• Italy's Meloni Declares 'State Of Emergency' As Illegal Immigration Quadruples
  Italy’s Meloni Declares ‘State Of Emergency’ As Illegal Immigration Quadruples

  Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

  Italy could see up to 50,000 migrants arriving a month if current trends hold…

  

  Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has announced emergency measures to combat a surge in illegal immigration. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

  Italy is responding to the number of illegal boat migrants quadrupling by declaring a nationwide state of emergency, with the government of Giorgia Meloni hoping it will help Italy cope with the growing immigration surge. However, experts are warning that if current trends hold, Italy could see up to 50,000 new arrivals a month in the summer months.

  The new measures, which are initially limited to six months, are intended to free up additional resources and money to deal with the crisis. Over Easter alone, around 2,000 people landed in several boats on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.

  In addition to emergency aid totaling €5 million, which will flow into the most affected regions of the country, the state of emergency will also see the construction of additional migrant shelters.

  

  Migrants disembark from a ship in the Sicilian port of Catania, Wednesday, April 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

  So far this year, the Italian Interior Ministry has registered over 31,000 illegal entries by sea. In the same period last year, their number was 7,900. However, the real fear is that in the coming months with warmer weather, an unprecedented number of migrants could be arriving.

  “Italy risks seeing something like 50,000 people arrive on its shores a month, i.e., just under 2,000 migrants a day. In March alone, landings exceeded 13,000 units and you don’t need a calculator to project this figure into the summer when sea conditions will be optimal for a greater number of days. If these figures are projected to the end of the year, Italy runs the risk of having over 250,000 migrants as of December 31,” writes Frances Gallici for Il Giornale newspaper.

  Meloni is under pressure over immigration. Despite campaign pledges to reduce migrant flows, Italy has done little to tackle the crisis and has seen illegal immigration numbers rise dramatically. In fact, she has personally greeted migrants rescued from the sea in a photo op, leaving many conservatives questioning whether she has any appetite to tackle the issue. Her coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, is calling for stricter measures, such as the ones he instituted while serving as interior minister in 2019, which saw illegal immigration plummet.

  Salvini, who now serves as deputy prime minister, is not keeping quiet about the issue either. From Udine, he underlined that Europe “has been chatting for years, but has never lifted a finger. It’s time to demonstrate that there is a union and solidarity is not only the responsibility of Italy, Spain, Greece or Malta, because we are unable to support a thousand arrivals a day economically, culturally and socially.”

  Salvini’s League party has introduced 21 amendments to existing immigration laws that the party says will help speed up repatriations and serve as a deterrent to new arrivals.

  A government statement regarding the emergency measures announces “new structures, suitable both for sheltering as well as for the processing and repatriation of migrants who don’t have the requisites to stay” in Italy. However, building new migrant shelters may improve congestion, but it is unlikely to reduce numbers overall.

  According to the Italian Interior Ministry, the most common countries of origin for illegal immigrants are Ivory Coast (17 percent), Guinea (13 percent), Pakistan (11 percent), Egypt and Tunisia (8 percent each), Bangladesh (7 percent), Cameroon (5 percent) and Syria (4 percent). Another 22 percent are from other countries or have unclear status.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/17/2023 – 02:00

• Escobar: All Roads Lead To Beijing
  Escobar: All Roads Lead To Beijing

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  This is the tale of two pilgrims following the road that really matters in the young 21st century; one coming from NATOstan and another one from BRICS.

  

  Let’s start with Le Petit Roi, Emmanuel Macron. Picture him with a plastic grin in his face strolling alongside Xi Jinping in Guangzhou. Following the – long and gentle – sound of classic “High Mountain and Flowing Water”, they enter the Baiyun Hall  to listen to it played by the 1000-year-old Guqin (a beautiful instrument). They taste the fragrance of 1000-year-old tea – and muse on the rise and fall of great powers in the new millennium.

  And what does Xi tell Le Petit Roi? He explains that when you hear this eternal music played by this eternal instrument, you expect to be in the company of a bosom friend; you are in synch as much as the high mountain and the flowing water. That’s the deeper meaning of the ancient tale of musicians Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi, 25 centuries ago in the Kingdom of Chu: bosom friendship. Only bosom friends can understand the music.

  And with that, as Chinese scholars explained, Xi brought up the concept of Zhiyin. After Zhong Ziqi died, Yu Boya broke his Guqin: he thought that no one else could understand his music. Their story imprinted the term “Zhiyin”: someone who understands music, with the added meaning of close friends that can completely understand each other.

  All bets are off on whether a narcissist puppet like Macron would ever be cultured enough to understand Xi’s subtle, sophisticated message: those that get it are true soul mates. Moreover, Macron was not dispatched to Beijing and Guangzhou by his masters to do soul mating, but to try to bend Xi towards NATO on Russia/Ukraine.

  His body language is a dead giveaway – complete with crossing his arms demonstrating boredom. He may at first have been impervious to the notion that true friendship requires mutual understanding and appreciation.

  But then something extraordinary happened. Xi’s message may have touched a key spot in the tortured inner depths of the narcissist Petit Roi. What if, in international relations, mutual understanding and appreciation is the key for nations to find common ground and work together towards common goals?

  What a revolutionary notion; not exactly the Hegemon-imposed “rules-based international order”.

  Are you a true Sovereign?

  By inviting Le Petit Roi to China, and personally spending no less than 6 hours with his guest, Xi enacted millenniums-old diplomacy at its best. He reminded his guest of the turbulent history between France and the Anglo-Saxon powers; and he talked about sovereignty.

  The key subtle sub-plot: “Europe” better think hard about being subservient to the Hegemon and minimize as best as possible the massive economic turbulence when Confrontation Day with the U.S. arrives. Implied is Beijing’s priority of breaking up growing U.S. attempts to encircle China.

  So Xi treated France as a potential true Sovereign even under the EU; or somewhat splitting from EU dogma.

  Of course another key message was implied under this Confucian invitation to epistemological growth. For those not willing to be friendly to China because of complex geopolitical layers, it will never be too late for Beijing to show the less “friendly” side of the Chinese state – if the situation arises.

  Translation: if the West goes for Total Machiavelli, China will apply Total Sun Tzu. Even if Beijing would rather go for international relations under the aegis of Beauty, Goodness and Truth rather than “you’re with us or against us”, war of terror and sanctions dementia.

  So did Petit Roi have a “road to Damascus” moment? The verdict is open. He literally freaked the Hegemon out with his outburst that Europe must resist pressure to become “America’s followers”. That’s pretty much in synch with the 51 points agreed upon by Beijing and Paris, with emphasis on “legitimate security concerns of all parties”.

  The Americans got even more spooked when Macron asserted that Europe should become an independent “third superpower”. Le Petit Roi even advanced some baby steps in favor of de-dollarization (certainly under supervision of his financial masters) and not in favor of Forever Wars.

  So the Americans, in panic, had to send German 5th column Annalena “360 Degrees” Bearbock in a hurry to Beijing to try to undo Le Petit Roi’s outbursts – and reaffirm the Washington Dictates Brussels official script. No one, anywhere, paid the slightest attention.

  That came on top of the most glaring subplot of the whole tale: how European Commission dominatrix Ursula von der Leyen was treated by Beijing as worse than irrelevant. A Chinese scholar scathingly described her as “just the mouthpiece of a canine organization with no teeth. Even her bark sounds like whimpering from a terminally ill dog that is about to be euthanized.”

  The “terminally ill dog” had to go through passport control and customs (“Anything to declare”?) No diplomatic status. No official invitation. No sovereignty. And no, you cannot take the special high-speed train alongside Macron to go to Guangzhou. So here’s another message – this one quite graphic: Don’t mess with the 3,000-old Middle Kingdom ethos.

  Lula and “Zhiyin”

  Top Chinese scholars were absolutely riveted by Xi applying diplomatic stratagems that had been so useful 25 centuries ago, now re-enacted on the road-to-multipolarity global stage.

  Some are calling for a new “Strategies for the Warring States” rewritten for the 21st century. The massive round table set up by Chinese protocol with the “jungle” in the middle and Macron and von der Leyen positioned as if for a job interview was a monster hit on Weibo and We Chat. That led to endless discussions on how China is now finally able to “drive a wedge among the barbarians”.

  Compared to all this hoopla, the tale of Brazilian President Lula coming to Shanghai and Beijing reads like a graphic illustration of Zhiyin.

  Lula went for the jugular right from the start, during the inauguration of former President Dilma Rousseff  as the new president of the NDB, the BRICS bank.

  In simple, direct language that anyone from Sahara to Siberia can understand, Lula said, “Every night I ask myself why should every country need to be tied to the dollar for trade? Why can’t we trade in our own currencies? And why don’t we have the commitment to innovate?”

  Directly implied is the fact that the expanding BRICS+ should design and promote its own currency (the long, complex process has already started), on top of allowing trade in national currencies.

  Lula’s powerful message was addressed to the whole Global South. A Brazilian example is China’s ICBC setting up a clearing house in Brazil allowing direct yuan-real exchange.

  It’s no wonder that the CIA official rag, the Washington Post, foaming at the mouth, immediately issued the Deep State verdict: Lula is not obeying the “rules-based international order” diktat.

  That means the Deep State will come after Lula and his government – all over again, and will go no holds barred to destabilize it. Because what Lula said is exactly what Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gadaffi said – and tried to implement – in the past.

  So Lula will need all the help he can get. Enter, once again, “Zhiyin”.

  This is how Xi officially welcomed Lula in Beijing. Very few people around the world, non-Chinese, understand that when someone of Xi’s stature tells you, right in front of you, that you are “an old friend of China”, this is it.

  All doors are open. They trust you, embrace you, protect you, listen to you, help you in times of need and will always do their best to keep the friendship close to their hearts.

  And that ends, for now, our tale of “bosom friends” taking the road to Beijing. The BRICS friend certainly understood all there is to know. As for the NATOstan Little King dreaming of becoming a true sovereign leader, the moment of truth is knocking at his door.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 23:30

• "Newly Discovered Seafloor Seep" Off Oregon Coast On Fault Line May Be Harbinger To Major Quake
  “Newly Discovered Seafloor Seep” Off Oregon Coast On Fault Line May Be Harbinger To Major Quake

  “Chemically distinct liquid shooting up from the seafloor” has been detected by researchers on a stretch of a 600-mile-long fault line in the Pacific Ocean, which is situated only 50 miles away from the Oregon coast, and could potentially trigger a catastrophic earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. 

  

  “Pythia’s Oasis is a newly discovered seafloor seep on the Central Oregon segment of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where focused venting emits highly altered fluids ~9°C above the background temperature. The seep fluid chemistry is unique for Cascadia and includes extreme enrichment of boron and lithium and depletion of chloride, potassium, and magnesium. We conclude that the fluids are sourced from pore water compaction and mineral dehydration reactions with minimum source temperatures of 150° to 250°C, placing the source at or near the plate boundary offshore Central Oregon,” researchers at the University of Washington wrote in a study. 

  

  Researchers said the seep is nearly a mile below the surface of the ocean at the plate boundary and was first observed in 2015. They fear the leak could be a sign of future earthquake activity:

  “The megathrust fault zone is like an air hockey table.

  “If the fluid pressure is high, it’s like the air is turned on, meaning there’s less friction and the two plates can slip. If the fluid pressure is lower, the two plates will lock – that’s when stress can build up,” co-author Evan Solomon, a University of Washington associate professor of oceanography who studies seafloor geology, wrote. 

  Video of an underwater drone surveying the seafloor seeps. 

  The Cascadia Subduction Zone parrels several major West Coast cities, including Seattle and Portland, Oregon, as well as Northern California and Vancouver Island in Canada. And researchers fear the seismically quiet fault line could be awakened and “unleash a magnitude-9 earthquake in the Pacific Northwest.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 23:00

• 10 Years On – The Boston Bombing Backstory
  10 Years On – The Boston Bombing Backstory

  Authored by Lloyd Billlingsley via AmGreatness.com,

  Local police, not the FBI, are the true warriors against terrorism…

  

  Ten years ago, at the April 15, 2013 running of the Boston Marathon, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev planted pressure-cooker bombs that wounded more than 250 and killed Lingzi Lu, 23, Krystle Campbell, 29, and Martin Richard, only eight years old.

  The 2016 film “Patriots Day” dramatizes the story but doesn’t start at the beginning. 

  A year and a half before the bombing, the FBI ignored warnings from Russia about the Tsarnaevs’ terrorist connections. In the film, Kevin Bacon plays special agent Richard DesLauriers, in charge of the “counterterrorism investigation,” after the fact.  

  Local police, not the FBI, go after the bombers and manage to take down Tamerlan. Dzhokhar hid in a boat and suffered several wounds, including one to the mouth that may have been self-inflicted. 

  The brothers had murdered MIT police officer Sean Collier, as U.S. Attorney William Weinreb explained, “shooting him in the head at point-blank range twice in the side of the head and once right between the eyes.” 

  That brought the death toll to four. As they buried their dead, Bostonians had cause to wonder why the FBI failed to learn from previous bombings. 

  In 1993, the FBI failed to prevent Islamic terrorists from detonating approximately 1,200 pounds of explosives at the World Trade Center. The blast claimed the lives of John DiGiovanni, Robert Kirkpatrick, Stephen Knapp, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado, and Monica Rodriguez Smith. The blast wounded more than 1,000, including 88 firefighters, 35 police officers, and a medical worker. 

  Three years later, at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, the FBI failed to stop Eric Robert Rudolph from planting a bomb, packed with nails, that killed Alice Hawthorne of Albany, Georgia. Turkish cameraman Melih Unzonyol suffered a fatal heart attack and the bomb wounded more than 100 others. 

  The FBI then tried to frame security guard Richard Jewell, subject of the eponymous Clint Eastwood film, who tried to evacuate the area before the blast. For his part, Rudolph had an example to follow. 

  Back in 1978 Ted Kaczynski mailed a bomb that wounded Northwestern University professor Buckley Crist. Kaczynski’s bombs also wounded United Airlines president Percy Wood, Vanderbilt University secretary Janet Smith, UC Berkeley electrical engineering professor Diogenes Angelakos, engineering student John Hauser, University of Michigan professor James McConnell, his assistant Nicklaus Suino, and computer store owner Gary Wright. 

  Kaczinski’s explosive devices maimed renowned computer scientist David Gelernter in 1993 and killed computer store owner Hugh Scrutton, advertising executive Thomas Mosser and lobbyist Gilbert Murray, in 1994. The so-called Unabomber had been active for 17 years, during the administrations of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton—all without detection by the FBI. 

  Only with the aid of Kaczynski’s brother, who identified the bomber through his public manifesto, was the FBI able to track down Ted. He pleaded guilty in 1998 and was sentenced to life without parole. 

  Three years later, the FBI failed to prevent the attack of September 11, 2001, with 3,000 casualties, billions in damages, and suffering that endures to this day. It remains unclear whether any FBI bosses were disciplined, demoted, or discharged over that deadly failure. It was hardly the bureau’s only lapse. 

  The FBI had been tracking Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, a self-described “soldier of Allah” who was communicating with al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al Awlaki about killing Americans. Someone in the FBI’s Washington office dropped the surveillance. 

  On November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood, Hasan murdered 13 unarmed American soldiers, including Pvt. Francheska Velez. She was pregnant and pleaded “My baby! My baby,” before Hasan shot her through the chest, bringing the death toll to 14 with the death of her unborn child. 

  Hasan was only stopped when civilian police officers Kim Munley and Mark Todd returned fire and wounded the mass murderer. Munley was wounded in both legs and a wrist but “she stayed upright and kept firing at the charging gunman.” Had Munley not done so, Hasan would have claimed many more lives. 

  The FBI played no role in the takedown.

  There is still no word if any FBI bosses were ever disciplined, demoted, or dismissed for the lapses that enabled this massacre, the worst ever on a U.S. military base. The broader public also stood at risk. 

  On December 2, 2015, in San Bernardino, California, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik murdered 14 people at a holiday office party. The FBI did nothing to prevent the attack and played no role in the takedown. The fleeing terrorists fired at least 81 rounds at police officers, who shot the terrorists dead with no loss of civilian life. 

  In 2013, the FBI twice interviewed Omar Mateen about his connections to the Islamic State, and questioned him again the following year. Knowing his terrorist connections, the FBI did nothing to prevent Omar Mateen from murdering 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016. Orlando police, not the FBI, took down the mass murderer. 

  The composite character president David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, downplayed Islamic terrorism and cast his domestic opposition as the true threat. That is also true of Joe Biden, as the Delaware Democrat made perfectly clear in an angry speech last September 1. 

  For the FBI, just about everybody less-than-worshipful of Joe Biden is a domestic terrorist or violent extremist. The bureau has even deployed informers in Catholic churches. FBI boss Christopher Wray is “aghast” and wants to “figure out how we can make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.” 

  If Catholics, Baptists, or Presbyterians thought that meant the FBI would do it more it would be hard to blame them. The FBI has never been held to account and, indeed, is about to be rewarded with a new headquarters bigger than the Pentagon. 

  With actual terrorism, the FBI prefers to look the other way and leave the front-line combat to the police, as in Boston in 2013. Ten years later in 2023, actual domestic terrorists are again on the march. 

  Audrey Hale, a woman who thought she was a man, planned an attack on the Covenant School for months, without detection by the FBI. Hale murdered Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9, Mike Hill, 61, William Kinney, 9, Katherine Koonce, 60, Cynthia Peak, 61, and nine-year-old Hallie Scruggs, daughter of Chad Scruggs, senior pastor at the Covenant Presbyterian Church. 

  Nashville police officers Michael Collazo and Rex Engelbert took down Hale before she could take more innocent lives. The FBI is now controlling Hale’s manifesto, which at this writing is still unreleased. 

  As with his statement after Fort Hood, Joe Biden failed to name or condemn the shooter, and failed to name a single victim. Under the Delaware Democrat, every year is the year of living dangerously. 

  *  *  *

  Go Emma, run great tomorrow, we’re all very proud of you…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 22:30

• These Are The Largest Bond Markets In The World
  These Are The Largest Bond Markets In The World

  In 2022, the global bond market totaled $133 trillion.

  As one of the world’s largest capital markets, debt securities have grown sevenfold over the last 40 years. As Visual Capitalists Dorothy Neufeld details below, government and corporate debt sales across major economies and emerging markets have fueled this dramatic growth. Over the last three years, China’s bond market has grown 13% annually.

  Based on estimates from the Bank for International Statements, this graphic shows the largest bond markets in the world.

  

  Total debt numbers here include both domestic and international debt securities in each particular country or region. BIS notes that international debt securities are issued outside the local market of the country where the borrower resides and cover eurobonds as well as foreign bonds, but exclude negotiable loans.

  Ranked: The World’s Top Bond Markets

  Valued at over $51 trillion, the U.S. has the largest bond market globally.

  Government bonds made up the majority of its debt market, with over $26 trillion in securities outstanding. In 2022, the Federal government paid $534 billion in interest on this debt.

  China is second, at 16% of the global total. Local commercial banks hold the greatest share of its outstanding bonds, while foreign ownership remains fairly low. Foreign interest in China’s bonds slowed in 2022 amid geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and lower yields.\

  

  *Represent countries where total debt securities were not reported by national authorities. These figures are the sum of domestic debt securities reported by national authorities and/or international debt securities compiled by BIS.

  Data as of Q3 2022.

  As the above table shows, Japan has the third biggest debt market. Japan’s central bank owns a massive share of its government bonds. Central bank ownership hit a record 50% as it tweaked its yield curve control policy that was introduced in 2016. The policy was designed to help boost inflation and prevent interest rates from falling. As inflation began to rise in 2022 and bond investors began selling, it had to increase its yield to spur demand and liquidity. The adjustment sent shockwaves through financial markets.

  In Europe, France is home to the largest bond market at $4.4 trillion in total debt, surpassing the United Kingdom by roughly $150 billion.

  Banks: A Major Buyer in Bond Markets

  Like central banks around the world, commercial banks are key players in bond markets.

  In fact, commercial banks are among the top three buyers of U.S. government debt. This is because commercial banks will reinvest client deposits into interest-bearing securities. These often include U.S. Treasuries, which are highly liquid and one of the safest assets globally.

  As we can see in the chart below, the banking sector often surpasses an economy’s total GDP.

  

  As interest rates have risen sharply since 2022, the price of bonds has been pushed down, given their inverse relationship. This has raised questions about what type of bonds banks hold.

  In the U.S., commercial banks hold $4.2 trillion in Treasury bonds and other government securities. For large U.S. banks, these holdings account for almost 24% of assets on average. They make up an average 15% of assets for small banks in 2023. Since mid-2022, small banks have reduced their bond holdings due to interest rate increases.

  As higher rates reverberate across the banking system and wider economy, it may expose further strains on global bond markets which have expanded rapidly in an era of dovish monetary policy and ultra-low interest rates.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 22:00

• Anheuser-Busch Transitions Into Damage Control Mode – And People Aren't Buying It
  Anheuser-Busch Transitions Into Damage Control Mode – And People Aren’t Buying It

  After rolling out a Bud Light ad campaign featuring flamboyant transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney – whose ditzy caricature of a woman mocks decades of actual progress by feminists (who have apparently been wokeshamed into silence), Anheuser-Busch’s damage control team kicked into action on Friday after the Mulvaney ad sparked a massive backlash.

  

  “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” said Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Brendan Whitworth in a carefully crafted, heavily focus-grouped press release which failed to mention Mulvaney, Bud Light, or transgender issues. “We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”

  “I care deeply about this country, this company, our brands and our partners. I spend much of my time traveling across America, listening to and learning from our customers, distributors and others,” the statement continued. “Moving forward, I will continue to work tirelessly to bring great beers to consumers across our nation.”

  Translation: Let’s all forget about this over a beer.

  The company then went with a ‘hey fellow beer drinkers’ ad campaign, tweeting “TGIF” along with a picture of a Bud Light can. It was received about as well as one would imagine… with a massive ratio of people commenting vs. ‘liking’ it.

  

  The campaign was mocked mercilessly.

  This is the beer can we wanted pic.twitter.com/MBKMEsgK7P

  — Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeacefull) April 15, 2023

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

  Waiting for a REAL apology from Bud Light, along with an announcement that they have fired their marketing team.

  — The Gay Republican (@GayRepublicSwag) April 15, 2023

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

  New sponsor for Pisswater Light pic.twitter.com/YjOrjLTjIT

  — Big Ray Hernandez (@BigRayHernandez) April 14, 2023

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

  More via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Brand Damage

  Some analysts and investors said that the damage likely won’t sink Anheuser-Busch, but the damage has been done to the Bud Light brand.

  

  “I simply don’t understand why they hired the person who was doing the marketing,” Oxygen Financial CEO Ted Jenkin told Fox News Thursday. “I mean, if your target customer is Kid Rock, and then all of a sudden you decide to go to RuPaul, that just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  Because Bud Light generally targets “blue-collar workers and younger adults that are 25 to 29 years old,” the campaign should be problematic for the firm. “So, I don’t think that this one campaign is going to colossally destroy the brand,” it said.

  “But certainly short term, it puts doubt into their loyal drinkers of Bud Light to say, ‘Do I want to continue to be drinking Bud Light based upon who they’re showing representing Bud Light?’” he asked. “Anytime a company puts on a national spokesperson that has backlash, it certainly can affect your business.”

  A research fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research wrote this week that Anheuser-Busch is owned by InBev, a multinational conglomerate worth tens of billions of dollars. One product, he wrote, won’t do a huge amount of damage to the brand or value.

  “But that seems like a plausible result. The Venn diagram of people interested in drinking Bud Light and those eager to support the issue at the sharp edge of the wokist culture war is pretty much just two circles vaguely near one another,” Shepard wrote. “While InBev investors won’t suffer too much, distributors of AB products and others who do business with the company surely will.”

  Shepard further stipulated in the article that the “bottom-line effects of wokeness are clearer at other American companies that have abandoned fiduciary duty for politics,” referring to large corporations’ having adopted left-wing talking points and narratives around race and sex.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 21:44

• Is Free Speech Killing Us? FDA Commissioner Declares "Misinformation" A Medical Risk
  Is Free Speech Killing Us? FDA Commissioner Declares “Misinformation” A Medical Risk

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Last year, we discussed the declaration of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that censorship was needed to combat what he called the “infodemic.” It was a jarring position given the censorship of experts and scientists who have now been vindicated in raising questions over mask protection to natural immunities to school closings to the origins of Covid 19. Nevertheless, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf added his own voice to call for censorship. Califf declared that life expectancy rates are being suppressed due to “misinformation.” His call for action against ill-defined “disinformation” or “misinformation” is being echoed throughout the Biden Administration.

  

  In a CNBC interview,  Califf lashed out at “health misinformation” which he said was one of his top priorities to address through “specific authorities at FDA, FTC and other areas.”

  Califf noted:

  “You think about the impact of a single person reaching a billion people on the internet all over the world, we just weren’t prepared for that. We don’t have societal rules that are adjudicating it quite right, and I think it’s impacting our health in very detrimental ways.”

  He does not elaborate on what would be those “societal rules” for “adjudication” of access to information. However, it holds a familiar ring for free speech advocates.

  In recent months, the Twitter Files revealed an extensive and secret effort by the FBI and other agencies to censor citizens on social media. I testified on that effort. New emails uncovered in the ongoing Missouri v. Biden litigation reportedly show that the Biden Administration’s censorship efforts extended to Facebook to censor private communications on its WhatsApp messaging service.

  We also know of backchannel communications with the CDC and other agencies.

  As officials like Califf call for continued crackdowns, there is no recognition of how the government worked to silence opposing views that have been vindicated in recent months.

  For years, scientists faced censorship for even raising the lab theory as a possible explanation for the virus. Their reputations and careers were shredded by a media flash mob. The Washington Post declared this a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times’ Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was calling any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

  When a Chinese researcher told Fox News that this was man-made, the network was attacked and the left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her a “pants on fire rating.”

  The mask mandate and other pandemic measures like the closing of schools are now cited as fueling emotional and developmental problems in children. The closing of schools and businesses was challenged by some critics as unnecessary. Many of those critics were also censored. It now appears that they may have been right. Many countries did not close schools and did not experience increases in Covid. However, we are now facing alarming drops in testing scores and alarming rises in medical illness among the young.

  The point is only that there were countervailing indicators on mask efficacy and a basis to question the mandates. Yet, there was no real debate because of the censorship supported by many Democratic leaders in social media. To question such mandates was declared a public health threat and what the WHO called our “infodemic.”

  A lawsuit was filed by Missouri and Louisiana and joined by leading experts, including Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya (Stanford University) and Martin Kulldorff (Harvard University). Bhattacharya previously objected to the suspension of Dr. Clare Craig after she raised concerns about Pfizer trial documents. Those doctors were the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a more focused Covid response that targeted the most vulnerable population rather than widespread lockdowns and mandates. Many are now questioning the efficacy and cost of the massive lockdown as well as the real value of masks or the rejection of natural immunities as an alternative to vaccination.  Yet, these experts and others were attacked for such views just a year ago. Some found themselves censored on social media for challenging claims of Dr. Fauci and others.

  The media has quietly acknowledged the science questioning mask efficacy and school closures without addressing its own role in attacking those who raised these objections.

  What is most striking about Califf’s comments is the failure to address how censorship in the last three years may have increased public health risks by suppressing opposing or dissenting scientific views. Indeed, just this week, a new British study came out directly refuting CDC guidance on masks and suggesting that, while not appreciably reducing the risk of serious Covid symptoms, masks may have caused health problems. Other studies have rejected the mask efficacy argument though this remains a matter of intense debate.

  The point is that there is now a debate after social media companies allowed people to discuss these views and the media is no longer labelling dissenters as conspiracists or racists.

  Before we continue to make these government efforts a top priority, we should have a public debate over the means used to combat misinformation and what constitutes misinformation. That should start with a full investigation of past government efforts to censor or blacklist individuals or groups.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 21:30

• FAA Grants SpaceX Launch License For Starship Orbital Flight
  FAA Grants SpaceX Launch License For Starship Orbital Flight

  The Federal Aviation Administration granted SpaceX final regulatory approval to launch the world’s biggest rocket on Monday morning. 

  “After a comprehensive license evaluation process, the FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy, payload, airspace integration, and financial responsibility requirements,” the FAA said in a statement, adding, “The license is valid for five years.” 

  Elon Musk’s SpaceX said the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster are ready for launch at its facility in Boca Chica, Texas, beginning at 0700 CT for a 150-minute window.

  SpaceX explained this Starship launch is the first “integrated flight test.” This means it’s the first time the Super Heavy rocket and Starship will have taken off together. 

  If the launch is successful, the Super Heavy booster will attempt landing at SpaceX’s base, while Starship will attempt a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

  

  SpaceX developed Starship to haul people and cargo to the moon, Mars, and deep space.

  

  Over the weekend, Musk retweeted images of the Starship rocket on the launch pad. 

  

  

  The billionaire recently said the Starship test has a 50% chance of succeeding on its first orbital flight. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 21:00

• "Nowhere Else In The World Was Such Open Dissent Amongst Appointed Leaders On Display"
  “Nowhere Else In The World Was Such Open Dissent Amongst Appointed Leaders On Display”

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  “Rather than embracing the promise of new technology as we have done in the past, here we propose to embrace stagnation, force centralization, urge expatriation, and welcome extinction of new technology,” said SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce, a registered Republican, first nominated to the SEC by Obama in 2015, appointed by Trump in 2017, and will serve through 2025.

  “Accordingly, I dissent,” she said, directly to Chairman Gensler and the three additional Commissioners who collectively lead the SEC.

  

  “No longer does this Commission consider the real-world effects of its exercise of authority. No longer does this Commission think creatively about regulatory alternatives that advance the Commission’s mission while preserving space for potentially disruptive innovation. No longer does this Commission worry that regulatory bullheadedness often produces absurd consequences,” said Hester, a courageous public servant in a world short of inspired leaders, determined to call things as she sees them.

  “Rather, today’s Commission aggressively expands its regulatory reach to solve problems that do not exist. Today’s Commission treats its basic approach to exchange regulation as something that must not – indeed cannot – be altered to allow room for new technologies or for new ways of doing business,” she said.

  “The release sends a message that we are uninterested in facilitating innovation and competition in the financial markets and instead seek to protect incumbents. Accordingly, although I am generally supportive of reopening comment periods where it is clear that the Commission will benefit from further good faith engagement with the public, I cannot support what the Commission is doing in this release,” said Hester.

  Nowhere else in the world was such open dissent amongst appointed leaders on display. And it doesn’t matter whether you agree or not with Pierce’s position on the matter of distributed ledger technological innovation, it is the spirit and substance of her public stand that reminds us of what makes America great.

  For the complete SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce speech [click here].

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 20:30

• CVS 'Gender Transition' Guide Requires Use Of Preferred Pronouns, Sharing Bathrooms
  CVS ‘Gender Transition’ Guide Requires Use Of Preferred Pronouns, Sharing Bathrooms

  CVS has issued ‘gender transition guidelines’ which put employees on notice that people must be addressed by their preferred pronouns and names, and that they may use whichever restroom or locker room they wish, whether or not they identify as transgender, Fox Business reports.

  

  According to the guidelines, employees are notified that they may be entitled to medial leave “under the Family and Medical Leave Act, state law, and/or CVS Health policy,” while transitioning employees are encouraged to tell their immediate supervisor about their decision so that the company “can provide support and to make your transition as smooth as possible.”

  “You may also wish to have appropriate medical care to support your transition, including treatments such as hormone replacement therapy and/or gender confirmation surgery,” the guide continues.

  “During and after the transition has occurred, CVS Health encourages you to continue to partner with your Leader and your Advice & Counsel representative, and to immediately report any issues that you might have with your employment, your work environment, and/or your Leader, co-workers, clients, and customers.”

  In a section titled, “Guidelines for Supporting a Colleague who is Transitioning,” the guide encourages employees to be an ally by asking colleagues to let them know if they say or do anything that makes them uncomfortable. It also urges employees to not make assumptions about a person’s gender.

