipients before a transfer is approved.

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    Iraqi MP and member of the Finance Committee in Iraq’s Council of Representatives, Hussein Mouanes, told The Cradle in an exclusive interview in May: “Iraq has been and continues to be a slave to the US dollar… every country’s economic strength depends on the strength of its currency.”

    “It is clear that Iraq is economically dominated by the US, and our government does not truly control or have access to its own money… We believe that it is crucial to move away from the hegemony of the dollar, especially as it has become a tool to impose sanctions on countries. It is time for Iraq to rely on its local currency,” he added.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 17:00

  • 56 Rare Porsches Head To Auction Despite Classic Car Bubble Bursting At This Week's Sotheby's
    56 Rare Porsches Head To Auction Despite Classic Car Bubble Bursting At This Week’s Sotheby’s

    Auctioneer RM Sotheby’s announced on X earlier this week that it’s presenting “The White Collection,” a stunning 56-car-strong collection of Porsches, from 356 B Carrera 2 to a 2015 918 Spyder, on Dec. 2. 

    Sotheby’s said The White Collection took the owner over a decade to collect, where many of these vehicles are in original condition. “To truly comprehend this collection’s depth, one has to understand the secondary Porsche market,” Gord Duff, global head of auctions at RM Sotheby’s, told Forbes. 

    Duff continued, “These vehicles, which show high originality and remarkably low mileage, are among the most sought-after Porsche sports cars in the current market.”

    The collection has 63 lots, including 56 Porsche sports cars, two Porsche tractors, and other notable automotive memorabilia. 

    The vehicles will hit the auction block as the economy slumps under President Biden. JPMorgan, Goldman, Bank of America, Barclays, and Citi have all warned about faltering consumers. And stock and bond market turmoil, as well as political chaos in Washington, DC, doesn’t help with sentiment. Also, interest rates at decade highs have killed fast money at auctions. 

    Many Sotheby’s and/or Barrett-Jackson auctions are attended by wealthy boomers, maybe some millennials, and very few Gen Zers. So when risk parity portfolios underperform for boomers — their ability to splurge on classic cars and cruise ship travel becomes obsolete. 

    To get a glimpse of how boomers at RM Sotheby’s auctions feel considering the challenging political and macroenvironment. One X user posted at a Sotheby’s auction on Wednesday night -detailed in a series of posts – that blue chip cars were selling well below Sotheby’s price range. 

    The X user showed a 1931 Cadillac 370-A V-12 Roadster by Fleetwood that was forecasted to fetch $250k – $300k but only sold for $187k – well below the range offered by the auctioneer. 

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    “Another Pebble Beach car sold for 50% off at RM Sotheby’s. Terrible sentiment is reflected in poor economy,” he said. 

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    Taking a look at the classic car bubble, Hagerty indexes show American Muscle, Blue Chip, British, and Ferrari automobiles peaked right before Covid. Many of these vehicles are popular with boomers and shunned by millennials. Some of these vehicles may have peaked for good as the younger generations want no parts of these cars. 

    1950s American

    Blue Chip

    British

    Ferrari

    German Collectibles have also stalled. 

    And American Muscle Cars is running out of buyers. 

    Meanwhile, easy money during Covid sent Affordable Classics rocketing higher. 

    As for the Porsche collection, the auction’s upcoming results might hint at how wealthy consumers feel considering the challenging environment.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 16:40

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Oct 05

Today’s News 5th October 2023

  • Luongo: Ukraine Was Always The UK's War First
    Luongo: Ukraine Was Always The UK’s War First

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

    – Verbal Kent, the Usual Suspects

    For more than a year we’ve been regaled with headline after headline about how the War in Ukraine is a US war. It’s easy to think that, certainly. We’re the ones who started the process here, at least on the face of it.

    Victoria Nuland and her cookies on The Maidan. John McCain and his money and support of Right Sector. Seymour Hersh’s expose on the Nordstream 2 bombing. The seemingly endless billions of materiel from Congress. Even this weekend’s continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown hinged on Ukraine.

    The US has the political, economic, and military prowess and rightly should be first considered to be driving this bus towards war. And there are no shortage of commentators in the space helping that narrative along. And none of what I’m implying or about to say absolves these people from their actions which have led us to the current state.

    Hundreds of thousands of people are dead because of what should have been a fully avoidable war had someone been in charge on the West’s side that wanted peace.

    But the West didn’t want peace.

    It froze the conflict in 2014 with the Minsk Agreements because Vladimir Putin believed German Chancellor Angela Merkel was honorable. He traded liberating the Donbass fully for building Nordstream 2 hoping that the pipeline would finally tie Germany and Russia together in a that bond couldn’t be broken.

    This was Putin’s greatest mistake. And he’s still paying for it to this day.

    In 2014 Ukraine was in no shape after the rout at Gorlovka to oppose a Russian-backed Donetsk and Lugansk forces to secure both Oblasts which included the important city of Mariupol. The land bridge to Crimea could have been secured then and the entire buildup to this version of today’s conflict avoided.

    It would have changed the gameboard coming into 2022.

    But Russia always knew that it wasn’t only the US pushing this conflict. That push was coming from the entirety of Europe and the US. One could argue that Putin understood there was never going to be peace without conflict, that the great war to end 300+ years of Russia fighting colonial Europe wasn’t going to end with the building of a pipeline.

    But, to his credit, he had to try.

    The problem, of course, is exactly this. Russian/European or, more explicitly, Russian/British animosity goes back centuries. Russia’s relationship with Europe is far more complex and violent than that of its relationship with the US.

    Russia’s initial invasion created a real problem for the West, particularly the UK, and in that initial land grab, we almost forget that there was an opportunity for a settlement in May of 2022, until British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Ankara and blew up peace talks being brokered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    It has been the British military and intelligence agencies acting as the grease between the Ukrainians and the Americans to ensure that the conflict continued. As my friend Alex Krainer always says, “All roads lead to London.” And George Soros’ arguments about the clash of two civilizations, Open vs. Closed Societies, go back much farther than his raid on the Bank of England:

    In his address to the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos in May 2022 George Soros explained that we are witnessing a clash between two models of governance. This was only slightly misleading: models don’t wage war on one another; it is the stakeholders in these models that are fighting. Soros characterized the two opposing sides as “open societies,” vs. “closed societies,” where open societies are liberal democracies that respect human rights, and closed societies are autocracies.

    But Soros’s “open” societies are in fact oligarchies concealed behind faux democratic facades. To believe Soros, we’d have to accept that the trillionaire oligarchs in charge of open societies are die-hard defenders of democracy and human rights, willing to shed blood and treasure in their defense.

    The term Neoconservative rightly describes a particular type of person who holds foreign policy ideals which are indistinguishable with that of British foreign policy going back over 200 years. They exist within the Soros framework of creating global governance by oligarchs at the helm of an open system that they argue benefits all of humanity.

    This is a lie. What it really does is pull back the curtain on what the real goal is, total global domination through control over the value of money which fuels endless wars to subjugate the unruly and recalcitrant.

    These ideas were codified by Halford Mackinder early in the 20th century, which I’ve written about and discussed ad nauseum.

    Because of the dominance of Mackinder’s ideas and the policies erected to support it, the world has been subjected to endless conflict over his conception of the “World Island,” which is basically Eurasia.

    And that’s why there can be no losing for the West in Ukraine. To the Mackinderists at the top of the power structures in London, Washington D.C. and Brussels, losing Ukraine means losing the entire world, because they have this very-outdated view of world geography.

    Mackinder-ism in today’s world is a tautology, reducing to: We have to control the Heartland because we can’t lose the Heartland.

    Because of the dominance of Mackinder’s ideas and the policies erected to support it, the world has been subjected to endless conflict over his conception of the “World Island,” which is basically Eurasia.

    US foreign policy is shaped by these ideas, but the roots of it becoming so go back to Woodrow Wilson, if not further. Richard Poe has done amazing work illuminating the history on this that many would rather forget about. From creating communism, to their influence to stoke the US Civil War, to even creating “George Soros” himself.

    You can listen to our 2.5 hour conversation on these topics in the podcast Richard and I did over the summer if you need a refresher course.

    The Willfully Blind Hand

    Denying the hand of the British Foreign Office, City of London, and the influence over US foreign and domestic policy is like denying that such a thing as history even exists. It’s easy to see once you look for it.

    The question you should be asking yourself is who is driving the bus today, the US, the UK, or both?

    It’s easy to believe the UK has no influence here. But if that’s the case why did they work so hard to neuter Donald Trump’s presidency at every turn (Christopher Steele, Joseph Mifsud)? Why did RussiaGate wind up with Trump being impeached twice, once for Joe Biden’s crimes in Ukraine?

    When you trace the political lineage of people like Former CIA Director Gina Haspel, Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, and Fiona Hill, all of whom threw their boss under the bus for Nancy Pelosi’s inane witch hunt of Trump, you come a British cropper every time.

    Trump’s only win as president was keeping us out of a direct conflict with Russia over Ukraine and Syria. But he was maneuvered by all of these people and Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, et.al. into doing the very things to ensure when he left office all the groundwork for the present conflict would proceed exactly as it has.

    No deal with North Korea, severing diplomatic relations with Russia, empowering Polish and Baltic Russophobia, doing Israel’s bidding at every turn, every day in the Trump White House on foreign policy was “Opposite Day.” Whatever Barack Obama did on behalf of Europe and Davos he undid, playing right into the British goals of putting the US on track under Joe Biden to end up where we are today.

    It doesn’t matter if he did this to support ‘our greatest ally’ to fight for a proper Brexit from the near comical evil represented by the European Union. Like Putin’s soft spot for Germany, Trump’s soft spot for the Union Jack made him susceptible to both flattery, a personal weakness of his, and incredibly biased ‘intelligence’ he got from his advisers.

    Maybe a second Trump term will have him battle-hardened to see things more clearly, but I’m not holding out hope.

    The Need for War

    This need for Ukraine to ‘win the war’ is a uniquely Neoconservative talking point. It comes from the need to break the dominance of the US economy over global markets. For those who can only think in terms of the US being the “Evil Empire” of today I want to ask you a simple question,

    Why would the US embroil themselves in a fight against Russia and/or China and all the tail risks that come with those wars when they could maintain their current dominance through working with both countries, keep the dollar the universal trade settlement currency and fix its problems?

    In other words, folks, where’s the bono for the US in the Cui Bono analysis?

    Because I don’t see any upside here. What I see are nothing but risks and bad returns on investment.

    The US doesn’t need Russia’s oil and gas. We do not need the other natural resources like aluminum, timber, coal, iron, copper, etc. We make enough food to export to the world.

    So, what’s the deal?

    And don’t give me that tired, Malthusian, finite planet bullshit loved by so many, frankly, leftist ignoramuses. We are nowhere near the event horizon of the finite planet model. Just because you believe in it doesn’t make it true.

    What is true is that US leadership is clearly operating outside the mandate of what’s good for America. And if you don’t ask simple questions like the ones above then how can you ever begin to think outside of the simple explanation put in front of you?

    We see the US today as an empire in decline. But this empire was built on a particular model, the British model. And if you do the basic trace through history you can make a very compelling argument (not the only argument, mind you), that the US empire is simply the remnant of the British Empire outsourced to its former colonies.