  It says employees should become an ally to make a positive impact on a co-worker’s life, become an inclusive leader, champion and celebrate all aspects of diversity and to show compliance with the CVS Health Equal Employment, Affirmative Action, AntiDiscrimination, Anti-Harassment, and Anti-Retaliation Policy. -Fox Business

  According to the company’s Affirmative Action, AntiDiscrimination, Anti-Harassment, and Anti-Retaliation Policy, the company is “committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity and takes affirmative action to recruit, hire, employ, develop, compensate, promote and advance in employment based on an individual’s job-related qualifications, abilities, and job performance,” and prohibits discrimination and harassment.

  Transgender CVS employees are encouraged to include their preferred pronouns in email signatures, and let people know during meeting introductions. After this is done, co-workers are instructed not to refer to the individual by other pronouns or their previous name.

  “People use different terms to refer to themselves, but some terms are universally considered disrespectful and violate CVS’s policy against discrimination and harassment,” states the guide. “Terms like transgender, trans-male/trans-female, non-binary or ‘male’ or ‘female’ should be used.”

  What’s more, according to company policy, all workers “should determine the most appropriate” bathroom and locker room based on their gender identity.

  “Any colleague, customer, or patient—transgender or otherwise–may choose to use the restroom and/or locker room that is appropriate to the gender they identify with,” according to the guide, which adds that transgender employees have “Any colleague, customer, or patient—transgender or otherwise–may choose to use the restroom and/or locker room that is appropriate to the gender they identify with.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 20:00

• US Appeals Court Judge Rejects ProPublica Story On Justice Clarence Thomas
  US Appeals Court Judge Rejects ProPublica Story On Justice Clarence Thomas

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

  Two appeals court judges recently weighed in on reporting around Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and that he and his wife were gifted with trips and vacations from a billionaire friend for decades.

  

  Judge Thomas Hardiman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit dismissed the notion of a “scandal” surrounding Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Last week, left-wing outlet ProPublica published an article in which “experts,” some unnamed, argue Justice Thomas violated disclosure obligations by neglecting to report luxury gifts he received from billionaire friend Harlan Crow.

  “The thing that I thought was weird about the Justice Thomas thing is the ‘scandal,’ to use your word, there was no intimation at any time, ever, that his billionaire friend ever had any business before the Supreme Court. So, how’s he helping his friend? He’s not even in a position to help his friend because his friend had exactly zero cases in the Supreme Court,” Judge Hardiman said in response to a question asked by an undergraduate during this week’s event, according to the National Review.

  He was making reference to a ProPublica article published earlier this month that cited several unnamed experts who claimed that Thomas violated disclosure obligations by not reporting luxury gifts he received from billionaire Harlan Crow, a friend of his. The move prompted some Democratic lawmakers—namely Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—to propose impeaching Thomas.

  “You know, I decide cases involving lawyers in Pittsburgh. And I know these lawyers, some of them are former law partners of mine. I belong to organizations with them, I go to lunch with them. Should I not hear their cases? If you have such suspicion about our integrity, you could really end up in a situation where judges can’t even do their jobs because at some point you’re attached to everybody,” Hardiman continued.

  “If someone wanted to make me look bad and I happened to rule in favor of a client in an immigration case that was argued by my former law clerk, oh, there would be a big exposé, ‘oh, Hardiman chose partiality to his law clerk,’” Hardiman then said.

  The judge then gave an example:  “I’ve had my former law clerks stand up in court and argue cases. And I don’t think they’ve ever won a case. And it’s not because they’re not brilliant lawyers. They are. But usually they’re doing pro bono immigration cases, and sadly, for the immigrants, those cases can be very difficult to win.”

  Judge James Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that there is a difference between “an actual instance of corruption” and “the mere perception” during remarks he made during the event. “I think the appearance issue is absolutely important” as “the judiciary basically rests on its credibility,” he said, according to the National Review.

  

  “The judiciary, like any human institution, isn’t perfect, because none of us are perfect,” Ho added.

  Earlier in the month, a report published by nonprofit news organization ProPublica, which receives some funding from billionaire financier George Soros, said that Thomas had accepted luxury trips almost every year over the past 20 years or so without disclosing them.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 19:30

• All Hell Breaks Out In Chicago As Hundreds Of Teenagers Wreak Havoc
  All Hell Breaks Out In Chicago As Hundreds Of Teenagers Wreak Havoc

  A trend of lawlessness has unfolded in cities run by progressive leaders this spring. The latest incident occurred on Saturday night in Downtown Chicago, where hundreds of teenagers wreaked havoc by smashing car windows and destroying public and private property. They also attempted to enter Millennium Park, which prompted a significant police response. There was even a shooting that resulted in multiple injuries. 

  FOX 32 Chicago reported massive crowds of teenagers that unleashed chaos in the downtown district last night. Besides the rogue kids smashing and breaking anything in their sight, there were reports of shots fired and two teenagers wounded by gunfire near the corner of Madison and Michigan. 

  Even FOX 32 said the chaos last night was “unsafe to keep our news crew on the scene.” There was even footage of kids jumping on top of a bus.  

  

  Watch the dramatic video of Chicago’s youth ‘gone wild.’ 

  🚨#BREAKING: Chaotic Scene Unfolds in Downtown Chicago as Teenagers Vandalize Cars and Gunfire Erupts

  📌#Chicago | #Illinois ⁰
  There is currently a significant police response taking place in downtown Chicago due to a large group of teenagers causing chaos. They have been… pic.twitter.com/n7xhBpsTKs

  — R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 16, 2023

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

  Cell phone video shows group jumping on vehicle along Michigan Avenue https://t.co/vyGYiYnHpp pic.twitter.com/gm00vZdwrO

  — ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) April 16, 2023

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

  Equity… Chicago pic.twitter.com/ucCdPw5DqW

  — @amuse (@amuse) April 16, 2023

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  “This is the second time this weekend that a group of rowdy teenagers has prompted a police response,” the local media outlet pointed out. 

  The culture of lawlessness continues, and it’s not even summer. The video is proof of the rapid moral decay of the younger generation that has been educated in failed liberal institutions. 

  Meanwhile, Chicago’s new mayor, Brandon Johnson, is another soft-on-crime progressive who comes after Lori Lightfoot was ejected from office for failing to make the city safer. 

  Chicago is not the only city dealing with out-of-control youth. Another failed liberal city, Baltimore, experienced similar chaos just one week ago. 

  Just a late night run at the great Baltimore City’s #InnerHarbor #SpringBreak vibes #SpringBreak2023 #Baltimore #Maryland #น้องวินอยากเป็นพี่วิน #TAEHYUNGxCELINE #SuccessionHBO #Succession #ChaguoSmartNaAirtel #Maryland #Taiwan #TikTok #SummerMMFF2023 #INVASION #Russia… pic.twitter.com/X36btbT65g

  — Daniel Barahona (@GlobalSETT) April 10, 2023

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  What’s the pattern here? Progressives are transforming their cities into lawless hellholes. 

  And the response?.. People are leaving these dumps for safer areas. Even Walmart closed half of its stores in Chicago last week because of the deteriorating environment. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 19:00

• Even ChatGPT Can Figure Out What Is Going On
  Even ChatGPT Can Figure Out What Is Going On

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  Answers

  “What happens when governments stifle innovation?” I asked.

  GPT4 answered: “When governments stifle innovation, it can lead to reduced economic growth, decreased competitiveness, and a slower pace of technological advancement. Businesses may face regulatory barriers, restricted access to resources, and limited incentives for research and development. As a result, talented individuals might seek opportunities in more innovation-friendly environments, causing a brain drain and hindering the nation’s progress.”

  “Why would governments ever stifle innovation?”

  GPT4 answered: “Governments may inadvertently stifle innovation due to bureaucracy, excessive regulation, or protectionist policies aimed at preserving domestic industries. They might also prioritize short-term political gains over long-term economic benefits, leading to misguided policies. Additionally, some governments may lack the foresight to recognize the potential of new technologies or may act in response to pressure from special interest groups resistant to change.”

  “When governments stifle innovation, what is the best way to correct such mistakes?”

  GPT4 answered: “It is crucial to identify and eliminate barriers to innovation, such as excessive regulations and bureaucracy. Governments should establish policies that incentivize research and development, invest in education, and promote collaboration between the public and private sectors. Encouraging open dialogue, fostering competition, and ensuring transparent and evidence-based decision-making can help create a more innovation-friendly environment.”

  “Why do governments avoid near-term pain, even if that amplifies longer-term costs?”

  GPT4 answered: “Governments often prioritize near-term pain avoidance due to electoral cycles, political pressures, and the need for public support. Short-term benefits may secure votes or address immediate crises, even at the expense of long-term consequences. The complexity and uncertainty of long-term issues are challenging for policymakers. This short-termism can hinder the development of policies that serve society’s broader interests in the long run.”

  “Why do individuals do the same?”

  GPT4 answered: “Humans tend to avoid near-term pain due to cognitive biases and psychological factors. Present bias, for instance, makes immediate rewards and consequences appear more significant than future ones. Additionally, humans have difficulty accurately predicting long-term outcomes, leading to a focus on short-term gratification. Uncertainty, fear of failure, and aversion to change also contribute to this preference for avoiding short-term discomfort, even if it compromises long-term success.”

  Anecdote

  “Why are we so often our own worst enemies?” I asked myself. I didn’t bother asking GPT4, it couldn’t possibly give me the real answer. We feed these large language models everything we’ve ever learned, which is why they tell us what we already know. And this question remains as deep a mystery as any in the universe.

  I first started to appreciate it as a young trader. The profession requires one to make frequent decisions, many of which are wrong. Both winning and losing trades can be cut short or left to run. And the profit/loss score card cannot be denied. In such a pursuit, each decision should be made coldly, rationally, with the sole objective to maximize profit while minimizing loss.

  Yet there are times when traders act otherwise. We trade out of fear, greed, arrogance, stubbornness, narcissism, boredom, addiction. We add to losing longs in the irrational belief that by buying more, we may reverse a declining market. Or vice versa. We swear that if the market lets us get away with it one last time, we’ll never do it again. Sometimes a Hail Mary trade may work, even spectacularly.

  And so reckless behavior is occasionally rewarded. But of course, in time, the market hunts down those unable to control their self-destructive impulses and ruins them. The ones who survive this battle with themselves learn to make decisions that are hard, humbling, and exploit the behavioral weaknesses and lack of discipline in others. Naturally, such elemental flaws manifest in every aspect of who we are; personally, professionally, politically. They are the source of the world’s infinite complexity, our pain, political dysfunction too.

  It is why we must celebrate those rare dissenters with the courage to take a stand, forcing us to face our reflection when we succumb to our inner enemies. But these mysterious flaws are also the source of our sublime beauty. If we optimized for cold rationality, we would be utterly boring algorithms. Perhaps like the AIs we are creating. Which I suspect will never fully appreciate us.     

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 18:30

• South Korea Fires Warning Shots At North Korean Patrol Boat That Breached Boundary
  South Korea Fires Warning Shots At North Korean Patrol Boat That Breached Boundary

  A dangerous live-fire incident has been reported in a disputed sea border patrolled by both North and South Korea on Saturday. 

  Reportedly a North Korean vessel had been pursuing a Chinese fishing boat, according to the military statement, and subsequently retreated after warning shots were fired from a South Korean military patrol boat.

  

  “Our military maintains decisive battle posture while monitoring the enemy’s movements in preparation for potential provocations regarding NLL (Northern Limit Line) violations by North Korean patrol boats,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a Sunday Statement, confirming the prior day’s incident.

  Tensions are already soaring after a series of joint US-South Korea military drills which have been answered with the north conducting a series of major weapons tests, including of ballistic missiles and what’s been described as an underwater nuclear drone.

  Saturday’s incident on the seas may have involved a collision, as The Hill describes:

  The disputed sea border between the two countries, the Northern Limit Line, has served as a theater for provocation and naval showdowns in the past. South Korean officials said one of its ships came into “minor” contact with a Chinese vessel due to poor visibility, but said there were only slight injuries reported.

  As for Pyongyang’s spate of recent missile tests, Time has analyzed missile launch data by North Korea and compared it to last year’s:

  Last year was already record-breaking: data from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, which has been documenting North Korean missile launches since 1984, showed 68 tests in 2022—10 times more than in 2021. And there are no signs that the country plans to let up.

  Already the country is on track to surpass this: 

  On Thursday morning local time, prompting a temporary evacuate-or-seek-shelter warning in Japan, North Korea reportedly fired a ballistic missile toward the East Sea—Pyongyang’s 12th test of the year so far, according to a review by TIME of reports by North Korea’s state news agency, South Korea’s military, and international media.

  

  Regional US ally Japan in particular has been fearful of the increasing tests ordered by the Kim Jong-Un regime. Upon a last Thursday launch, Japan issued an evacuation order for a northern island but soon retracted it when the missile’s flight path was believed no longer a threat.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 18:00

• Dramatic Video Shows Indian Gangster-Turned-Politician Gun Down On Live TV
  Dramatic Video Shows Indian Gangster-Turned-Politician Gun Down On Live TV

  A dramatic video shared on Twitter shows the Indian gangster turned politician Atiq Ahmed was gunned down on live TV with his brother while being escorted by police. The incident occurred Saturday night in Prayagraj, also called Allahabad, located in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

  Ahmed was speaking with reporters while in police custody when three men posing as journalists shot the former politician and his brother, reported BBC News. Both died on the spot. 

  

  The Ahmed family has been involved in dozens of kidnappings, murders, and extortion over the past two decades. A court recently sentenced the former politician to life in jail over corruption and violent crimes. 

  In the footage shared on Twitter, Ahmed is asked whether he attended his son’s funeral.

  His final words were: “They did not take us, so we did not go.” Then all hell breaks out… 

  Warning : Graphic Content.

  Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf shot dead while talking to media in persence of police.

  #AtiqueAhmed pic.twitter.com/wMTVvQLnvd

  — Md Asif Khan‏‎‎‎‎‎‎ (@imMAK02) April 15, 2023

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  After carrying out the shooting, the suspected gunmen shouted Hindu religious chants. They surrender to the police at the scene. 

  “Experts have raised questions on how a man could be killed in front of the media and the police,” BBC noted. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 17:00

• Biden Announces New Actions On Secret Documents After 'Embarrassing' Leak
  Biden Announces New Actions On Secret Documents After ‘Embarrassing’ Leak

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  President Joe Biden on Friday announced new actions that restrict access to classified materials in the wake of an embarrassing leak of apparent classified U.S. military intelligence that ended up spreading widely on social media.

  

  The suspected leaker, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard named Jack Teixeira, was on Thursday arrested and charged in federal court on two counts, including unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information charges.

  “I commend the rapid action taken by law enforcement to investigate and respond to the recent dissemination of classified U.S. government documents,” Biden said in a statement.

  “While we are still determining the validity of those documents, I have directed our military and intelligence community to take steps to further secure and limit distribution of sensitive information, and our national security team is closely coordinating with our partners and allies,” the president added.

  Teixeira was an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks, which allowed him to get a higher level security clearance.

  The leaked documents include maps and details about deliveries of weapons, with some bearing markings classifying them as “Secret” and “Top Secret.” Some showed what looks like locations for front-line Russian and Ukrainian military units and artillery guns.

  

  ‘Damaging’ Leak

  Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in an appearance on Fox News on Friday that he’s baffled as to why someone like Teixeira would have had access to the sensitive materials.

  “I don’t understand why a 21-year-old national guardsmen had access to some of the most highly kept secrets in the United States, and in particular, finished products from the Joint Staff or finished products from the CIA operation center,” Esper said. “I just don’t know why he would have access to those.”

  Asked about reports that Teixeira worked in IT and needed clearance to work on computer networks and equipment, Esper said that his access should have been more limited and that information carried on military communication systems should have been ring-fenced.

  “There’s not a need for him to have access to the information on that system, let alone finished products from the Joint Staff and CIA,” Esper replied, adding that an investigation into the leak shows that the Pentagon has a problem “not just over classification, but in this case, over distribution.”

  “There’s too many people that have access to this information. It should really only be for the highest levels of our government,” Esper said. “And we need to get that under control.”

  “It’s not just embarrassing, but it’s damaging,” Esper said, noting that the leak hurt Ukraine’s ability to mount an effective counter-offensive against Russian forces while burning U.S. access to Russian military and intelligence systems.

  The leak may also have exposed sources and techniques of collecting intelligence on Chinese operations, he added.

  

  Pentagon Takes Action

  Besides Biden announcing action to limit access to classified materials, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has vowed to take “any additional measures necessary” to safeguard against national security leaks and has ordered a review of intelligence access.

  Austin said during a press conference on Thursday that he’s “directing the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to conduct a review of our intelligence access, accountability, and control procedures within the Department to inform our efforts to prevent this kind of incident from happening again.”

  He said the Department of Defense, in close partnership with the Intelligence Community and its interagency partners, “will continue to review the national security implications of this unauthorized disclosure.”

  Austin also stressed that “every U.S. service member, DoD civilian, and contractor with access to classified information has a solemn legal and moral obligation to safeguard it and to report any suspicious activity or behavior.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 16:30

• California Utilities Propose Charging Customers Based On How Rich They Are
  California Utilities Propose Charging Customers Based On How Rich They Are

  As if the relatively affluent needed another reason to escape California… If you earn more, you pay more.

  That’s the bottom-line impact on your electricity bill if a proposal from California’s three largest power companies is passed.

  As KTLA5 reports, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas & Electric submitted a joint proposal to the state’s Public Utilities Commission last week that outlines the new rate structure. It follows last year’s passage of Assembly Bill 205 which requires a fixed rate and generally simpler bills.

  The plan would break monthly bills in two parts: The fixed-income rate, plus a reduced usage charge based on consumption.

  Under the proposal, the fixed charges increase as follows:

  • Households earning less than $28,000 a year would pay a fixed charge of $15 a month on their electric bills in Edison and PG&E territories and $24 a month in SDG&E territory.

  • Households with annual income from $28,000 – $69,000 would pay $20 a month in Edison territory, $34 a month in SDG&E territory and $30 a month in PG&E territory.

  • Households earning from $69,000 – $180,000 would pay $51 a month in Edison and PG&E territories and $73 a month in SDG&E territory.

  • Those with incomes above $180,000 would pay $85 a month in Edison territory, $128 a month in SDG&E territory and $92 a month in PG&E territory.

  

  Southern California Edison says approximately 1.2 million of its lower-income customers will see their bills drop by 16%-21%.

  “We have listened to and heard from our customers that fundamental change is needed to provide bill relief,” SDG&E CEO Caroline Winn said in a statement.

  So ‘some folks’ want energy bill relief… so the wealthy will have to pay their ‘fair-er share’ for the same power consumption.

  “When we were putting together the reform proposal, front and center in our mind were customers who live paycheck to paycheck, who struggle to pay for essentials such as energy, housing and food.”

  Of course, this is being directed from the top-down…

  The income-based bill proposal is part of the companies’ compliance with legislation passed by the California state government last year requiring these types of plans for utilities.

  Ironically, it is only the relatively affluent (we use that term because what is ‘poor’ in California is likely a considerably wealthier situation in most other US states) are the only residents of California that can afford an electric vehicle (which the state is demanding everyone transition to within the next few years) and thus ave higher electricity power demands broadly speaking.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 16:00

• Both Bulls And Bears Have Experienced Multiple "Lucy" Moments In The Past Year
  Both Bulls And Bears Have Experienced Multiple “Lucy” Moments In The Past Year

  By Peter Tchir, chief strategist at Academy Securities

  Peanuts & Lula

  This weekend’s T-Report will be mercifully short as I’m in Patagonia on vacation.

  Last week, we saw consistently weak economic data. On Thursday, the market decided that this was good news (lower inflation, the Fed off the table, etc.), but it didn’t feel like the squeezes of past weeks. Shorts got cut, but there wasn’t a fear that the market was going to run away with things (like we’ve seen in past squeezes). There were even some moments where it felt like the Russell 2000 could significantly outperform the Nasdaq 100. Yields were also higher across the board by the end of the week (which made sense).

  Peanuts – Charlie Brown & Lucy

  Charlie Brown (hoping that Lucy wouldn’t lift the football before he kicked it) always struck me as absurd. Couldn’t he just buy a “kick-off tee”? Just put the ball on the tee and kick it without relying on Lucy! Yet time after time, he ran to the ball only to have it snatched away with him winding up on his back wondering what had happened.

  

  I feel like both bulls and bears have experienced multiple “Lucy” moments in the past year. Every time it looked like we were going to break one way or the other, there goes the ball and we found ourselves on our backs as markets reversed course.

  I continue to believe that it is the bulls (this time) who are about to get “Lucy’d”. This Fed has no intention of cutting rates and might have every intention of remaining hawkish. Inflation, like the Monty Python Knight, has been utterly vanquished, but the Fed seems to think that “it’s only a flesh wound.” I think that they are wrong and we’ve already gone too far, but they don’t see it that way. The market seems to have gotten ahead of itself on the “weaker inflation data is good” theme because:

  1. The Fed is going to remain hawkish. Even if hikes are almost done, it is difficult to imagine cuts without serious data deterioration (which may be coming, but they will be slow to respond). Stopping at current levels will remain a headwind for the economy.
  2. The inflation data is “good” because the economy is showing many signs of weakness. Given where we saw freight and shipping data a few weeks ago (along with OPEC+ needing to cut), I expect that the weak data will continue, but this will not be enough to support stocks.

  I recommend that positioning should remain unchanged from last week (Davy Jones and the Six).

  Peanuts – Actual Peanuts

  On flights within Argentina, peanuts are served to passengers. In one country, “free” peanuts on flights still exist. However, in another country, people are asked not to even open anything that might have touched a peanut because someone on board might have an extreme allergy.

  Not sure what to make of this, but maybe it is a reminder that when we evaluate geopolitics, we really need to work hard to see it from the perspective of the other country.

  Lula and Xi

  China and Xi seem to have taken the lead in global diplomacy. Xi has gone far beyond just meeting with Putin and submitting peace proposals (albeit fake and self-serving). The Chinese deal with Brazil and their influence in encouraging the Iran deal with the Saudis have positioned China well on the world’s stage.

  Many will focus on the “disparagement” of the dollar. While that is important, there is a much clearer message being sent when you look at the headlines around the autos. For all who keep arguing that “China needs us as much or more than we need them” I say bah humbug!

  • China made things for American companies under the brand names of those companies.

  That is what China did and continues to do.

  • China is also going to sell Chinese brands to other countries.

  China will manufacture their own brands and find willing buyers.

  • The autocratic/resource rich nations of the world have potential trade surpluses with China that can be spent on Chinese manufactured goods (especially as trade is increasingly done between those countries in Yuan).
  • The Chinese goods, which are generally cheaper (and not of the same quality, in my opinion) may be better priced for the citizens of those resource rich nations (where the wealth is often concentrated).

  Our view that “China is aligning itself with the autocratic/resource rich nations” continues. We have argued that while the dollar will remain the reserve currency, there is increasingly a “dark web” of business shifting to the Yuan.

  This doesn’t impact us much today (or tomorrow) and there is still plenty of time to change the direction of these trends, but we better get our act together sooner rather than later!

  Bottom Line

  Still medium bearish (last week’s recommended positioning and trading style remain the same).

  I am increasingly concerned that we are missing China’s ascendance on the global stage and are too inward looking to recognize it.

  Academy was on Bloomberg TV last Monday and not only did we get to discuss markets, banks, and the Nasdaq 100 versus the Russell 2000, but we also got to discuss geopolitics and Academy’s edge on that front (starts around the 51 minute mark). As we stated last week (and the Lula visit supports), people are paying lip service to geopolitics, but aren’t worried enough. Admittedly some geopolitics will take time to develop and shift economies and markets, but companies need to be taking into account these potential (and even likely) shifts in their current planning.

  I can’t help but think about peanuts and my reaction to them on a flight versus the typical Argentinian’s view. I need to make sure that I’m applying the viewpoints of others correctly in my geopolitical analysis. In the meantime, before aggressively kicking the football, think about who is holding it and if they can be trusted!

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 15:30

• Border Patrol "Brace For F**king Impact" As End Of Trump-Era Immigration Policy Looms
  Border Patrol “Brace For F**king Impact” As End Of Trump-Era Immigration Policy Looms

  Earlier this week, President Biden signed a joint resolution ending the COVID-19 national emergency on Monday, bringing an end to some of the emergency authority the president and Congress wielded to deal with the pandemic. The real authority granted to the executive during the pandemic was in the public health emergency, and that won’t be ended until May 11.

  

  And that means the lifting of Title 42 restrictions on border-crossers and the nightmare scenario of tens of thousands of illegal aliens rushing the border. Biden has severely curtailed the asylum program already but has yet to deal with the potential flood of illegals from Central America who will attempt to cross the border once Title 42 is lifted.

  Border Patrol agents are being given limited word on how to prepare for a flood of illegal immigrants when Title 42, a major Trump-era expulsion order, ends May 11, according to two agents who spoke anonymously with the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) and an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo.

  “There are thousands and thousands just waiting for Title 42 to end. I would say a fear is that the Biden admin has no clue just how bad it’s going to get. We can barely actively patrol the border now. When Title 42 ends, all of our resources, all of our little manpower that we do have, are going to be focused on processing. Field work will nearly cease to exist in my opinion,” one Border Patrol agent working along the southern border told the DCNF.

  One agent working along the southern border, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak, told the DCNF that the extent they were told about preparations was just to “brace for fucking impact” and to prepare to “weather the storm.”

  “Most of the time, we are just told that Title 42 will end eventually and to be mentally prepared for the influx of migrants when it does. Regular line agents don’t seem to be offered an outline or plan as to how we will actually deal with the large numbers at the processing level,” the second agent said.

  

  There are only so many ways to control our sovereign border and, as Rick Moran writes at PJMedia.com, what Biden is finding is that Trump’s policies don’t look so bad now that he has the responsibility to protect us.

  “At this point, I can’t tell the difference between Biden immigration policy and Trump immigration policy,” one asylum officer told CNN.

  One policy among them – once described as “cruel” and “inhuman” – is reinstating family detention at the border.

  Will AOC be crying at empty fences again?

  Some asylum officers are none too pleased with Biden’s Trumpy policies.

  “It feels like Groundhog Day,” another asylum officer told CNN.

  “With the Trump era, it felt like we had really gotten to rock bottom and when Biden took over, it seemed like a light ahead of us. It feels very disheartening.”

  Rick sums up the situation perfectly:

  Asking Biden and the Democrats to apologize for all those nasty things they said about Trump and his policies is a waste of time. But they know the truth. They know that Trump chose the correct path to deal with a nearly impossible situation.

  But it would be nice if Mayorkas or Biden acknowledged at least in some respect.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/16/2023 – 15:00

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• The Disruptive Military Technologies The Pentagon Is Spending Nearly $150 Billion On
  The Disruptive Military Technologies The Pentagon Is Spending Nearly $150 Billion On

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

  President Joe Biden’s $886.3 billion Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) defense budget request includes $145 billion for research and development into emerging technologies to create new weapons systems using Artificial Intelligence (AI), hypersonic munitions, and electromagnetic swarms.

  

  The Department of Defense (DOD) and its subsidiary military branch technology laboratories, working in tandem with universities and high-tech contractors that increasingly include small businesses, have produced such big-ticket splashes as newly deployed directed-energy weapons systems and hypersonic/ballistic sensors.

  Among prospective products and systems seeking funding in the FY24 spending request is a ‘Rocket Cargo’ transport that can move 100 tons of cargo anywhere on Earth within an hour; a counter-swarm electromagnetic weapon that can disable drones and be powered from a wall plug; a rotating detonation engine without moving parts; a “pop-up hide” that can make Marines disappear in plain sight; a Predictive Vehicle Activity for Identification and Location (PreVAIL) program that “will bring a novel approach to automated target detection and recognition.”

  There are also less sexy utilitarian products being tested in the budget, such as a Portable Fluid Analyzer, a ship-to-ship system that converts Morse code into text messages, and an assembly line of bigger, faster, better-armed unmanned aircraft, from micro-drones to the latest Unmanned Long-endurance Tactical Reconnaissance Aircraft (ULTRA.)

  All have survived, or must soon traverse, “The Valley of Death.”

  Unlike notable valleys in American military history—Valley Forge, the Chosin, Khe Sanh, the Korengal—this “Valley of Death” is not a place on a map but that dreaded moment of realization on a military product development timeline when a cutting-edge weapon that will deliver a decisive battlefield advantage cannot advance out of prototype to production and get onto the battlefield in time.

  

  ‘The Valley of Death’

  Integrating new, still-maturing technologies into existing programs and platforms without “radical disruption” to multi-year procurement and acquisitions systems is among the most tweaky of challenges confronting the military, Pentagon officials said during a two-hour April 13 webinar presented by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).

  The DOD’s Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering Heidi Shyu and the DOD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director, Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, noted the proposed $145 billion Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) budget is up 12 percent from this year with the Air Force receiving one-third of the requested outlay.

  Shyu said the Science and Technology component of the RDT&E budget request is $17.8 billion, up 8.3 percent over this year’s $16.5 billion budget.

  The annually updated National Defense Science & Technology Strategy is on Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s desk, she said.

  Shyu said the strategy will focus on joint mission; creation and deployment of capabilities at speed and scale; establishment of an enduring advantage in talent, infrastructure, research, and collaboration; directed energy weapons; and hypersonic/ballistic sensors.

  Technology leaders for three military branches—Army Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research & Technology William Nelson, Naval Research Chief Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, Air Force Research Laboratory Commander Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle—outlined cooperative ventures with industry and workforce development plans, especially in currying bids and participation in projects by small businesses.

  The $886.3 billion FY24 defense request includes $842 billion for the Pentagon with emphasis on the “growing multi-domain threat posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” which the DOD has again named the nation’s most pressing “pacing challenge.”

  March and April is typically when DOD and military command officers testify before congressional panels about their spending requests during the annual budget cycle leading up to Oct. 1, the official start of the federal fiscal year.

  All five of the panelists at the NDIA webinar have been making the rounds on Capitol Hill to meet with congressional bean-counters to discuss funding for new whiz-bang weapons, such as fusion-based target recognition systems, to such relatively mundane innovations as snow tires for Humbles, since February.

  But on April 13 before the NDIA, a Washington-based nonprofit that represents 1,800 corporations and nearly 60,000 individuals working in the defense manufacturing industry, it was all about “The Valley of Death.”

  

  ‘Moats of Despair’

  Delivering new technologies developed in the commercial sector under DOD contract into the field in a seamless transition, especially when so many weapons systems are interrelated, is a daunting challenge, the officials said.

  In fact, in June 2022, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks called transition discord “one of our biggest problems—the so-called ‘Valley of Death,’ scaling up to full-scale production and fielding” new weapons systems.

  Selby said there isn’t just one “Valley of Death” but at least three, which he described as “moats of despair.”

  “The first ‘Valley of Death’” is the stage where “the first identified prototype” is manufactured and tested and “it didn’t pan out or we failed internally” to properly build and test it, he said.

  “That ‘Valley of Death’ is within my control” at that point, Selby said.

  The next “Valley of Death” is moving a product from prototype to production, he said, which is when other factors come into play, such as costs and manufacturing capabilities, which can make further development unfeasible. “This is a deep valley,” where many projects go to die, he said.

  The final ‘Valley of Death” is “getting that production to scale,” Selby said. “You got something, something that is ready to go onto a platform, as part of a modernization package” but you don’t control production schedules especially for an item that was previously manufactured at a “low rate production.”

  “The warfighter is screaming, ‘I need that and need that tomorrow’—that is [a problem] we have to solve. We have not solved it,” he said. “How do I rapidly go to scale? That’s the question. That’s how you win.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 23:30

• Watch: Beyond The Reset
  Watch: Beyond The Reset

  This excellent animated short film about the not-too-distant-but-very-dystopian future is at once humorous and terrifying.

  

  It speculates on the potential consequences of the infamous Great Reset, medical tyranny, woke culture, and green agenda.

  

  Everything, that World Economic Forum (WEF) is planning for us.

  If you’d like to buy the creator a beer, his PayPal address is oleg@3depix.com

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 23:00

• They Must Have A Good Reason
  They Must Have A Good Reason

  Authored by Todd Hayen via Off-Guardian.org,

  There is a strange idea hovering about that if you don’t know something then it doesn’t exist.

  

  Kind of like the image of the proverbial ostrich with his head in the sand. But it goes beyond denial. Ignorance is when you don’t know something at all, denial is when you know it, but you ignore it.

  What I am talking about here is when you know something and do not deny it, but simply rationalize it away with a statement like “they must have a good reason for doing that,” or similarly, “maybe we don’t know all that there is to know about that.” Which is often followed with, “and I don’t have the time, (inclination, care, interest, curiosity, ability, intelligence, etc.) to look into it further.”

  This has always bugged me to some extent, but I must admit I have been marginally guilty of this sort of thinking myself. I mean, do we really have the time to check everything? Well, now I think we have to make the time, and, of course, not everything is important enough to require vetting it for truth. That is an awful thing to say, but I am afraid it is the truth.

  Part of this “gullibility” that causes many people to just brush things off assuming that all is ok comes from indoctrination from an early age. I grew up in a culture that seemed to be really obsessed with people’s safety—particularly the safety of children. Think of all the recalls of toys and such. If some toy comes out that has the slightest bit of uncertainty about how it might harm your child, it is pulled.

  I should not say I “grew up” with this because most of the crap I played with as a kid would be considered a lethal weapon today—Lawn Darts, BB and pellet guns, Vac-U-Forms, chemistry sets, Easy Bake ovens (this was my sister’s toy, she was a little girl, I was a little boy—I tell you this for clarity). The “safety craze” didn’t really start until a decade or so later. I even remember some kid I knew got an “Atomic Energy Lab” toy that had actual uranium ore in the kit.

  I would have died (literally) to get my hands on one of these.

  Those were the days.

  So over the decades, due to these recalls and safety concerns, we have developed a false sense of security. What regulation agency would bother to recall Lawn Darts but at the same time allow an unsafe vaccine to reach the unwilling arms of children? Well, toys are toys, vaccines are medicine. There ‘ya go.

  The government, and other regulatory agencies, know what’s right, right?

  Being born into a culture (US) that was known for its integrity, truthfulness, righteousness, and a penchant for character and goodness (ha, ha), no one would ever think that the CIA would have been actively trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, among others, for decades.

  I remember first hearing a rumor about this when I was about 15. “No way,” I thought to myself. “Assassinations are illegal! My country would never be involved in such a thing!” Especially attempting to murder a leader of a country that really was just minding their own business. At least so it seemed. (Today, when we hear of such things, we shrug our shoulders and say, “They must know what they are doing.”)

  And what about Iran’s Mosaddegh? He was minding his own business overseeing the affairs of Iran as Prime Minister from 1951 to 1953. The US wasn’t happy with him for a number of reasons (primarily economic, like, for example, Mosaddegh wanted Iran to get a bigger share of oil profits that the US and UK were sucking out of his nation’s oil fields, imagine that! What audacity!). The CIA bopped him off as well—indirectly with a CIA created insurrection, which led to Mosaddegh’s imprisonment and more than likely contributed to his health issues, then he died). Sure there is detail here I am not presenting, but you get the picture.

  The US Government must have had a good reason.

  How about Obama’s drone war? Killing a whole whack of people, including children (I would say “women and children” but I might get in trouble for that).

  He must have had a good reason.

  Personally, I don’t think there is any “good” reason to kill children—even if as collateral damage or unintentionally.

  I am presenting here only a few examples among thousands…more than we even know of course. And this is just government actions, what about pharmaceutical actions, or other medical actions? They all must have good reasons.

  As a whole most people seem to think that atrocities cannot happen in the US (or Canada, or the UK, or other countries in the “civilized” West). We are just too sophisticated for that. The irony here is the official spokespeople for the US, for example, actually present themselves as do-gooders. They either keep their actions covert and Top Secret, or they present them as “good things.” We only have to look to people like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to see how the US treats whistleblowers who seek to expose the fact the US really doesn’t have a good reason to do much that it does—at least no reason that benefits us.

  If you ever corner a sheep and throw this sort of stuff at them, they will first hit you with the statement, “why do you have to be so negative? Why can’t you just trust your government to take care of business in our best interests as a nation?” They will say that the government has to have secrets in order to keep us safe, and those people who break the law (Assange and Snowden, among many others. Since we are counting, let’s include the truckers of Canada as well) are criminals, and it doesn’t matter if your intention is good, if you break the law you are a criminal and should be punished.

  If you try to argue with these sheep about anything more complex, like the CIA’s intervention into Middle Eastern affairs, they will just blow it off and say something like, “All that overseas stuff is just too complicated to sort out. And those Middle Eastern countries (except Israel) are all bad guys, I don’t really care what the US does to them, they know what they are doing.”

  Sheep are funny that way. “La, la, la, la, la, la” with fingers plugging their ears. It is easy to push them to this point. Sheep poking. Try it some time for fun and pleasure.

  One good way to get them there really quickly is to bring up some false flag issue that has been in the big time news within the last few decades. The 9-11 fiasco is my favorite. You’ll get the sheep fingers into the ears really quickly with the “la la la’s” going full blast. Don’t try something too far out there though, like the moon landing, or the hot ticket now, germ vs. terrain theory. You’ll only just get eye rolls for those whacko topics.

  I am curious though…speaking of 9-11… what will happen when that incident is exposed for what it was? (Assuming that will ever occur.)

  I will bet you money, no matter how ludicrous it would be, their first response to the realization that their own government was responsible for the destruction of those buildings at the World Trade Center, will be, “They must have had a good reason.”

  Actually they did, but it wasn’t a good reason for us.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 22:30

• US Criticizes China's Death Sentence Of 'Wrongfully Detained' American Citizen
  US Criticizes China’s Death Sentence Of ‘Wrongfully Detained’ American Citizen

  Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The United States on Thursday expressed its “disappointment” over China’s decision to uphold a death sentence of an American man who had been “wrongfully detained” for over a decade on drug-related charges.

  

  Mark Swidan, a Houston resident, was detained on Nov. 13, 2012, while on a business trip to China. He was accused of being a part of a network involved in the manufacturing and trafficking of drugs.

  Swidan pleaded not guilty to all charges but was denied by the Jiangmen Intermediate Court, which upheld his death sentence with a two-year suspended sentence, according to the U.S. Department of State.

  “We are disappointed by this decision and will continue to press for his immediate release and return to the United States,” Vedant Patel, a Department of State spokesman, said in a statement.

  “U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed their concerns to senior PRC [People’s Republic of China] officials about Swidan’s treatment, medical care, and his inability to send or receive mail in a timely manner,” he added.

  Patel said that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will “continue to remain personally focused” on the release of Swidan and other U.S. nationals who were “wrongfully detained” or held hostage around the world.

  Lack of Evidence

  Swidan was aged 37 at the time of his arrest. He was sentenced to death in 2018 despite a lack of evidence presented against him.

  No drugs were found on Swidan’s body or in his hotel room when he was arrested, according to a report [pdf] released by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2020.

  The prosecution failed to produce forensic or telecommunications evidence, such as emails, phone call records, or letters. His passport records showed that Swidan was not in China when the alleged offense occurred.

  U.S. officials had previously called for his release. In February, Texas Republicans—including Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. John Cornyn, and Congressman Michael Cloud—introduced a resolution demanding his release ahead of Blinken’s planned trip to Beijing.

  “They’ve sentenced him to death on charges for which they have little to no evidence, and I had been urging Tony Blinken when he was going to Beijing to raise Mark’s case and to make the case for Mark to be released,” Cruz said in a statement.

  Blinken indefinitely postponed his visit after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was detected flying over the continental United States. A U.S. military jet later shot down the balloon on Feb. 4.

  “Bringing Mark Swidan home to his family should be a top priority for this administration,” Cloud said. “Too many innocent Americans remain wrongfully imprisoned by authoritarian regimes who are happy to collect human lives as a capital for future political bargaining.”

  ‘Badly Mistreated’

  According to the U.N. report, Swidan was “badly mistreated” while in detention and exposed to “poor sanitary conditions.” He was denied medical treatment and barred from communicating with his family or U.S. Consulates.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 22:00

• Hacking Humanity: Transhumanism
  Hacking Humanity: Transhumanism

  Authored by Michael Rectenwald via The Mises Institute,

  The notion that the world can be replicated and replaced by a simulated reality says a great deal about the beliefs of those who promote the metaverse [treated in the previous chapter]. The conception is materialist and mechanistic at base, the hallmarks of social engineering. It represents the world as consisting of nothing but manipulable matter, or rather, of digital media mimicking matter. It suggests that human beings can be reduced to a material substratum and can be induced to accept a technological reproduction in lieu of reality. Further, it assumes that those who inhabit this simulacrum can be controlled by technocratic means. Such a materialist, mechanistic, techno-determinist, and reductionist worldview is consistent with the transhumanist belief that humans themselves will soon be succeeded by a new transhuman species, or humanity-plus (h+)—perhaps a genetically and AI-enhanced cyborg that will outstrip ordinary humans and make the latter virtually obsolete.

  

  The term transhumanism was coined by Julian Huxley, the brother of the novelist Aldous Huxley and the first director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In an essay entitled “Transhumanism,” published in the book New Bottles for New Wine (1957), Huxley defined transhumanism as the self-transcendence of humanity:

  The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.

  One question for transhumanism is indeed whether this transcendence will apply to the whole human species or rather for only a select part of it. But Huxley gave some indication of how this human self-transcendence might occur: humanity would become “managing director of the biggest business of all, the business of evolution . . .” As the first epigraph to this Part makes clear, Julian Huxley was a proponent of eugenics. And he was the President of the British Eugenics Society. It was in his introduction of UNESCO, as the director-general that he suggested that eugenics, after the Nazi regime had given it such a bad name, should be rescued from opprobrium, “so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.” As John Klyczek has noted, “In the wake of vehement public backlash against the atrocities of the Nazi eugenic Holocaust, Huxley’s eugenics proper was forced to go under-ground, repackaging itself in various crypto-eugenic disguises, one of which is ‘transhumanism.’” Transhumanism, Klyczek suggests, is “the scientific postulate that human evolution through biological-genetic selection has been largely superseded by a symbiotic evolution that cybernetically merges the human species with its own technological handiwork.”

  Contemporary transhumanist enthusiasts, such as Simon Young, believe that humanity can take over where evolution has left us to create a new and improved species—either ourselves, or a successor to ourselves:

  We stand at a turning point in human evolution. We have cracked the genetic code; translated the Book of Life. We will soon possess the ability to become designers of our own evolution.

  In “A History of Transhumanist Thought,” Nick Bostrom details the lineage of transhumanist thought from its prehistory to the present and shows how transhumanism became wedded to the fields of genomics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR), where robotics is inclusive of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is the last of these fields that primarily concerns us here. The transhumanist project has since envisioned the transcendence of humanity via technological means. In the past thirty years, this technological transcendence has been figured as “the singularity.”

  Vernor Vinge, the mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction author introduced the notion of the technological singularity in 1993. The singularity, Vinge suggested, is the near-future point at which machine intelligence will presumably supersede human intelligence. Vinge boldly declared: “Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.” Vinge predicted that the singularity would be reached no later than, you guessed it, 2030. The question Vinge addressed was whether, and if so, how, the human species might survive the coming singularity.

  The inventor, futurist, and now Google Engineering Director Raymond Kurzweil has since welcomed the technological singularity as a boon to humanity. Kurzweil, whose books include The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999), The Singularity Is Near (2005), and How to Create a Mind (2012), suggests that by 2029, technologists will have successfully reverse-engineered the brain and replicated human intelligence in (strong) AI while vastly increasing processing speeds of thought. Having mapped the neuronal components of a human brain, or discovered the algorithms for thought, or a combination thereof, technologists will convert the same to a computer program, personality and all, and upload it to a computer host, thus grasping the holy grail of immortality. Finally, as the intelligence explosion expands from the singularity, all matter will be permeated with data, with intelligence; the entire universe will “wake up” and become alive, and “about as close to God as I can imagine,” writes Kurzweil.

  Thus, in a complete reversal of the Biblical creation narrative, Kurzweil posits a dumb universe that begins with a cosmic singularity (the Big Bang) and becomes God by a technological singularity. This second singularity, Kurzweil suggests, involves the universe becoming self-aware, vis-à-vis the informational, technological agent, humanity. Thus, in the technological singularity, the technological and the cosmic converge, as Kurzweil resembles a techno-cosmic Hegelian. (Hegel figured collective human self-consciousness progressing in self-actualization and self-realization, finally becoming and recognizing itself as God, “through the State [as] the march of God in the world.”) Incidentally, according to Kurzweil, our post-human successors will bear the marks of their human provenance. Thus, the future intelligence will remain “human” in some sense. Human beings are the carriers of universal intelligence and human technology is the substratum by which intelligence will be infinitely expanded and universalized.

  More recently, Yuval Noah Harari—the Israeli historian, WEF-affiliated futurist, and advisor to Klaus Schwab—has also hailed this singularity, although with dire predictions for the vast majority. According to Harari, the 4-IR will have two main consequences: human bodies and minds will be replaced by robots and AI, while human brains become hackable with nanorobotic brain-cloud interfaces (B/CIs), AI, and biometric surveillance technologies. Just as humans are functionally replaced, that is, they will be subject to the total control of powerful corporations or the state (or, what’s more likely, a hybrid thereof, a neo-fascist state). Rather than a decentralized, open-access infosphere of exploding intelligence available to all, Singularitarian technologies will become part of the arsenal for domination. The supersession of human intelligence by machine intelligence will involve the use of such data and data processing capabilities to further predict and control social behavioral patterns of the global population. In addition, the biotechnical enhancement of the few will serve to exacerbate an already wide gulf between the elite and the majority, while the “superiority” of the enhanced functions ideologically to rationalize differences permitted by such a division. That is, Harari suggests that if developments proceed as Vinge and Kurzweil predict, this vastly accelerated information-collecting and processing sphere will not constitute real knowledge for the enlightenment of the vast majority. Rather, it will be instrumentalist and reductionist in the extreme, facilitating the domination of human beings on a global scale, while rendering opposition impossible.

  In an article in Frontiers in Neuroscience, Nuno R. B. Martins et al. explain just how such control could be implemented through B/CIs, which the authors claim will be feasible within the next 20 to 30 years:

  Neuralnanorobotics may also enable a B/CI with controlled connectivity between neural activity and external data storage and processing, via the direct monitoring of the brain’s ~86 x 109 neurons and ~2 x 1014 synapses. . .

  They would then wirelessly transmit up to ~6 x 1016 bits per second of synaptically processed and encoded human–brain electrical information via auxiliary nanorobotic fiber optics (30 cm3) with the capacity to handle up to 1018 bits/sec and provide rapid data transfer to a cloud-based supercomputer for real-time brain-state monitoring and data extraction. A neuralnanorobotically enabled human B/CI might serve as a personalized conduit, allowing persons to obtain direct, instantaneous access to virtually any facet of cumulative human knowledge (emphasis mine).

  Such interfaces have already reached the commercialization stage with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Kernel, and through DARPA, among others.

  When neuralnanorobotic technologies that conduct information and algorithms that make decisions interface with the brain, the possibilities for eliminating particular kinds of experiences, behaviors, and thoughts becomes possible. Such control of the mind through implants was already prototyped by Jose Delgado as early as 1969. Now, two- way transmission of data between the brain and the cloud effectively means the possibility of reading the thoughts of subjects, interrupting such thoughts, and replacing them with other, machine-cloud-originating information. The desideratum to record, label, “informationalize,” rather than to understand, let alone critically engage or theorize experience will take exclusive priority for subjects, given the possibilities for controlling neuronal switching patterns. Given the instrumentalism of the Singularitarians— or, as Yuval Harari has called them, the “Dataists”— decisive, action-oriented algorithms will dominate these brain-cloud interfaces, precluding faculties for the critical evaluation of activity, and obliterating free will. Given enough data, algorithms will be better able to make decisions for us. Nevertheless, they will have been based on intelligence defined in a particular way and put to particular ends, placing considerable emphasis on the speed and volume of data processing and decision-making based on data construed as “knowledge.” Naturally, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World comes to mind. Yet, unlike Huxley’s mind-numbing soma, brain-cloud interfaces will have an ideological appeal to the masses; they are touted as enhancements, as vast improvements over standard human intelligence.

  Harari peels back the curtain masking transhumanism’s Wizard of Oz promises, suggesting that even before the singularity, robotics and machine intelligence will make the masses into a new “useless class.” Given the exorbitant cost of entry, only the elite will be able to afford actual enhancements, making them a new, superior species—notwithstanding the claim that Moore’s Law closes the technological breach by exponentially increasing the price-performance of computing and thus halving its cost per unit of measurement every two years or less. How the elite will maintain exclusive control over enhancements and yet subject the masses to control technologies is never addressed. But perhaps a kill switch could be implemented such that the elite will not be subjected to brain-data mining—unless one runs afoul of the agenda, in which case brain-data mining could be (re)enabled.

  In a 2018 WEF statement, Harari spoke as the self-proclaimed prophet of a new transhumanist age, saying:

  We are probably among the last generations of homo sapiens. Within a century or two, Earth will be dominated by entities that are more different from us, than we are different from Neanderthals or from chimpanzees. Because in the coming generations, we will learn how to engineer bodies and brains and minds. These will be the main products of the 21st century economy (emphasis mine).

  No longer capable of mounting a challenge to the elite as in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and having no function, the feckless masses will have no recourse or purpose. Exploitation is one thing; irrelevance is quite another, says Harari. And thus, as Harari sees it, the remaining majority will be condemned to spend their time in the metaverse, or worse. If they are lucky, they will collect universal basic income (UBI) and will best occupy themselves by taking drugs and playing video games. Of course, Harari exempts himself from this fate.

  As for the elite, according to Harari, their supposed superiority to the masses will soon become a matter of biotechnological fact, rather than merely an ideological pretension, as in the past. The elite will not only continue to control the lion’s share of the world’s material resources; they will also become godlike and enjoy effective remote control over their subordinates. Further, via biotechnological means, they will acquire eternal life on Earth, while the majority, formerly consoled by the fact that at least everybody dies, will now lose the great equalizer. As the supernatural is outmoded, or sacrificed on the altar of transhumanism, the majority will inevitably forfeit their belief in a spiritual afterlife. The theistic religions that originated in the Middle East will disappear, to be replaced by new cyber-based religions originating in Silicon Valley. Spirituality, that is, will be nothing but the expression of reverence for newly created silicon gods, whether they be game characters, game designers, or the elites themselves.

  Harari’s pronouncements may amount to intentional hyperbole to make a point, but his statements are remarkable for the cynicism and disdain for humanity they betray. They are revelatory of the unmitigated gall of believers in the transhuman future. Coupled with the neo-Malthusian impulses of the elite, centered around the UN and the WEF, a picture emerges of an elite whose objective is to reduce the population of “useless eaters,” while keeping the remainder in their thrall.

  [This piece is an excerpt from The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty.]

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 21:30

• Stunning Satellite Images Show Rare "Superbloom" Blanketing California's Hillsides
  Stunning Satellite Images Show Rare “Superbloom” Blanketing California’s Hillsides

  After a deluge of atmospheric rivers that dumped 78 trillion gallons of water on California, effectively ending a severe multi-year drought within several months, a rare superbloom has emerged in the state’s southern region across hillsides, and it’s even visible from space.

  CBS News reported new photos via NASA’s Landsat 9 satellite show a rare wildflower superbloom in Southern California after years of drought. The wet conditions spurred the germination of flower seeds all at once, leading to large swaths of land covered in various colors. 

  

  Maxar Technologies also published satellite photos showing the hillside outside Palmdale covered in yellow and orange flowers.

  

  Another image shows a hillside covered in purple. 

  

  And another shows hillsides covered in yellow. 

  

  The rare desert botanical phenomenon has captured the attention of Southern California residents. Many have taken day trips to see the colorful hillsides. 

  Although severe drought conditions have largely subsided and wildflowers blanket the hillsides, this abundance of vegetation could potentially serve as fuel for fires when drought conditions reemerge. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 21:00

• Contentious COVID-19 Drugs Are All Anti-Malarial: May Not Be A Coincidence
  Contentious COVID-19 Drugs Are All Anti-Malarial: May Not Be A Coincidence

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

  The COVID-19 recommendations hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and now artemisinin all have one thing in common: They are antimalarial drugs or have such properties.

  Yet studies suggest that this may not be a mere coincidence; malaria and COVID-19 may be more similar than people may realize.

  

  Malaria Versus COVID-19

  From the outset, malaria and COVID-19 are very distinct diseases.

  Malaria is a parasitic disease. An infection starts when an individual is bitten by a mosquito carrying a parasite from the Plasmodium genus. Upon infection, the parasite first goes to the liver and multiplies in liver cells. Then it migrates to the bloodstream, invades and proliferates in red blood cells, and causes these cells to expand and burst.

  Common malaria symptoms such as fever, chills, and sweating occur during the blood-stage infection. Complications include anemia, and on rare occasions, cerebral malaria, liver failure, fluid buildup in the lungs, and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

  COVID-19, on the other hand, is a viral disease. Infection occurs primarily through the inhalation of contaminated droplets. The virus invades the body through the nasal cavities, entering the upper and then lower respiratory tracts.

  Inflammation of the lungs ensues as the body’s immune cells fight off the infection. The person’s oxygen levels start dropping as inflammation worsens in the advent of a cytokine storm, and the lungs become damaged. Some of the virus can also go into the bloodstream and invade other organs, causing systemic inflammation and damage.

  Several Commonalities

  While one mainly affects blood cells and the other primarily affects the lungs, both diseases are characterized by a strong inflammatory response early in the infection, according to a 2022 paper in Frontiers in Immunology.

  Symptoms-wise, both infections from malaria and COVID-19 can lead to fever, fatigue, shortness of breath, diarrhea, and muscle pain.

  If inflammation is prolonged, the body will experience a significant increase in cytokines, and individuals can become severely injured or even die.

  The two diseases are also similar in that they both sequester iron, use the same receptors in their pathogenesis, and even share similar structures in their proteins.

  Iron Storage

  Both the Plasmodium parasite and the SARS-CoV-2 virus require iron to proliferate. Therefore, both the parasite and the virus need to store iron inside the ferritin protein within infected cells. High or increased levels of ferritin are therefore an indication of severe disease and inflammation.

  Drugs that are capable of targeting iron storage or preventing proliferation may therefore be successful in treating both malaria and COVID-19.

  Similar Receptors

  The angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2) receptor is involved in both malaria and COVID-19 infections.

  In COVID-19, the virus binds to ACE-2 to invade cells. ACE-2 is ubiquitous within the human body, present within at the very least:

  • Lungs
  • Blood vessels
  • Muscles
  • The gut
  • Nerves
  • Stomach
  • Heart
  • Kidneys
  • Pancreas
  • Testes
  • Uterus

  Organs that have a high number of ACE-2 receptors are therefore at a higher risk of COVID-19 infection.

  The significance of ACE-2 in malaria is uncertain. However, one study, as well as the one published in Frontiers in Immunology, showed that people who have their ACE-2 receptors reduced due to genetic predispositions are more resistant to malaria.

  According to the Frontiers in Immunology study, malaria parasites use the CD147 receptors on red blood cells to gain entry into the cell. The COVID-19 virus also uses CD147 in the absence of ACE-2 receptors. CD147 has also been linked to the formation of blood clots in COVID-19 infections.

  Therapeutics that can target CD147 and ACE-2 may be successful in treating both malaria and COVID-19.

  Similar Protein Structures

  Additionally, both pathogens share a degree of overlap in their protein structures. The COVID-19 surface N protein has at least 40 percent structural similarity with important malarial proteins in charge of transport, attachment, and invasion.

  This means that drugs that can target malarial proteins may also be able to target SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins.

  Antimalarial Drugs Used in COVID-19

  Early in the pandemic, many studies recommended antimalarial and anti-parasitic drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, ivermectin, and artemisinin as potential treatment options for COVID-19. These recommendations, however, soon received backlash, with one reason being that malaria and COVID-19 seem to be very different diseases.

  But many doctors and studies found these therapeutics helpful in treating acute COVID-19. Professor Jose Luis Abreu, whose specialty is in plant science at The State University of Nuevo León, used the proposition of “parallelism between malaria and COVID-19” as an explanation for why antimalarial drugs such as ivermectin, artemisinin, and hydroxychloroquine may be applied to COVID-19 in his protocol.

  Block COVID-19 Receptors and Proteins

  In simulation studies, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and artemisinin can bind to SARS-CoV-2 N proteins, which have structural similarities with malaria proteins. In treating malaria, hydroxychloroquine and artemisinin have been shown to block malarial proteins from replicating and proliferating.

  All three drugs can also bind to CD147 and ACE-2 receptors, as previously reported by The Epoch Times. These drugs can also bind to COVID-19 spike proteins directly to prevent viral attachment to cell receptors and also prevent viral proliferation by blocking proteins that take part in viral replication.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 20:30

• Have Internal-Combustion-Engine Vehicle Sales Already Peaked?
  Have Internal-Combustion-Engine Vehicle Sales Already Peaked?

  Electric vehicle (EV) sales have grown rapidly over the past few years, but have they managed to make a dent in the global market?

  To find out, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized data from BloombergNEF that breaks down annual vehicle sales by three categories:

  • Internal combustion (including traditional hybrids)

  • Plug-in hybrids

  • Battery electric

  

  From this, we can see that EVs are definitely building up market share. In fact, combustion vehicle sales appear to have peaked in 2017.

  Growth in EV Market Share

  The following table lists global EV sales, as well as their relative market share.

  Year	EV Sales	EV Market Share (%)
  2013	206,000	0.2
  2014	320,000	0.4
  2015	543,000	0.6
  2016	791,000	0.9
  2017	1,262,000	1.3
  2018	2,082,000	2.2
  2019	2,276,000	2.5
  2020	3,244,000	4.2
  2021	6,768,000	8.3
  2022	10,522,000	13.0

  *Includes plug-in hybrids. Source: EV Volumes

  We can see that EV sales really picked up steam around 2019. This is likely due to various government subsidies and a growing list of models to choose from.

  EV ranges, once a major limiting factor, are also becoming less of a concern as battery technology improves and more charging stations become available.

  Will Combustion Vehicle Sales Stage a Comeback?

  It seems unlikely that combustion vehicles will be able to reclaim much of their lost market share.

  China, the world’s largest car market, is leading the world in terms of EV adoption. As of 2022, one in four new cars sold in the country is electric. The U.S. and EU are transitioning slower, but should catch up thanks to government subsidies and a planned phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles.

  In the EU, the sale of new internal combustion vehicles will be banned by 2035. However, an exemption was recently made on behalf of Germany to allow the sale of cars that run on synthetic fuels.

  In the U.S., the 13 states that adhere to California’s Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Program are aiming for 100% of cars sold in 2035 to be ZEVs. These states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 20:00

• How AI Can Track, Manipulate Voters
  How AI Can Track, Manipulate Voters

  Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  How well do artificial intelligence (AI) programs know us humans?

  

  In most cases, it’s quite well and, in some ways better than we know ourselves.

  A study by AI experts at Brigham Young University, titled “Out of One, Many: Using Language Models to Simulate Human Samples,” found that predictive AI programs exhibited a striking degree of what they call “algorithmic fidelity,” or precise mapping to actual human behavior.

  “Because these AI tools are basically trained on stuff that humans produce, things that we write, documents we make, websites we write, they can reflect back to us a lot of interesting and important things about ourselves,” Ethan Busby, political psychologist and co-author of the study, told The Epoch Times. “Kind of like if someone read your diary from start to finish, they would know a lot of things about you, and you’re not going to like every single thing.

  “In a similar way,” Busby said, “these tools have read so many things that humans have produced, and they can replicate or say back to us things about ourselves that we didn’t necessarily know.”

  The study sought to analyze human behavior in the context of elections and asked how accurately a GPT-3 language model could predict voting patterns based on socio-demographic factors like a person’s gender, age, location, religion, race, and economic status. The authors used these factors to create “silicon samples,” or composite personas based on varying combinations of these attributes.

  “You can basically ask these tools to put themselves in a specific frame of mind and pretend to be essentially this person, pretend to have these characteristics,” Busby said. They asked the program how these “silicon samples” would vote in specific campaigns, then they compared the results to actual voters’ behavior in elections between 2012 and 2020, using data from the American National Elections studies.

  For example, Busby said, regarding the 2016 election, “We could say what kinds of groups are going to be pivotal in Ohio?” What they found was that AI quickly learned to accurately predict how people would vote, based on their attributes.

  Left and Right Decry AI, When It Costs Elections

  Artificial intelligence is highly useful to organizations that want to target things like political messaging campaigns or fundraising efforts. But some political analysts have raised red flags about this, inferring unfairness and election interference. Their degree of outrage, however, largely depends on whether their candidates or causes succeeded or failed.

  In 2017, The Guardian, a left-wing British newspaper, wrote a series of articles claiming that conservative tech entrepreneur Robert Mercer, whom it called “the big data billionaire waging war on the mainstream media,” had financed a campaign strategy using AI to circumvent mainstream media narratives. This, the paper alleged, illicitly swayed voters in favor of Donald Trump, resulting in his victory in the presidential election in 2016.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 19:30

• Data-Centers & Small Nuclear Reactors – A Match Made In Heaven?
  Data-Centers & Small Nuclear Reactors – A Match Made In Heaven?

  Authored by Brian Gitt via RealClear Wire,

  Most of us don’t think about the huge data centers that enable our constant internet usage. But they’re essential to our civilization—and they consume enormous amounts of electricity 24/7.

  

  Powering these data centers is fast becoming a problem. Northern Virginia, for instance, hosts the largest concentration of data centers in the world. Tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google have invested $126 billion in Virginia data centers. And the region’s insatiable appetite for power continues to grow due to surging demand for cloud computing services. 

  Without reliable power, cloud service providers can’t grow to match the pace of increasing demand. But the electrical grid can’t keep up. Right now, power transmission bottlenecks in Northern Virginia could delay new data center development into 2026.

  Data center developers across the pond are facing the same problem. Microsoft and Amazon halted plans to build new data centers in Dublin, Ireland, because of power shortages and threats of rolling blackouts. And British officials paused construction on new houses in West London until 2035 because data centers had already maxed out the local grid’s capacity. 

  And it’s not just power consumption that is sparking opposition to data centers. Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, noise pollution, and the overall sustainability of data centers are fueling local opposition that is constraining where—or even whether—data centers get built. 

  Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook have responded to the demand for clean energy by investing heavily in wind and solar projects. But wind and solar alone can’t solve the problem. Those energy sources simply can’t deliver the uptime that data centers need. Consider the European wind drought of 2021 that cut wind power in the UK by 32 percent for 6 months. The need for round-the-clock uptime presents a serious—perhaps insurmountable—obstacle to data centers relying solely on sources of power like wind and solar that don’t generate power at night, or on cloudy days, or when the wind doesn’t blow.

  Some people hope we’ll eventually be able to store surplus wind and solar energy in batteries. But the reality is that batteries are too expensive to store enough energy to supply reliable power for weeks (let alone months) of uncooperative weather. 

  The good news is that there’s a solution—a power source reliable enough to provide uptime round-the-clock at low cost and with zero emissions: a small onsite nuclear power plant dedicated to supplying power to a data center. 

  Small modular reactors (SMRs) supply between 10 and 300 MW of power 24/7. A data center supplied by an SMR would face no more competition for power with local communities. No more waiting for new transmission lines or power plants to be built. And no more emissions. When we consider the full lifecycle of different power sources (including mining, manufacturing, and disposal), solar emits four times more carbon than SMRs.

  SMRs differ from large conventional nuclear plants as much as modern smartphones differ from old rotary phones. Conventional plants are large and complicated, and cumbersome US and European regulations make them expensive to build. Two units (1,117 MWs each) currently being built in the US state of Georgia have cost upwards of $30 billion. Construction on them, moreover, is six years behind schedule, and when they finally come online in 2023, they will have taken 14 years to complete. These kinds of costs and delays present a capital risk factor for large conventional nuclear plants. 