    That implies if we, as Americans, come to grips with this, make sense of it, then we can reframe our criticisms of US domestic and foreign policy as something other than incompetence mixed with a generous dollop of hubris. We can ask the hard question that maybe, just maybe, this is an operation to destroy the US from within for the purpose of transferring its power back ‘across the pond’ to either the UK, Europe or China.

    Then all you really have to do is look at who’s really pulling the strings, who’s getting screwed and who’s opportunistically piling on during the chaos for their own benefit.

    Why Now? Why US?

    But when it comes to Ukraine, this has always been the UK’s war. This is why there has been such turmoil at the top of the British government, why at every turn they have been there making sure this thing escalates at a consistent pace and their partners in Congress, the State Dept., the CIA, the DoD and the K-Street think tanks are all in on the insane moralizing about America’s duty to Ukraine.

    This is:

    Why they are sending UK troops to Ukraine.

    Why the Royal Navy is moving into the Black Sea.

    Why they gave Ukraine Storm Shadow missiles to shoot at Crimea.

    Why Biden approved sending cluster munitions to kill Russian civilians.

    Why they helped Ukraine blow up the Kerch Strait bridge twice.

    Why the Poles were set up to be the trip wire for a NATO Article 5 invocation.

    Why Zelenskyy is allowed to run around the world begmanding for money.

    Why Neocons on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill want an open-ended flood of money there.

    Why all discussions of peace talks get shut down before they are allowed to be considered.

    Why Putin invokes the “Anglo-Saxons” when discussing the war.

    Why Medvedev implies London as the decision center needing a cleansing.

    There is more than a distant whiff of desperation the air now over Ukraine coming from the usual suspects.

    Kevin McCarthy’s last minute deal to get Ukraine back door funding could cost him his speakership this week. Good.

    The American people don’t want this war. They don’t want to fund it or fight it. Putin is being maneuvered into a decision that either destroys him politically in 2024 or pushes him into becoming literally Putler.

    It’s 1938 all over again folks and the historical record isn’t as cut and dried as we were all taught in school.

    This isn’t an existential crisis for the US, but it is for the old colonial powers of Europe, especially the UK.

    It’s beyond time we face that honestly.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you want to face the face

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 02:00

  • This Is Not Freedom, America: The Profit Incentives Driving The American Police State
    This Is Not Freedom, America: The Profit Incentives Driving The American Police State

    Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

    – Frédéric Bastiat, French economist

    Pay no heed to the circus politics coming out of Washington DC. It’s just more of the same grandstanding by tone-deaf politicians oblivious to the plight of the citizenry.

    Don’t allow yourselves to be distracted by the competing news headlines cataloging the antics of the ruling classes. While they are full of sound and fury, they are utterly lacking in substance.

    Tune out the blaring noise of meaningless babble. It is intended to drown out the very real menace of a government which is consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population.

    Focus instead on the steady march of the police state at both the national, state and local levels, and the essential freedoms that are being trampled underfoot in its single-minded pursuit of power.

    While the overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us—warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email conversations by the FBI, NSA, etc.; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling—you rarely hear anything about them from the politicians, the corporations or the news media.

    So what’s behind the blackout of real news?

    Surely, if properly disclosed and consistently reported on, the sheer volume of the government’s activities, which undermine the Constitution and dance close to the edge of outright illegality, would give rise to a sea change in how business is conducted in our seats of power.

    Yet when we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it’s difficult to stay focused on one thing—namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law—and the powers-that-be understand this.

    As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail.

    When you dig down far enough, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police state.

    These injustices, petty tyrannies and overt acts of hostility are being carried out in the name of the national good—against the interests of individuals, society and ultimately our freedoms—by an elite class of government officials working in partnership with megacorporations that are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

    Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we’re getting swindled, cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.

    Not only are Americans forced to spend more on taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, education and clothing combined, but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.

    Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.

    On the roads: Not satisfied with merely padding their budgets by issuing speeding tickets, police departments have turned to asset forfeiture and speeding and red light camera schemes as a means of growing their profits. Despite revelations of corruption, collusion and fraud, these money-making scams have been being inflicted on unsuspecting drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities. Now legislators are hoping to get in on the profit sharing by imposing a vehicle miles-traveled tax, which would charge drivers for each mile behind the wheel.

    In the prisons: States now have quotas to meet for how many Americans go to jail. Increasing numbers of states have contracted to keep their prisons at 90% to 100% capacity. This profit-driven form of mass punishment has, in turn, given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep the money flowing and their privately run prisons full, “regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.” As Mother Jones reports, “private prison companies have supported and helped write … laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.” Private prisons are also doling out harsher punishments for infractions by inmates in order to keep them locked up longer in order to “boost profits” at taxpayer expense. All the while, prisoners are being forced to provide cheap labor for private corporations. No wonder the United States has one of the largest prison populations in the world.

    In the schools: The public schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies. Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools—at great taxpayer expense and personal profit—into quasi-prisons. Rounding things out are school truancy laws, which come disguised as well-meaning attempts to resolve attendance issues in the schools but in truth are nothing less than stealth maneuvers aimed at enriching school districts and court systems alike through excessive fines and jail sentences for “unauthorized” absences. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making the schools any safer.

    In the endless wars abroad: Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the government’s endless wars are wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $93 million per hour. Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.  Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford. War spending is bankrupting America.

    In the form of militarized police: The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000 SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year. Moreover, government-funded military-style training drills continue to take place in cities across the country.

    In profit-driven schemes such as asset forfeiture: Under the guise of fighting the war on drugs, government agents (usually the police) have been given broad leeway to seize billions of dollars’ worth of private property (money, cars, TVs, etc.) they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then—and here’s the kicker—whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property, often divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. The police have actually being trained in seminars on how to seize the “goodies” that are on police departments’ wish lists. According to the New York Times, seized monies have been used by police to “pay for sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car.”

    By the security industrial complex: We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. In the so-called name of “precrime,” this government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. This far-reaching surveillance, carried out with the complicity of the Corporate State, has paved the way for an omnipresent, militarized fourth branch of government—the Surveillance State—that came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum. That doesn’t even touch on the government’s bold forays into biometric surveillance as a means of identifying and tracking the American people from birth to death.

    By a government addicted to power: It’s a given that you can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the citizenry’s inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., “we the people” may well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.

    This perverse mixture of government authoritarianism and corporate profits has increased the reach of the state into our private lives while also adding a profit motive into the mix. And, as always, it’s we the people, we the taxpayers, we the gullible voters who keep getting taken for a ride by politicians eager to promise us the world on a plate.

    This is a far cry from how a representative government is supposed to operate.

    Indeed, it has been a long time since we could claim to be the masters of our own lives. Rather, we are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire in which the vast majority of the citizenry work their hands to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few.

    Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused and our so-called representatives bought and paid for by the moneyed elite, the government then turns around and uses the money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison and entrap us, in the form of militarized police, surveillance cameras, private prisons, license plate readers, drones, and cell phone tracking technology.

    With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.

    All of those nefarious deeds by government officials that you hear about every day: those are your tax dollars at work.

    It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements. It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side of the road. And it’s your money that leads to Americans across the country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as growing vegetable gardens in their front yards or daring to speak their truth to their elected officials.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is not freedom, America.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:40

  • Best (And Worst) Cities For Retirement In The U.S.
    Best (And Worst) Cities For Retirement In The U.S.

    According to projections from the U.S. Census Bureau, by the year 2030, all individuals belonging to the baby boomer generation—estimated to be roughly 73 million in the United States—will have reached the age of 65. As retirement comes into sharper focus for many in this group, thoughts are increasingly turning to the most suitable locations for enjoying their twilight years.

    With that in mind a new study from Consumer Affairs looked into the best (and worst) cities for retirement in the United States. The study looked at the following from each location:

    • Cost of living index

    • Percentage of people 65 and over

    • Total crime (violent and property crimes) per 100,000 people

    • Rent burden (percentage of households spending 30% or more of household income on rent)

    • Preventive services (percentage of people 65 and older up to date on core set of clinical preventive services)

    • Access to healthy foods (percentage of people living more than half a mile from the nearest grocery store

    • Access to parks (percentage of population living within a 10-minute walk of a green space)

    • Physical inactivity score (percentage of population with no leisure-time physical activity in the past month)

    • Walkability (Walk Score)

    • Community well-being score (Sharecare index)

    • Temperature (Whether average temperature from February 2022 to January 2023 was between 65 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit)

    Jennifer Tripken, associate director for the Center of Healthy Aging at the National Council on Aging, stated: ”Where you live plays a critical role in not only how long you live, but in your quality of life. Communities that are age-friendly are ones that promote health and are designed to meet the needs of diverse populations, including having inclusive and equitable policies, practices and services.”

    Lincoln, the seat of government in Nebraska, not only serves as the state’s capital but also ranked highest on the list for ideal retirement cities. Despite being the state’s second-largest city by population, it’s the higher proportion of residents over 65 that could make it especially attractive to retirees. Another key factor in its favor is the cost of living index, which suggests that your money will go further here when it comes to everyday expenses.

    Additional merits of Lincoln encompass its relatively low crime rate and more affordable rental prices. Though its average temperature for the year 2022 stood at around 53 degrees Fahrenheit—somewhat cooler than other cities in the survey—its rich offering of parks and high community well-being index propelled it to the top of the list.

    While Lincoln stands out, it’s not the lone contender for retirement according to the metrics. Omaha also made the cut, securing the 25th position in the study.

    The report’s runner-up in is St. Louis, largely due to its affordable cost of living and high marks in overall well-being. As Missouri’s most populated city, it boasts a sizable community of residents aged 65 and above. 

    The city also shines in its accessibility to healthier food options and its walkability. Additionally, a high proportion of its senior citizens have benefited from clinical preventive services. While St. Louis does record higher crime and physical inactivity rates compared to other top contenders, it compensates with an abundant offering of parks that are easily accessible.

    It’s worth noting, however, that St. Louis is somewhat of an anomaly in Missouri when it comes to retirement-friendly cities. Other cities in the state such as Joplin, ranked 91st, Springfield, coming in at 99th, and Kansas City, landing at 100th, all scored significantly lower on the list.

      Situated in Illinois and hosting the University of Illinois, Champaign is not merely a hub for students but also ranks as a prime location for retirees. The city provides a variety of attractions, ranging from sports events to a vibrant arts community, catering to diverse tastes among the retired populace.

      Champaign earns commendation for its low levels of crime and high rate of seniors who have availed themselves of preventive healthcare services. The city also scores well in terms of walkability.

      In the context of Illinois, Champaign is not alone in its appeal for the older generation. Bloomington also receives positive reviews, securing the 16th position on the retirement-friendly list, followed closely by Decatur at 26th place.

      Among the worst cities for retirement were Lake Havasu City, Arizona, which despite boasting the highest population of individuals aged 65 and over along with a low crime rate, finds itself at the very bottom. Primary reasons include poor access to nutritious food options, a less-than-stellar community well-being index, and a steep cost of living. Following closely are Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Olympia, Washington, both of which scored poorly in terms of park accessibility and walkable neighborhoods. If these factors hold importance for your retirement planning, you might want to explore other options, the report notes.

      You can view the full list of best and worst cities to retire in, as well as a list of demographics on each city, at the full study here.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:20

    • Retired General Milley's Legacy Is Brinkmanship With Russia & China
      Retired General Milley’s Legacy Is Brinkmanship With Russia & China

      Authored by Connor Freeman via AntiWar.com,

      Gen. Mark Milley retired on Friday as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and handed over command to Air Force chief Gen. Charles Q. Brown. In 2019, Milley took up the post after being nominated by President Donald Trump. He oversaw massive escalations in the buildup for war with China, the Ukraine proxy war, and the current brinkmanship with Moscow during his four-year tenure.