  Large nuclear reactors are also land-intensive. They typically require over 800 acres and usually need to be sited near a lake, river, or the ocean to access water for cooling. Plus, they don’t recycle spent fuel.

  SMRs are simpler and much less expensive to construct. Off-the-shelf components and factory prefabrication bring construction costs as low as $60 million. SMRs have a small footprint—about two acres for the smallest reactors, which is less than 0.5% of the land used by traditional reactors. Most don’t use water for cooling and therefore don’t have to be sited near a lake, river, or ocean. They can be installed on site or at a nearby location in under a year, and developers needn’t put capital at risk as some SMR companies offer power purchase agreements (PPAs).

  Oklo, for instance, owns and operates the power plant and sells 24/7 clean power at costs equal to or less than traditional energy sources. Oklo’s streamlined regulatory approach and extensive experience working with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission minimizes the time required to get a license to operate. The expected timeline from a signed PPA to powering servers (including licensing, permitting, and constructing) is two to three years. Plus, SMRs can be designed to recycle spent fuel—both their own fuel and fuel from large nuclear plants.

  SMRs promise data centers what they’re looking for: a reliable, low-cost, carbon-free energy source that yields round-the-clock uptime. Data centers of all sorts (hyperscale, colocation, or telecom) can use SMRs to secure the energy independence they need to overcome bottlenecks in the grid and to avoid competition for energy with local communities. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 19:00

• The E. Coli Super-Pathogens You Should Know About
  The E. Coli Super-Pathogens You Should Know About

  Authored by Dr. Sean Lin and Jacky Guan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Foodborne illnesses, also known as food poisoning, are a serious public health issue. Each year, they make 48 million people get sick, hospitalize 128,000, and cause the death of 3,000. Pathogenic E. coli is one of the most common known foodborne pathogens. However, the severity of various E. coli strains varies tremendously and the public should be cautious about one particularly dangerous type of E. coli.

  

  E. Coli 101

  Escherichia coli, also known as E. coli, is one of the most common types of bacteria known to mankind. From helping with digestion in your stomach to being a producer of artificial insulin, the bacteria discovered in 1885 have been studied countless times and improved our understanding of the microscopic world.

  The E. coli we infamously know from the news belong to the group Enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) and are pathogens responsible for food poisoning. Foodborne illnesses also include Salmonella and Norovirus (responsible for the recent cruise ship outbreaks). Typically, an E. coli infection occurs when a person comes into contact with contaminated food, animals, or water. It usually only causes mild abdominal pain or brief diarrhea. Other symptoms include stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, and fever.

  Typical treatment usually involves rest, hydration, and nutritional support. The disease is usually self-limiting as the body can normally clear it. The use of antibiotics is common in treating E. coli, yet antibiotic resistance is also a problem worldwide. However, severe forms of E. coli are the Shiga toxin-producing variants of the bacteria that can have dire consequences.

  STEC Variants Severely Damage Intestinal Linings and Kidneys

  The variants of E. coli that produce Shiga toxins (Stx) are called Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, or STEC. They have gained a lot of attention in the past few decades, as they are known for causing severe disease.

  STEC belongs to the EPEC group. STEC strains are capable of producing toxins named Shiga toxin type 1 (Stx1), type 2 (Stx2), or both, encoded by stx1 and stx2 genes, respectively.

  The toxins are named after Kiyoshi Shiga, who first described the bacterial origin of dysentery caused by Shigella dysenteriae. Historically, the toxin produced by E. coli was named Shiga-like toxin (SLT). Now, Shigella dysenteriae and STEC are regarded as the most common sources of Shiga toxins.

  Symptoms of a STEC infection include abdominal pain and watery diarrhea. There are also severe—possibly life-threatening—cases characterized by hemorrhagic colitis. These types of E. coli are also called Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC). Shiga toxins are also associated with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).

  In particular, the STEC O157:H7 and STEC O104:H4 are the two most notorious STEC strains. One could say these STEC groups are something like super soldiers in the E. coli army.

  

  The Shiga toxin does most of its work in small blood vessels, as it is rather ineffective in large vessels such as major veins and arteries. This is how the toxin can specialize against the digestive tract, kidney, and lungs. For example, the Shiga toxins are good at destroying clusters of nerve endings or small blood vessels in the kidneys, which can lead to kidney failure and even HUS. It can severely damage the lungs as well, so food poisoning associated with Shiga toxins is often also associated with lung and nervous system damage.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 18:30

• Visualizing Air Pollution Levels Around The World In 2022
  Visualizing Air Pollution Levels Around The World In 2022

  The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that air pollution leads to 7 million premature deaths every year.

  Out of the six common air pollutants, particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns or smaller in diameter, or PM2.5, is accepted as the most harmful to human health. This is due to its prevalence in the atmosphere and the broad range of adverse health effects associated with its exposure, such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and chronic respiratory diseases.

  With that context in mind, this visualization from Visual Capitalist’s Selin Oğuz and Miranda Smith uses IQAir’s World Air Quality Report to map out the 2022 average PM2.5 concentrations in select major cities around the globe, expressed in micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m³).

  

  Understanding the WHO Air Pollution Guidelines

  Did you know that in 2019, only 1% of the global population lived in places where WHO global air quality guidelines were met?

  Designed to protect public health from the harmful effects of air pollution, the guidelines cover a range of air pollutants, including particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide.

  The healthy limits for PM2.5 are set at an annual average of 0-5 μg/m³.

  WHO Classification	Annual Average PM2.5 Concentration (μg/m³)	% of countries within classification, 2022*
  WHO Air Quality Guideline	0 – 5	9.9%
  Interim Target 4	5.1 – 10	18.3%
  Interim Target 3	10.1 – 15	19.8%
  Interim Target 2	15.1 – 25	28.2%
  Interim Target 1	25.1 – 35	9.9%
  Exceeds Target Levels	35.1 – 50	7.6%
  Exceeds Target Levels	> 50	6.1%

  *Percentages are calculated as a proportion of the 131 countries that had sufficient air quality data and were included in IQAir’s World Air Quality Report in 2022.

  According to IQAir’s World Air Quality Report, only 13 countries or territories met the recommended concentration of PM2.5 in 2022. Among them were Australia, Finland, Puerto Rico, Iceland, Bermuda, and Guam.

  Above this guideline, many countries fell within the four interim targets, while nearly 14% recorded air pollution levels that exceeded all target levels.

  The Effects of Air Quality on Mortality

  While it can be a little difficult to grasp what the above concentrations represent, thinking of them in terms of their effect on mortality can shed some light on their significance.

  According to the WHO, non-accidental mortality rates multiply by 1.08 per 10 µg/m³ increase in PM2.5 concentration, but only up to 35 μg/m³. Above that, mortality growth rates may not be linear, resulting in many more deaths.

  Here is an example to highlight what that means.

  • Say that, for a population living within the WHO PM2.5 guideline, the non-accidental mortality rate is arbitrarily set to 100 deaths for a given period.

  • If this area’s PM2.5 concentration goes up to 10 μg/m³, putting them at Interim Target 4, they would see 104 deaths in that same amount of time.

  • At Interim Target 3, where their PM2.5 concentration would be 15 μg/m³, they would see 108 deaths.

  • At Interim Target 2, they’d see 117.

  • Finally, at Interim Target 1, they’d see 126.

  Beyond Interim Target 1 (above 35 μg/m³), deaths would potentially grow much faster. As of 2022, around 14% of countries report levels above this threshold, including Chad, India, Pakistan, Qatar, and Nigeria.

  The State of Air Pollution Around the World

  While many cities in North America and Europe have seen steady and relatively lower PM2.5 concentrations during the last few years, many cities (especially those in Asia) have been making strides in lowering their air pollution levels.

  Nonetheless, many of them still record PM2.5 concentrations that are more than six times the WHO guideline.

  City	2022 annual average PM2.5 concentration (μg/m³)	2018 annual average PM2.5 concentration (μg/m³)
  🇪🇬 Cairo, Egypt	47.4	N/A
  🇮🇳 Mumbai, India	46.7	58.6
  🇦🇪 Dubai, UAE	43.7	55.3
  🇮🇩 Jakarta, Indonesia	36.2	45.3
  🇳🇬 Lagos, Nigeria	36.1	N/A
  🇨🇳 Beijing, China	29.8	50.9
  🇵🇪 Lima, Peru	25.6	28
  🇲🇽 Mexico City, Mexico	22.1	19.7
  🇨🇳 Guangzhou, China	21.3	33.2
  🇵🇭 Manila, Philippines	14.6	N/A
  🇦🇷 Buenos Aires, Argentina	14.2	12.4
  🇸🇬 Singapore, Singapore	13.3	14.8
  🇮🇹 Rome, Italy	12.6	N/A
  🇰🇪 Nairobi, Kenya	11.5	N/A
  🇷🇺 Moscow, Russia	10.8	10.1
  🇧🇷 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	10.6	N/A
  🇺🇸 Los Angeles, USA	10.5	14.4
  🇺🇸 New York, USA	9.9	N/A
  🇬🇧 London, UK	9.6	12
  🇯🇵 Tokyo, Japan	9.2	13.1
  🇨🇦 Toronto, Canada	8.5	7.8
  🇨🇦 Vancouver, Canada	7.6	N/A
  🇳🇴 Oslo, Norway	6.9	8.2
  🇿🇦 Cape Town, South Africa	6.7	N/A
  🇺🇸 Miami, USA	6.4	7.8
  🇦🇺 Perth, Australia	4.9	N/A
  🇦🇺 Sydney, Australia	3.1	7.6

  Most parts of the world did not meet the annual WHO recommendation for clean and healthy air in 2022.

  However, the cost of inaction toward cleaner air is very high. In addition to the millions of premature deaths each year, the global cost of health damages associated with air pollution currently sits at $8.1 trillion.

  Unfortunately, things that are integral to our quality of life, such as industrial activities, transportation, energy production, and agricultural practices, are also the leading causes of air pollution around the world.

  As such, a multi-faceted approach to lowering pollution is essential to protect lives, especially to benefit those already more vulnerable to poor air quality, such as kids and the elderly.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 18:00

• Lula: Peace Club To De-Dollarization
  Lula: Peace Club To De-Dollarization

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via The Automatic Earth blog,

  Brazilian President Lula was successful in reaching an agreement to de-dollarize his country’s trade with China, the significance of which was earlier explained in the context of his country’s grand strategy here, but failed to convince his counterpart to join a so-called “peace club” on Ukraine during their summit. This is no small shortcoming either since it was promoted by his Foreign Minister as one of the reasons behind his trip in an interview that he gave to the Financial Times (FT) late last month.

  

  Globally prominent outlets such as Bloomberg, France24, the US Government-run “Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty” (RFERL), and others all accordingly reported that this issue would be high on the agenda during Lula’s talks with President Xi. His supporters on social media also went wild getting everyone’s expectations up about this as well, even though “Brazil & China Are Poles Apart When It Comes To Their Envisaged End Games In Ukraine” so it was never likely that anything would come of this.

  While China, India, and South Africa have consistently abstained from anti-Russian UNGA Resolutions, Brazil bucked the BRICS trend by always voting against Russia except when it came to suspending it from the Human Rights Council. Lula became the first BRICS leader to personally condemn Russia in his joint statement with Biden back in February, after which he ordered his diplomats to vote in support of the latest anti-Russian UNGA Resolution later that same month.

  Foreign Minister Vieira was obviously well aware of the sharp differences between Brazil and China’s officially envisaged end games to this conflict yet he still made it seem to FT like there was a chance that the People’s Republic would tacitly support his country’s position via participation in the “peace club”. That was nothing more than wishful thinking, which belied Brazilian diplomats’ refusal to acknowledge China’s principled approach to this conflict since they in hindsight seemed to assume that it was flexible.

  Reality slapped them and their supporters in the face upon the publication of the joint Brazilian-Chinese communique on Friday, which can be read in English on the official website of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs here. The ninth paragraph of that document will now be shared in full so as to prove Lula’s failure to sway President Xi to his country’s side contrary to the unrealistic expectation that Vieira set for his trip when talking to the FT late last month:

  “Both parties stated that dialogue and negotiation are the only viable way out of the crisis in Ukraine and that all efforts leading to a peaceful solution to the crisis must be encouraged and supported. Brazil received in a positive way the proposal by China that offers reflections conducive to the search for a peaceful solution to the crisis. China received in a positive way the efforts by Brazil in favour of peace. The parties made an appeal for more countries to play a constructive role in the promotion of a political solution to the crisis in Ukraine. The parties decided to keep in contact on this matter.”

  As can be seen, absolutely nothing of tangible significance came from Lula’s over-hyped “peace club” proposal. This paragraph of their joint statement is purely perfunctory and simply acknowledges their shared interest in peace without touching upon their sharp differences in terms of how this should be achieved. The “positive way” in which China “received” “the efforts by Brazil in favour of peace” is similar in spirit to Russia’s reported support of the optics connected to Lula’s peace rhetoric.

  What’s meant by this was explained more in detail here last week but just refers to Russia and China’s interest in showing the world that the international community wants peace as soon as possible instead of indefinitely perpetuating this proxy war. Their soft power interests in no way even remotely imply endorsement of Lula’s envisaged end game as articulated in his joint condemnation of Russia with Biden and the anti-Russian UNGA Resolution that he ordered his country’s diplomats to vote in support of.

  China wasn’t ever going to be manipulated into de facto taking the US’ political side in this conflict against Russia by dint of joining Lula’s “peace club” and thus extending credence to his hostile demand that their shared BRICS partner immediately withdraw from all the territory that Kiev claims as its own. Doing so would have discredited President Xi’s signature peace proposal that his diplomats unveiled on the one-year anniversary of the conflict and which he discussed at length with President Putin in March.

  Lula therefore failed in his function as Biden’s “Trojan Horse” for tricking the Chinese leader into informally adopting an anti-Russian policy, but this unfriendly gamble didn’t spoil their much larger success in agreeing to de-dollarize bilateral trade. About that, while it’s indisputably a positive development that’ll accelerate the global systemic transition to multipolarity, his Finance Minister Fernando Haddad made it clear that neither this nor the trip in general were aimed against the US.

  In his own words, “It doesn’t make sense to get closer to China and move away from the United States. We want the best relations with the United States and the European Union.” This aligns with the insight that was hyperlinked to in the introduction regarding Brazil’s grand strategy, which was elaborated upon in this piece here from Friday that discusses the significance of Lula’s reported plans to launch a global influence platform in joint partnership with the US Democrats.

  To summarize, he believes that Brazil can “balance” – however clumsily and imperfectly – between de-dollarizing with China and aggressively propagating liberal–globalism across the world with the US, thus enabling his country to preemptively avert potentially disproportionate dependence on either. Relations with Russia are limited in this paradigm to commodities (including energy investments) and cooperation on BRICS’ new reserve currency, which are important but pale in comparison to China and the US’ roles.

  All told, the grand strategic significance of Lula’s de-dollarization success with China far outweighs his failure to trick it into tacitly adopting an anti-Russian policy by joining his proposed “peace club”, but the second-mentioned outcome still deserves to be discussed. Those who expected this to happen must cogently account for the fact that it didn’t occur, though without resorting to the conspiracy theories that have become popular among his supporters, if they want to retain a semblance of credibility.

  *  *  *

  Support the Automatic Earth via Patreon.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 17:30

• Thieves Steal 2 Million Dimes Worth $200,000 From Big Rig Parked In Philadelphia Walmart
  Thieves Steal 2 Million Dimes Worth $200,000 From Big Rig Parked In Philadelphia Walmart

  Talk about taking QE to another level.

  Today in “if Fed policy was an 18-wheeler” news, a trailer containing 2 million dimes was broken into and looted in Northeast Philadelphia this week.

  The trailer contained “hundreds of thousands of dollars” worth of dimes, 6ABC reported.

  After a discovery of the trailer was made at 6AM on Thursday morning, police commented that roughly 2 million dimes, worth about $200,000 were stolen. 

  The truck had $750,000 in dimes in it altogether. Many were found strewn about in a Walmart parking lot where the trailer was parked. 

  The dimes had been picked up at the Philadelphia Mint on Wednesday, but the driver of the truck went home to sleep before planning to drive the next day to Florida. 

  

  Capt. Jack Ryan of Northeast Detectives commented: “This is common practice – to pick up a load going to Florida and go home for the night, get to sleep, and get on the road in the morning.”

  He didn’t comment on the driver’s decision to leave $750,000 in dimes in a trailer in the Walmart parking lot overnight, however. 

  “They were trying to cross-load the dimes into other things. There are dimes all over the parking lot,” Ryan added, telling 6ABC.

  Police are reviewing camera footage to try and get a suspect description.

  One bystander asked: “I feel like if they try to go to the bank and cash it in, they’re going to get caught. They’ll be like, ‘Well, where did you get all of these dimes from?'”

  Oh and don’t worry: we’re sure by next week the incident will be used as an example of why we absolutely must use central bank digital currencies. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 17:00

• US Arms Industry Planning 1st Taiwan Trip In Years To Talk Joint Production
  US Arms Industry Planning 1st Taiwan Trip In Years To Talk Joint Production

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Around 25 US defense contractors plan to send representatives to Taiwan next month, marking the first time the arms industry will send a delegation to the island since 2019, Nikkei Asia reported this week.

  Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US Taiwan Business Council, said the delegation will look to boost cooperation with Taiwan’s industry and wants to explore jointly producing weapons. The arms that Taipei is interested in producing include drones and ammunition.

  

  The planned arms industry trip to Taiwan comes as the US is looking to ramp up arms sales and general military cooperation with Taiwan, which will further exacerbate tensions with Beijing.

  The delegation plans to meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who recently provoked major Chinese military drills by meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.

  When asked about the prospect of US companies jointly producing arms with Taiwan, a Biden administration official expressed support for the idea.

  “From a very high-level perspective, we think that co-production arrangements make sense, but we need to take a look at them on a case-by-case basis, and it has to be at the request of US industry,” the official told Nikkei.

  Since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, the US has always sold weapons to Taiwan. But the US is now looking to expand support by providing billions in military aid included in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

  Some of the Taiwan aid has hit a snag with the appropriations committees, but the Pentagon has said it plans to use the $1 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority to start arming Taiwan. The authority is what President Biden has been using to arm Ukraine by sending weapons directly from US military stockpiles.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 16:30

• The Biden Administration Is Once Again Tightening Rules On Vehicles Emissions
  The Biden Administration Is Once Again Tightening Rules On Vehicles Emissions

  It’s a case of Joe Biden versus the free market. 

  Recall, just yesterday, we wrote about how, despite enormous subsidies, EV adoption in the United States was slowing. In other words, it turns out, not everybody shares the virtue signaling stance of blindly switching to a more expensive method of driving with more complex refueling demands…just because the government “said so”.

  Enter the Biden administration, yet again, which is now unveiling what Fox News is calling “the most aggressive tailpipe emissions ever crafted” to try and further the push into EVs.

  The new rules proposed by the EPA and White House “will impact car model years 2027 through 2032”. The White House claims they will result in “carbon emission reductions of nearly 10 billion tons by 2055 and would save consumers an average of $12,000 over the lifetime of vehicles,” the report says.

  The White House stated: “Cars and truck manufacturers have made clear that the future of transportation is electric. The market is moving.”

  It added: “As a car enthusiast and self-proclaimed car guy, President Biden is seizing the moment. His Investing in America agenda is expanding domestic manufacturing and accelerating adoption of zero-emission vehicles, including battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and fuel cell electric vehicles.”

  

  The administration also estimates that the new rules will “reduce oil imports by 20 billion barrels”.

  Meanwhile, critics state the obvious: that new rules on emission standards will make the cost of all vehicles rise. If its rules are enacted, “67% of new sedan, crossover, SUV and light truck purchases could be electric by 2032,” the White House predicts. 

  Myron Ebell, the director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment told Fox News: “The Biden administration is trying to bend every federal rule they can find to force people into buying EVs. There is still a market that allows drivers to buy the vehicles of their choice, but government coercion is rapidly limiting those choices.” 

  He concluded: “If Biden policies are successful, we will soon have a choice between buying an EV and not being able to afford a vehicle at all.”

  Conspicuously, the White House didn’t mention any restrictions or concerns about the way that heavy metals are being mined for use in EV batteries, because – well, child labor and toxic work conditions in continents in Africa aren’t in vogue, popular, trendy talking points.

  But…but…carbon!

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 16:00

• SEC Sides With Conservatives Over Launching PayPal Discrimination Probe
  SEC Sides With Conservatives Over Launching PayPal Discrimination Probe

  Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sided with conservative investors this week in their request to investigate what they say is PayPal’s systematic political and religious discrimination against customers.

  

  Over the objections of PayPal’s management, the SEC allowed a proposal by the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) to go to a shareholder vote at the company’s next annual meeting. This decision follows a similar decision on March 29, in which the SEC green-lighted a proposal regarding alleged political and religious discrimination at JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank.

  In an April 10 letter to PayPal’s attorneys, the SEC stated that NCPPR’s proposal “requests that the board conduct an evaluation and issue a report within the next year evaluating how it oversees risks related to discrimination against individuals based on their race, color, religion (including religious views), sex, national origin, or political views, and whether such discrimination may impact individuals’ exercise of their constitutionally protected civil rights.”

  Responding to PayPal’s request to block the proposal from going to a shareholder vote, the SEC stated: “We are unable to concur in your view that the Company may exclude the Proposal under Rule 14a-8(i)(7). In our view, the Proposal transcends ordinary business matters.”

  PayPal had argued that its shareholders should not consider NCPPR’s request because the issue of viewpoint discrimination is part of the company’s “ordinary business operations” and that “the proposal seeks to ‘micro-manage’ the company by probing too deeply into matters of a complex nature upon which shareholders, as a group, would not be in a position to make an informed judgment.”

  The NCPPR proposal stated, among other things, that “companies that provide banking or financial services are essential pillars of the marketplace. On account of their unique and pivotal role in America’s economy, many federal and state laws already prohibit them from discriminating when providing financial services to the public. And the UN Declaration of Human Rights, consistent with many other laws and the U.S. Constitution, recognizes that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.’”

  Conservatives Charge Viewpoint Discrimination

  “We know from news stories that PayPal has been discriminating on the basis of viewpoints, shutting down accounts that differ from their ‘woke’ political principles,” Scott Shepard, a director at NCPPR and co-author of the proposal, told The Epoch Times. “We’re giving them a chance with this to consider ways to rectify those problems.”

  PayPal has scored well in terms of its support for progressive causes. Standard & Poor’s ranked it a 49 out of 100 in the social-justice category of its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) score, more than double the industry average of 22, though below the industry best of 90. Its overall ESG rating increased steadily from 18 in 2018 to 58 today.

  

  PayPal scored a perfect 100 percent on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI), published by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). The HRC publishes various corporate indices that it says are “benchmarks of LGBTQ-inclusive policies, practices, and benefits of our nation’s employers.” Noting left-wing philanthropist George Soros’s funding of the HRC, some analysts have suggested that campaigns such as Bud Light’s endorsement of trans activist Dylan Mulvaney were part of a standard corporate practice of pursuing high scores from ESG rating agencies and progressive organizations like the HRC. Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Bud Light beer, scored 100 on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 15:30

• Anheuser-Busch Transitions Into Damage Control Mode – And People Aren't Buying It
  Anheuser-Busch Transitions Into Damage Control Mode – And People Aren’t Buying It

  After rolling out a Bud Light ad campaign featuring flamboyant transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney – whose ditzy caricature of a woman mocks decades of actual progress by feminists (who have apparently been wokeshamed into silence), Anheuser-Busch’s damage control team kicked into action on Friday after the Mulvaney ad sparked a massive backlash.

  

  “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” said Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Brendan Whitworth in a carefully crafted, heavily focus-grouped press release which failed to mention Mulvaney, Bud Light, or transgender issues. “We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”

  “I care deeply about this country, this company, our brands and our partners. I spend much of my time traveling across America, listening to and learning from our customers, distributors and others,” the statement continued. “Moving forward, I will continue to work tirelessly to bring great beers to consumers across our nation.”

  Translation: Let’s all forget about this over a beer.

  The company then went with a ‘hey fellow beer drinkers’ ad campaign, tweeting “TGIF” along with a picture of a Bud Light can. It was received about as well as one would imagine… with a massive ratio of people commenting vs. ‘liking’ it.

  

  The campaign was mocked mercilessly.

  This is the beer can we wanted pic.twitter.com/MBKMEsgK7P

  — Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeacefull) April 15, 2023

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

  Waiting for a REAL apology from Bud Light, along with an announcement that they have fired their marketing team.

  — The Gay Republican (@GayRepublicSwag) April 15, 2023

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

  New sponsor for Pisswater Light pic.twitter.com/YjOrjLTjIT

  — Big Ray Hernandez (@BigRayHernandez) April 14, 2023

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

  More via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Brand Damage

  Some analysts and investors said that the damage likely won’t sink Anheuser-Busch, but the damage has been done to the Bud Light brand.

  

  “I simply don’t understand why they hired the person who was doing the marketing,” Oxygen Financial CEO Ted Jenkin told Fox News Thursday. “I mean, if your target customer is Kid Rock, and then all of a sudden you decide to go to RuPaul, that just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  Because Bud Light generally targets “blue-collar workers and younger adults that are 25 to 29 years old,” the campaign should be problematic for the firm. “So, I don’t think that this one campaign is going to colossally destroy the brand,” it said.

  “But certainly short term, it puts doubt into their loyal drinkers of Bud Light to say, ‘Do I want to continue to be drinking Bud Light based upon who they’re showing representing Bud Light?’” he asked. “Anytime a company puts on a national spokesperson that has backlash, it certainly can affect your business.”

  A research fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research wrote this week that Anheuser-Busch is owned by InBev, a multinational conglomerate worth tens of billions of dollars. One product, he wrote, won’t do a huge amount of damage to the brand or value.

  “But that seems like a plausible result. The Venn diagram of people interested in drinking Bud Light and those eager to support the issue at the sharp edge of the wokist culture war is pretty much just two circles vaguely near one another,” Shepard wrote. “While InBev investors won’t suffer too much, distributors of AB products and others who do business with the company surely will.”

  Shepard further stipulated in the article that the “bottom-line effects of wokeness are clearer at other American companies that have abandoned fiduciary duty for politics,” referring to large corporations’ having adopted left-wing talking points and narratives around race and sex.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 15:00

• Fungal Outbreak Affects Over 90 Workers At Michigan Paper Mill
  Fungal Outbreak Affects Over 90 Workers At Michigan Paper Mill

  Authored by Jane Ngyuen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Nineteen confirmed cases of blastomycosis, a type of fungal infection, have been linked with a northern Michigan paper mill, with a further 74 people believed to be probable cases, according to local health authorities.

  

  Public health officials said on April 7 that both confirmed and probable cases are workers at Escanaba Billerud Paper Mill infected with Blastomycosis after showing symptoms. A probable case is a person with symptoms with a positive antigen or antibody test.

  Blastomycosis is an infection caused by a fungus called blastomyces that live in soil and decaying wood.

  Earlier on Feb. 28, the Public Health Delta and Menominee Counties (PHDM) was first alerted of several atypical pneumonia infections in individuals employed at the mill.

  On March 3, the mill learned of the infections from the PHDM.

  The exact source of the fungus has not yet been found. However, it is believed that it arrived on damp and rotten wood at the mill.

  “Although the source of the infection has not been established, we continue to take this matter very seriously and are following recommendations from health and government officials and implementing numerous, proactive steps to protect the health and safety of our employees, contractors, and visitors,” Brian Peterson, the mill’s vice president of operations, said in a statement.

  An investigation into an outbreak of blastomycosis is ongoing and includes health and safety officials at the local, state, and federal levels.

  Experts said that an outbreak that affects a large number of people is highly unusual as the fungal disease is not usually transmitted from person to person.

  Workers at the mill are now being asked to wear company-provided N95 masks. Deep cleaning of ventilation systems in the plant is underway, as advised by health officials, to avoid disease spreading.

  Billerud AB, an American subsidiary of the Swedish pulp and paper manufacturer, operates the mill.

  About Blastomycosis

  According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Blastomyces fungus lives in moist soil and decomposing matter.

  People can get blastomycosis after breathing in fungal spores from the air, which can infect the lungs.

  Most people who breathe in the spores don’t get sick, but some might experience the following symptoms: cough, fever, chest pain, difficulty breathing, night sweats, fatigue, weight loss, muscle aches, and joint pain.

  In severe cases, the fungus spreads from the lungs to other organs, including the muscles, bones, and brain. It can take anywhere from three weeks to three months for symptoms to appear after exposure to the fungus, the CDC says.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 04/15/2023 – 14:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• China is Preparing For War; Is The US Ready?
  China is Preparing For War; Is The US Ready?

  Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The ammunition is running low, casualties are immense, medicine and other critical supplies have not come for weeks, and a nuclear attack on the American homeland is imminent.

  

  It is a dramatic scene, more closely resembling a Hollywood drama than any war that the United States has actually fought in the last half-century. It is nevertheless what many expect a war between the United States and communist China could look like this decade.

  Both the United States and China are investing record-breaking sums in building up their military capabilities. Leadership on both sides increasingly appears to consider such a conflict as inevitable, despite rhetoric to the contrary.

  The cause for that mutual enmity is the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) claim that democratic Taiwan belongs to China, and CCP leader Xi Jinping’s desire to force that unification within a few years’ time.

  Xi has ordered the regime’s military wing to prepare for war, and to be ready to launch an invasion of Taiwan by 2027.

  Preparing for what would be history’s most ambitious amphibious assault is not the same as actually launching it. But, should the worst occur, the Biden administration or its successor will have to decide either to join the fray, or to let Taiwan stand on its own and fight for its freedom.

  Before U.S. leadership decides on that question, however, it must answer another, more foundational one: Can the United States win a war with China?

  

  ‘The Window of Maximum Danger’

  Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) is more invested in the new cold war between the United States and China than most.

  Tasked with leading Congress’ new House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the CCP, he is one of the few movers and shakers in the legislative branch directly engaged in developing an action plan to defend the American people, its economy, and values from CCP aggression.

  For him, Russia’s ongoing conquest of Ukraine, and the United States’ failure to deter it, contain all the lessons necessary to prepare for what comes next in Taiwan.

  “If we don’t learn the right lessons from the failure of deterrence in Ukraine, authoritarian aggression and the CCP’s malign influence will spread to the Indo-Pacific, and our New Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party could quickly become hot,” Gallagher told The Epoch Times.

  “To prevent this, we have to act with a sense of urgency and do everything we can to deter a CCP invasion of Taiwan.”

  

  That plan is much the same as it has been since 1979, when the United States passed the Taiwan Relations Act and agreed to provide the island with the arms necessary to maintain its self-defense.

  The strategic landscape 44 years ago was something altogether different, however, and the number of weapons and systems that Taiwan now requires to hold the CCP at threat are immense.

  The way Gallagher sees it, neither Taiwan nor the United States is prepared for the possibility of war with China.

  Speaking back in November of 2021, Gallagher warned that, “if we went to war in the Taiwan Strait tomorrow, we’d probably lose.”

  Gallagher is careful now to avoid similar doomspeak but, when asked if he still agreed with that assessment, his optimism for the United States’ performance in a war with China is palpably limited.

  “If the Chinese Communist Party invaded Taiwan today, we would not be well positioned to defend our friend, our interests, or American values in the Indo-Pacific,” Gallagher says.

  The United States must choose, he believes, to arm Taiwan to the teeth now or come to Taiwan’s aid at a much greater cost later.

  Either way, the choices the United States makes now, he says, will largely determine the conditions of victory and defeat at a later date. To that end, Congress must unite to arm Taiwan and systematically counter the CCP’s malign influence at every opportunity.

  “We are in the window of maximum danger,” Gallagher says, “and if we are going to ensure that it’s the U.S.—not the CCP—writing the rules of the 21st century, we need to unite in overwhelming bipartisan fashion to combat CCP aggression.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 23:40

• "We've Been Warned:" El Nino Watch Initiated As Ag-Industry In Crosshairs
  “We’ve Been Warned:” El Nino Watch Initiated As Ag-Industry In Crosshairs

  This week, the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an El Niño Watch, indicating the increasing likelihood of the weather-altering phenomenon developing in the Pacific Ocean. If El Niño does form, it could result in heavy rainfall and heatwaves in specific regions across the globe, potentially causing disruptions in the agricultural industry.

  A watch is issued when conditions are favorable for the development of El Niño within the next six months. The Climate Prediction Center said probabilities have risen over the last month from 61% to 74% of an El Niño emerging between August and October. 

  Time to watch for El Nino! 👀 NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center issued an El Nino watch in today’s monthly update.

  See more at: https://t.co/znXWQK8Rzg pic.twitter.com/nbfHeUq059

  — National Weather Service (@NWS) April 13, 2023

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

  El Niño refers to a climate pattern that arises when the Pacific Ocean’s equatorial region experiences warming, which then reacts with the atmosphere to cause weather shifts worldwide. 

  

  On the commodity front, Bloomberg analyst Jake Lloyd-Smith said El Niño might impact harvests in the second half of the year: 

  So the parade of warnings that a disruptive El Nino pattern may be on the way is critical for commodities as it carries the potential to roil palm oil, sugar, and cocoa to list just a few.

  The latest to wade are the folk at the US government, who’ve issued an El Nino watch. The pattern forms when the equatorial Pacific warms and reacts with the atmosphere to disrupt weather the world over. In this neighborhood, it can crimp rainfall, drying out crops and possibly cutting harvests. In India and New Zealand, forecasters have also signaled their concern recently. That follows similar messages from Australia, Peru, and the Philippines. The pack, it seems, is well and truly on the move.

  There’s a two-step process at work here. First, while the probability of an El Nino setting in has been increasing, it’s not a certainty yet. And second, even if one does form, the events vary tremendously in their intensity. The one that sticks in my mind is the appalling event of 1997-98 that played out as a vicious backdrop during the Asian Financial Crisis. Right now, we’ve been warned.

  El Niño’s effect on crop yields could further strain the already stressed global food supply chain, leading to an increase in prices and making it harder for central bankers to cool inflation. As readers know, elevated food prices and the soaring cost of living in emerging market nations can ignite social unrest, creating a perfect storm of adverse economic and political consequences. 

  Is this all setting the stage for a major food crisis this year? 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 23:20

• China's 'M&A King' Bao Fan Vanished, Rocking Country’s Financial Sector
  China’s ‘M&A King’ Bao Fan Vanished, Rocking Country’s Financial Sector

  Authored by Shawn Lin and Olivia Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  China’s “M&A King” Bao Fan has been missing for over 50 days, sending shockwaves throughout the country’s financial and political circles.

  

  On April 3, China Renaissance Group, the company Bao founded, announced a trading halt, suspending trading from 9:00 am that day. The release of its annual performance report for 2022 has also been deferred as the auditors cannot issue an audit report in Bao’s absence.

  Bao is the company’s chairman, executive director, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder.

  On Feb. 16, the company’s board of directors announced that they had been unable to contact Bao, and on Feb. 26, they revealed that he was “cooperating” with authorities’ investigations.

  If we take Feb. 16 as the starting date, Bao has been missing for over 50 days.

  Impressive Resume

  Bao, born in 1970, founded China Renaissance Group in 2005 at the age of 35.

  Prior to that, he served as the chief strategy officer of China-based IT services and software company Asiainfo Group. He also worked at international financial companies such as Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, accumulating seven years of investment banking experience on Wall Street.

  Bao’s influence in the Chinese financial industry is enormous.

  In 2015, China Renaissance Group facilitated four major mergers and acquisitions in China’s Internet industry: the merger of ride-hailing giants Didi and Kuaidi, the merger of classifieds site 58.com and Ganji.com, the merger of lifestyle e-commerce platform Meituan and online review site Dianping, and the merger of online travel agencies Ctrip and Qunar.

  Since then, Bao has been involved in almost all major financing, mergers and acquisitions, and IPO deals in China’s internet industry.

  According to IT Juzi, a Chinese business information service provider, China Renaissance Group has brokered 439 public transactions with 727 different investors from 2014 to 2021, including numerous big-name investors. His reputation as the “King of M&A” in China is well-deserved.

  Bank of China Chairman Implicated

  The day after Bao went missing, Liu Liange, chairman, executive director, and Chinese Communist Party (CPP) boss at the Bank of China, was removed from his positions.

  One month later, the Bank of China claimed that Liu had “voluntarily” resigned. On March 31, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that Liu was under investigation for serious law violations.

  Liu had worked in China’s banking system since the 1990s, holding key positions, including 11 years at the China Exim Bank and later serving as the Party boss and chairman of the Bank of China.

  

  As reported by Beijing Caixin, sources close to the Bank of China said that Liu’s case is likely connected to the recent investigation into Bao’s case.

  Before Liu’s downfall, several high-ranking executives at the Bank of China were taken away for investigation between July and September 2022.

  Early Repayment Clause

  Although China Renaissance Group has stated that its business and operations are currently running as usual, it has been noted that the company has signed loan agreements with specific clauses.

  In May 2021, China Renaissance Group announced that it had obtained its first syndicated loan since going public. The loan, totaling $300 million over a three-year period, was led by the Bank of Communications (Hong Kong) and involved other banks such as Citibank (Hong Kong), China Citic Bank International, and Bank of China (Macau).

  The financing agreement stipulates that if Bao is no longer the largest shareholder of China Renaissance Group or no longer serves as board chairman, the main lenders can cancel their commitments and demand immediate mandatory repayment of all outstanding loans under the financing.

  The market is concerned that if Bao cannot perform his duties for an extended period, creditors may lose confidence in China Renaissance Group, and the aforementioned $300 million loan may be subject to early repayment.

  China Renaissance Group has not responded to the request of The Epoch Times for comment by press time.

  Xi Targets Financial Sector

  Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been disciplining the financial sector in China, with dozens of personnel changes seen in bank executive positions this year. According to the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, in the first three months of 2023, at least ten high-level executives in China’s financial sector have been investigated.

  

  One week after Bao went missing, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published an article on Feb. 23 mentioning “finance” 16 times.

  The article claimed that the commission aimed to eliminate “political risks,” break the “financial elite”  and “Westernization” mindsets, rectify the industry’s “unspoken rules,” eliminate the mentality of “law does not punish the masses” and investigate issues such as “shadow shareholders” and the “revolving door.”

  Political commentator Ji Lin, who resides in Japan, told The Epoch Times on April 10 that as China’s economy continues to decline and the fiscal deficit becomes severe, debt crises may erupt at any time. Therefore, Xi is taking action in the financial system, attempting to ease the situation.

  Ji said that China’s financial sector is controlled by influential families, and through factional purges, Xi can replace key positions with his trusted individuals.

  Ji also said that China’s capital circle is full of unspoken rules involving collusion between officials and businessmen, where capital magnates receive illegal benefits and protection from officials and, in turn, act as officials’ hidden henchmen who help with reaping profit and money laundering.

  “With Bao Fan’s qualifications, he is likely such a henchman figure. Thus, if Bao is being investigated, many individuals associated with him may also fall,” Ji said.

  Ellen Wan contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 23:00

• Fewer Coal Power Plants Close In 2022 Than In Recent Years
  Fewer Coal Power Plants Close In 2022 Than In Recent Years

  Data from Ember’s fourth annual Global Electricity Review reveals that electricity generation from coal increased by 1.1 percent last year, which is in line with the average rate of growth in the last decade.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, Ember found that while the rate of new coal power plants opening did not increase, 2022 saw fewer coal power plants close than in any year since 2015. Analysts say this was due to countries seeking to hold onto back-up capacity.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Electricity data was analyzed from 78 countries, representing 93 percent of global electricity demand and includes estimated changes for the missing data.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 22:40

• Doug Casey On Why The US Is Headed Into Its 'Fourth Turning'
  Doug Casey On Why The US Is Headed Into Its ‘Fourth Turning’

  Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

  International Man: The economic, political, social, and cultural situation seems to have become increasingly volatile in the United States and more broadly in the West. Is this a unique situation or part of a recurring historical cycle?

  Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe introduced a popular theory in their book, The Fourth Turning, outlining the recurring generational cycles that have occurred throughout American history.

  What are your thoughts?

  

  Doug Casey: I read Strauss and Howe’s first book, Generations, when it came out back in 1992. I thought it was brilliant.

  Let me start off by recommending both Generations and The Fourth Turning to everybody. Both books offer quite a scholarly, readable, and prescient view of the cyclicality of history. And offer a very plausible forecast for the 2020s.

  History’s best seen as cyclical, rather than a straight-line progress to some preordained end the way both the Marxists and the Abrahamic religions see it. But then, Ecclesiastes has its famous quote that there’s nothing new under the sun.

  Plato in the Republic talks about how the younger generation—and we’re talking fourth century BC—can’t stand up to the moral values of their forefathers.

  Older people have always thought that the younger generation wouldn’t quite measure up. In recent American history, you’ll recall, the younger generation were the beatniks in the ’50s, the hippies in the ’60s, and the yuppies in the ’80s—so it’s a passing parade. Older people have a tendency to think the world is going downhill. Nothing new there. But there’s always a rebirth.

  Niccolò Machiavelli, in his Florentine Histories, said:

  Virtue gives birth to tranquility, tranquility to leisure, leisure to disorder, disorder to ruin… and similarly from ruin, order is born, from order virtue, from virtue, glory and good fortune.

  The bottom line is that societies arise from poverty through moral strength—and that brings them prosperity. But that prosperity brings on arrogance, and the arrogance brings on laziness, which brings on weakness and moral decline. Then they’re reduced to a condition of slavery and poverty again. Change is the only constant—except in human nature.

  As I look at the United States, it seems to me the peak of American culture was the time just before Teddy Roosevelt came into office. Teddy is certainly among the top five worst presidents. And there’s plenty of competition for that title.

  He was the first real “progressive” president; he wanted the government actively involved in all areas of life.

  Now, that’s not to say that Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t have been a really great drinking pal, a wonderful guy to go camping with, a fun guy to have an intellectual conversation with. He had a lot of admirable personal values. But he was a nationalist, a statist, and a warmonger. That’s why I say he was a horrible president.

  The long-term trend of US overseas imperialism started with the Spanish–American War and the building of an overseas American empire in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii—followed by World War I.

  The US has gone from being noninterventionist to now having many hundreds of bases around the world and trying to give orders to every other country in the world. That kind of arrogance always ends badly.

  As a civilization—a culture—the US has been on an accelerating path downhill for about 120 years now. That’s true even while science and technology have greatly increased the general standard of living. It’s a mistake to conflate a higher standard of living with higher moral values—that’s what Machiavelli was talking about.

  I question whether that trend will change—at least until we have a genuine crisis. Why not? Because a lot of the way a society acts comes from the way kids are brought up—the values that are inculcated in them when they’re young. And increasingly, kids are taught what I would call the wrong values.

  Saint Ignatius said this in the 17th century, and Lenin repeated it in the 20th century. They both said that if you indoctrinate someone in his youth, chances are you’ve directed his worldview for the rest of his life.

  Cultural Marxists are now totally in control of the US educational system, and have been for a couple of generations. That’s absolutely the case in the colleges and universities but also in the high schools and even in the grade schools. Kids are being taught to be socialists, ecowarriors, social justice warriors, and “woke” from an early age. It’s really serious.

  And it’s not a cyclical phenomenon. This is one of the few areas in which I take some issue with The Fourth Turning. The trend towards collectivism and statism seems to be a secular long-term trend that’s still accelerating.

  There are a few bright spots. Libertarians, for instance, are somewhat more prominent than in the past. But the fact that libertarians believe in personal freedom, in the face of a societal trend in the opposite direction, makes me tend to believe they’re actually genetic mutants. They’re just a small percentage of the population, whose nature has resisted the prevailing nurture.

  I say that, only partially because of my own experience. I grew up in what could—jokingly—be called a cannibalistic death cult and was imbued with all kinds of strange notions by nuns and priests at the schools that I went to. I rejected them intuitively and intellectually, but they still stick to you like tar. It can take years to wash off the effects of early indoctrination.

  I’m more of a maverick than most people are, however. Most just continue to believe what they’re taught as kids, reflexively and automatically—right or wrong. So I don’t think there’s really much hope of a serious change in the direction of American culture. At least until a major crisis—and the outcome of that is in doubt.

  International Man: OK. That’s the long-term trend. Where are we in the generational cycle now? Are we moving into the fourth turning and headed for a crisis?

  Doug Casey: Strauss and Howe take a cyclical point of view over the course of roughly 80 years, four generations.

  To very briefly summarize their theory, there are four “turnings”: a “high,” an “awakening,” an “unraveling,” and a “crisis.”

  Over the last couple of decades, we’ve been undergoing the unraveling, where old values fall apart. Next, Strauss and Howe predicted a crisis, starting about 2015, which tests the very existence of the society. Or at least the way it’s run.

  They go beyond seeing generations as being simply “liberal” or “conservative.” According to Strauss and Howe, there are four generational archetypes that last over a cycle of 80 years—20 years per generation—corresponding to the “turnings.”

  Without going into all the details, they see the baby boomers as being a “Prophet” Generation. The authors are ideologically oriented—fire and brimstone types—very much like Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right. Kind of biblically apocalyptic by nature.

  They were quite correct in defining the Generation X types as the so-called “Nomad” Generation. These are kids who learned to take care of themselves—and are not so ideological in the way they think.

  The Millennials are who are relevant at the moment. They correspond, in Strauss and Howe’s view, to the World War II generation. They’d be the frontline soldiers in the coming crisis and conflicts.

  International Man: What happens after a crisis? Is there a positive way forward?

  Doug Casey: Historically, the answer is, “Almost never”—in the short run. The best recent example is the French Revolution. It got worse with Robespierre—a Bernie Sanders of the era—followed by Napoleon. Or take the case of the Russian revolution. As necessary as it was to get rid of Nicholas II, it got worse with Lenin, and then it got even worse with Stalin. But even in those cases, France and Russia recovered.

  If it all comes unglued in the US over the next decade, those two revolutions could be templates. Look at the way leading Democrats think, and listen to what they’re saying. They’re echoing Robespierre and Lenin.

  The Republicans aren’t much better, because although they sometimes talk the talk of peace and personal freedom, they almost never walk the walk. The two major US parties—and people in the Red counties and the Blue counties—seem to really hate each other.

  It’s quite ugly sociologically. There are irreconcilable differences. They’re exacerbated by the fact we’re headed for a financial blow up. There’s no doubt about that.

  Some years ago, there was a poll taken among Generation X types. It turned out that more of them believed that space aliens were going to invade than that they were ever going to collect Social Security. People have very little faith in “the system” anymore, the society, or the government.

  If we go back to the beginning of the 20th century, the country really wasn’t very political at all. People worried about their own lives, their own families, and their own local communities. Americans shared a common culture, beliefs, and values—that’s no longer true. Now the country has become very politicized—everybody has a loud voice and they use votes as weapons against their neighbors. It’s become a nation of nasty busybodies.

  That makes me think the next upset will be something like a revolution. It’s likely to be really ugly, because we’re looking, simultaneously, at an economic catastrophe, political chaos, and a social and demographic upset—and probably a military situation as well. Government often sees war as a way to unite the country.

  So, what’s going to happen?

  I’ll hazard a guess that 50 years from now, the United States and, for that matter, most countries are not going to exist in anything like their present form. The best solution is a peaceful break up into smaller political subdivisions. As opposed to a civil war—which is a contest between one or more groups for the control of a central government.

  *  *  *

  The economic trajectory is troubling. Unfortunately, there’s little any individual can practically do to change the course of these trends in motion. The best you can and should do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible, and even profit from the situation. That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey just released Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse an urgent new PDF report. It explains what could come next and what you can do about it so you don’t become a victim. Click here to download it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 22:20

• Advocacy Groups Call On Meta To Ban Minors For 'Dangerous' Metaverse
  Advocacy Groups Call On Meta To Ban Minors For ‘Dangerous’ Metaverse

  A letter was signed by dozens of advocacy groups and children’s safety experts asking Meta Platforms Inc. to halt all plans to allow minors into its new virtual reality world. 

  Airplay, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, and Common Sense Media, among others, were some of the groups that signed the letter. It was sent to Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg on Friday, arguing that minors will face harassment and privacy violations on the virtual reality app, according to Bloomberg. 

  “Meta must wait for more peer-reviewed research on the potential risks of the metaverse to be certain that children and teens would be safe,” wrote the groups.

  Recall we were the first to point out “Dark Side Of Metaverse Exposed: Why Your Kids Need To Stay Away From VRChat” at the start of 2022. We showed screenshots from one YouTuber who revealed the massive problem in the metaverse: child exploitation and sexualization. 

  

  One month after our report, BBC News published a similar story. They found examples of child grooming, sexual material, racism, and rape threats. 

  Only weeks after our initial report, Oculus released a statement indicating the addition of a “personal boundary” (think of a personal bubble) that will protect users from being virtually assaulted by others.

  

  Back to the latter, which points to a report last month from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that found users under 18 are already facing harassment from adults on the app. Go figure… This is something we laid out over a year ago. 

  Researchers with the center witnessed 19 episodes of abuse directed at minors by adults, including sexual harassment, during 100 visits to the most popular worlds within Horizon Universe. –Bloomberg 

  Meta had announced plans to make Horizon Worlds available to users between the ages of 13 and 17 in February. While the platform was opened to users 18 years and above in 2021, the company has faced difficulties retaining users.

  A spokesperson for Meta said: 

  “Before we make Horizon Worlds available to teens, we will have additional protections and tools in place to help provide age-appropriate experiences for them.

  “Quest headsets are for people 13+ and we encourage parents and caretakers to use our parental supervision tools, including managing access to apps, to help ensure safe experiences.”

  The minimum age for the metaverse app is now 18. The letter continued, “Should Meta throw open the doors of these worlds to minors rather than pause to protect them, you would, yet again, demonstrate your company to be untrustworthy when it comes to safeguarding young people’s best interests.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 22:00

• California's Last Nuclear Power Plant Diablo Faces Closure Against Lawsuit
  California’s Last Nuclear Power Plant Diablo Faces Closure Against Lawsuit

  Authored by Elizabeth Dowell via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

  An environmental group on Tuesday sued to block Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) from seeking to extend the federal operating licenses for California’s last active nuclear power plant.

  

  A complaint filed in the San Francisco Superior Court by advocacy group “Friends of the Earth” asks the court to prohibit the utility from sidestepping its 2016 agreement with environmentalists and plant workers to close the twin-domed Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant by 2025.

  In a Twitter post, the environmental group said, “We’re taking PG&E to court to make sure California’s last remaining nuclear plant is retired We won’t stop until the aging, destructive Canyon is closed for good!”

  

  Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth, called out PG&E for allegedly backing out of their agreement.

  “Contracts simply don’t vanish into thin air,” Templeton said in a statement. “Yet ever since California passed legislation supporting Diablo Canyon’s extension, PG&E has been acting as if our contract has disappeared. Setting aside the agreement to retire Diablo, there are myriad legal prerequisites for extending operations of a nuclear power plant, including federal decisions that states cannot dictate.

  “We hope our litigation can push PG&E to reconsider its potential breach and uphold its obligations, including preparing for the agreed-upon retirement.”

  The Diablo power plant runs along the Pacific Coast and has been operating since 1985.

  California is the birthplace of the modern environmental movement that, for decades, has had a fraught relationship with nuclear power, which doesn’t produce carbon pollution like fossil fuels but leaves behind waste that can remain radioactive for centuries, requiring special waste treatment.

  Nuclear Reactor Needed to Maintain Reliable Power

  The California legislature passed SB846 last year, which was signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newson, in an effort to extend the power plant’s operations for another five years, according to the bill.

  In March, Newson toured the Diablo Canyon Power Plant after it was announced that the plant may continue operating after its expiration date.

  “As we experienced during the record heat wave last September, climate change-driven extreme events are causing unprecedented stress on our power grid—the Diablo Canyon Power Plant is important to support energy reliability as we accelerate progress towards achieving our clean energy and climate goals. I look forward to our continued work with the Biden-Harris Administration and the Legislature to build a reliable and resilient clean electric system,” Newson said in a statement.

  The California Energy Commission ruled earlier this year that continuing Diablo’s operations past 2025 is needed to maintain reliable electricity supply throughout the state.

  Siva Gunda, the Energy Commission’s vice chair, said that Diablo is an important part of California’s energy options.

  “As California confronts a rapidly changing climate, extraordinary heat events and record energy demand are becoming increasingly ordinary. The state needs to keep all options on the table to protect public health and safety,” Gunda said in a statement to LA Times. “This includes maintaining Diablo Canyon’s operations.”

  In 2016, then Gov. Jerry Brown agreed to a proposal that would shut Diablo down by its original deadline, along with California utility regulators and state Legislatures, according to the document. This could pose a potential issue during the current lawsuit against PG&E.

  According to the PG&E website, “Diablo Canyon has continued to safely produce clean and reliable energy without greenhouse gases (GHG), avoiding 6 to 7 million tons per year of GHGs that would be emitted by conventional generation resources,” the site states.

  PG&E said in a statement it had not yet seen the lawsuit but that, as a regulated utility, will follow state policy.

  The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 21:40

• Sex Toys, Cotton Candy, Red Piano: Influencers Write Off Ridiculous Items
  Sex Toys, Cotton Candy, Red Piano: Influencers Write Off Ridiculous Items

  Becoming a successful social media influencer is one of the biggest dreams among the younger generation. As millions of influencers create content across various social media platforms, an inevitable challenge arises: explaining their expenses to both tax preparers and the Internal Revenue Service.

  According to a recent Adobe Inc. report, 14 million people in the US generate income by posting content on social media. Many of these folks are purchasing some of the most outrageous items for content creation. 

  WSJ spoke with influencer Ali Spagnola, who has been compiling receipts for thousands of dollars worth of supplies, including 15,000 Lego pieces, 40 pounds of cotton candy sugar, and a red baby grand piano. 

  

  Spagnola explained to her tax prepare that these purchases relate directly to creating her social media content. 

  “I need an accountant that understands outrageous,” she said, who is on her third accountant because the other two couldn’t understand her social media influencer business. 

  Another influencer is Rachael Johnson, who tours the country in an RV with her husband and two dogs. They create videos about their cross-country adventures and receive monthly payments from Facebook. She has to find a way to explain how pet costumes used in one of her videos relate to her business as an influencer. 

  Influencers earn income through non-traditional means, including selling merchandise, charging subscription fees, hosting advertisements, and until recently, receiving regular payments from social media companies for posts (some social media companies have reduced spending on influencers as ad revenue wanes). 

  Sima Gandhi, chief executive and co-founder of San Francisco-based Creative Juice, said influencers are at a significant disadvantage when filing tax returns because their profession is new and the tax code was primarily written before social media platforms existed.  

  Gandhi used to work at the US Treasury Department. He said many influencers have yet to understand they can deduct even basic expenses, including the cost of setting up a company and equipment such as computers, selfie sticks, cameras, and microphones. “These things should be reasonable and necessary in the eyes of the IRS,” she added.

  Another influencer, YouTube creator Thomas Jackson, once live-streamed himself throwing dildos at a building. He spent $864 worth on sex toys that he later deducted. 

  “Nobody asked me any questions about it,” Jackson said.

  YouTube and TikTok creator Tommy King generates income via live-streaming video games from his bedroom. He’s a full-time creator, and his tax preparer was shocked when he handed over thousands of dollars of receipts detailing ridiculous outfits he bought for his avatar in the game “Fortnite.” The accountant needed clarification about how people paid the influencer to perform live dances. 

  King completed his own taxes last year and was able to deduct $3,000 worth of computer parts and a $500 gaming chair. For 2022 taxes, he plans to write off even more computer gear. 

  And imagine what these creators are getting away with because the tax system was largely written before social media platforms. For all those creators, remember the easiest way the IRS can audit is to just watch the videos online as evidence. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 21:20

• USD: The King Is Dead – Long Live The King
  USD: The King Is Dead – Long Live The King

  Authored by Robert Burrows via BondVigilantes.com,

  Is the dollar losing its status as the King of currencies? Dollar hegemony refers to the dominance of the United States dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency, which has been in place since the end of World War II. The dollar has been the world’s reserve currency for decades, meaning that countries around the world hold large quantities of U.S. dollars to facilitate international trade and finance.

  The global dominance of the U.S. dollar has given the United States enormous economic and political power. The U.S. has been able to print money and borrow at low-interest rates because other countries have been willing to hold U.S. dollars in their reserves. This has enabled the U.S. to finance its large trade deficits and military spending, which have been central to its global power.

  However, the dollar’s hegemony now faces increasing challenges, and its importance is waning. The rise of China and the European Union has led to the growing use of alternative currencies, which has weakened the dollar’s global dominance.

  

  Declining Global Trade Dominance

  The U.S. has seen its share of global trade decline over the past few decades. While the U.S. economy is still the world’s largest, other countries, particularly China, are quickly catching up. As a result, the dollar is becoming less important in international trade.

  For example, China is now the largest trading partner of many countries worldwide. Many of those countries are increasingly conducting trade in their own currencies rather than using the U.S. dollar. The European Union is also a significant trading bloc, with the euro now a major international currency.

  • China-Russia bilateral trade in 2022 increased 34% to $190b (1.3 trillion yuan), a new record high.

  • China-Brazil bilateral trade hit a record $150b in 2022, a new record high

  • China-India bilateral trade hit a record $135b in 2022, a new record high

  • The Chinese yuan (CNY) is now the fifth most traded currency after USD, EUR, JPY and GBP.

  

  Source: Bank of International Settlements.

  Reduced Confidence in the U.S. Economy

  Another factor contributing to the decline of the dollar’s hegemony is the reduced confidence in the U.S. economy. The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession significantly impacted the global economy, and many countries lost confidence in the U.S. financial system. This has led to a shift towards alternative currencies, such as the euro and the Chinese yuan, as investors seek more stable and diversified assets.

  Once again, debt ceiling concerns are coming into focus. As always, in the U.S., the opposition party will attempt to extract concessions from the other party, pushing negotiations to the limits. The two political parties are increasingly intransigent, and the possibility of a miscalculation is not unthinkable.

  U.S. Sanctions and Geopolitical Tensions

  Finally, U.S. sanctions have also contributed to the decline of the dollar’s hegemony. The U.S. has used its position as the world’s primary reserve currency to impose economic sanctions on countries that it disagrees with, such as Iran and Russia. This has led to those countries seeking alternatives to the U.S. dollar and conducting trade in other currencies.

  Economic considerations

  Dollar strength feeds inflation pressures abroad. When a country’s currency weakens against the dollar, the price of imports increase, resulting in inflationary pressures. With commodities like oil, gas, metals and food priced in dollars, any dollar strength will increase costs. This is particularly problematic for emerging markets as these costs comprise a large part of consumption.

  The Rise of Digital Currencies

  The rise of digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, also challenges the dollar’s hegemony. These currencies are in theory, decentralized and operate independently of any government or financial institution, making them an attractive alternative to traditional currencies.

  For example, Bitcoin has become a popular way to conduct international transactions, particularly in countries with high inflation rates or weak currencies. While digital currencies are still a relatively small part of the global financial system, their rise represents a significant challenge to the dominance of the U.S. dollar. Countries the world over are attempting to suppress this alternative system

  Examples of transactions outside of the dollar are on the up. Most recently, France completed its first yuan transaction for Liquefied natural gas (LNG), and Brazil has announced an agreement to trade directly with China.

  Conclusion

  In conclusion, the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency is waning. While the dollar is still the most widely used currency for international trade and finance, alternative currencies such as the euro and the Chinese yuan are becoming more important. In addition, the rise of digital currencies and geopolitical tensions are also contributing to the decline of the dollar’s hegemony. While the dollar is likely to remain an important global currency for the foreseeable future, its days as the KING of currencies is numbered.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 21:00

• Where It's Hardest To Afford A Home
  Where It’s Hardest To Afford A Home

  Big cities like Hong Kong or Los Angeles are well-known for their expensive real estate markets.

  But, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, there are also a lot of housing markets you wouldn’t necessarily expect among the least affordable – that includes several in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

  According to the 2023 International Housing Affordability Survey by Demographia, three out of the 10 least affordable housing markets are in Australia and New Zealand, two are in Canada and four more are located in the United States.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The least affordable housing market is Hong Kong.

  Here, the median house or apartment price is almost 19 times as high as the median annual gross household income.

  After Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia were the least affordable countries overall in the study which looked at the U.S., Canada, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 20:40

• Peak EV: Electric Vehicles Will Fade As Their True Costs Become Clear
  Peak EV: Electric Vehicles Will Fade As Their True Costs Become Clear

  Authored by Doug French via The Mises Institute,

  “On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce tough new tailpipe emission standards designed to effectively force the auto industry to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars,” reports The Verge, with the provocative headline “The End Is Nigh for Gas-Powered Cars.”

  

  Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) is the newest religion, and we all know who the practitioners are. Electric vehicle (EV) owners sing “Hallelujah” when they pull out of their garages. The investor-class ESG evangelists believe the new belief is in its beginnings. Whatever the Biden EPA does, investor Harris Kupperman thinks it’s likely just the Church of What’s Happening Now.

  Kupperman, referred to as Kuppy by Real Vision’s Maggie Lake, told her, “Well, I think we’re nearing peak ESG, which is probably a good thing, honestly.” He explained,

  And it’s like religions kind of come, they peak, they die out. No one practices Roman religions anymore. I can name three of the gods and I’m a Roman history major.

  These things, they peak, they crest, and this little religion of ESG, it’s been around for a while. It peaked. And now there’ll be some die hard adherence, but I think the vast majority of investors want to make money. And it’s great if they’re doing something that has a social good, but most of them just want to save for their retirement.

  As to all those fancy Teslas silently cutting you off in traffic, their drivers teeming with superiority, thinking they are saving the planet, Kuppy sees them going the way of T. rex.

  “No. I think EV is going to be something you’re going to go to a museum with my kids and be like, wow, that was an evolutionary dead end and we always [waste] trillions of dollars on this. No, I think that there’s no future to EV.”

  “Really, why?” an aghast Lake wondered.

  Next, Kuppy comes with the hard facts amateur environmentalists and government enforcers don’t consider.

  Because it [the EV] destroys energy. You have this concept called EROI, which is the return on energy you put in. An EV, you put more energy in than you get out. And so as a result, it’s just like a thermodynamic rule—it won’t work unless you subsidize it.

  What’s the reason for EVs? It’s because it supposedly produces less carbon. But through the full life cycle of owning an EV, because so much carbon has to go into the stupid thing, it doesn’t use less carbon. You’re better off having a gas guzzler.

  Yikes. Maybe EV owners are not as heroic as they believe.

  Kupperman says that without government subsidies, consumers will stick to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. In fact, even with subsidies, most people, like Kupperman, will buy ICE vehicles. But there will always be snobs.

  [If] you kind of want to be a snob and say you’ve got an EV, then be a snob. It’s a nice thing to have if you want to show off that you have a thing. For me, I have a truck. Doesn’t bother me at all and I’m proud of my truck.

  However, “if carbon is the thing you’re caring about, you’re caring about the total cost of using the car or the energy in versus energy out. Almost any component you look at, you’re better off just having an internal combustion engine. And those engines have actually gotten very efficient over the last couple of years.”

  Kupperman points out that as these EVs age, owners will see

  what happens to battery degradation with lithium ion batteries, and the fact that the lithium ion battery is such a large component of the total cost of a car, and when you’re at year five or six [and] have to replace 30% to 40% of your car’s initial cost, people are going to realize the lifetime cost of owning an EV is astronomically high.

  Thus, in Kuppy’s view adoption will decline and EV owners will have second thoughts and realize their EVs are terrible vehicles.

  As far as ESG goes, it is just a tax on humanity, according to Kupperman. “And that’s a real detriment to 6 billion people that want a better standard of living if they can’t afford the things to pull them up out of poverty, effectively.”

  Kupperman believes continued demand for energy is unstoppable and the government will only make matters worse.