      Milley’s years as top general saw Washington and the Pentagon pour weapons into Kyiv and begin transforming Ukraine into a de facto NATO state, well before Russia launched its invasion in 2022. This process saw multiple joint military exercises held by US and Ukrainian forces as well as between the North Atlantic alliance and Ukrainian troops.

      Throughout 2021, the US and Ukrainian militaries along with NATO participated in a series of war drills, many of which took place near Russia’s borders and in the Black Sea, the size of which rivaled any military exercises during the post-Cold War era. In November 2021, the US was flying bombers only about a dozen miles off Russia’s borders and simulating nuclear first strikes.

      These were some of the policies being implemented by Milley and his colleagues – including Gen. Brown – in Eastern Europe in the months before Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. After helping to provoke the invasion, US military leadership seized upon the opportunity to back Kyiv in a bloody proxy war with the aim of “weakening” Russia and crippling its military. As a result of this policy, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now warns humanity has never been closer to outright nuclear war.

      Despite the catastrophic risks, the policy has failed. As EUROCOM chief General Christopher Cavoli explained to Congress earlier this year, Russia’s navy and air force have taken negligible losses and its ground forces are “bigger today” than when the war began. The Pentagon is depleting its own weapons stocks to support Kyiv’s failing war effort, while Russia’s capacity to produce armor and ammo has outstripped the entire NATO alliance.

      Ukraine has lost 20% of its country, the Kremlin gained more territory than Kyiv this year, and Ukrainian forces are estimated to have suffered tens of thousands of casualties during recent months.

      Although Milley was calling for negotiations last fall, perhaps sensing that Kyiv had reached its peak in terms of battlefield successes, he was overruled by the likes of the ultra-hawkish Secretary of State Antony Blinken, America’s top diplomat, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

      Milley did not threaten to resign in protest of a policy he reportedly made a “strong push” against, a policy he not only believed was wrongheaded, but that carries with it the ultimate risk of direct war between the United States and Russia.

      Instead, when Kyiv launched its long-awaited and disastrous counteroffensive in June, Milley told CNN “the Ukrainians are very well prepared.” Before the doomed campaign began, Western military officials knew Ukraine’s troops were woefully ill-equipped and undertrained.

      In May, a neo-Nazi militia tied with Ukrainian military intelligence launched a raid using NATO vehicles and weapons targeting civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region. In the aftermath, Milley bluntly explained “we have asked the Ukrainians not to use U.S.-supplied equipment for direct attacks into Russia… Why is that? Because we don’t want – this is a Ukrainian war. It is not a war between the United States and Russia. It’s not a war between NATO and Russia.”

      Although, the White House is now preparing to send Ukraine ballistic missiles – with a range of nearly 200 miles – that can be used for attacks against Crimea and the Russian mainland. “In terms of their targeting decisions, it’s their decision, not ours,” Blinken said last month when asked if the US would green light Kyiv’s desires to hit targets deep inside Russia.

      Again, Milley made no public protest after the administration declared the US will facilitate and support attacks on Russia which he previously stated could trigger World War III.

      In recent months, the US has resorted to pouring cluster bombs and Abrams tanks armed with toxic depleted-uranium ammunition into what is now the most heavily mined country on the planet, demonstrating a lack of concern for the lives of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.

      But this is in keeping with Milley’s pronouncement last year that “what’s at stake here is much greater than Ukraine.”

      Under Milley’s leadership, the US military drastically ramped up Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” encircling China for a future war. In 2020, Trump’s war cabinet vastly expanded the US military footprint in Beijing’s near abroad by sending more warships and spy planes, conducting aerial surveillance flights, to the region and especially the South China Sea.

      During the end of the Trump administration, Milley called his Chinese counterpart and assured him there was no imminent plan to launch an assault against China. US intelligence indicated Beijing believed the US was planning an attack “based on tensions over [Washington’s dual aircraft carrier] military exercises in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trump’s belligerent rhetoric toward China,” the Washington Post reported.

      Milley later explained, “My task at that time was to de-escalate.” As with the Russia policies, however, since then Milley never put his post on the line to voice opposition to Washington’s trajectory in the Asia-Pacific, which appears to be leading to war between the United States and China. Instead, he led the charge in his position as the nation’s top military officer.

      Last year, US spy planes flew 1,000 sorties in the South China Sea, in some instances, just over a dozen miles from the baseline of China’s mainland territorial waters. US aircraft carrier strike groups and amphibious alert groups made eight deployments to the region as well, with extended durations. The US also sent nuclear-powered attack submarines to the South China Sea 12 times.

      Currently, Washington and its partners are “setting the theater” for an upcoming direct war with China. The US is securing additional bases near Taiwan and China and increasing U.S. military access in the Pacific island nations. The US has even committed billions in unprecedented military aid to Taipei, making war more likely.

      Meanwhile, in Syria Milley championed Washington’s indefinite and illegal occupation over large swathes of the eastern parts of the war-torn country. The US controls a third of Syria including most of the nation’s oil and wheat resources as an ancillary to its economic war against Damascus. Roughly 900 US troops and an undisclosed number of contractors are embedded with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

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      Ethnic tensions and violent clashes between Washington’s Kurdish proxy and the local Arab tribesmen may soon make the occupation untenable. As CENTCOM chief Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla has conceded, the American troops’ unwanted presence is also becoming more dangerous as there have been numerous close calls with Russian forces and aircraft as well as dozens of attacks by ostensibly Iranian-backed groups.

      Nevertheless, Milley has not advocated for a withdrawal or even a reduction in troop levels, instead as he leaves his post another base is being built in the northern province of Raqqa.

      Earlier this year, Milley told Congress US forces would begin “harshly” targeting members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria, which could lead to a hot war with Iran. “We need to be targeting [the IRGC Quds Force], and targeting them very harshly over time, and that’s exactly what we plan on doing,” Milley declared.

      After Trump kicked off 2020 with the brutal and illegal drone strike assassination at the Baghdad International Airport of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the Iraqi parliament demanded all US forces leave the country. The American troops were never removed, making Milley’s lofty rhetoric about what’s at stake with the rise of China and the Ukraine war dubious.

      Washington’s wars in the post-9/11 era have killed 4.5 million people overseas and cost Americans trillions of dollars. Despite these realities, in August, Milley boasted “I can’t imagine that the United States would ever walk away from the Middle East. I think we’ll remain committed for many, many years and decades to come.”

      In 2021, during the end of Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan – after the failed 20-year war and occupation which left about a quarter of a million people dead – a US drone strike on a home in Kabul slaughtered ten civilians, including seven children.

      US officials claimed the strike targeted an ISIS-K suspect who was planning a terrorist attack. Instead, Zemari Ahmadi, an aid worker employed by a California-based NGO, along with nine members of his family were killed in the August 29 strike.

      Almost immediately, evidence mounted that noncombatants had been murdered. But the administration and the military chose to promote it as a success as long as possible. Milley was emphatic, “the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.”

      Months later, Lt. Gen. Sami Said, the Air Force Inspector General, led a review which found the killings were not the result of any “misconduct or negligence” and there was no need to hold anyone involved accountable. At the time, Milley’s successor, Gen. Brown, was Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

      Milley’s legacy is the completely broken foreign policy that has defined the new American century. The Wolfowitz doctrine will continue sputtering out as the multipolar world realities supplant unipolar moment fantasies. Washington can be expected to chaotically lash out at the so-called “revisionist powers,” Russia and China, until America is bankrupt or nuclear weapons are launched.

      Milley never tried to save his countrymen or his military from this destruction, he could always be counted on to do what was best for his own selfish interests.

      He will be celebrated by the corporate press every time he excoriates Trump as a “wannabe dictator” and talks up his oath to the Constitution, even if each war Milley was involved with was undeclared, unconstitutional, and illegal.

      Next, he may find himself a comfortable seat on the board of Raytheon or Lockheed Martin. He may even make a presidential run. Regardless, history will be ruthless in its appraisal of the man who co-bylined an imperial agenda destined to culminate in a Third World War, condemning humanity to misery, poverty, death, and despair.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:00

    • 84% Of CEOs Expect A Recession In 2024 (& 0% Of Fed Staff)
      84% Of CEOs Expect A Recession In 2024 (& 0% Of Fed Staff)

      For much of the last year, recession fears have been building against a sharp rise in interest rates and market uncertainty.

      Only recently has there been a shift in sentiment. Given the resilience of the U.S. economy, a growing amount of investors are seeing an increasing likelihood of a soft landing – where the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat inflation without triggering a recession. However, many still remain cautious.

      In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Nuefeld shows U.S. economic forecasts across Wall Street, Main Street, and C-Suite for 2024.

      U.S. Economic Forecast: Is a Recession Coming?

      Here’s what key players are projecting for the economy:

      Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Wolters Kluwer, The Conference Board, Goldman Sachs Investment Research, Bank of America. Data based on surveys and projections conducted August-September.

      *Based on a New York Fed model estimating recession probabilities using 10-year minus 3-month Treasury yield spreads, based on data from 1959-2009.

      **Conference Board Q3 CEO survey probability of a recession over the next 12-18 months.

      In July, the Federal Reserve staff announced that they were no longer forecasting a recession in 2024, marking a sharp departure from earlier projections.

      While the Fed staff continue to share a brighter outlook, the yield curve spread between 10-year and 3-month Treasury rates suggests there is a 61% change of a recession in the 12 months ahead. Historically, the yield curve has been a reliable predictor of recessions, based on a New York Fed model which uses data from 1959-2009.

      Meanwhile, a survey of economists by Wolters Kluwer shows that they’re split, with 48% calling for a recession over the next 12 months.

      Across Main Street, consumers share a more cautious sentiment, with over 69% saying that a recession is likely in the next year, based on a Conference Board survey.

      Yet corners of America’s C-suite have grown more positive. Goldman Sachs recently dropped its recession forecast to a 15% likelihood while Bank of America gives it a 35-40% odds. On the other hand, 84% of CEOs are preparing for a recession in the next 12-18 months, a drop from 92% seen in the second quarter of 2023.

      Bull Case vs. Bear Case Signals

      Among the key factors investors are closely watching center around the impact of higher interest rates on the economy.

      For the bull case, higher rates appear as though they haven’t significantly impacted consumer spending yet, although spending has slowed on non-essential items. Retail sales continue to be solid, and earnings across Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe’s, and other major retailers show resilience. Where the main changes are occurring are with consumers purchasing more affordable options.

      However, consumers are relying increasingly on borrowing for spending.

      For the bear case scenario, household debt has hit record highs of $17 trillion in March, rising 19% year-over-year. Higher rates have led these borrowing costs to jump, likely affecting household budgets. Meanwhile, corporate defaults have accelerated in 2023, and are projected to keep rising.

      Overall, there are mixed signals across the wider economy. Quantifying the full effects of higher interest rates on consumers and businesses remains an open question.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:40

    • Contempt For Press Freedoms: US Officials Bar Tucker Carlson From Interviewing Putin
      Contempt For Press Freedoms: US Officials Bar Tucker Carlson From Interviewing Putin

      Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via AntiWar.com,

      Tucker Carlson reports that the U.S. government prevented him from interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Carlson told the Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche that he had sought to arrange an interview with Putin, but U.S. officials blocked him.