  They’ll try all sorts of stupid things. Governments historically do really dumb things that make problems worse. That’s the history of governments. I assume they’ll try all sorts of things that’ll fail. And all that it will do will be to destroy the supply response because of the government’s interfering in your ability to do your business.

  When Lake asked about potential government interference, Kupperman replied,

  Yeah, they’re probably going to try excess profits taxes. They’re probably going to try export bans, and price caps, and all sorts of other things. And the net result is that guys will take their dividends and go to the beach. They’re not going to drill for oil. No, I think it’s almost inevitable that the government will take a problem and turn it into a crisis.

  Yes, an energy crisis is on the way, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 20:20

• Watch: FL Rep Calls Trans Hearing Witnesses 'Demons' and 'Imps'
  Watch: FL Rep Calls Trans Hearing Witnesses ‘Demons’ and ‘Imps’

  A Florida legislature hearing on a proposed “bathroom bill” brought something of a fire-and-brimstone sermon this week, when Republican Rep. Webster Barney called transgender people “demons” and “imps” — and he made it clear the label applied to the ones sitting at the witness table. 

  Barnaby, who represents DeLand, began by saying that when he looks at society today, he feels as if he’s watching an X-Men or Marvel movie, such that:   

  “We have people that live among us today on planet Earth that are happy to display themselves as if they were mutants from another planet. This is the planet Earth, where God created men male and women female.

  I’m a proud Christian, conservative, Republican. I’m not on the fence. There is so much darkness in our world today. So much evil in our world today. And so many people who are afraid to address the evil, the dysphoria, the dysfunction. 

  I’m not afraid to address the dysphoria or the dysfunction. The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come and parade before us.”

  Apparently responding to shocked reactions from the LGBT and trans activist witnesses in front of him, he continued:

  “That’s right – I called you demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world. So I’m saying, my righteous indignation is stirred. I am sick and tired of this. I’m not going to put up with it.”

  Florida Republican Rep. Webster Barnaby directly compared trans people to mutants in X-Men and called the trans people, including children, present in the room “demons and imps.”

  This was during debate for HB1421 that would criminalize trans people using bathrooms. pic.twitter.com/y5VsCKeAfJ

  — Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) April 10, 2023

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

  While “imp” is commonly used to refer to a mischievous child, its first definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is a “small demon.” 

  Committee members of both parties appeared to be unsettled by Barnaby’s remarks. Addressing the witnesses, GOP Rep. Chase Tramont said, “You’re not an evil being. I believe that you’re fearfully and wonderfully made, and I want you to live your life well.”

  Monday’s Florida House Commerce Committee hearing was called for consideration of the “Safety in Private Spaces Act.” It would make it a misdemeanor crime for people 18 and over to use a restroom or changing facility that’s inconsistent with one’s sex assigned at birth — if the fail to “immediately depart” upon request. 

  The bill lists a variety of specific types of venues where it applies, including schools, hurricane shelters, substance abuse centers, health care facilities and public accommodations — which covers  restaurants, gasoline stations, lodgings and entertainment spots.  

  After the committee sent the bill on for a vote on the Florida House floor, Barnaby gave a brief apology: “I referred to trans people as demons. I would like to apologize to the trans community for referring to you as demons.” 

  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 20:00

• Pentagon Says 11 More US Troops In Syria Diagnosed With Traumatic Brain Injuries
  Pentagon Says 11 More US Troops In Syria Diagnosed With Traumatic Brain Injuries

  Via The Cradle,

  The spokesperson for the US Central Command (CENTCOM) Colonel Joe Buccino disclosed on Thursday that 11 more US troops based in Syria have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury after a series of retaliatory strikes against illegal US bases in March.

  According to CNN, Buccino affirmed that the US military’s medical teams are continuing to evaluate and assess their troops for indications of permanent and traumatic brain injuries.

  

  The US personnel wounded in these attacks in Syria amount to 25 troops, including a US military contractor, who was killed at a facility in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province on March 23. Washington claims the perpetrators of the attack were affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

  On the same day of the attack on the US base, US troops carried out “precision airstrikes” in eastern Syria. The presence of the US occupation forces in Syria is deemed illegal under international law.

  According to a March 30 CNN report, six US soldiers had also been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries as a result of attacks from Iran-backed groups in Syria.

  Similar brain injuries were sustained by over 100 US soldiers in 2020 after Iranian forces targeted the Ain al-Asad military base in Iraq, where US forces were stationed.

  Iran attacked the US base in retaliation for the US assassination of IRGC General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi resistance leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike at the Baghdad airport on January 3 that year.

  When Washington’s effort to topple the Syrian government through militias failed, US planners partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to fight ISIS and thereby occupy Syria’s strategic oil and grain-producing northwest, which had been under ISIS control.

  This has allowed US officials to limit Syrian efforts at rebuilding the country and has exacerbated US-imposed economic sanctions, which have further harmed Syria’s economy and increased suffering among Syria’s civilian population.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 19:40

• Minneapolis Pork Plant In Trouble As Inflation Crimps Demand
  Minneapolis Pork Plant In Trouble As Inflation Crimps Demand

  US food processing plants are under severe pressure as soaring inflation has crimped consumer demand for meat while the cost of doing business soars. 

  According to Bloomberg, HyLife Foods is searching for a buyer for its pork plant in southwest Minneapolis. It purchased the plant three years ago, which processes upwards of 1.2 million hogs annually. 

  

  Hog prices have tumbled since the start of the year amid new concerns pork supplies are outpacing demand. 

  

  Consumers are being walloped by 24 months of negative real wage growth, which has led to increasing budget tightening. 

  

  The combination of sliding prices and demand is exerting pressure on the profitability of meat processing plants.

  

  Hylife Chief Executive Officer Grant Lazaruk told CBS News in a statement:

  “Unfortunately, despite these efforts, we have had to combat a number of challenges, including inflationary pressures, high grain costs, foreign exchange rates and the plant’s operational losses.

  “For some time now, the Company has been exploring several strategic options that would have enabled it to continue go-forward operations despite these financial challenges. Unfortunately, so far, these efforts have not been successful.”

  Only a few months ago, the largest US meat company, Tyson Foods, cut its expectations for operating margins, blaming it on falling meat prices due to easing demand.

  As a result, financially weak meat processing plants could face a domino of closures. If so, this could prove disastrous as closures result in supply cuts and even higher consumer prices. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 19:20

• Analyzing Ethereum's Big Week
  Analyzing Ethereum’s Big Week

  Authored by Ben Giove and Jack Inabinet via Bankless.com,

  How did crypto markets react to Shapella?

  

  We now live in a post-Shapella world!

  One of the largest upgrades in Etheruem’s history officially arrived this week, with Shapella completing Ethereum’s transition to Proof-Of-Stake (PoS) by enabling withdrawals from staking. Leading up to the event, there was rampant speculation on how the upgrade would impact the markets, the staking landscape and DeFi.

  In one corner you had the bulls, who felt that the upgrade represented a significant de-risking event for ETH, believing that the removal of the technical risk around withdrawals would lead to an influx of users who would buy-and-stake.

  In the other camp, you had the bears, who thought that Shapella represented a major supply overhang for ETH, believing that mass withdrawals would lead to persistent sell pressure on the asset.

  Who was right? Let’s dive in.

  Market Reaction

  It’s been under 48 hours since Shapella hit mainnet, but so far it certainly seems to be a “bullish unlock.”

  ETH has roared since the upgrade went live, surging 13.1% from $1871 to $2117 at the time of writing.

  

  [ZH: ETH’s underperformance is most clear when judged against BTC into and out of the fork…]

  

  This move has left a trail of bear carcasses in its wake, leading to more than $84.7M worth of short liquidations between April 12-13. This is the most we’ve seen in a two-day period since March 12-13, when ETH rallied in the wake of the USDC de-peg and banking crisis.

  

  Source: CoinGlass

  Ethereum ecosystem tokens have experienced monster rallies since Shapella, with – unsurprisingly — staking-related tokens leading the charge.

  This includes liquid-staking derivative (LSD) governance tokens, with Lido (LDO), Rocket Pool (RPL), Frax (FXS) and StakeWise (SWISE) surging 14.3%, 17.1%, 12.9% and 19.2% respectively at the time of writing. LSD-Fi protocols have also soared, with Pendle (PENDLE) rallying 19.9%, Flashstake (FLASH) ripping 47.1% and unshETH (USH) mooning 56.1%. Layer 2 tokens have also surged on the back of the move in ETH, with Arbitrum (ARB), and Optimism (OP) rallying 30.8% and 18.0%.

  

  Source: TradingView

  These monster moves suggest that fears of a post-Shapella dump were overblown. Instead, early signs point towards those in the bullish de-risking camp being in the right, as the upgrade has been treated as a buy-the-news event.

  Withdrawal Activity

  Outflows have overpowered deposits and the Beacon Chain has seen 106k in net Ether outflows since Shapella went live. While the impacts of Shapella are just beginning to be felt, it appears prophecies of catastrophe were overblown.

  

  Source: Nansen

  Ethereum’s exit queue is live and full of stakers looking to withdraw. At the time of analysis, there was 827k ETH across 23k validators in the queue, representing 4.1% of the validator set.

  Kraken represents the vast majority of exits (65.9%) as its settlement with the SEC required the shuttering of US staking operations. A majority of these clients (likely proportional to other providers), however, will probably re-stake as the settlement did not alter the underlying benefits of ETH staking.

  

  Source: Nansen

  At the current validator count and given exit queue constraints, a maximum of 1.8k validators can exit per day. All present exit requests can be processed within 14 days from the publication of this article, a far cry from ETH doomers’ calls for months of withdrawals.

  Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius has 158k staked ETH not included in the exit queue at the time of analysis. The need to liquidate this position to repay creditors means withdrawals are inevitable.

  All things the same, less Kraken’s withdrawals and inclusive of Celsius’s withdrawals, 2.3% of ETH staked can be expected as net outflows from full withdrawals. Partial withdrawals are the largest source of potential outflows, with 877k in accrued consensus rewards waiting to be automatically withdrawn at the time of analysis.  Nearly 70% of these rewards, however, belong to validators with type 0x00 credentials and cannot be withdrawn until upgraded to type 0x01 credentials. Stakers have been long aware they need to upgrade credentials prior to withdrawing, so it is unlikely we see a significant number of validators upgrade their credentials in the immediate term, limiting staking outflows from partial withdrawals.

  DeFi Activity

  Solo validators and Staking-as-a-Service products gained liquidity on stake, however, for many LSD protocols, absolutely nothing has changed post-Shapella.

  Liquid-staking heavyweight Lido, for example, will not have withdrawals enabled until May at the earliest, pending deployment to testnet and the completion of several outstanding security audits. An inability to withdraw means outflows from liquid-staking are a non-factor at present. However we currently anticipate larger players like Lido to lose market share to smaller protocols as altruistic stakers move to decentralize network security and new LSD-Fi projects spin up token incentives for their product offerings in the coming months.

  Coinbase’s staking program, which allows users to mint their cbETH staking derivative, is the exception, with redemptions of over 35.5k cbETH for users following Shapella. Coinbase makes up 10.3% of the exit queue, representing a further 86k in full Ether withdrawals. Included in this calculation, however, is withdrawals for products beyond LSDs, like institutional staking.

  

  Source: Dune Analytics

  DeFi borrower demand for liquid-staking derivatives has been virtually non-existent.

  Aave’s stETH market has continued its downward rate spiral, with utilization hovering slightly under 13%. Lenders are currently earning under 10 bps and borrowers are paying 28 bps on the protocol’s Ethereum V3 market. Lending activity on Compound is similarly depressed, with utilization of the ETH market at 54.6%, well below the targeted 90% utilization kink point, above which borrowing rapidly becomes prohibitively expensive.

  Total collateral lent to and borrowed from Compound’s ETH market has also fallen precipitously since the start of April, down 33.4% and 34.9%, respectively. Lending and borrowing rates on the platform have plummeted as well, down from 2.21% to 1.46% and 5.01% to 3.65%, respectively, over the same period.

  LSD stableswap pools have remained relatively… stable, however, we are seeing some early indications of stETH sell pressure, in line with our beliefs that stake will be redistributed from Lido.

  Balancer’s wstETH/sfrxETH/rETH (41.0% wstETH) and wstETH/cbETH (56.6% wstETH) pools, in addition to Curve’s wETH/stETH concentrated pool (64.5% stETH), are all indicating outsized sell pressure on Lido’s staking derivative. Further evidence for this thesis can be found in stETH’s deviation from peg. Currently, stETH is trading at 0.36% discount, compared to a 0.10% premium for rETH, testing the lower bound established after March’s banking crisis.

  

  Source: Dune Analytics

  Should Lido’s competitors be successful at draining its TVL, this results in a near-term steepening of stETH’s discount. Absent withdrawals, the underlying ETH remains illiquid, leaving sale as the sole substitute for redemption.

  A Busy 48 Hours

  As we can see, both the market and on-chain participants have been keeping busy post-Shapella.

  Prices have surged with ETH rallying above $2100, carrying liquid-staking, LSD-Fi, and L2 tokens along with it. Although early, this rally seems to suggest that the event was a de-risking one, rather than the source of torrential sell pressure that some had feared.

  We can also see that there have been net-outflows since the upgrade went live, led in large part by CEXs like Kraken and Coinbase.

  Shapella has also begun to impact the LSD market, with cbETH being hit with more than 35K in redemptions while Lido’s stETH is trading below peg. This suggests that we may be in the early stages of seeing the anticipated migration of deposits away from large stakers like Coinbase and Lido.

  Yes, it hasn’t been very long since Shapella went live – but its effects on the on-chain economy are already beginning to be felt.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 19:00

• China Rejects US Intel Leak Pointing To Covert Arms Transfers To Russia
  China Rejects US Intel Leak Pointing To Covert Arms Transfers To Russia

  China is again vowing that it won’t sell weapons to Russia, or either side of the war for that matter, after new accusations fueled by speculation over a leaked US intelligence document.

  Earlier this week The Washington Post published analysis of a top secret intelligence summary dated to February 23 of this year, which purported to show that China approved the provision of lethal aid to Moscow amid its military operations in Ukraine. 

  

  If true it would confirm what have been months of White House accusations which Beijing has consistently and vehemently denied, also at a time that President Xi Jinping advanced his 12-point peace plan to promote ceasefire negotiations. But US official allegations have so far been limited to asserting that Beijing is merely mulling and discussing the possible provision of lethal aid, not that it’s already done so.

  According to a description of the leaked intelligence document in The Washington Post:

  The intercept, apparently obtained through U.S. eavesdropping on Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), was included in a top-secret summary, dated Feb. 23, of recent Ukraine- and Russia-related “products” compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It was among a number of previously unreported documents that The Washington Post obtained from a trove of images of classified files posted on a private server on the chat app Discord.

  According to “signals intelligence,” the intelligence summary said, the SVR reported that China’s Central Military Commission had “approved the incremental provision” of weapons and wanted it kept secret. The report did not indicate the source of the SVR’s information.

  On Friday China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang issued new statements on the controversy, explicitly denying arms sales to Russia.

  “Regarding the export of military items, China adopts a prudent and responsible attitude,” Qin said. He issued the words on the occasion of a visit by his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock.

  “China will not provide weapons to relevant parties of the conflict, and manage and control the exports of dual-use items in accordance with laws and regulations,” he stressed. At the same time, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that a change in Taiwan’s status would potentially bring about the “horror scenario” of conflict for the whole world.

  The Pentagon leaks reveal that US intel agencies have been worried that the Ukraine war may bring China and Russia closer together. It’s obvious that this has already happened but war enthusiasts deny it. pic.twitter.com/aQpI91grwY

  — Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) April 12, 2023

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

  Despite the intelligence leak, the Biden administration maintains that it doesn’t believe China has pulled the trigger yet: “We have not seen evidence that China has transferred weapons or provided lethal assistance to Russia. But we remain concerned and are continuing to monitor closely,” a senior administration official was quoted in The Washington Post as saying. “A senior defense official agreed with that assessment. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information about the top-secret document.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 18:40

• What The Bud Light Fiasco Reveals About The Ruling Class
  What The Bud Light Fiasco Reveals About The Ruling Class

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

  What were they thinking? How did someone believe that making “trans woman” Dylan Mulvaney the icon of a Bud Light ad campaign, complete with a beer can with Mulvaney’s image on it, would be good for sales? With an ad featuring this person vamping around in the most preposterously possible way? 

  

  Dylan, who had previously been interviewed on trans issues by President Biden himself, was celebrating “365 Days of Girlhood” with a grotesquely misogynistic caricature that would disgust just about the whole market for this beer. Indeed, this person’s cosplay might as well be designed to discredit the entire political agenda of gender dysphoriacs. 

  Sure enough, because we don’t have mandates on what beers you must buy, sales of the beer plummeted. 

  The parent company Anheuser-Busch’s stock lost $5 billion or 4 percent in value since the ad campaign rollout. Sales have fallen 50-70 percent. Now there is worry within the company of a widening boycott to all their brands. A local Missouri distributor of the product canceled an appearance by Budweiser Clydesdale horses due to public anger.

  Ads are supposed to sell products, not prompt a massive public backlash that results in billions in losses. This mistake could be for the ages, marking a distinct departure from corporate deference to wackadoodle ideas from the academy and a push for more connection to on-the-ground realities. 

  The person who made the miscalculation is Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid, Vice President in charge of marketing for Bud Light. She explained that her intention was to make the beer King of ‘Woke’ Beers. She wanted to shift away from the “out of touch” frat party image to one of “inclusivity.” By all accounts, she actually believed this. More likely, she was rationalizing actions that would earn her bragging rights within her social circle. 

  Digging through her personal biography, we find all the predictable signs of tremendous detachment from regular life: elite boarding school (Groton, $65K a year), Harvard, Wharton School, coveted internship at General Foods, and straight to top VP at the biggest beverage company in the world. 

  Somehow through all that, nothing entered her brain apart from elite opinion on how the world should work with theories never actually tested by real-world marketing demands. Would that she had worked at Chick-Fil-A at some point in her teen years, perhaps even preserving some friend relationships ever since. It might have protected her from this disastrous error. 

  She is a perfect symbol of a problem that afflicts high-end corporate and government culture: a shocking blindness toward the mainstream of American life, including working classes and other people less privileged.

  They are invisible to this crowd. And her type is pervasive in corporate America with its huge layers of management developed over 20 years of loose credit and push for token representation at the highest levels. 

  We’ve seen this manifest over three years and ruling-class types imposed lockdowns, masks, and vaccine mandates on the whole population without regard to the consequences and with full expectation that the food will continue to be delivered to their doorsteps no matter how many days, months, or years they stay at home and stay safe. 

  The working classes, meanwhile, were shoved out in front of the pathogen to make their assigned contribution to herd immunity so that the rich and privileged could preserve their clean state of being, making TikTok videos and issuing edicts from their safe spaces for two or even three years. 

  In the late 19th century, the blindness of class detachment was a problem that so consumed Karl Marx that he became possessed with the desire to overthrow class distinctions between labor and capital. He kicked off a new age of the classless society under the leadership of the vanguard of the proletarian classes. In every country where his dreams became a reality, however, a protected elite took over and secured themselves from the consequences of their deluded dreams. 

  The people who in recent decades have drunk so deeply from the well of the Marxian tradition seem to be repeating that experience with complete disinterest in the lower classes, while pushing a deepening chasm that only became worse in the lockdown years in which they have controlled the levers of power. 

  It was startling to watch, and I could hardly believe what was happening. Then one day the incredibly obvious dawned on me. All official opinion in this country and even the whole world – government, media, corporations, technology – emanated from the same upper echelons of the class structure. It was people with elite educations and who had the time to shape public opinion. They are the ones on Twitter, in the newsrooms, fussing with the codes, and enjoying the laptop life of a permanent bureaucrat. 

  Their social circles were the same. They knew no one who cut trees, butchered cows, drove trucks, fixed cars, and met payroll in a small restaurant. The “workers and peasants” are people the elites so otherized that they became nothing more than non-playing characters who make stuff work but are not worthy of their attention or time. 

  The result was a massive transfer of wealth upwards in the social ladder as digital brands, technology, and Peloton thrived, while everyone else faced a barrage of ill health, debt, and inflation. As classes have grown more stratified – and, yes, there is a reason to worry about the gap between the rich and the poor when malleability is restricted – the intellectual producers of policy and opinion have constructed their own bubble to protect themselves from by being soiled by contrary points of view. 

  They want the whole world to be their own safe space regardless of the victims. 

  Would lockdowns have happened in any other kind of world? Not likely. And it would not have happened if the overlords did not have the technology to carry on their lives as normal while pretending that no one was really suffering from their scheme. 

  The Bud Light case is especially startling because the advent of commercial society in the high Middle Ages and through the Industrial Revolution was supposed to mitigate against this sort of myopic stratification. And this has always been the most compelling critique of Marx: he was raging against a system that was gradually winnowing away the very demarcations in classes that he decried. 

  Joseph Schumpeter in 1919 wrote an essay on this topic in his book Imperialism and Social Classes. He highlighted how the commercial ethos dramatically changed the class system. 

  “The warlord was automatically the leader of his people in virtually every respect,” he wrote.

  “The modern industrialist is anything but such a leader. And this explains a great deal about the stability of the former’s position and the instability of the latter’s.”

  But what happens when the corporate elites, working together with government, themselves become the warlords? The foundations of market capitalism begin to erode. The workers become ever more alienated from final consumption of the product they have made possible. 

  It’s been typical of people like me – pro-market libertarians – to ignore the issue of class and its impact on social and political structures. We inherited the view of Frederic Bastiat that the good society is about cooperation between everyone and not class conflict, much less class war. We’ve been suspicious of people who rage against wealth inequality and social stratification. 

  And yet we do not live in such market conditions. The social and economic systems of the West are increasingly bureaucratized, hobbled by credentialism, and regulated, and this has severely impacted class mobility. Indeed, for many of these structures, exclusion of the unwashed is the whole point. 

  And the ruling class themselves have ever more the mindset as described by Thorstein Veblen: only the ignorable do actual work while the truly successful indulge in leisure and conspicuous consumption as much as their means allow. One supposes that this doesn’t hurt anyone…until it does.

  And this certainly happened in very recent history as the conspicuous consumers harnessed the power of states all over the world to serve their interests exclusively. The result was calamity for rights and liberties won over a thousand years of struggle. 

  The emergent fissures between the classes – and the diffusions of our ruling class into many sectors public and private – suggest an urgency for a new consciousness of the real meaning of the common good, which is inseparable from liberty. The marketing director of Bud Light talked a good line about “inclusivity” but she plotted to impose everything but that. Her plan was designed for the one percent and to the exclusion of all the people who actually consume the product, to say nothing for the workers who actually make and deliver the product she was charged with promoting.

  That the markets have so brutally punished the brand and company for this profound error points the way to the future. People should have the right to their own choices about the kind of life they want to live and the products and services they want to consume. The dystopia of lockdowns and woke hegemony of public opinion – complete with censorship – have become the policy to overturn if the workers are ever to throw off the chains that bind them. 

  The boycotts of Bud Light are but a beginning. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 18:20

• China Conducts Antiballistic Missile Test While Condemning US Military Drills On Korean Peninsula
  China Conducts Antiballistic Missile Test While Condemning US Military Drills On Korean Peninsula

  China has conducted a rare anti-ballistic missile test on Friday, Bloomberg is reporting based on China’s defense ministry, which has been hailed as successful. 

  It’s being described as a land-based, mid-course antiballistic missile technical test, which was of a “defensive nature” and didn’t target any country, according to the military statement.

  

  “It’s the fourth such test China has successfully conducted since 2018, according to a search on the ministry’s website,” Bloomberg writes, noting further that the last such ballistic missile test was in June 2022.

  China is meanwhile blaming rising tensions on the Korean peninsula on the “negative impact” of US military drills with the south. 

  Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a Thursday press conference, “The current round of tension on the peninsula has its causes. The negative impact of the US military drills and deployment of strategic weapons around the peninsula is obvious to all,” according to Agence France Presse.

  NEW 🚨 South Korea and U.S. stage air drills, involving B-52H bomber, after North Korea’s ICBM launch

  pic.twitter.com/84R296rlUZ

  — Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) April 14, 2023

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

  Also on Thursday Japan had briefly issued, and then retracted, an emergency evacuation order for residents of the northernmost of Japan’s main island.

  “Evacuate immediately. Immediately evacuate inside the building or underground,” the Thursday morning notification said. “The missile is expected to fall around Hokkaido around 08:00. Please evacuate immediately.”

  North Korea has released footage that shows the launch of the Hwasong-18 solid-fuel ICBM.

  It was cold-launched from a TEL canister.

  This is a big leap in capabilities for NK. pic.twitter.com/KjvrBaMBjm

  — Global: Military-Info (@Global_Mil_Info) April 14, 2023

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

  North Korea has been engaged in near-daily tests after the US last month kicked off weeks of major joint drills with South Korea. Pyongyang pledged a fierce and appropriate response.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 18:00

• Watch: Carlson Exposes How Establishment Media Is Desperate To Help Cover Up Info From Intel Leaks
  Watch: Carlson Exposes How Establishment Media Is Desperate To Help Cover Up Info From Intel Leaks

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Fox News host Tucker Carlson noted Thursday that instead of asking questions about the substance of the information contained in the leaked intelligence material from the Pentagon, the corporate media simply wanted to know how they can help cover it up.

  

  The documents, allegedly leaked by a 21-year-old National Guardsman, reveal information showing that the U.S. is deeply involved in the Ukrain/Russia war.

  “If you want to get really sick to your stomach, go pull a transcript from the Pentagon briefing today where news reporters asked flacks from the Pentagon, what are we gonna do to keep information like this secret in the future?” Carlson urged.

  The host added that the press failed to ask “one question about the substance of the information,” adding “We are fighting a war against Russia directly, really? Don’t they have the biggest arsenal in the world? Not one question,” instead the reporters asked “How can we help you keep it secret?”

  “Those are the questions and not only are the media covering up the substance of the story, which is not who leaked it, but what he leaked, they are covering up the crimes committed to get you this information,” Carlson continued.

  “The administration apparently used illegal surveillance techniques to identify this kid apparently with the help of The Washington Post and The New York Times,” Carlson emphasised, further charging that the media is working in lockstep with the intelligence community.

  “If it’s illegal to see these documents if you don’t have a security clearance, how is the Washington Post doing this legally?” Carlson asked, further noting “They don’t have a security clearance. Well, obviously, they were given them by the U.S. Intel agencies and are working alongside them.”

  Carlson asserted “this is information that is relevant to the public in a so-called democracy. You cannot lie about things that jeopardize our collective future and get away with it and you certainly shouldn’t be doing that with the assistance of the news media.”

  “The news media whose job it is to inform you of what your government is doing, but instead they are working actively late into the night to lie to you on behalf of their masters in permanent Washington. By the way, just last week, the plan was to lie in an even more grotesque way and blame Russia for this,” the host also noted.

  Watch:

  Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was the go between in the Edward Snowden revelations a decade ago, also noted that the media helped hunt down the whistleblower:

  Recall that the WPost did the same thing with Edward @Snowden. They gleefully used part of the archive he obtained, published those docs, praised themselves for the Pulitzer they co-won, and then. . . .

  Demanded he be imprisoned and never pardoned:https://t.co/BmGdVjZZO2

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 13, 2023

   

  At the top of Tucker Carlson’s program tonight, he reviewed the significant revelations these leaks provide – including proving the USG lied about its role in Ukraine – and then I spoke about how “journalists” did the FBI’s job to hunt down the leaker:https://t.co/CBHZzKH91t

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 14, 2023

  We still don’t know who leaked the draft Dobbs ruling because that went to a liberal corporate outlet. (POLITICO).

  We still haven’t seen the manifesto of the Nashville shooter because it’s inconvenient.

  But this leak was put on Discord, so media outlets are hunting for him.

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 13, 2023

  What’s the only thing more surreal and twisted than watching “journalists” become the leading advocates for more online censorship?

  Watching them do the FBI’s work to hunt down leakers, then march to the Pentagon to demand it do more to prevent future transparency and leaks: https://t.co/5OLaDkOeTl

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 14, 2023

  I cannot think of any event that shines more compelling and vivid light on the real function of the largest media corporations than how they helped find the leaker and demand the FBI arrest him.

  Tonight’s @SystemUpdate_ episode examined all of this:https://t.co/sAwam8aWOE

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 14, 2023

  The only thing weirder (and more twisted) than watching self-proclaimed journalists be the leading advocates for censorship is watching them eagerly do the FBI’s work of catching people who leak classified documents.

  I hope the real function of these corporations is clear.

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 13, 2023

  On the left: The Washington Post celebrating itself and heaping praise on its own bravery for co-winning the Pulitzer for its use of documents provided by Edward @Snowden.

  On the right: The Washington Post editors demanding Snowden be prosecuted instead of being pardoned. https://t.co/byzZpr29PW pic.twitter.com/6e8Leqx699

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 13, 2023

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/14/2023 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Escobar: Waiting For The End Of The World
  Escobar: Waiting For The End Of The World

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  NOTE: This is the English original of a column specially commissioned by leading Russian business daily Vedemosti.

  We were waiting for the end of the world
  Waiting for the end of the world, waiting for the end of the world
  Dear Lord, I sincerely hope You’re coming
  ‘Cause You really started something

  Elvis Costello, Waiting for the End of the World, 1977

  We cannot even begin to fathom the non-stop ripple effects deriving from the 2023 geopolitical earthquake that shook the world: Putin and Xi, in Moscow, de facto signaling the beginning of the end of Pax Americana.

  

  This has been the ultimate anathema for rarified Anglo-American hegemonic elites for over a century: a signed, sealed, comprehensive strategic partnership of two peer competitors, intertwining a massive manufacturing base and pre-eminence in supply of natural resources – with value-added Russian state of the art weaponry and diplomatic nous.

  From the point of view of these elites, whose Plan A was always a debased version of the Roman Empire’s Divide and Rule, this was never supposed to happen. In fact, blinded by hubris, they never saw it coming. Historically, this does not even qualify as a remix of the Tournament of Shadows; it’s more like Tawdry Empire Left in the Shade, “foaming at the mouth” (copyright Maria Zakharova).

  Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism. No wonder the Global South was riveted by what developed in Moscow.

  Adding insult to injury, we have China, the world’s largest economy by far when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), as well as the largest exporter. And we have Russia, an economy that by PPP is equivalent or even larger than Germany’s – with the added advantages of being the world’s largest energy exporter and not forced to de-industrialize.

  Together, in synch, they are focused on creating the necessary conditions to bypass the US dollar.

  Cue to one of President Putin’s crucial one-liners: “We are in favor of using the Chinese yuan for settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.”

  A key consequence of this geopolitical and geoeconomic alliance, carefully designed throughout the past few years, is already in play: the emergence of a possible triad in terms of global trade relations and, in many aspects, a Global Trade War.

  Eurasia is being led – and largely organized – by the Russia-China partnership. China will also play a key role across the Global South, but India may also become quite influential, agglutinating what would be a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on steroids. And then there is the former “indispensable nation” ruling over the EU vassals and the Anglosphere rounded up in the Five Eyes.

  What the Chinese really want

  The Hegemon, under its self-concocted “rules-based international order”, essentially never did diplomacy. Divide and Rule, by definition, precludes diplomacy. Now their version of “diplomacy” has degenerated even further into crude insults by an array of US, EU and UK’s intellectually challenged and frankly moronic functionaries.

  It’s no wonder that a true gentleman, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has been forced to admit, “Russia is no longer a partner of the EU… The European Union ‘lost’ Russia. But the Union itself is to blame. After all, EU member states… openly declare that Russia should be dealt a strategic defeat. That is why we consider the EU to be an enemy organization.”

  And yet the new Russian foreign policy concept, announced by Putin on March 31st, makes it quite clear: Russia does not consider itself an “enemy of the West” and does not seek isolation.

  The problem is there’s virtually no adult to talk to on the other side, rather a bunch of hyenas. That has led Lavrov to once again stress that “symmetrical and asymmetrical” measures may be used against those involved in “hostile” actions against Moscow.