      “I tried to interview Vladimir Putin, but the U.S. government prevented me from doing so. Think about [the implications],” Carlson told the newspaper on September 24.  Worse, according to Carlson, no one in the U.S. news media supported his right as a journalist to report on the Russian leader’s views regarding the Ukraine conflict.

      Such obstructionism reflects a growing contempt on the part of officials in the United States and other supposedly liberal democratic countries for freedom of the press.  It is merely the latest episode in a lengthening parade of restrictions, ranging from petty to truly alarming.  The highest priority targets are critics who dare condemn or even dispute the accounts that Western leaders put forth regarding key foreign policy objectives

      European Union governments have been even more brazen than Washington in their efforts to impede critics.  Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EU banned the two most prominent Russian outlets, RT and Sputnik.  The official rationale was that those organizations were Kremlin controlled and were disseminating “disinformation” regarding the war in Ukraine.  EU officials even ordered the removal of RT and Sputnik material from search engines.

      More than 300 million inhabitants of EU countries were thus deprived from accessing Russia’s views about the war or its causes.  Conversely, EU authorities did not impose the slightest restrictions on the tsunami of propaganda coming out of Kyiv regarding the war.  Such gross imbalance has been a transparent effort to rig public opinion on a major international issue.

      U.S. officials have been somewhat more subtle in their efforts to squelch dissenting views, especially on Russia, but they have been bad enough. The FBI, the CIA, and other agencies have engaged in a two-front assault on freedom of the press.  One method is to emulate the EU and take direct action against alternative news outlets and other dissenters.  The other strategy, which has become increasingly pervasive over the past decade is to pressure or collude with social media platforms to harass, marginalize, or eliminate sources that Washington dislikes.  Such censorship by proxy is both insidious and dangerous.

      The FBI took a major step toward implementing the first approach in October 2017.  FBI leaders created a new Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) in the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division. The FBI subsequently considered any effort by states designated by the Department of Defense as major adversaries (Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea) to influence American public opinion as a threat to U.S. national security.  Targets for suppression were not confined to publications and outlets that were indisputably under the control of one of those hostile powers.

      However, censorship by proxy has become by far the U.S. national security state’s preferred method.  The U.S. national security apparatus has even actively assisted Volodymr Zelensky’s Ukrainian regime to undermine the constitutional rights of Americans.  CNN noted a worrisome revelations in a July 2023 report from the House Judiciary Committee.  “The committee says SBU [Ukraine’s top security agency] sent the FBI lists of social media accounts that allegedly ‘spread Russian disinformation,’ and that the FBI then ‘routinely relayed these lists to the relevant social media platforms, which distributed the information internally to their employees in charge of content moderation and enforcement.’”

      In other words, the FBI served as a willing conduit and facilitator for Kyiv’s overseas censorship efforts.  Moreover, U.S. officials did not make even a minimal effort to vet Kyiv’s allegations before pressuring social media companies to shut down the accounts of targeted organizations and individuals.

      Revelations from the so-called Twitter files, confirm the extent of such ideological collusion between federal agencies and social media companies.  Among other unhealthy aspects was that the FBI had paid Twitter $3.4 million.  In a so-called fact-check, USA Today conceded that “the FBI flagged Twitter accounts the agency believed violated Twitter’s terms of service. Second, another document shows the FBI paid Twitter $3.4 million for Twitter’s processing of information requests the FBI made through the Stored Communications Act.”  However, “fact-checker” Molly Stelino concluded that the FBI was not using Twitter for censorship purposes, insisting that “the $3.4 million is unrelated to the FBI flagging accounts.”  Such an argument deserves an award for gullibility.

      The extent of the government’s collusion campaign was even more apparent because Yoel Roth, the Twitter executive in charge of content moderation and members of his staff met weekly with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  It is a safe bet that those meetings were not to discuss the weather.  Such meetings also cast even more doubt on the allegedly benign nature of the FBI’s $3.4 million payment to Twitter for processing “information requests.”  Yet even Roth apparently balked at some of the FBI’s more far-reaching demands.  Roth contended that the list of alleged Russian disinformation offenders even included “‘a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. [Grayzone’s] Aaron Mate),’ and said that Twitter would focus on rule violations and inauthentic behavior (i.e., bots).”

      One interaction between the FBI and Facebook was as alarming as the collusion with Twitter. The FBI worked to discredit the New York Post’s blockbuster story on Hunter Biden’s laptop.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg later reported that FBI officials had approached him with a warning that Russia was conducting a concerted disinformation campaign during the 2020 U.S. election cycle, just as the Kremlin did in 2016.  It was hard to miss the government’s implication that the laptop probably was part of the latest disinformation effort, and that Facebook should take down posts or algorithmically throttle accounts contending that revelations contained in the files were genuine. Yet there was no evidence at the time or subsequently that the laptop involved Russian disinformation.  The allegation further poisoned relations with Russia, though, as well as stifled debate on a crucial issue.

      In an early September 2023 ruling, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Biden administration’s meetings with social media companies had violated the First Amendment.   That is an encouraging development in the battle against censorship by proxy, but it is unlikely that agencies in the national security apparatus will abandon their efforts to curb dissent, especially on controversial issues related to Washington’s role in the world.  Freedom of the press clearly is under siege even in supposedly liberal, democratic countries.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:20

    • Pentagon 'Alleviates' Ukraine Arms Shortage By Sending Seized Iranian Weapons
      Pentagon ‘Alleviates’ Ukraine Arms Shortage By Sending Seized Iranian Weapons

      Is this Biden’s attempt at a solution to the problem of blocked Ukraine aid for the time being? CNN is reporting that the US administration is set to transfer weapons it seized from Iran to Kiev…

      “The US will transfer thousands of seized Iranian weapons and rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, in a move that could help to alleviate some of the critical shortages facing the Ukrainian military as it awaits more money and equipment from the US and its allies, US officials said.”

      US CENTCOM revealed Wednesday that the process has already started, with over one million seized rounds of Iranian ammunition having been given to Ukraine forces thus far.

      “The government obtained ownership of these munitions on July 20, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” the Pentagon statement explained.

      Previously, the Justice Department announced over the summer the seizure of “over 9,000 rifles, 284 machine guns, approximately 194 rocket launchers, over 70 anti-tank guided missiles, and over 700,000 rounds of ammunition.” These had been obtained by the US Navy from foreign vessels caught “trafficking” in Gulf regional waters.

      Some European allies, such as the French, have also announced their own Iranian weapons seizures of late. The majority of these were believed bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are the Shia allies of Iran currently fighting the Saudis and Emirates. 

      CENTCOM has tallied that among the US and its partner forces, a total of 5,000 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammunition have been captured. Tehran has held this and oil seizures up as examples of Washington “piracy”. 

      The Pentagon only days ago announced that it is running out of weapons for Ukraine, having just “months” left in approved supplies, at a sensitive moment that support from among the Western allies in general is waning.

      Iranian, Chinese & Russian weapons seized by the US Navy en route to Yemen from Iran in undated photo. Source: US DOJ

      Last Friday, US defense officials had informed Congress that it has “exhausted nearly all available security assistance funding for Ukraine” – including air defense weaponry and ammunition, leaving Ukraine more vulnerable as the Russian onslaught continues.

      * * *

      In the below brief analysis, the hawkish think tank The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is hailing this Biden policy as one which “turns the tables” on both Tehran and Moscow…

      The U.S. transfer of Iranian arms to Ukraine turns the tables on both Tehran and Moscow, which have doubled down on their defense partnership following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Tehran provides drones to Moscow and helps the Russians localize their production. In March 2023, Iran agreed to purchase 24 advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighters from Russia, significantly upgrading the capabilities of the Islamic Republic’s air force. In 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023, Russia and Iran conducted joint naval drills in the Gulf of Oman. Russia and Iran are also sharing intelligence and cooperating in a joint effort to push U.S. military forces out of the region.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:00

    • "Too Freaking Late" – Mayorkas Finally Admits "Acute & Immediate Need" To Build Border Wall In Texas
      “Too Freaking Late” – Mayorkas Finally Admits “Acute & Immediate Need” To Build Border Wall In Texas

      This is awkward…

      In a stunning reversal of everything that was said over the last 7 years by the left, and just months after the Biden administration was caught selling portions of Trump’s border wall on a government surplus website, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is citing an “acute and immediate need” to waive dozens of federal laws in order to build a border wall in south Texas as the illegal immigration crisis grows utterly out of control.

      “The Secretary of Homeland Security has determined, pursuant to law, that it is necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in Starr County, Texas,” reads a notice posted to the U.S. Federal Registry that Fox News obtained.

      In light of the surge in illegal immigration, Mayorkas found that there exists an “acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas.”

      No, this is not Babylon Bee.

      As Ben Whedon reports at JustTheNews.com, The former president’s campaign team took Mayorkas’s decision as a vindication, telling Fox News that:”

      “President Trump is always right. That’s why he built close to 500 miles of powerful new wall on the border and it would have been finished by now. Instead, Crooked Joe Biden turned our country into one giant sanctuary for dangerous criminal aliens.”

      In total, Mayorkas plans to waive a total of 26 federal laws to expedite construction.

      It’s going to fun to see the Democrats and their MSM lackeys squirm out of this one…

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

      Does the Biden administration want to remind Latinos that they are not welcome?

      Is the Biden administration building a monument to White Supremacy….

      Is the Biden administration’s wall “xenophobic and racist”?

      There are a million more examples…

      These 3 words seem to sum things up perfectly “Too Freaking Late!”

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

      …and cue the “we never said it was racist” or “it was racist because Trump wanted it” narrative spin incoming…

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:40

    • El Chapo's Sons Allegedly Ban Fentanyl Production In Northern Mexico
      El Chapo’s Sons Allegedly Ban Fentanyl Production In Northern Mexico

      Large roadside banners have appeared on bridges in northern Mexico that state the Sinaloa Cartel has banned fentanyl production and sales. The banner was signed with the words “Los Chapitos,” the sons of ex-Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. This comes as US authorities are increasing pressure on Mexico to take action against drug cartels flooding the US with fentanyl, which has sparked the worst drug crisis this country has ever seen. 

      According to X user “Michelle Rivera,” the banner reads: “In Sinaloa, the sale, manufacture, transportation or any type of business that involves the substance known as fentanyl is strictly prohibited, including the sale of chemicals for its production.”

      Rivera said, “Narcomantas allegedly signed by the criminal group “Los Chapitos” were placed in various points throughout the State.” 

      She added: “They also assure that they have never been related to the fentanyl business “Depend on the consequences” they warn.” 

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

      It’s unclear if the Sinaloa Cartel, which Guzman’s sons now run after their father was extradited to the US in 2017, fastened the banners to bridges and overpasses. 

      The Telegraph noted, “The banners appeared at a time when US authorities are ramping up pressure on Mexico to take action against crime groups involved in fentanyl production” amid yet another year drug overdoses in the US are expected to reach another record. 

      Leo Silva, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked in Mexico, said the Los Chapitos are trying to shift blame for the fentanyl production that floods the US. She said, “Coupled with the extradition of one of the brothers, it’s a ploy to take the heat off of them,” adding, “I don’t see them stopping production.” 

      It remains to be seen if Los Chapitos will enact such a ban across Sinaloa. But why would they if they’re driven by profits and the gift of the Biden administration to keep the southern border wide open?  

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:20

    • CDC Journal And Five Others Rejected Key Paper On COVID Vaccines, Heart Inflammation
      CDC Journal And Five Others Rejected Key Paper On COVID Vaccines, Heart Inflammation

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

      Six medical journals rejected a key paper on COVID-19 vaccines and heart inflammation, a condition the vaccines cause, according to documents reviewed by The Epoch Times.

      The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 25, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

      The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), was one of them.

      CDC officials falsely told the paper’s authors that the paper did not add anything to a previously published CDC report, which estimated more COVID-19 hospitalizations would be prevented than cases of heart inflammation, or myocarditis, caused.

      “I ran this by the MMWR lead editorial staff members; they felt that while the report was interesting, they did not feel that there was anything that was not already relayed,” Dr. Jacqueline Gindler, one of the officials, said in an Aug. 10, 2021, email.

      The CDC a month earlier in a non-peer-reviewed paper estimated that among males aged 12 to 17, one million second Pfizer doses would cause up to 69 myocarditis cases but prevent some 5,700 COVID-19 cases and 215 COVID-19 hospitalizations.

      The new paper clarified the risk-benefit calculus by separating children without serious underlying conditions such as obesity from children with one or more of the problems. It broke down the age group into two parts, 12- to 15 and 16- to 17. And it subtracted incidental hospitalizations, or hospitalizations where people test positive for COVID-19 but are actually being treated for other conditions.

      The researchers estimated, using similar methods as the CDC, that one million doses would cause more cardiac adverse events in healthy boys than COVID-19 hospitalizations prevented. Among boys aged 12 to 15 without comorbidities, they calculated up to 6.1 times more adverse events among the vaccinated.

      Both the CDC and the new paper utilized reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which the CDC co-manages.

      Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, one of the paper’s co-authors, said that the CDC’s position that the paper did not add anything “was laughable.”

      “What we added was stratification for non high-risk vs high-risk children, which was new,” Dr. Hoeg told The Epoch Times in an email. “We also reported a higher rate in 12-17 year olds than CDC had been reporting in males after dose two. Finally we removed incidental COVID-19 hospitalizations, when estimating potential vaccine benefits, which CDC had not been doing up to that point.”

      Benjamin Hayes, a CDC spokesman who answered a query sent to Dr. Gindler, told The Epoch Times in an email that MMWR had to be “highly selective” due to receiving many submissions during the pandemic.

      The paper from Dr. Hoeg’s group “included some additional analyses,” Mr. Hayes said, but “did not provide information that would have caused the conclusions from the previous report to be refined or modified.”

      Other Rejections

      Five other journals also rejected the paper, which was crafted after the CDC finally acknowledged vaccines likely cause myocarditis.

      The New England Journal of Medicine dismissed the paper after having peers review it. One reviewer falsely said that with pre-pandemic myocarditis, adolescents were not known to experience lingering cardiac problems. In fact, deaths and a serious condition called dilated cardiomyopathy have been documented in such patients. Another reviewer said that a major concern was the social consequences of publishing the paper. A third falsely said most post-vaccination cases do not require hospitalization, asserting that offering a risk-benefit analysis based on hospitalization was inappropriate.

      “Your paper was evaluated by four external reviewers and a statistical consultant and was discussed among the editors,” John Jarcho, the journal’s deputy editor, informed the paper’s authors. “Although it is interesting, I am sorry to say it was not accepted for publication. This was an editorial decision and reflects an assessment of the merits of your manuscript as compared with the many others we receive.”

      The statistical reviewer did convey helpful feedback that resulted in adjustments to the paper, authors said.

      Dr. Elizabeth Loder, a British Medical Journal, later rejected the paper, offering a similar rationale as the CDC.

      “In comparison with the many other papers we have to consider, this one is a lower priority for us. I’ve reviewed the paper along with another senior editor, and we do not have confidence in the comparison you make in the paper,” Dr. Loder said. “The raised risk of myocarditis has been noted before based on this database and the novelty is in the comparison.  That calculation will depend on the prevalence of COVID at the time and it was low in May/June 2021.”

      A spokesperson for the journal told The Epoch Times in an email: “We are unable to comment in detail about a specific paper, as this is a confidential matter. However, we can say that in general, papers are considered on matters of methodology, potential importance, interest to our broad readership, and on what they add to the established literature. Every paper is thoroughly assessed to ensure that any claims made are supported by robust methods and definitive conclusions before a decision is made.”

      Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu, editor-in-chief of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, told the authors that he shared their paper with several editors and experts.

      “Many of us appreciated you tackling this critical topic, and lending your analytical skills as well as important voices to this debate. However, at the end of the day our concerns were really around the substantial uncertainty of calculating incident estimates using VAERS,” he wrote.

      Two American Medical Association journals also turned down the paper. One said it was better for a pediatric journal.

      The paper was first submitted to journals in July 2021.

      Preprint

      The authors were surprised by all the rejections.

      “It was really the first time in my life that I was getting this sense the journals were afraid of taking a chance on publishing something,” Dr. Hoeg said. “This was particularly frustrating, not because of my own academic career, but because the consequences of them choosing not to publish our findings were adolescents and their families would not be fully informed about the risks of myocarditis from the Pfizer vaccine.”

      Dr. John Mandrola, a cardiac electrophysiologist based in Kentucky and another co-author, said it was unusual but not unheard of to be rejected by so many journals.

      Read more here…

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:00

    • America's Poorest Only Own 6% Of Assets
      America’s Poorest Only Own 6% Of Assets

      The poorest 50 percent of Americans owned just 5.9 percent of the country’s total assets in Q2 of 2023, according to data from the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

      As Statista’s Ann Fleck shows in the following chart, the share of wealth as total assets remained at a low 5.9 percent through the first two quarters of this year, having seen a downtick from 6 percent at the end of 2022.

      Infographic: America's Poorest Only Own 6% of Assets | Statista

      You will find more infographics at Statista

      Since 1989, the peak share of assets held by this group was in Q2 and Q3 of 1995, when it reached just 8.7 percent.

      By contrast, data shows that the top 0.1 percent (99.9th to 100th wealth percentiles) of the U.S. held 11.4 percent of total assets in Q2 of 2023 – almost double that of the lowest 50 percent.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:40

    • Newsom Neutered – Repeals California's Orwellian 'COVID Misinformation' Law
      Newsom Neutered – Repeals California’s Orwellian ‘COVID Misinformation’ Law

      Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

      California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation to repeal a portion of the state’s COVID-19 “misinformation” and “disinformation” law intended to punish doctors who refused to comply with the government’s narrative on masks, vaccines, and treatments during the pandemic.

      On Sept. 30, the governor signed Senate Bill 815 repealing provisions in the law—under Assembly Bill 2098—that “expressly designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19 as unprofessional conduct,” according to an analysis by the bill’s author, Assemblyman Richard Roth (D-Riverside).

      A year ago when Mr. Newsom signed AB 2098, introduced by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) and co-authored by then-Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) into law, he warned of a “chilling effect” other potential laws could have on the freedom of physicians and surgeons to effectively talk to their patients about the risks and benefits of treatments for COVID-19 but said he was “confident” the bill was “narrowly tailored” to apply only to egregious instances in which a doctor was acting with malicious intent or clearly deviating from the “required standard of care.”

      Just days later, the law, which vaguely defined “misinformation and disinformation” as “unprofessional conduct,” was challenged in court. The law defined disinformation as “misinformation that the licensee deliberately disseminated with malicious intent or an intent to mislead” and misinformation as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”

      Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a former professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California–Irvine’s School of Medicine and director of the medical ethics program, was fired on Dec. 16, 2021, for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, claiming he had natural immunity after contracting the illness and recovering from it.

      He and four other doctors—Tracy Hoeg, Ram Duriseti, Pete Mazolewski, and Azadeh Khatibi—sued Mr. Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, and several administrators at the Medical Board of California.

      “We were being discriminated against because we had a form of immunity that was equally good, in fact superior … compared to vaccine immunity,” Dr. Kheriaty told The Epoch Times.

      “People with vaccine immunity were allowed on campus, and I was not.”

      Judge William Shubb of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted a preliminary injunction blocking the state from enforcing AB 2098, ruling that the statute’s “unclear phrasing and structure” could have a “chilling effect.”

      Dr. Kheriaty said he’s glad SB 815 has negated the “misinformation” and “disinformation” provisions of AB 2098.

      “This is a good victory, but we can’t rest on our laurels,” he said.

      “We’ve got to be very vigilant because people who want to take control over medicine and intervene in the doctor-patient relationship are going to keep trying to find other angles.”

      Dr. Kheriaty suspects the governor and state legislators realized when the preliminary injunction was granted that the court would most likely rule against AB 2098 and ultimately declare it unconstitutional.

      “So, rather than getting slapped down by the court in ways that would have probably made the newspapers, they decided to quietly shuffle the law off the stage as a kind of embarrassment and hope that no one really noticed,” he said.

      Attorneys for the five doctors have filed a motion for a summary judgment from the court.

      “We would like to see the government lawyers have to argue in court in our favor … because the law has been struck down,” Dr. Kheriaty said.

      “We would like to hear them publicly say that in court.”

      Dr. Kheriaty said the case shows that because “scientific consensus” during the pandemic evolved quickly, doctors were punished for simply being ahead of the curve and expressing or endorsing ideas the rest of the medical community had not yet caught up with because they weren’t paying as close attention to the available research.

      While AB 2098 attempted “to fixate a particular scientific consensus,” the court found scientific consensus to be an ill-defined legal concept, he said.

      “The fact that this law was struck down is obviously meaningful to me … but it’s also concerning that this law was passed in the first place,” he said.

      The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has since indicated that it should not discriminate between vaccinated and unvaccinated because vaccines don’t stop infection and transmission.

      Natural immunity is “robust, durable, and long-lasting,” Dr. Kheriaty said. “So, I guess I lost my job for being nine months ahead of the curve.”

      Mixing Politics With Science

      In his book, “The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State,” Dr. Kheriaty examines the “age-old problem” of mixing politics with science.

      The book, he said, is about the biomedical security state melding an increasingly militarized public health apparatus with the use of digital technologies of surveillance and control, such as vaccine passports, and backing those two elements with police powers of the state and the declared state of emergency which allowed governors and the president to accrue additional extra-constitutional powers and “wield tremendous authority” effectively “micromanaging the lives of citizens.”

      “Especially today, when science has a certain authority or prestige, political power wants to commandeer and weaponize science to achieve its aims, and that’s what you saw during the pandemic,” he said. “It’s what I call scientism.”

      Scientism, he explained, tries to monopolize science and claim that it is the only valid form of knowledge and then appoints its preferred “so-called experts” to speak in the name of science.

      “That has nothing to do with science. That’s a power move. In fact, it’s a totalitarian move because that’s what totalitarian regimes do: They monopolize what counts as knowledge and rationality, and they exclude anyone who doesn’t endorse their ideology,” Dr. Kheriaty said.

      “That was done with science during the pandemic. Science was weaponized.”

      Scientism is “totally antithetical to science,” which relies on open-ended inquiry, hypothesis, conjecture and debate, evidence, reputation and the willingness to change one’s mind, he said. “And so, trying to fix a particular ‘consensus’ as unassailable completely contradicts the whole ethos of scientific investigation. Science advances precisely by challenging conventional thinking or consensus or what we take to be common sense.”