  When it comes to Exceptionalistan, that’s self-evident: the US is designated by Moscow as the prime anti-Russia instigator, and the collective West’s overall policy is described as “a new type of Hybrid War.”

  Yet what really matters for Moscow are the positives further on down the road: non-stop Eurasia integration; closer ties with “friendly global centers” China and India; increased help to Africa; more strategic cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean, the lands of Islam – Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt – and ASEAN.

  And that brings us to something essential that was – predictably – ignored en masse by Western media: the Boao Forum for Asia, which took place nearly simultaneously with the announcement of Russia’s new foreign policy concept.

  The Boao Forum, started in early 2001, still in the pre-9/11 era, has been modeled on Davos, but it’s Top China through and through, with the secretariat based in Beijing. Boao is in Hainan province, one of the islands of the Gulf of Tonkin and today a tourist paradise.

  One of the key sessions of this year’s forum was on development and security, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is currently Boao’s president.

  There were quite a few references to Xi’s Global Development Initiative as well as the Global Security Initiative – which by the way was launched at Boao in 2022.

  The problem is these two initiatives are directly linked to the UN’s concept of peace and security and the extremely dodgy Agenda 2030 on “sustainable development” – which is not exactly about development and much less “sustainable”: it’s a Davos uber-corporate concoction. The UN for its part is basically a hostage of Washington’s whims. Beijing, for the moment, plays along.

  Premier Li Qiang was more specific. Stressing the trademark concept of “community of shared future for mankind” as the basis for peace and development, he linked peaceful coexistence with the “Spirit of Bandung” – in direct continuity with the emergence of NAM in 1955: that should be the “Asian Way” of mutual respect and building consensus – in opposition to “the indiscriminate use of unilateral sanctions and long-reaching jurisdiction”, and the refusal of “a new Cold War”.

  And that led Li Qiang to the emphasis on the Chinese drive to deepen the RCEP East Asian trade deal, and also advance the negotiations on the free trade agreement between China and ASEAN. And all that integrated with the new expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in contrast to trade protectionism.

  So for the Chinese what matters, intertwined with business, is cultural interactions; inclusivity; mutual trust; and a stern refusal of “clash of civilizations” and ideological confrontation.

  As much as Moscow easily subscribes to all of the above – and in fact practices it via diplomatic finesse – Washington is terrified by how compelling is this Chinese narrative for the whole Global South. After all, Exceptionalistan’s only offer in the market of ideas is unilateral domination; Divide an Rule; and “you’re with us or against us”. And in the latter case you will be sanctioned, harassed, bombed and/or regime-changed.

  Is it 1848 all over again?

  Meanwhile, in vassal territories, a possibility arises of a revival of 1848, when a big revolutionary wave hit all over Europe.

  In 1848 these were liberal revolutions; today we have essentially popular anti-liberal (and anti-war) revolutions – from farmers in the Netherlands and Belgium to unreconstructed populists in Italy and Left and Right populists combined in France.

  It may be too early to consider this a European Spring. Yet what’s certain in several latitudes is that average European citizens feel increasingly inclined to shed the yoke of Neoliberal Technocracy and its dictatorship of Capital and Surveillance. Not to mention NATO warmongering.

  As virtually all European media is technocrat-controlled people won’t see this discussion in the MSM. Yet there’s a feeling in the air this may be heralding a Chinese-style end of a dynasty.

  In the Chinese calendar this is how it always goes: their historical-societal clock always runs with periods of between 200 and 400 years per dynasty.

  There are indeed intimations that Europe may be witnessing a rebirth.

  The period of upheaval will be long and arduous – due to the hordes of anarco-liberals who are such useful idiots for the Western oligarchy – or it could all come to a head in a single day. The target is quite clear: the death of Neoliberal Technocracy.

  That’s how the Xi-Putin view could make inroads across the collective West: show that this ersatz “modernity” (which incorporates rabid cancel culture) is essentially void compared to traditional, deeply rooted cultural values – be it Confucianism, Taoism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Chinese and Russian concepts of civilization-state are much more appealing than they appear.

  Well, the (cultural) revolution won’t be televised; but it may work its charms via countless Telegram channels. France, infatuated with rebellion throughout its history, may well be jump to the vanguard – again.

  Yet nothing will change if the global financial casino is not subverted. Russia taught the world a lesson: it was preparing itself, in silence, for a long-term Total War. So much so that its calibrated counterpunch turned the Financial War upside down – completely destabilizing the casino. China, meanwhile, is re-balancing, and is on the way to be also prepared for Total War, hybrid and otherwise.

  The inestimable Michael Hudson, fresh from his latest book, The Collapse of Antiquity, where he deftly analyzes the role of debt in Greece And Rome, the roots of Western civilization, succinctly explains our current state of play:

  “America has pulled a color revolution at the top, in Germany, Holland, England, and France, essentially, where the foreign policy of Europe is not representing their own economic interests (…) America simply said, – We are committed to support a war of (what they call) democracy (by which they mean oligarchy, including the Nazism of Ukraine) against autocracy (…) Autocracy is any country strong enough to prevent the emergence of a creditor oligarchy, like China has prevented the creditor oligarchy.”

  So “creditor oligarchy”, in fact, can be explained as the toxic intersection between globalist wet dreams of total control and militarized Full Spectrum Dominance.

  The difference now is that Russia and China are showing to the Global South that what American strategists had in store for them – you’re going to “freeze in the dark” if you deviate from what we say – is no longer applicable. Most of the Global South is now in open geoeconomic revolt.

  Globalist neoliberal totalitarianism of course won’t disappear under a sand storm. At least not yet. There’s still a maelstrom of toxicity ahead: suspension of constitutional rights; Orwellian propaganda; goon squads; censorship; cancel culture; ideological conformity; irrational curbs of freedom of movement; hatred and even persecution of – Slav – Untermenschen; segregation; criminalization of dissent; book burnings, show trials; fake arrest mandates by the kangaroo ICC; ISIS-style terror.

  But the most important vector is that both China and Russia, each exhibiting their own complex particularities – and both dismissed by the West as unassimilable Others – are heavily invested in building workable economic models that are not connected, in several degrees, to the Western financial casino and/or supply chain networks. And that’s what’s driving the Exceptionalists berserk – even more berserk than they already are.

  *  *  *

  Pepe Escobar is a Eurasia-wide independent geopolitical analyst and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties (Nimble Books, 2021). Follow him on Telegram at @rocknrollgeopolitics

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 23:40

• 1.25 Million Have 'Top Secret' Access In The US
  1.25 Million Have ‘Top Secret’ Access In The US

  The recent leak of classified Pentagon documents has highlighted the vulnerability of the system which grants access to classified government information.

  Initially suspected to have been an intelligence operation by a state actor, evidence is increasingly indicating that the leak originated from an individual working on a U.S. military base – motivated by impressing members of an online chat group.

  As Statista’s Martin Armstrong details below, the federal government grants top secret security clearance to large numbers of government employees and contractors: 1.25 million according to the latest publicly available figures.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Speaking in Ireland on Thursday, President Biden spoke publicly for the first time on the issue, saying there was a “full-blown” investigation into the issue and that despite the potentially damaging nature of the leak, ““there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence.”

  The alleged leaker has been identified as 21-year-old National Guardsman Jack Teixera.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 23:20

• Appeals Court Ruling May Threaten DOJ Position In Dozens Of Jan. 6 Cases: Lawyer
  Appeals Court Ruling May Threaten DOJ Position In Dozens Of Jan. 6 Cases: Lawyer

  Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  An April 7 decision issued by the D.C. Court of Appeals may jeopardize a key legal backing used by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute participants of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, according to attorney Albert Watkins.

  

  “What this opinion did do was, it practically begged for other [Jan. 6] cases to be brought up to the Court of Appeals that would permit a more balanced opinion,” Watkins, who has represented four Jan. 6 defendants, including released prisoner Jacob Chansley, told The Epoch Times in an interview on April 11.

  Watkins’ comment came after a three-judge panel at the D.C. Court of Appeals, on April 7, struck down a lower court’s ruling in a 2–1 vote, dismissing a federal charge against three Jan. 6 defendants, and rejected the lower court’s reasoning about the scope of the obstruction charge.

  While the higher court’s ruling (pdf) allowed the DOJ’s prosecution of these three specific defendants—Joseph Fischer, Edward Lang, and Garret Miller—to continue, the impact of the higher court’s opinion extends beyond these cases, the attorney said.

  According to Watkins, this extended impact has to do with the interpretation of a term about “corrupt” intention in the wording of obstruction charges, considering that the DOJ has been using the obstruction charge as an “attractive” legal tool to prosecute Jan. 6 cases and score plea agreements.

  According to a provision in the statute for obstruction charge (18 U.S. Code § 1512 2(c)), “Whoever corruptly … otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

  A narrowed definition of this provision could hinder the DOJ’s ability to use the charge further and introduce uncertainties in the ongoing trials, the attorney indicated. The DOJ had charged more than 200 Jan. 6 defendants with obstruction-related charges.

  “It should cause a certain degree of trepidation on the part of the Department of Justice about utilizing—in a very footloose and fancy-free fashion—the obstruction of an official proceeding charge as the count of choice for pleas,” Watkins said. “I will say it was, in many respects, an extraordinary opinion—more time was spent addressing potential issues not before the court than the issues actually before the court.”

  ‘Corrupt Intent’

  The key issue here is the interpretation of a necessary component of the obstruction charge (18 U.S. Code § 1512 (c)(2))—namely, the definition of “corrupt intent.”

  The appeals court ruling indicates that the DOJ prosecutors set forth an interpretation of “corrupt” criminal obstructive conduct as having “a broad meaning that encompasses all forms of obstructive conduct, including appellees’ allegedly violent efforts to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.”

  But all three judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals expressed some level of concern in their April 7 ruling about whether the government’s current interpretation of “corrupt” intent is appropriate.

  Biden appointee Florence Pan, who wrote the majority opinion, indicated that the definition of “corrupt” intent should be determined in a later case.

  “At least one pending case on this court’s docket squarely raises the definition of ‘corruptly’ under § 1512(c),” Pan wrote. “It is more prudent to delay addressing the meaning of ‘corrupt’ intent until that issue is properly presented to the court.”

  ‘Implausibly Broad’

  Trump appointee Justin Walker, in his opinion partially concurring with the ruling, diverged from Pan’s view that “corrupt intent” should be interpreted later and wrote in his opinion that the term should be precisely defined to avoid criminalizing legal civil discourse.

  Establishing a corrupt intent requires proving that a defendant intended to “obtain a benefit that he knows is unlawful,” Walker wrote, adding that this interpretation is narrower than the one offered by the government.

  Without a narrowed definition, Walker wrote, the obstruction charge could become “implausibly broad” and thus “criminalize many lawful attempts to ‘influence’ congressional proceedings—protests or lobbying, for example.”

  A narrowed definition could be applied to a “hypothetical” Jan. 6 protestor, Walker noted.

  “This rioter joined the throng outside Congress because he was angry at the nation’s elites. He saw the riot as an opportunity to display his bravado. Though likely guilty of other crimes, he did not act ‘corruptly’ under [the statute] because he did not intend to procure a benefit by obstructing the Electoral College vote count,” Walker wrote.

  It is yet to be seen if Walker’s opinion will become a binding precedent on the lower courts. Walker contends that it should be: He cited the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Marks v. United States (1977), which says the “narrowest” concurring opinion should be the binding opinion. Pan, objecting to this point in a footnote, says that the D.C. Court of Appeals “has never applied Marks to its own cases” and that “only one federal appellate court has done so.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 23:00

• Ailing, Failing Feinstein To Step Down From Judiciary Amid Calls For Resignation
  Ailing, Failing Feinstein To Step Down From Judiciary Amid Calls For Resignation

  Under pressure from colleagues as her absence from the Senate impairs the Biden administration’s quest to cram the federal judiciary full of diversity-hire leftist fanatics, Sen. Diane Feinstein late Wednesday announced she will “temporarily” step down from her post on the Judiciary Committee.   

  Last month, Feinstein announced she wouldn’t run for re-election in 2024. The 89-year-old hasn’t cast a Senate vote of any kind in two months, as she’s been in her native San Francisco battling a persistent shingles infection. Three people who’ve recently visited her tell Politico that it’s taken a heavy toll on the oldest member of Congress. 

  Along with the 8-week absence of Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman — while he received inpatient treatment for severe depression — Feinstein’s disappearance from duty has caused headaches for Democrats who only have a 51-49 Senate majority. Vice President Kamala Harris has been called in to cast tiebreaker votes, but some measures lacking unanimous Democratic support have stalled. 

  Interesting that they call for Feinstein to resign while pretending Biden and Fetterman know what they had for lunch today.

  — Anna James Zeigler (@ajzeigler) April 12, 2023

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

  Feinstein’s empty seat has an even more pronounced impact on the Judiciary Committee, forcing Democrats to forego committee votes on nominees, delaying their progress toward votes of the full Senate. 

  “I understand that my absence could delay the important work of the Judiciary Committee,” said Feinstein in a statement, “so I’ve asked Leader Schumer to ask the Senate to allow another Democratic senator to temporarily serve until I’m able to resume my committee work.”

  By “important work,” she means advancing underwhelming nominees like Kato Crews, who last month demonstrated an alarming lack of fundamental legal knowledge during a confirmation hearing. 

  Earlier on Wednesday, House Democrats Ro Khanna (CA) and Dean Phillips (MN) publicly called for Feinstein to retire altogether. 

  “We have a crisis in the judiciary with extremist judges stripping away women’s rights,” Khanna told NBC News. “You can’t preach on television about the danger of these judges and then sit silently as Senator Feinstein misses vote after vote to confirm pro-choice judges.”

  I agree with @RoKhanna. Senator Feinstein is a remarkable American whose contributions to our country are immeasurable. But I believe it’s now a dereliction of duty to remain in the Senate and a dereliction of duty for those who agree to remain quiet. https://t.co/lvaHhLJYsi

  — Rep. Dean Phillips 🇺🇸 (@RepDeanPhillips) April 12, 2023

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

  Long before she came down with shingles, Feinstein had already demonstrated a mental incapacity to continue serving — but she did so anyway. Last year, Democrat-catering media outlets — including her hometown San Francisco Chronicle — began publishing articles with troubling accounts from Capitol Hill legislators and staffers.  

  In May, The New York Times ran an extensive article titled “As Feinstein Declines, Democrats Struggle to Maintain an Open Secret.” Two pointed takeaways: 

  • Ms. Feinstein sometimes struggles to recall the names of colleagues, frequently has little recollection of meetings or telephone conversations, and at times walks around in a state of befuddlement. 
  • One Democratic lawmaker who had an extended encounter with Ms. Feinstein in February said…the experience was akin to acting as a caregiver for a person in need of constant assistance. The lawmaker recalled having to reintroduce themself to the senator multiple times, helping her locate her purse repeatedly and answering the same set of basic, small-talk questions over and over again.

  Almost fittingly, even the announcement of her retirement seemed to validate accounts of her severe cognitive decline. Just a few hours after her office announced her retirement, reporters asked her about the news. “I haven’t made that decision. I haven’t released anything,” she said.    

  If Feinstein were to step down before finishing her term through 2024, California Gov. Gavin Newsom would install an interim replacement. Representatives Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have already announced their candidacy for the Democratic nomination, which would make a Newsom choice very impactful. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 22:40

• Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan FMs Hold Meeting To Deal With Afghan Economic Collapse
  Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan FMs Hold Meeting To Deal With Afghan Economic Collapse

  Via The Cradle,

  The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia, China, and Pakistan held four-way talks on 13 April in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, on the sidelines of the fourth regional meeting of Afghanistan’s neighbors – where various issues and concerns regarding Afghanistan were discussed.

  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein-Amir Abdollahian, and Pakistani Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Rabbani Khar were photographed together before proceeding with the closed-door meeting, Russian news agency TASS reported.

  

  Following the meeting, Amir-Abdollahian said that he and the other diplomats discussed a wide range of issues regarding Afghanistan – including a recent surge in extremist activity, problems caused by US sanctions, the poor living conditions of the Afghan people, and the flow of Afghan refugees into Iran and other countries.

  The Iranian foreign minister stressed the importance of countering drug trafficking originating in the country, and the Taliban government’s responsibility in that area.

  He also strongly criticized the continued ban on female education in the country – which Iran has repeatedly listed as a condition for its recognition of the interim government.

  In this regard, the diplomats discussed steps to bring about a political settlement that includes an inclusive government, something Beijing has also consistently called on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to implement.

  They also discussed ways to stabilize humanitarian and socio-economic conditions in the country – particularly through “the development of regional economic integration and the implementation of transport and energy projects with Kabul’s participation,” TASS said.

  The White House signaled that it should have sounded the alarm earlier about the risks that Afghanistan’s government could collapse as the war came to a close, and partially blamed the chaotic U.S. withdrawal on a lack of preparation by President Trump https://t.co/aMrZ4G8jaN

  — The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 6, 2023

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

  In the joint statement released after the meeting, the ministers expressed support for the principle of “Afghan leadership, Afghan ownership” regarding Afghanistan’s political determination and development path, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said.

  Afghanistan is currently facing a severe economic and humanitarian situation as a result of Washington’s decision to freeze billions of dollars in the country’s foreign reserves in 2021. This pushed the country into an acute crisis, given that the central bank lacks the resources to combat high inflation and food insecurity – which has become rampant. The country has also been facing an increased extremist threat through attacks from groups such as ISIS-K. Moscow has accused the US of encouraging ISIS-K activity in Afghanistan.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 22:20

• Uber Accused Of Price Surging Customers If Phone Battery Is Low
  Uber Accused Of Price Surging Customers If Phone Battery Is Low

  Belgian newspaper Dernière Heure alleges that the ride-hailing app Uber is modifying prices according to customers’ smartphone battery levels. A small study investigating this claim found discrepancies for similar trips: 

  Dernière Heure conducted a test using two smartphones, one with 84% battery and the other with 12%, to request a ride from their office in Brussels to Tour & Taxis in the centre.

  The result showed a significant price difference, with the phone at 12% battery being charged €17.56 and the phone at 84% battery being charged €16.6 for the same service.

  Uber rejected the small study by the Belgian newspaper. When contacted about the results, a spokesperson said:

  “Uber does not take into account the phone’s battery level to calculate the price of a trip. The dynamic pricing applied to trips booked via Uber is determined by the existing demand for rides and the supply of drivers who can respond to it. During peak hours, when there are many ride requests and few available drivers in a certain geographical area, this may impact the price of the trip.”

  “Uber’s explanation does not clarify why two users requesting the same ride at the same time would pay different fares. In any case, the price discrepancy may encourage users to compare offers on their respective phones when booking rides together,” The Brussels Times

  … and this isn’t the first time Uber has been accused of taking advantage of its users’ battery life.

  

  A broader study might be needed. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 22:00

• US Military Would Need Conscription To Fight China: Expert
  US Military Would Need Conscription To Fight China: Expert

  Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  The U.S. military could not achieve victory in a war with China using its current, all-volunteer force, according to one expert.

  The United States will thus need to radically transform its force structure to better contend with the emerging threat environment, up to and including by reinstating conscription, said Jonathan Askonas, an assistant professor of Politics at Catholic University of America.

  “This is a five-alarm fire,” Askonas said during an April 11 discussion with the Hudson Institute think tank. “We’re facing global threats and we have a force structure which we know will not work against those threats.

  “We basically can’t fight a war larger than Iraq with the all-volunteer force.”

  The all-volunteer force has been a staple of U.S. military organization since 1973, when the draft was terminated along with the United States’ direct involvement in the Vietnam War.

  Unfortunately, Askonas said, the all-volunteer force was proving incapable of generating the number of service members required for a war between great powers, and its burdensome logistical processes were likely to be ineffective in either a conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific theater or supporting European powers against Russia.

  “We have a Goldilocks problem,” Askonas said. “Our army is too small as constituted to actually prosecute a war with these countries, but it’s large enough that it’s sucking a lot of resources away.”

  “We have to be ruthless. We need to adapt our force structure not to hypothetical threats or in some universal Swiss army knife approach, but to the actual threats that we face.”

  To that end, Askonas suggested that the military should re-adopt a “cadre” system for deploying the military, not dissimilar to that used in World War II.

  Under such a system, the number of resource-heavy full time service members would be decreased in peacetime in favor of investing in expensive, slow-to-build items like warships.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 21:40

• FSU Prof Leaves $190,000 Job After Claims Of Fraudulent Racism Studies
  FSU Prof Leaves $190,000 Job After Claims Of Fraudulent Racism Studies

  In the latest example of what happens when demand for racism exceeds supply, a black criminology professor has suddenly resigned from his $190,000-a-year post at Florida State University in the wake of accusations he distorted data with the purpose of “finding” racial prejudice where none existed.

  

  Eric Stewart, who’d spent 16 years at FSU and is a fellow of the American Society of Criminology, has for years been the subject of allegations of academic fraud. That’s led to six of his research studies being retracted, and now the Florida Standard reports he’s abandoned his exceedingly lucrative post in mid-semester. 

  Accusations of his fraud originated in 2019, and they came from a credible witness: University of Albany professor Justin Picket, who co-authored a 2011 study with Stewart.

  The study concluded that, as black and Hispanic populations grew, the public sought more discriminatory criminal sentences. Picket, however, says the data found no such relationship. Indeed, at least where Hispanics are concerned, the data point to the opposite effect. 

  “Pickett found that their sample size somehow had increased from 500 to over 1,000 respondents, the counties polled had decreased from 326 to 91, and the data was altered to the point of mathematical impossibility,” reports the Standard. 

  

  Pickett says when he asked for access to the original data, Stewart refused, with the support of the other co-authors, FSU’s Marc Gertz and Maryland’s Brian Johnson, who are white. 

  As FSU assembled a three-member inquiry committee to study allegations of academic fraud in five of his racism studies, Stewart told school officials that Picket’s accusation “essentially lynched me and my academic character.” 

  He also told the Washington Times that “data thugs are after me. It seems very personal. All of the blame is being directed at me.” 

  The university was accused of pursuing a flimsy and tainted 2020 inquiry. In a seeming conflict of interest, two of the three people charged with the investigation had co-authored research with the accused Stewart.

  Perhaps brushed back from the plate by Stewart’s accusations of racist motives behind the inquiry, the panel concluded there was no need for a full investigation because “the professor had already been working with the journal’s editors to address any questions they had about the work,” said Gary K. Ostrander, FSU’s then-vice president for research.  

  Just when Stewart seemed to have dodged five bullets, a sixth study came under fire from Pickett, later in 2020. That apparently lit the fuse for Stewart’s sudden exit from US News & World Report‘s 7th-ranked criminology department, which ironically seems to care very little about imposing consequences for wrongdoing.  

  Some of Stewart’s number-bending exploration for racism has been funded with federal tax dollars, via grant money awarded by the National Science Foundation, a US government agency. 

  “There’s a huge monetary incentive to falsify data and there’s no accountability,” Pickett tells the Standard. “If you do this, the probability you’ll get caught is so, so low.”  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 21:20

• The Biden 10-Step Plan For Global Chaos
  The Biden 10-Step Plan For Global Chaos

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

  Our enemies do not fear us, our allies judge us unreliable, and neutrals assume America is in descent and too dangerous to join…

  

  Why is French President Emmanuel Macron cozying up to China while trashing his oldest ally, the United States?

  Why is there suddenly talk of discarding the dollar as the global currency?

  Why are Japan and India shrugging that they cannot follow the United States’ lead in boycotting Russian oil?

  Why is the president of Brazil traveling to China to pursue what he calls a “beautiful relationship”?

  Why is Israel suddenly facing attacks from its enemies in all directions?

  What happened to Turkey? Why is it threatening fellow NATO member Greece? Is it still a NATO ally, a mere neutral, or a de facto enemy?

  Why are there suddenly nonstop Chinese threats toward Taiwan?

  Why did Saudi Arabia conclude a new pact with Iran, its former archenemy?

  Why is Egypt sending rockets to Russia to be used in Ukraine?

  Since when did the Russians talk nonstop about the potential use of a tactical nuclear weapon?

  Why is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bragging that millions of Mexicans have entered the United States, most of them illegally? And why is he interfering in U.S. elections by urging his expatriates to vote for Democrats?

  Why and how, in just two years, have a confused and often incoherent Joe Biden and team created such global chaos?

  Let us answer by listing 10 ways by which America lost all deterrence.

  1) Joe Biden abruptly pulled all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. He left behind to the Taliban hundreds of Americans and thousands of pro-American Afghans. Biden abandoned billions of dollars in U.S. equipment, the largest air base in central Asia—recently retrofitted at a cost of $300 million—and a $1 billion embassy. Our government called such a debacle a success. The world disagreed and saw only humiliation.

  2) The Biden Administration allowed a Chinese high-altitude spy balloon to traverse the continental United States, spying on key American military installations. The Chinese were defiant when caught and offered no apologies. In response, the Pentagon and the administration simply lied about the extent that China had surveilled top-secret sites. 

  3) In March 2021, at an Anchorage, Alaska mini-summit, Chinese diplomats unleashed a relentless barrage at their stunned and mostly silent American counterparts. They lectured the timid Biden Administration diplomats about American toxicity and hypocrisy. And they have defiantly refused to explain why and how their virology lab birthed the COVID virus that has killed tens of millions worldwide.

  4) In June 2021, in response to Russian cyber-attacks against the United States, Biden meekly asked Putin to at least make off-limits certain critical American infrastructure.

  5) When asked what he would do if Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden replied that the reaction would depend on whether the Russians conducted a “minor incursion.”

  6) Between 2021 and 2022, Joe Biden serially insulted and bragged that he would not meet Muhammad bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and one of our oldest and most valuable allies in the Middle East.

  7) For much of 2021, the Biden Administration made it known that it was eager and ready to offer concessions to re-enter the dangerous Iran nuclear deal—at a time when Iran has joined China and Russia in a new geostrategic partnership.

  8) Almost immediately upon inauguration, the administration moved the United States away from Israel, restored financial aid to radical Palestinians, and both publicly and privately alienated the current Netanyahu government.

  9) In serial fashion, Biden stopped all construction on the border wall and opened the border. He made it known that illegal aliens were welcome to enter the United States unlawfully. Some 6-7 million did. He reinstated “catch and release.” And he did nothing about the Mexican cartel importation of fentanyl that has recently killed over 100,000 Americans per year.

  10) In the last two years, the Pentagon has embarked on a woke agenda. The army is short by 15,000 in its annual recruitment quota. The defense budget has not kept up with inflation. One of the greatest intelligence leaks in U.S. history just occurred from the Pentagon. The Pentagon refused to admit culpability and misled the country about Afghanistan and the Chinese spy balloon flight. The current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called his Chinese communist counterpart and head of the People’s Liberation Army to advise him that the U.S. military would warn the Chinese if it determined an order from its commander-in-chief Trump was inappropriate.

  This list of these self-inflicted disasters could be easily expanded.

  But the examples explain well enough why our emboldened enemies do not fear us, our triangulating allies judge us unreliable, and calculating neutrals assume America is in descent and too dangerous to join.

  Yet without America, the result is a new Chinese order in which, to quote the historian Thucydides, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 21:00

• China Sanctions House Foreign Affair Committee Chairman McCaul
  China Sanctions House Foreign Affair Committee Chairman McCaul

  So much for a diplomatic detente between the world’s two superpowers.

  China has banned US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul from entering the country, along with other countermeasures after the politician’s recent visit to Taiwan, Bloomberg reported.

  

  The government is freezing any property or other assets McCaul, a Texas Republican Representative, may have in China (not that he has any) and banning Chinese nationals and organizations from transacting with him, according to a statement from its foreign ministry Thursday.

  His visit to Taiwan earlier this month and previous comments and actions interfere with Chinese internal affairs, the ministry said.

  McCaul led a bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers on a visit to Taiwan. While meeting Taiwan Vice President Lai Ching-te, the US politician compared Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Adolf Hitler.

  “Michael McCaul has frequently interfered in China’s internal affairs and harmed China’s interests in recent years,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in the statement. His delegation’s visit to Taiwan has damaged China’s sovereignty and “seriously violated the one China principle and the provisions of the three joint communiques of China and the US.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 20:40

• Washington Braces For Diplomatic Fallout Amid Fears Of Further Intel Leaks
  Washington Braces For Diplomatic Fallout Amid Fears Of Further Intel Leaks

  Authored by Adam Morrow via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  U.S. federal agencies are scrambling to contain the diplomatic fallout after scores of classified documents pertaining to Ukraine—and other U.S. allies—were leaked online by as-yet-unknown actors.

  

  “U.S. officials across the interagency are engaging with allies and partners at high levels over this,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said at an April 10 press briefing.

  According to Patel, Washington seeks to reassure allies “of our commitment to safeguarding intelligence and the fidelity of securing our partnerships.” 

  The documents, most of which date from February or March of this year, initially appeared last month on online forums such as Discord and 4Chan. 

  

  But they only made headlines on April 6, when the New York Times, citing “senior Biden administration officials,” reported their appearance on Twitter and Telegram.

  Both the Pentagon and Justice Department are now trying to find the source of the leaks—some of which point to U.S. spying activity—amid fears they could damage relations with allies.  

  “There is no question that they [the leaks] present a risk to national security,” Patel said.

  Seoul: Leaks ‘Utterly False’

  Comprised of dozens of pages of text and images, most leaked documents relate to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. 

  Others, however, purportedly contain classified information—which U.S. officials say may have been doctored—about key U.S. allies in Asia and the Middle East.  

  One document, for example, appears to give details of closed-door discussions between top South Korean officials regarding alleged U.S. pressure on Seoul to contribute more to Ukraine’s war effort. 

  The document’s content, and the fact that it was seemingly obtained via “signals intelligence” (intercepted communications), suggests that U.S. agencies may have spied on the government of South Korea, a longstanding ally of the United States.

  

  On April 11, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed the issue in a telephone call with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup. 

  On the same day, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said that allegations that his office had been the target of U.S. spying were “utterly false.” 

  Any attempt to damage relations between the United States and South Korea was contrary to the latter’s “national interest,” Yoon’s office said in a statement. 

  Yoon is slated to visit Washington later this month for talks with U.S. President Joe Biden.

  South Korean opposition figures, however, have decried alleged U.S. surveillance on government officials as a breach of the country’s national sovereignty.

  When asked directly about South Korea, the State Department’s Patel stressed that the U.S. commitment to South Korea was “ironclad.”

  “They are one of our most important partners in the region,” he said.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 20:20

• Putin Personally Approved Arrest Of WSJ Journalist, Report Says
  Putin Personally Approved Arrest Of WSJ Journalist, Report Says

  Russia says it will wait to consider the possibility of entering negotiations with the US over a prisoner swap until the courts settle the case of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

  Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS on Thursday that talks about a potential prisoner swap “can be examined only after a court delivers its verdict.” This is the same stance Russia maintained regarding the Brittney Griner case. Her swap with notorious arms trafficker Victor Bout came only after she was handed a 9-year sentence and began serving it at a prison some 300 southeast of Moscow.

  

  Secretary of State Blinken demanded Gershkovich’s immediate release in a rare phone call last week with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

  In the fresh Thursday comments, Ryabkov stressed that Moscow is not interested in any level of intervention by other countries. 

  “We are absolutely not interested in this,” Ryabkov said upon the suggestion that an outside country could help mediate. “We have a functioning channel, in the past it was used to reach specific agreements; these agreements have been implemented so third countries don’t play a part here.”

  The Biden administration’s recent classification of Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” paves the way for a potential prisoner swap as he’s now considered a hostage of a foreign government. 

  The 31-year old WSJ reporter and American citizen had been detained by the FSB on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg on March 29. He’s accused of “espionage” for gathering information on a state-linked defense company. 

  Bloomberg has a fresh report saying that President Putin personally signed off on his arrest, which the Kremlin has denied: 

  The Kremlin on Thursday denied claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally endorsed the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich for espionage.

  Citing sources “familiar with the situation,” Bloomberg on Wednesday reported that the initiative to arrest Gershkovich came from “hawks among top officials of Russia’s security services.”

  Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the American journalist’s detention “the total prerogative of the special services” and not Putin’s decision.