      Prior to the lawsuit, Dr. Kheriaty challenged the University of California system’s vaccine policies in an opinion article published in the Wall Street Journal “just to try to get a conversation going,” he said.

      But the UC Irvine authorities weren’t interested in discussion or debate and fired him for allegedly refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate after they twice declined a medical exemption signed by his physician and accused him of unprofessional conduct.

      “I was a threat,” he said. “So, it was easier just to shut down the debate.”

      The state then used him as an example to send a message to other doctors who dared to step out of line, he suggested.

      “You don’t have to fire too many people before it has a real chilling effect on everyone else,” he said.

      “Obviously, other people could look at what happened to me, and it was very clear: ‘OK, this is one issue that you just don’t touch. You don’t open your mouth and speak your mind unless it’s to endorse the position that the university wants to take.’”

      Dr. Kheriaty now runs a private practice in Orange County. He is also a scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Judeo-Christian based group in Washington, D.C., the chief of medical ethics at The Unity Project, a non-profit medical freedom and parental rights group, and the Brownstone Institute has supported his work in public health.

      “So, I’m very happy,” he said. “I’ve landed on my feet. I don’t really have a desire to go back to the university.”

      Dr. Kheriaty is also a plaintiff in the Missouri v. Biden case, alleging the federal government violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to censor disfavored speech.

      ‘Legislative Power Grab’

      Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the technology used in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2 that AB 2098 would not likely have survived a legal challenge and is “an embarrassment for Newsom” and his presidential ambitions.

      Dr. Malone called AB 2098 a “legislative power grab” from the state medical board to the legislature and criticized state lawmakers for interfering in the practice of medicine.

      To have COVID-specific legislation on regulating medical standards is “bizarre” in the first place because there is already “perfectly adequate” legislation regulating medical standards, he said.

      He said Mr. Low’s Sept. 12 statement that the “update” will still hold doctors accountable suggests the new law is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he said.

      “Fortunately, with this update, the Medical Board of California will continue to maintain the authority to hold medical licensees accountable for deviating from the standard of care and misinforming their patients about COVID-19 treatments,” Mr. Low said in the statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

      A doctor with an adverse finding or even a pending investigation against their medical license cannot transfer their licenses to another state, so physicians in this situation are forced to decide whether to leave the state before it has an opportunity to impose an action against their license or run the risk of losing it, “which would make it impossible for them to leave the state,” said Dr. Malone.

      “Independent thinkers—the very people that you most want to have medicine—are being run out by the state legislative policies,” he said. “It means that people with no qualifications to practice medicine are mandating how medicine must be practiced directly.

      Dr. Malone, the chief medical officer at The Unity Project, is known for expressing concerns about the possibility of immune imprinting. He claimed vaccines provide poor protection over time, with some indications the shielding turns negative.

      The “politicization of medicine,” during the pandemic years was “bad medicine,” he said, noting that recent reports about myocarditis are “stunning.”

      For more than a year-and-a-half, news reports have documented that the CDC “has been withholding critical information from the medical community relating to COVID-19 vaccines and their safety, Dr. Malone said.

      Laura Sextro, CEO of The Unity Project, told the Epoch Times there was no need for SB 815 or AB 2098.

      “The writing is on the wall,” she said. “There’s a temporary injunction right now against AB 2098, and I think the authors of this terrible legislation knew that they had to do something to modify this because it’s so horrendous.”

      Ms. Sextro said a doctor who owns an urgent care clinic with seven practitioners in California told her on Oct. 2 the clinic would be shuttered because of legislation like AB 2098 and SB 815.

      “They’ve made the decision to close the clinic,” she said.

      “I think that bills like AB 2098 are actually designed to penalize the sole proprietor doctors—the single-practice doctors who are not associated with … big box medical groups,” she said.

      Other Legal Challenges

      AB 2098 has since met other legal challenges, including complaints from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the American Civil Liberties Union and two California doctors, Dr. Mark McDonald and Dr. Jeff Barke.

      Shubb’s ruling runs contrary to Judge Fred W. Slaughter’s earlier decision to deny a preliminary injunction in the case involving Dr. Barke and Dr. McDonald, who sued the medical board, Mr. Newsom, and AG Bonta in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last year. The lawsuit, which is still pending, asked the court to declare AB 2098 unconstitutional and sought a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement.

      Dr. Simone Gold, a Beverly Hills physician who founded America’s Frontline Doctors, called AB 2098 an “unconstitutional, Orwellian gag-order,” that attempts to mandate a new and undefined standard known as ‘contemporary scientific consensus’ and illegally suppress dissenting professional medical opinions.

      Eric Hintz, legislative director for Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Corona) told The Epoch Times several Republicans voted against SB 815 because they knew the Democratic majority would pass it to remove the “misinformation” and “disinformation” provisions in AB 2098 and because Republicans wanted to voice opposition to fee increases for medical licenses in the state.

      The bill increases medical license fees for all physicians by $288, from $863 to $1,151.

      “So, I think that’s the reason why a lot of Republicans decided to vote against it,” Mr. Hintz said.

      The bill would also extend the regulatory powers of the medical board by two more years from a Jan. 1, 2026, sunset clause to Jan. 1, 2028.

      “That would be another reason why someone might oppose the bill,” he said.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:20

    • Pope Francis In Greta-Style Rebuke Lambasts 'Climate Deniers' & Warns "Breaking Point" Coming
      Pope Francis In Greta-Style Rebuke Lambasts ‘Climate Deniers’ & Warns “Breaking Point” Coming

      Pope Francis has made the ‘climate crisis’ a big focus of his papacy, and on Wednesday he has for only the second time issued a major ecology-focused encyclical, which is being called his strongest statement yet on the issue.

      In the 7,000 word new encyclical called Laudate Deum (“Praise God”) which is certain to make climate activists like Greta Thunberg happy, he lambasted “irresponsible” Western lifestyles and big industries which are bringing to world to a “breaking point”. He went after Americans in particular. 

      “Our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” he wrote. “Some effects of the climate crisis are already irreversible, at least for several hundred years, such as the increase in the global temperature of the oceans, their acidification and the decrease of oxygen.”

      CNN and other US mainstream publications are now lauding his blistering attack on “deniers”: 

      “Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident. No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other cries of protest,” Francis wrote.

      Ignoring the accelerating climate change process, he continued, will only advance “the probability of extreme phenomena that are increasingly frequent and intense.”

      He went after the United States and its citizens in particular, while appearing to give China somewhat of a pass:

      “If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” he wrote. 

      Francis at one point seemed to tailor his argument for the ‘common man’ while lamenting what he called “Resistance and confusion” in a subheading to the document…

      “In recent years, some have chosen to deride these facts. They bring up allegedly solid scientific data, like the fact that the planet has always had, and will have, periods of cooling and warming,” he said. “They forget to mention another relevant datum: that what we are presently experiencing is an unusual acceleration of warming, at such a speed that it will take only one generation – not centuries or millennia – in order to verify it.”

      And he claimed all of this can be easily perceived: “The rise in the sea level and the melting of glaciers can be easily perceived by an individual in his or her lifetime, and probably in a few years many populations will have to move their homes because of these facts.”

      Currently, an old video of circus performers at the Vatican has resurfaced and is circulating…

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

      We noted earlier this week that conservative Catholics have been increasingly frustrated by Pope Francis’ ultra-ambiguous statements which have left the door open for novel practices and departures from longtime doctrine, such as “blessings of gay unions”. At the same time his attacks and rebukes of ‘climate deniers’ now on display (a political hot topic issue which is outside the scope of religion in the traditional sense) are crystal clear in meaning and intent. Some traditional Catholics are warning that his agenda is to ‘revolutionize’ the Vatican in a decidedly leftward direction. 

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:00

    • Shellenberger: Why This One Simple Chart Will End Wokeism
      Shellenberger: Why This One Simple Chart Will End Wokeism

      Authored by Michael Shellenberger and Peter Boghossian via Public Substack,

      Over the last few years, Woke progressives have behaved in increasingly odd ways. Black Lives Matter activists in Washington, D.C., screamed at and hovered over a woman sitting peacefully in a restaurant, demanding that she raise her fist in a salute. Climate activists threw soup at a Van Gogh painting, dumped milk on the floor of a grocery store, and cemented their hands to an airport runway. And transgender activists claimed, falsely, that there was a “genocide” against trans people, even though there’s no evidence that trans-identified people are being killed at higher rates than non-trans people.

      Some of these behaviors can be explained by the fact that Wokeism is a religion. Two years ago, the two of us published a chart, “Woke Religion: A Taxonomy,” and an accompanying essay, which described how race, climate, trans, and other Woke activists had created their own versions of original sin, taboos, and myths. We turned the taxonomy into a poster and sold hundreds of copies. Both of us still get emails from people saying that the chart helped them to understand why so many previously secular people appear to be in the grip of a deeply superstitious religion.

      But over the last year, the two of us felt that something was missing. Wokeism is a religion, but its religious nature didn’t necessarily describe the madness that seemed to grip its most devoted adherents. Many people believe crazy things but don’t behave so narcissistically or psychopathically, without regards for other people, in the way that Woke activists do. And so we decided to create a new taxonomy, one focused on Woke psychopathology.

      “Woke Psychopathology: A Taxonomy” is inspired by the traits that characterize what the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM-V) calls “Cluster B personality disorders.” There are four of these personality disorders: narcissistic, anti-social (previously psychopathy), histrionic, and borderline. The traits, which run horizontally across the top of the Taxonomy, are Attention-Seeking, Grandiosity, Emotional Dysregulation, Excess of Empathy, Victimhood Ideology, Impaired Reality Testing, Lack of Empathy, and Splitting. Together, the traits form an easy-to-remember acronym: AGE-EVILS.

      Along the horizontal axis are the three major categories of Wokeism: Race, Climate, and Trans. Inside each of the 24 boxes formed by the 3×8 grid are descriptions and examples of these traits.

      The result is striking.

      Attention-Seeking explains not only throwing soup on paintings but also Jussie Smollett’s hoaxed lynching and Dylan Mulvaney’s antics.

      Lack of Empathy (for those designated “oppressors”) explains not only BLM activists demanding fist salutes but also disregard for working-class commuters by climate activists and violence by trans activists against women.

      And Impaired Reality Testing explains not only the false claims of trans genocide but also the claim that racism is worse than ever and that climate change is making disasters worse.

      The result is a crib sheet that we believe will be devastating to Woke ideology. The late Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski, who lived under Nazism and Communism, argues in Political Ponerology that it’s not enough to condemn totalitarianism. We must also seek to explain it. And by explaining it, he meant to diagnose it psychologically. As such, in producing this Taxonomy, we are diagnosing Woke movements and the behaviors of their adherents, if not the individuals themselves, as psychopathological.

      We recognize that these claims, and the Taxonomy, will be controversial. But we think such controversy is necessary if we are to put an end to, or at least significantly reduce, the narcissistic, psychopathic, and histrionic behaviors that have come to define progressive politics.

      Without further ado, here’s Woke Psychopathology: A Taxonomy!

      Public subscribers can click on the image above to see an enlarged version of the Taxonomy…

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:45

    • Coal Production Surges By 83% At India's Largest Power Firm
      Coal Production Surges By 83% At India’s Largest Power Firm

      Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

      India’s state power giant NTPC Ltd reported on Tuesday an 83% jump in coal production from the mines it operates in the first half of the 2023/24 fiscal year as India continues to rely on coal to meet most of its electricity demand.   

      Coal still generates around 70% of the country’s electricity. NTPC, with a current installed power generation capacity from all sources of more than 73 gigawatts (GW), is the largest integrated power company. 

      In the first half of the fiscal year 2023/2024, between April and September, NTPC also saw coal dispatch for the period soar by 94%, Indian media report, citing the company’s first-half and Q2 figures. 

      NTPC also boosted its coal production by 66% in the second quarter of its fiscal year, compared to the period between July and September in 2022.

      In September 2023 alone, the company’s coal production surged by 80% and coal dispatch jumped by 106% year-on-year. 

      During the whole previous fiscal year between April 2022 and March 2023, NTPC’s coal production soared by 65%, Gurdeep Singh, chairman and managing director, told the annual general meeting in August 2023. 

      India had anticipated that its power generation from coal would increase in the current year as authorities plan to have coal-fired units maximize electricity production from imported coal to meet rising demand.

      Early this year, India’s government expected coal-fired power plants to use 8% more coal in the financial year between March 2023 and March 2024, as demand is set to continue rising thanks to growing economic activity and unpredictable weather.

      Last year NTPC said it could increase its coal-generation capacity as it prioritizes energy security after the power outages in the spring of 2022.

      The coal phase-out in India is “going to take 2-3 decades, if not more,” NTPC’s chairman Gurdeep Singh said at the time.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:40

    • Arizona Cancels Saudi Land Deal After "Unchecked Amounts Of Groundwater" Siphoned For Alfalfa
      Arizona Cancels Saudi Land Deal After “Unchecked Amounts Of Groundwater” Siphoned For Alfalfa

      Arizona is finally cracking down on foreign companies drinking their milkshake, after Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) canceled a deal which would give a subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian company free groundwater.

      To review; Over the past several years we’ve noted that as the American southwest has suffered under severe drought conditions (last winter notwithstanding), foreign-owned farms have been siphoning water from underground aquifers to grow water-thirsty crops like alfalfa, which ultimately end up overseas in order to feed cattle and other foreign livestock. Saudi Arabian companies swooped in following a 2018 ban on the growing of alfalfa due to the strain on the water supply.

      One such company, Fondomonte, grows alfalfa in Arizona for export to the Middle East. While there is no firm data on exactly how much water the company uses, a State Land Department report revealed that Fondomonte is estimated to be using as much as 18,000 acre-feet (22 million cubic metres) each year – enough water to supply 54,000 single-family homes.

      In April, Fondomonte agreed to rescind two new drilling applications after Attorney General Kris Mayes highlighted ‘inconsistencies’ in the company’s applications.

      According to La Paz County supervisor Holly Irwin (speaking to CNN earlier this year), Middle East agriculture companies “have depleted their [water], that’s why they are here,” adding “That’s what angers people the most. We should be taking care of our own, and we just allow them to come in, purchase property and continue to punch holes in the ground.”

      In fact, 80% of Arizona has no laws governing how much water can be drained by corporate megafarms, nor is there any way to track it.

      In September, Arizona state lawmaker Ruben Gallego (D) put forth a bill to stop the practice, called the Domestic Water Protection Act of 2023. The law would impose a 300% tax on the sale of water-intensive crops grown by foreign companies in the state.

      “The well guys and I have never seen anything like this before,” said longtime resident of Wenden, Arizona, Gary Saiter, who said a UAE-based company, Al Dahra, had been tapping into an underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years.

      [R]ural communities in La Paz County know the water is disappearing beneath their feet.

      Shallow, residential wells in the county started drying up in 2015, local officials say, and deeper municipal well levels have steadily declined. In Salome, local water utility owner Bill Farr told CNN his well – which supplies water to more than 200 customers, including the local schools – is “nearing the end of its useful life.” -CNN

      According to Saiter, water in the town well has been plummeting – with the depth-to-water level dropping from around 100 feet below the surface in the 1950s to around 540 feet in 2022 – far beyond what an average residential well can reach.

      Hobbs cancels lease

      On Monday, the governor’s office announced that an investigation in La Paz county found that Fondomite has been in violation of its lease since 2016.

      “It’s unacceptable that Fondomonte has continued to pump unchecked amounts of groundwater out of our state while in clear default on their lease,” said Hobbs.

      According to Mayes, the AG, “This decision to protect Arizona’s precious groundwater resources and uphold the integrity of our state land trust is a good step in the right direction for the future of Arizona,” adding “However, we must take additional steps to urgently protect Arizona’s water resources – especially in rural Arizona.”

      Hobbs now says she won’t renew Fondomonte’s three other leases in the state which expire next year, saying that the contracts were “not in the best interest of the Trust’s beneficiaries due to excessive amounts of water being pumped from the land—free of charge.”

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:20

    • Harder Than Gold, Faster Than Fiat
      Harder Than Gold, Faster Than Fiat

      Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

      French Emperor Napoleon III would use a unique set of aluminum cutlery only for his most honored dinner guests.

      Normal guests had to contend with gold utensils.

      In the middle of the 19th century, aluminum was more scarce and desirable than even gold.

      As a result, aluminum bullion bars found a place among the national treasures of France, and aluminum jewelry became a symbol of the French aristocracy.

      Aluminum, known by its atomic number 13 on the periodic table, is a ubiquitous element, yet it mainly exists intertwined in complex chemical compounds and not in its metallic state.

      The complex procedure of transforming aluminum compounds into pure aluminum metal was costly, making aluminum harder to produce than gold. The aluminum price at the time reflected that.

      In 1852, aluminum hovered around $37 per ounce, significantly more expensive than gold at $20.67 per ounce.

      But aluminum’s fate was about to take a dramatic turn towards the end of the 19th century.

      A monumental discovery in 1886 made it possible to produce pure aluminum on an enormous scale at a fraction of the previous cost.

      Before this groundbreaking finding, global aluminum production was a mere handful of ounces per month.

      After the discovery, America’s leading aluminum company manufactured 800 ounces daily. Within two decades, this company, which would later become Alcoa, made over 1.4 million ounces of aluminum daily.

      The price of aluminum plummeted from a staggering $550 per pound in 1852 to a mere $12 in 1880. By the dawn of the 20th century, a pound of aluminum cost approximately 20 cents.

      In less than a decade and a half, aluminum transitioned from the planet’s most expensive metal to one of the cheapest.

      Nowadays, aluminum is no longer a precious metal fit for royal feasts or a country’s national treasure. It has become an everyday item used in soda cans and cooking foil.

      Aluminum’s dramatic transformation from a highly prized metal to an inexpensive household material illustrates “hardness”—the most important characteristic of a good money.

      Hardness does not mean something that is necessarily tangible or physically hard, like metal. Instead, it means “hard to produce.” By contrast, “easy money” is easy to produce.

      The best way to think of hardness is “resistance to debasement,” which helps make it a good store of value—an essential function of money.

      Would you want to put your savings into something somebody else can create without effort or cost?

      Of course, you wouldn’t.

      It would be like storing your life savings in Chuck E. Cheese arcade tokens, airline frequent flyer miles, aluminum, or government fiat currencies.

      What is desirable in a good money is something that someone else cannot make easily.

      The Stock-to-Flow (S2F) Ratio

      The stock-to-flow (S2F) ratio measures an asset’s hardness.

      S2F Ratio = Stock / Flow

      The “stock” part refers to the amount of something available, like current stockpiles. It’s the supply already mined. It’s available right away.

      The “flow” part refers to the new supply added from production and other sources each year.

      A high S2F ratio means that annual supply growth is small relative to the existing supply, which indicates a hard asset resistant to debasement.

      A low S2F ratio indicates the opposite. A low S2F ratio means new annual production can easily influence the overall supply—and prices. That’s not desirable for something to function as a store of value.

      In the chart below, we can see the hardness of various physical commodities.

      No other physical commodity comes close to gold’s hardness or resistance to debasement.

      Monetary commodities such as gold and silver have higher S2F ratios. On the other hand, industrial commodities have low S2F ratios, typically around 1x.

      With an S2F ratio of 60x, it would take about 60 years of the current production rate to equal the existing gold supply.

      Another way to think of it is to look at the inverse of the SF ratio, which is the annual production rate relative to existing stockpiles. So, for example, gold’s yearly production is about a trivial 1.7% of its existing stockpiles.

      Two things can explain gold’s uniquely high S2F ratio.

      First, gold is indestructible.

      Gold doesn’t decay or corrode. That means that most gold people produced even thousands of years ago is still around today and contributing to current stockpiles.

      Second, gold has a history of thousands of years of production, unlike other metals.

      These two factors make gold’s existing stockpiles so large relative to new production. That means nobody can arbitrarily increase the gold supply, which helps make it a neutral store of value. It’s what gives gold unique and unmatched monetary properties among other metals.

      It’s important to clarify that hardness is not the same as scarcity. They are related concepts but not the same thing.

      For example, platinum and palladium are scarcer than gold but not hard assets. Current production is high relative to existing stockpiles.

      Unlike gold, stockpiles of platinum and palladium have not built up over thousands of years. It’s the primary reason why new supply can easily rock the market.

      Because of their low S2F ratios, platinum (0.4x) and palladium (1.1x) are even less suitable as money than silver. Their low S2F ratios indicate they are primarily industrial metals, corresponding to how people use them today. Almost nobody uses platinum and palladium as money.

      Here’s the main point.

      Hardness is the most important characteristic of a good money. All other monetary characteristics are meaningless if the money is easy for someone to produce.

      That’s why the history of money is the history of the hardest asset winning and why gold has always reigned supreme.

      But now gold has a serious competitor…

      Bitcoin’s S2F ratio today is about 57x, slightly below gold’s.

      According to its fixed protocol, we know precisely how Bitcoin’s supply will grow in the future.

      A key feature is that the new supply gets cut in half every four years, which causes Bitcoin’s hardness to double every four years.

      The process where Bitcoin’s new supply is cut in half every four years is known as the “halving”—or what I like to call “quantitative hardening.”

      Here’s another way to think of it.

      In 2023, the gold market must absorb roughly 117 million troy ounces of new supply.

      In 2024 we can expect that the gold market must absorb slightly more, say 119 million troy ounces of new supply.

      In subsequent years we can expect the amount of new supply the gold market must absorb to increase gradually.

      Bitcoin has the opposite dynamic. The amount of new supply the market must absorb is constantly shrinking.

      In 2023, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly 328,500 Bitcoin of new supply.

      After the halving in May 2024, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly an additional 164,250 Bitcoin of new supply each year until the halving in 2028.

      After the halving in 2028, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly an additional 82,128 Bitcoin of new supply each year until the halving in 2032.

      This process of new supply decreases will continue until the year 2140, when the last Bitcoin will be created. That’s when the total Bitcoin supply will reach 21 million. Today it’s about 19.5 million, meaning the vast majority—about 93%—of the total Bitcoin supply has already been created.

      That means only 1.5 million more Bitcoin will be created over the next 117 years at a decreasing rate.

      In other words, Bitcoin’s supply will only grow about 7% in the next 117 years. By reference, the US money supply has increased by around 35% since March 2020.

      Historically, halvings and their massive supply shocks have catalyzed eye-popping Bitcoin bull markets where Bitcoin has skyrocketed 10x (or more).

      The next time Bitcoin’s supply growth will be cut in half will be in May 2024—less than eight months from now.

      But this coming halving will be very different…

      That’s because Bitcoin’s hardness, as measured by the S2F ratio, will be twice that of gold’s when that happens.

      That’s how Bitcoin will soon become the hardest money the world has ever known—in less than eight months. And it will keep getting harder as its S2F ratio approaches infinity.

      For thousands of years, gold has always been mankind’s hardest money. That is all set to change in a matter of months, and most people have no idea.

      I think now is the time to get positioned for this unique moment in monetary history.

      Absolute Scarcity

      Bitcoin has another unique scarcity attribute. It isn’t just scarce. It is absolutely scarce.

      For example, imagine the price of copper going 5x or 10x.

      You can be sure that would spur increased production, eventually expanding the copper supply. Of course, the same is true of any other commodity.

      That’s why there is a famous saying in mining: “the cure for high prices is high prices.”

      The dynamic of higher prices incentivizing more production and ultimately more supply, bringing prices down, exists with every physical commodity. However, gold is the most resistant to this process.

      That supply response is why most commodity prices tend to revert around the cost of production over time.

      This dynamic is even more profound with money.

      When an asset obtains monetary properties, the natural reaction is for people to make more of it—a lot more of it.

      This known as the easy money trap.

      However, Bitcoin totally defies it because its supply is perfectly inflexible. It’s the only commodity where higher prices cannot induce more supply.

      In other words, Bitcoin is the first—and only—monetary asset with a supply entirely unaffected by increased demand.

      That is an astonishing and game-changing characteristic.

      Here’s the bottom line. Gold and other commodities are scarce, but only Bitcoin is absolutely scarce.

      That means the only way Bitcoin can respond to an increase in demand is for the price to go up. Unlike every other commodity, increasing the supply in response to increased demand is not an option.

      The market cap for Bitcoin today is around $528 billion.

      The market cap for all the mined gold in the world, which took thousands of years to accumulate, is about $12.3 trillion.

      That means Bitcoin has a market cap roughly equal to 4.2% of gold’s, even though it is about to surpass—double—gold’s hardness.

      Assuming gold stays flat and Bitcoin goes up about 23x, it would have a market cap roughly equal to gold. At that point, a single Bitcoin would be worth over $620,000.

      I think that’s a real possibility in the years ahead, though it could happen much sooner as the fiat currency scam continues to collapse at an accelerating rate.

      If that sounds outrageous, consider this…

      Ten years ago, the Bitcoin price was around $100. Today, it’s roughly 271x that.

      Bitcoin has made numerous breathtaking moves to the upside in the past. I think it can do it again, especially as corporations, institutional investors, and even nation states start buying Bitcoin for the first time and as Bitcoin surpasses gold and becomes the hardest money mankind has ever known. Of course, it’s important to remember that past performance does not indicate future results for any investment.

      That’s why I’ve just released an urgent PDF report revealing three crucial Bitcoin techniques to ensure you avoid the most common—sometimes fatal—mistakes. Check it out as soon as possible because it could soon be too late to take action. Click here to get it now.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:00

    • FBI Creates 'MAGA' Extremist Category, Targets Trump Supporters Ahead Of 2024 Election
      FBI Creates ‘MAGA’ Extremist Category, Targets Trump Supporters Ahead Of 2024 Election

      The Biden FBI has ‘quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers’ ahead of the 2024 election, according to prolific (and well connected) anti-war journalist and political commentator, William Arkin, who has previously reported on the FBI’s efforts to “Fight MAGA Terrorism.”

      In a Wednesday Newsweek article, Arkin reveals that the vast majority of FBI investigations into “anti-government” activities are of Trump supporters.

      “The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” a current FBI official told Arkin, who added that the agency’s stated intent is stopping a repeat of January 6th type incidents (which was riddled with feds), while balancing the Constitutional right of Americans to protest the government “Especially at a time when the White House is facing Congressional Republican opposition claiming that the Biden administration has ‘weaponized’ the Bureau against the right wing, it has to tread very carefully,” the official continued.

      Newsweek spoke to over a dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism in a three-month investigation to understand the current domestic-security landscape and to evaluate what President Joe Biden‘s administration is doing about what it calls domestic terrorism. Most requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly, were reluctant to stray into partisan politics or feared the repercussions of speaking frankly.

      Newsweek has also reviewed secret FBI and Department of Homeland Security data that track incidents, threats, investigations and cases to try to build a better picture. While experts agree that the current partisan environment is charged and uniquely dangerous (with the threat not only of violence but, in the most extreme scenarios, possibly civil war), many also question whether “terrorism” is the most effective way to describe the problem, or that the methods of counterterrorism developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups constitute the most fruitful way to craft domestic solutions.

      We would note that an FBI whistleblower in March claimed that the agency pressured him to inflate domestic terrorism figures against conservatives, and that the agency created a specific threat tag for pro-lifers “THREATSCOTUS2022” following the leaked Supreme Court opinion on abortion (and not a threat tag for the violent leftists who threatened SCOTUS justices?).

      The FBI told Newsweek in a statement that: “The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI’s goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence and threats of violence. Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI’s top threat priorities,” adding “We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person’s political beliefs or affiliations.”

      According to the FBI’s data leaked to Arkin, the number of domestic extremism cases has dropped since Jan 6, but that “Sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.”

      So – while the threat that the FBI has encouraged agents to inflate may have fallen, they’re on the lookout!

      The agency has even created a new subcategory of threats, “AGAAVE-Other,” to denote those who are a threat but don’t fit into its anarchist, militia or Sovereign Citizen categories.

      Introduced without any announcement, and reported here for the first time, the new classification is officially defined as “domestic violent extremists who cite anti-government or anti-authority motivations for violence or criminal activity not otherwise defined, such as individuals motivated by a desire to commit violence against those with a real or perceived association with a specific political party or faction of a specific political party.” -Newsweek

      Trump or MAGA aren’t directly menti0oned in the official description of AGAAVE-Other, however “government insiders acknowledge that it applies to political violence ascribed to the former president’s supporters.“

      “What other name could we use?” said one FBI officer, who added: “Obviously if Democratic Party supporters resort to violence, it [AGAAVE-Other] would apply to them as well. It doesn’t matter that there is a low likelihood of that. So yes, in practical terms, it refers to MAGA, though the carefully constructed language is wholly nonpartisan.”

      Sure anonymous FBI guy… there’s a ‘low likelihood’ that Democrats (the party which the FBI’s top brass belong to) aren’t causing political violence. Did someone get into Hunter’s crack stash?

      A parked limousine burns during a demonstration after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Friday, Jan. 20, 2017, in Washington.

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

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

      More:

      3 cops, pepper spray used in arrest of Sen. Tim Kaine’s son near Trump rally at Capitol

       “100% Antifa” Portland Shooting Suspect Brought Loaded Gun To July Riot

       “We Know Where You Sleep At Night”: Antifa Mob Whose Founder Loves Assassination Targets Tucker Carlson At Home

      As The Federalist perfectly notes;

      Despite widespread, leftist-led and encouraged riots during the 2020 summer of rage, FBI data says that spikes in domestic violent extremism and domestic terrorism investigations in 2020 and 2021 “show clearly that the main targets of the investigations and cases open were of Trump supporters,” not the people who wreaked billions of dollars of damage on American cities.

      Similarly, “assessments,” a shadowy tool used by the FBI to spy on Americans who have political or ideological associations deemed unfavorable by the agency, “more than doubled from 2019 to 2021.”

      A drastic rise in politicized probes of Trump voters follows an avalanche of rhetoric touted by President Joe Biden, his White House, Democrats in Congress, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and other officials who have named the “domestic extremism” often pinned on Republican voters as the nation’s biggest threat.

      The increase also serves as a continuation of the Biden regime’s persecution of its number one political opponent and his popular brand of wrongthink ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

      Totally ‘not weaponized.’ 

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      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 18:40

    • Big Tech's Armageddon
      Big Tech’s Armageddon

      Authored by Betsy McCaughey via The Epoch Times,

      Never before in U.S. history have Americans been less free to see and say what they want. The blame goes mostly to the social media giants such as Facebook, YouTube, and Google that censor political views they don’t like.

      But the tech giants’ day of reckoning is near. Justice Clarence Thomas is taking them on.

      Phone companies such as AT&T or Sprint can’t shut down your account because of your political views. American Airlines can’t refuse to sell you a ticket because you’ve questioned climate change or COVID lockdowns. The law forbids it.

      That same ban against political discrimination should apply to social media platforms. Justice Thomas has argued against Big Tech censorship since at least 2021, saying these companies should have to serve all customers, just like phone companies, utilities, and public accommodations.

      On Sept. 29, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will rule on state laws enacted by Florida and Texas that prohibit tech giants from canceling users based on their political views. Expect Justice Thomas to lead a majority of the justices to conclude that internet censorship is inconsistent with democracy and must be stopped.

      A high court ruling against censorship will deal a powerful blow against Big Tech tyranny. Not a day too soon. Hallelujah.

      Right now, social media platforms freely censor, taking down posts and deplatforming users whose views they don’t like—even a former president of the United States—and burying information so it’s impossible to find with a Google search.

      Big Tech censorship impacts far more people than when colleges silence dissent or even when workplaces and schools indoctrinate.

      Texas’s anti-censorship law is designed to protect the public against this loss of freedom. The law still allows the removal of items that are pornographic, threaten violence, or promote the sexual exploitation of children—what’s truly harmful.

      To defend Texas’s law, the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, specifically cited Justice Thomas’s argument.

      The law was upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, deciding that corporations don’t have a “right to muzzle speech.”

      But a similar Florida law was struck down by the 11th Circuit, arguing that Big Tech platforms have a First Amendment right to pick and choose views like a newspaper does.

      Now, the Supreme Court is poised to resolve those conflicting outcomes. The court will decide who is protected by the First Amendment—the tech companies that claim they’re like newspapers, or the millions of social media users.

      The smart money is on Justice Thomas persuading a majority of the justices that democracy requires an uncensored internet.

      In a 2021 concurring opinion, Justice Thomas suggested a role for Congress to provide a legislative fix, including changing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But Congress is unlikely to act, as long as Democrats control either house.

      Most Democrats in Congress are rooting for more censorship. They’ve become the anti-free speech party. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told tech executives during a 2020 Senate hearing that he wants them to censor “climate denialism.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) urged them to do more “content modification” and eliminate “disinformation” in future elections.

      When Mr. Blumenthal says “content modification,” it’s a euphemism for silencing the opposition—in short, rigging elections.

      “Disinformation.” Don’t be fooled by that word. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained that the way to test the truth of any statement is to see if it survives in the marketplace of ideas. Truth will prevail.

      Lousy ideas, falsehoods, and loser politicians such as President Joe Biden need censorship to survive.

      At the Supreme Court, Biden’s Department of Justice is siding with Big Tech against the public’s right to free expression.

      That’s no surprise. President Biden likely owes his 2020 election to Big Tech’s rush to squash the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop reporting.

      Since taking office, Joe Biden has erected a vast censorship operation, with the White House, FBI, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other government agencies colluding with Big Tech to limit what you can see and say. Bravo that Elon Musk’s company X, formerly Twitter, refuses.

      The next move belongs to the Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments and rule early in 2024.

      Count on Justice Thomas’s anti-censorship views to prevail. Americans will be freer as a result.

      Thank you, Justice Thomas.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 18:20

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