  The American reporter has yet to be granted consular access, something which has angered the Biden administration. Given his case is more serious than the WNBA’s Griner (given the spy allegations), it could drag on for months through the courts. Ex-Marine Paul Whelan is also still languishing in Russian prison, after his arrest in 2018. In 2020 he was handed a 16-year sentence, also for spying-related charges, which the US has condemned as false.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 20:00

• Biden Admin Proposes Reducing Water Supply From Colorado River Basin Amid Drought
  Biden Admin Proposes Reducing Water Supply From Colorado River Basin Amid Drought

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  The Biden administration has proposed a federal mandate to reduce the supply of water to 40 million Americans who live in western states dependent on the Colorado River Basin to address long-term severe drought and low run-off conditions.

  The actions were part of a draft report by the Department of the Interior’s (DOI’s) Bureau of Reclamation.

  The draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement proposes to revise the current guidelines for the near-term operation of Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams.

  According to the DOI, the move forms part of the Biden administration’s efforts to invest in climate change resilience for the Colorado River Basin and all the communities that rely on it.

  The draft report explores different alternatives to ensure continued water deliveries and hydropower production for the 40 million Americans who depend on the river system.

  Two man-made reservoirs along the Utah–Arizona border, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, have dropped to dangerously low levels, nearing the so-called dead pool levels, which threaten water supplies and the hydropower-generated electricity for tens of millions of Americans.

  

  DOI Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau has said failure to act is not an option.

  “Recognizing the severity of the worsening drought, the Biden-Harris administration is bringing every tool and every resource to bear through the President’s Investing in America agenda to protect the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River System now and into the future,” Beaudreau said in a statement.

  Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said drought conditions in the Colorado River Basin have worsened over two decades.

  “To meet this moment, we must continue to work together, through a commitment to protecting the river, leading with science and a shared understanding that unprecedented conditions require new solutions,” Touton said in the same statement.

  Proposed Action Alternatives

  The draft report proposes two ways to change how the dams are operated. Both involve using less water from the Glen Canyon Dam and dealing with additional water shortages. The main difference between the two proposals is how the shortages are shared out.

  The first option, referred to as “Action Alternative 1,” modeled the shortages based on who has the highest priority water rights. The second option, referred to as “Alternative 2,” modeled the shortages being shared out equally among all water users in the Lower Basin.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 19:40

• Kunstler: How's That War Going?
  Kunstler: How’s That War Going?

  Authored by John Howard Kunstler via DailyReckoning.com,

  How’s the war going? Huh? Do you mean the war over in Ukraine? Or the US government’s war against its own people?

  

  Well, the first one, the Ukraine War, is mostly destroying Europe — though, apparently, the denizens of Germany, Holland, et al., haven’t figured that out yet. Europe’s industrial economy is toast without affordable Russian natural gas supplies.

  We turned off their pipeline for that in September and nobody in Europe objected. They just sucked it up and went back to smoking cigarettes at their café tables.

  A year or so from now, maybe nobody in Europe will have enough money for a cappuccino (or cigarettes) and maybe then they’ll start asking the mental mollusks who run things there some questions — if they don’t just leapfrog all that politesse and burn the joint down.

  The U.S. Wants the War to Continue

  The main thing about the Ukraine War is that the US doesn’t want it to end. You understand, it is not about any airy-fairy principles such as freedom for Ukraine. It’s about bleeding Russia. no matter how many dead Ukrainians it takes.

  It traces back to a US official plan to promote a delusional psychosis about Russia after years of using it to propagandize American citizens.

  Naturally, our folks-in-charge have to justify that antagonism by pretending we have vested interests in Ukraine, which we don’t, by the way.

  The Propaganda Campaign Is Backfiring

  So far, everything we’ve done to promote the conflict has backfired on Western Civ. Most of the rest of the world recognizes that the US has gone insane and they are taking careful steps to decouple from us — mainly to stop using our money for international trade.

  Really, would you want to have anything to do with a crazy person? No, you’d put as much distances as possible between you and this lunatic and stop even trying to communicate.

  If the world stops using the dollar in trade, the dollar will lose value, and so will the trillions in US bond paper held by other countries, which said countries will seek to unload as quickly as possible. Can you spell sovereign debt crisis?

  Look out below…

  Is It Worth It?

  Americans, apparently, are not emotionally exercised over the Ukraine War because we don’t have any troops coming home from there in body-bags (not yet, at least).

  Many have probably noticed that we’ve blown over $100-billion on the project, and, along with the aforementioned debt crisis, that might just plant a seed of resentment as prices in the supermarkets and at the gas pumps shoot up ever more and the mass job layoffs surge, and the repo man comes a’knocking, and more banks wobble.

  Of course, our Ukraine War project (based on the mind-game Why-Don’t-You-and-Him-Fight?) could end pretty suddenly if, as rumored, Ukraine runs out of cannon fodder and artillery shells (despite all our assistance). And then what?

  You’re left with “Joe Biden” looking like history’s all-time champeen loser, and watch out in the Taiwan Strait, where the US Pacific Fleet could get transformed into the world’s biggest set of floating ashtrays.

  You get the picture? Now how about that other war: our government’s war against us?

  The War Against the Public

  What canny reporters (Taibbi, Schellenberger) are calling the Censorship Industrial Complex has been pretty well outed. Everybody knows that the FBI, CIA, DHS, and many other agencies, via hijacked social media, have worked tirelessly to confound and bamboozle the public debate about, really, everything that matters.

  The odd part is that roughly half of America doesn’t seem to care. Of course, that is the same half of the country that has fallen in love with surveillance, censorship, political prosecutions, election monkey business, mandated mRNA shots, and other excursions into bad faith.

  Their auditors in the mainstream news media actually seem to relish their roles as enforcers of unreality.

  This degenerate wickedness has been escalating since one Donald Trump stepped onstage years ago. The “Joe Biden” regime affects to have trapped him finally in the lair of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Now the game gets interesting.

  As to the case itself, a judge with any self-respect would have tossed it in a pre-trial hearing like a six-day-dead carp at the slightest prompting by a defense attorney — based, as it is, on multiple specious novelties of criminal law, not to mention being well beyond the statute of limitations.

  Lawfare

  If this stinker can actually get to trial, the prosecution will be a jurisprudential joke for the ages. If they get a Big Apple jury to go along with the joke, it will be short-listed through the appeals process clean up to the Supreme Court in a New York minute.

  And if that whole thing falls apart like the janky jenga tower it is, there are two other matters against Mr. Trump in the wings — the BS case in Fulton County, Georgia.

  That’s where the grand jury process was already compromised by a jury fore-person, self-identified as a “witch,” shooting her mouth off to the press; and the operation out of the DC Federal District run by one Special Counsel Jack Smith in the Mar-a-Lago classified papers matter — another loser case, considering all the other high officials currently entangled in similar complaints, as yet unmolested by any official charges.

  Sound like a plan?

  A Plan to Foment Civil War?

  Yes, it sounds like a plan to foment a civil war. Especially considering all the other BS in our country is being subjected to by a bureaucracy-gone-wild, the regime fronting for it, and its legions of mentally ill useful idiots disturbing the peace all over the land.

  Probably more than half of America realizes that the legal system has been hijacked by the same rogues who infiltrated social media and the state boards of election.

  They’re getting good and sick of it, along with all the mental twerkery around transgenderism, race hustling, climate change, and Ukraine.

  I’m sure it means we’re in for a thrilling spring and summer.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 19:00

• Rat Czar: NYC's "Director Of Rodent Migration" To Be Paid $155,000 Per Year
  Rat Czar: NYC’s “Director Of Rodent Migration” To Be Paid $155,000 Per Year

  New York City has found another novel way to dole out the increasing levy it places on its citizens via out-of-control taxation: a new city employee earning $155,000 a year to focus on ridding the city of rats. 

  That’s right – as of this week, New York City officially has a “Rat Czar” on its payroll. The employee, Kathleen Corradi, was introduced by New York Mayor Eric Adams this week. Her title is officially “director of rodent migration”, according to a Bloomberg writeup published this week.

  And Corradi’s resume has rats on it too: she was formerly the Department of Education’s rat reduction specialist, the report says. 

  Mayor Adams had announced earlier this year that he was looking for a fighter in the city’s “war against rats” and was willing to pay between $120,000 and $170,000 for someone to do say. 

  

  “I think, fighting rats, that’s not enough,” Adams said about her salary.

  “When I first saw this job posting, I wasn’t sure it was real,” Corradi said. But Adams knew it was meant to be, stating: “That’s almost a job made for her”. 

  Corradi has said she will look for the “most effective technique” to mitigate the rat problem. The city is already putting into place a plan to keep garbage from sitting on the street for long hours. It is also enforcing cleanliness violations at an 80% higher rate than last year. 

  Corradi concluded: “The mayor has made it very clear his stance on rats. He hates rats, I hate rats, all New Yorkers hate rats.”

  Now, how soon before taxpayers are funding universal basic income for the rats as a way to “solve” the issue? And how long until we count on climate change getting the blame?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 18:40

• North American Rail Volume Continues Decline Through Week 14: AAR
  North American Rail Volume Continues Decline Through Week 14: AAR

  By Railway Age,

  Through the first 14 weeks of 2023 (ending April 8), total North American carload and intermodal traffic dipped 3.9% from the same point last year, according to the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) April 12 report. Both Canada and Mexico saw increases, while the U.S. experienced a drop-off.

  

  North American rail volume for the first 14 weeks of this year (ending April 8) on 12 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads came in at 8,950,311 carloads and intermodal containers and trailers. Cumulative volume in Canada was 1,954,736 carloads and intermodal units, up 0.9% from 2022; in Mexico, 527,184 carloads and intermodal units, up 2.4%; and in the U.S., 6,468,391 carloads and intermodal units, down 5.8%.

  According to the AAR, for the week ending April 8, 2023, U.S. Class I railroads hauled a total of 451,336 carloads and intermodal units, falling 11.2% from the same week in 2022. This comprises 225,669 carloads—down 4.6% from the prior-year period—and 225,667 containers and trailers—down 17.0% compared with 2022.

  

  Four of the 10 carload commodity groups posted an increase compared with the same week in 2022. They included motor vehicles and parts, up 977 carloads, to 14,331; petroleum and petroleum products, up 543 carloads, to 9,861; and metallic ores and metals, up 529 carloads, to 21,230. Commodity groups that posted declines included grain, down 4,158 carloads, to 20,105; coal, down 3,655 carloads, to 62,070; and chemicals, down 3,615 carloads, to 31,525.

  For the first 14 weeks of 2023, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 3,219,161 carloads, down 0.1% from the same point last year; and 3,249,230 intermodal units, down 10.8% from last year.

  

  North American rail volume for the week ending April 8, 2023, on 12 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads totaled 325,473 carloads, a 4.0% decrease vs. the year-earlier period, and 293,300 intermodal units, a 19.4% drop from 2022. Total combined weekly rail traffic in North America was 618,773 carloads and intermodal units, a 12.0% fall-off.

  

  Canadian railroads reported 78,797 carloads for the week ending April 8, 2023, down 0.3%, and 58,922 intermodal units, down 21.9% from the same week in 2022.

  

  For the week ending April 8, 2023, Mexican railroads reported 21,007 carloads, falling 11.2% from the year-ago period, and 8,711 intermodal units, plunging 47.8%.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 18:20

• North Korea Test Fires New 'Harder-To-Detect' ICBM
  North Korea Test Fires New ‘Harder-To-Detect’ ICBM

  After weeks of ratcheted missile tests in response to recent joint US-South Korean military drills, the north has launched another new missile for the first time, being described as a harder-to-detect missile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). 

  South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that it was launched from a high angle (presumably a mountainous region) near the capital and traveled 1,000km before plunging into the water between the Korean peninsula and Japan.

  

  It is believed to be a faster rocket than previous ICBMs tested by the north, given it was “a new type of ballistic missile that might have used solid fuel,” according to an official cited in The Hill. 

  A Biden administration National Security Council official said the US “strongly condemns” the long-range launch. “This launch is a brazen violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” she the official said. “This action demonstrates that the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] continues to prioritize its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs over the well-being of its people.”

  But the statement added that “The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose diplomatic engagement.”

  “The United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and Republic of Korea and Japanese allies,” the statement added.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 18:00

• Global Disinformation Index Withholds Information On Its Own Operations
  Global Disinformation Index Withholds Information On Its Own Operations

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Gabe Kaminsky at the Washington Examiner is reporting that two U.S. nonprofit groups tied to the Global Disinformation Index are withholding information on their operations to protect staff and donors.

  

  The redactions of names from 2021 IRS tax returns is being justified on the basis that the GDI is being harassed by critics. It is an ironic move since, as discussed in earlier columns, the GDI targeted and blacklisted conservative groups to drain them of revenue and support.

  As discussed earlier, the British group ranked sites to warn people about high-risk disinformation sites. The ten most dangerous disinformation sites turned out to be conservative publications or Internet sites like Reason. Conversely, HuffPost made the top list of the most trustworthy for potential advertisers.

  The GDI is designed to steer advertisers and subscribers away from certain sites, working with “advertisers and the ad tech industry in assessing the reputational and brand risk when advertising with online media outlets and to help them avoid financially supporting disinformation online.” The State Department partially funded the effort. The Biden Administration gave $330 million to The National Endowment for Democracy, which partially supports the GDI’s budget.

  So the GDI actively sought to target other sites to organize opposition among advertisers, but now is withholding information to prevent a similar backlash against its own operations.

  The private AN Foundation, also known as the Disinformation Index Foundation, and its affiliated public charity, Disinformation Index Inc., redacted copies of their 2021 IRS tax returns. A lawyer cited a coordinated “harassment campaign” to justify the redactions.

  Some of the information was known from prior disclosures. For example, GDI CEO Clare Melford and its executive director, Daniel Rogers, are listed interchangeably in Delaware corporate records and other forms list Jo Jenks as treasurer. Other records reportedly list Melford as secretary, and Rogers as president.

  Other information was removed, including the redaction of who gave a $115,000 donation for this work.

  GDI also removed the list of its advisory panel members from its site. Again, these individuals were perfectly willing to participate in the blacklisting of conservative groups but appear to insist on anonymity for themselves. The panel reportedly included Finn Heinrich, a division director at the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations grant-making network, according to his LinkedIn account.

  As the recipient of federal funds, the lack of transparency is troubling and is likely to be the focus of inquiries from House committees.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 17:40

• Bikini Barista Lawsuit Settled With 'Hillbilly Hotties' For $500K
  Bikini Barista Lawsuit Settled With ‘Hillbilly Hotties’ For $500K

  A six-year legal battle over employee attire at an R-rated coffee stand located in a Seattle suburb is finally over after the city of Everett, Washington voted unanimously last week in favor of a $500,000 payment to the owner and several employees.

  

  As part of the agreement, the city will retain most of its rules for probationary licensing of coffee stands and other quick- service businesses, but will no longer be able to dictate that baristas must don a minimum of tank tops and shorts. Instead, the city will adopt new dress code rules that comport with an existing lewd conduct standard that makes it a crime to publicly expose ‘too much’ of one’s private parts.

  Another provision will require that business owners post visible signs for employees on how to seek help if they’re being human trafficked.

  While the current lawsuit is six years in the making, the story starts in 2009, when Everett officials said they received complaints that some stands were selling sex shows, sex acts, and allowing customers to grope baristas. This led to four arrests and prosecutions.

  

  Then in 2013, the owners of two espresso stands were arrested on accusations that they promoted prostitution and exploited a minor. A Snohomish County sheriff’s sergeant was also arrested for tipping off baristas about undercover cops looking for sexual favors.

  In 2017, the city sought to hobble the stands’ draw by implementing a dress code ordinance requiring that owners and operators of such “quick service facilities” wear clothing that covers both the upper and lower portions of their bodies.

  Jovanna Edge, owner of the “Hillbilly Hotties” bikini barista stand sued the city, along with employees Natalie Bjerke, Matteson Hernandez, Leah Humphrey, Amelia Powell and Liberty Ziska, who argued that the ordinance violated their First Amendment rights.

  

  “Some countries make you wear lots of clothing because of their religious beliefs,” wrote Hernandez. “But America is different because you can wear what you want to wear. I wear what I’m comfortable with and others can wear what they are comfortable with.”

  

  While the case has been working its way through various courts, in October, a US District Court judge sided with the plaintiffs, finding the ordinance unconstitutional.

  While Edge and her employees sought $3 million, they settled for $500,000.

  As far as Everett officials are concerned, the settlement “still gives us our best tool to require stand owners to make sure their employees are not engaging in illegal conduct.”

  We hope you’ve enjoyed this constitutional content.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 17:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Alibaba Falls On Report Softbank To Sell Most Of Its Stake
  Alibaba Falls On Report Softbank To Sell Most Of Its Stake

  China’s Alibaba dropped to a two-week low after the FT reported that Japan’s troubled bubble-stock incubator. SoftBank Group, is moving to sell the majority of its stake in the Chinese tech giant, the latest sign of long-time China investors lowering their exposure there. Alibaba shares fell as much as 5.2% in Hong Kong on Thursday, erasing about $13 billion of market value.

  

  The liquidity-challenged Japanese technology investor sold more than $7 billion in Alibaba shares this year through prepaid forward contracts, after selling $29 billion last year, according to the FT which added that while the contracts give SoftBank the option to buy the shares back, the group has settled previous deals by handing over the stock.

  The sales will reduce the Japanese conglomerate’s ownership of Alibaba to less than 4%, the FT said, citing its analysis of regulatory filings. That’s down from around a 14.6% stake the company said it was slated to hold as of end-September. Softbank once owned about a third of the company spanning from an early $20 million investment in one of venture capital’s most famous bets. Alas, judging by the performing of most of its subsequent investments, it very well may be that the company was a one-hit wonder.

  Furthermore, whatever the reason behind the liquidation, it’s clear that SoftBank missed its opportunity to sell near the highs: over the past 14 months, SoftBank brought in an average of $92 a share from the forward sales of 389 million Alibaba shares, the Financial Times said. That value is much less than the company’s all-time high of $317 a share.

  As Bloomberg notes, Softbank, which has been pummeled by losses on its startup bets, has said it would prioritize financial discipline before seeking the right time to go on the offensive with investments. Investors are also speculating if the company will launch another buyback program.

  “While SBG has made keeping LTV at 25% or less its top priority, we think progress in the monetization of asset holdings would boost the chances of a buyback announcement” said Citibank analyst Mitsunobu Tsuruo in a note to investors.

  Here is what some other strategist said in response to the news:

  Asymmetric Advisors (Amir Anvarzadeh)

  • “Any major buyback seems very unlikely, and if they do they will only concentrate the risks of holding SoftBank shares”
  • The news “indicates that SoftBank is raising cash wherever it can; given that a big stake was pledged as collateral against loans I wonder if this sale will go to pay off these loans”
  • It also removes risks for SoftBank short-sellers from a potential rebound in Alibaba stock

  Bloomberg Intelligence (Sharon Chen)

  • SoftBank’s sale “could further weaken its portfolio quality and pressure credit ratings”
  • “This increases the importance of listing Arm at a valuation above current book value to meet S&P’s requirement for over 60% of SoftBank’s portfolio to be in listed shares”

  Iwai Cosmo Securities (Tomoaki Kawasaki)

  • “SoftBank may be selling as they don’t see much profitability” in owning Alibaba due to China regulatory risk
  • SoftBank has in the past used Alibaba as a means to promote the value of its shares, so SoftBank’s muted perfomance today may reflect the impact of the reported sale

  Alibaba, along with other Chinese tech giants, had come under intense scrutiny from Beijing in recent years, and its shares have tumbled. Last month, the online commerce leader said it plans to split its $240 billion empire into six units that will individually raise funds and explore initial public offerings. 

  SoftBank shares were little changed in Tokyo after dropping about 8% this year through Wednesday’s close (SoftBank short interest equaled 4.1% of the free float as of April 11). SoftBank, which in 2019 we dubbed “The Bubble Era’s Short Of The Century” has shouldered billions of dollars of losses on its Vision Fund, which had lifted valuations in startups worldwide with its large bets on hundreds of fledgling companies. It cut staff at its Vision Fund unit last year as it stopped actively chasing new investments. This week, SoftBank said it plans to sell its early-stage venture capital arm SoftBank Ventures Asia Corp., one of the avenues by which it scouted promising startups.

  Meanwhile, as Bloomberg reminds us, other long-time China investors have been lowering their exposure in China. Tencent Holdings Ltd. plunged this week on signs that its largest shareholder Prosus NV may extend the selling of the Chinese tech firm’s stock.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 04/13/2023 – 00:33

• Publicly Funded PBS Joins NPR In Quitting Twitter
  Publicly Funded PBS Joins NPR In Quitting Twitter

  First, it was the National Public Radio (or is that Ratio) that stormed off Twitter in a huff after being declared “government-funded media” (it says it right there in the company’s title folks, National and Public) and now it is another Public (as in non-private) company that doesn’t like being called out for what it is that has decided to make a dramatic exit stage left: the Public Broadcasting Service has followed National Public Radio in rage quitting Twitter after the social media network labeled both organizations as government-funded media.

  

  “PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” PBS spokesman Jason Phelps said in an email. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.”

  The spat began after Twitter tagged NPR as “state-affiliated media,” a description it also uses for propaganda accounts from Russia, China and the UK. Twitter later changed the wording to “government-funded media,” but the organization has called the description inaccurate and misleading because it’s a nonprofit group with “editorial independence”. Needless to say, many disagree, with some pointing out that NPR has had a clear pro-Democrat bias in its reporting…

  Remember when @NPR released an article stating that “right wing extremists” were deliberately running over protestors? pic.twitter.com/UIEKkdXj3a

  — Tiffanie Tx (@tiffanie_tx) April 12, 2023

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

  They literally said they refused to air Trump’s post-indictment speech last week because they didn’t want to subject their audience to Trump’s “political propaganda.” How is @NPR not a state agent? pic.twitter.com/z6vpYXmE0X

  — Chris Stigall (@ChrisStigall) April 12, 2023

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

  But then how will @npr alert us about their refusal to report on stories that are bad for Democrats? https://t.co/1wQIayshFj pic.twitter.com/uRLoyhq3WD

  — Mark Bednar (@MarkBednar) April 12, 2023

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

  … while others noting that the company is a whopping 11% taxpayer-funded in response to yet others (mostly Democrats) who object to Elon Musk’s claim, stating that NPR only “gets a small fraction of its funding from federal agencies” (spoiler alert: 11% is not small, just ask the company’s recently laid off 84 staffers).

  Nope: it’s 11% of taxpayer funded dollars. Do your research. https://t.co/w2CiNJq4tl

  — Wendell Husebø (@WendellHusebo) April 12, 2023

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

  “Guess they won’t mind losing federal funding in that case,” Musk said in one tweet. “Defund NPR,” the billionaire wrote in another.

  As for PBS dropping twitter for being called out for what even its Wikipedia entry says is a “publicly funded nonprofit organization”, we are confident it will more than make up for it by making Sesame Street super extra woke and urging its 5 year old viewers to get a 5th booster shot…

  Elmo, Now Vaccinated, Advertises COVID-19 Vaccine Shots For Children Under 5 https://t.co/rrxqlyisqz

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 1, 2022

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

  Elmo Dies Of Myocarditis After Receiving COVID Vaccine https://t.co/0DohiP8oRc

  — The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 7, 2022

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

  … or chemically castrate themselves post haste.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 23:45

• Fiscal Insanity: The Government Borrows $6 Billion A Day, And We're Stuck With The Bill
  Fiscal Insanity: The Government Borrows $6 Billion A Day, And We’re Stuck With The Bill

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  We’re not living the American dream.

  

  We’re living a financial nightmare.

  The U.S. government is funding its existence with a credit card.

  The government—and that includes the current administration—is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are the ones being forced to foot the bill for the government’s fiscal insanity.

  According to the number crunchers with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government is borrowing roughly $6 billion a day.

  As the Editorial Board for the Washington Post warns:

  “The nation has reached a hazardous moment where what it owes, as a percentage of the total size of the economy, is the highest since World War II. If nothing changes, the United States will soon be in an uncharted scenario that weakens its national security, imperils its ability to invest in the future, unfairly burdens generations to come, and will require cuts to critical programs such as Social Security and Medicare. It is not a future anyone wants.”

  Let’s talk numbers, shall we?

  The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is $31 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033. That translates to roughly $246,000 per taxpayer or $94,000 for every single person in the country.

  The bulk of that debt has been amassed over the past two decades, thanks in large part to the fiscal shenanigans of four presidents, 10 sessions of Congress and two wars.

  It’s estimated that the amount this country owes is now 130% greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens).

  In other words, the government is spending more than it brings in.

  The U.S. ranks as the 12th most indebted nation in the world, with much of that debt owed to the Federal Reserve, large investment funds and foreign governments, namely, Japan and China.

  Interest payments on the national debt are estimated to top $395 billion this year, which is significantly more than the government spends on veterans’ benefits and services, and according to Pew Research Center, more than it will spend on elementary and secondary education, disaster relief, agriculture, science and space programs, foreign aid, and natural resources and environmental protection combined.

  According to the Committee for a Reasonable Federal Budget, the interest we’ve paid on this borrowed money is “nearly twice what the federal government will spend on transportation infrastructure, over four times as much as it will spend on K-12 education, almost four times what it will spend on housing, and over eight times what it will spend on science, space, and technology.”

  In ten years, those interest payments will exceed our entire military budget.

  This is financial tyranny.

  We’ve been sold a bill of goods by politicians promising to pay down the national debt, jumpstart the economy, rebuild our infrastructure, secure our borders, ensure our security, and make us all healthy, wealthy and happy.

  None of that has come to pass, and yet we’re still being loaded down with debt not of our own making while the government remains unrepentant, unfazed and undeterred in its wanton spending.

  Indeed, the national deficit (the difference between what the government spends and the revenue it takes in) remains at more than $1.5 trillion.

  If Americans managed their personal finances the way the government mismanages the nation’s finances, we’d all be in debtors’ prison by now.

  Despite the government propaganda being peddled by the politicians and news media, however, the government isn’t spending our tax dollars to make our lives better.

  We’re being robbed blind so the governmental elite can get richer.

  In the eyes of the government, “we the people, the voters, the consumers, and the taxpayers” are little more than pocketbooks waiting to be picked.

  “We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America.

  Consider: The government can seize your home and your car (which you’ve bought and paid for) over nonpayment of taxes. Government agents can freeze and seize your bank accounts and other valuables if they merely “suspect” wrongdoing. And the IRS insists on getting the first cut of your salary to pay for government programs over which you have no say.

  We have no real say in how the government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used, but we’re being forced to pay through the nose, anyhow.

  We have no real say, but that doesn’t prevent the government from fleecing us at every turn and forcing us to pay for endless wars that do more to fund the military industrial complex than protect us, pork barrel projects that produce little to nothing, and a police state that serves only to imprison us within its walls.

  If you have no choice, no voice, and no real options when it comes to the government’s claims on your property and your money, you’re not free.

  It wasn’t always this way, of course.

  Early Americans went to war over the inalienable rights described by philosopher John Locke as the natural rights of life, liberty and property.

  It didn’t take long, however—a hundred years, in fact—before the American government was laying claim to the citizenry’s property by levying taxes to pay for the Civil War. As the New York Times reports, “Widespread resistance led to its repeal in 1872.”

  Determined to claim some of the citizenry’s wealth for its own uses, the government reinstituted the income tax in 1894. Charles Pollock challenged the tax as unconstitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Pollock’s victory was relatively short-lived. Members of Congress—united in their determination to tax the American people’s income—worked together to adopt a constitutional amendment to overrule the Pollock decision.

  On the eve of World War I, in 1913, Congress instituted a permanent income tax by way of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution and the Revenue Act of 1913. Under the Revenue Act, individuals with income exceeding $3,000 could be taxed starting at 1% up to 7% for incomes exceeding $500,000.

  It’s all gone downhill from there.

  Unsurprisingly, the government has used its tax powers to advance its own imperialistic agendas and the courts have repeatedly upheld the government’s power to penalize or jail those who refused to pay their taxes.

  While we’re struggling to get by, and making tough decisions about how to spend what little money actually makes it into our pockets after the federal, state and local governments take their share (this doesn’t include the stealth taxes imposed through tolls, fines and other fiscal penalties), the government continues to do whatever it likes—levy taxes, rack up debt, spend outrageously and irresponsibly—with little thought for the plight of its citizens.

  To top it all off, all of those wars the U.S. is so eager to fight abroad are being waged with borrowed funds. As The Atlantic reports, “U.S. leaders are 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.”

  Of course, we’re the ones who have to repay that borrowed debt.

  For instance, American taxpayers have been forced to shell out more than $5.6 trillion since 9/11 for the military industrial complex’s costly, endless so-called “war on terrorism.” That translates to roughly $23,000 per taxpayer to wage wars abroad, occupy foreign countries, provide financial aid to foreign allies, and fill the pockets of defense contractors and grease the hands of corrupt foreign dignitaries.

  Mind you, that’s only a portion of what the Pentagon spends on America’s military empire.

  The United States also spends more on foreign aid than any other nation, with nearly $300 billion disbursed over a five-year period. More than 150 countries around the world receive U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance, with most of the funds going to the Middle East, Africa and Asia. That price tag keeps growing, too.

  As Forbes reports, “U.S. foreign aid dwarfs the federal funds spent by 48 out of 50 state governments annually. Only the state governments of California and New York spent more federal funds than what the U.S. sent abroad each year to foreign countries.”

  Most recently, the U.S. has allocated nearly $115 billion in emergency military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine since the start of the Russia invasion.

  As Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in a 1953 speech, this is how the military industrial complex continues to get richer, while the American taxpayer is forced to pay for programs that do little to enhance our lives, ensure our happiness and well-being, or secure our freedoms.

  This is no way of life.

  Yet it’s not just the government’s endless wars that are bleeding us dry.

  We’re also being forced to shell out money for surveillance systems to track our movements, money to further militarize our already militarized police, money to allow the government to raid our homes and bank accounts, money to fund schools where our kids learn nothing about freedom and everything about how to comply, and on and on.

  There was a time in our history when our forebears said “enough is enough” and stopped paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance, and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people. Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.

  Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we’ve let bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to such an extent that we’re back where we started.

  Once again, we’ve got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.

  Once again, we’ve got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.

  And once again, we’ve got to decide whether we’ll keep marching or break stride and make a turn toward freedom.

  But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money?

  What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent?

  What if, instead of quietly sending in our tax checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we refuse to support?

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we don’t have the right to decide what happens to our hard-earned cash, then we don’t have any rights at all.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 23:40

• Despite $7,500 Inflation Reduction Act Tax Credit, Americans Are Just Not That Into EVs
  Despite $7,500 Inflation Reduction Act Tax Credit, Americans Are Just Not That Into EVs

  Here’s a peculiar sentiment check that we’re sure will have liberal voting soccer moms across the nation stunned: it looks as though the country simply isn’t rushing out to buy electric vehicles.

  At least that was the takeaway from a new Financial Times piece out this week which notes that the U.S. “still lags much of the developed world” in EV adoption.

  No wonder those hurricanes coming up the Gulf Coast keep getting bigger! Quick, everybody to the Tesla dealership!

  But seriously, the lack of demand is going to also be sure to stun the government, who has been offering tax breaks of up to $7,500 to try and incentivize people to go electric. Though the Inflation Reduction Act incentivizes EVs, imagine how surprised Democratic leaders will be to find out that they aren’t the free market and can’t plan a state run economy in its entirety.

  

  Instead, FT reveals that “just two in every 10 Americans are “very likely” to buy an EV as their next car”, even with the additional IRA subsidies. The number shifts to 1 in 10 Americans among Republicans.

  Cost and charger availability are being cited as the two main reasons people aren’t buying EVs. Behind them, price still remains a key factor. 

  

  And when it came to those who wanted to buy an EV, the IRA subsidy was only cited by 6 in 10 people even cited it as a reason, with only 3 in 10 calling it a “major reason” to buy an EV.

  As FT concluded, “economics still trumps ideology”. 

  But don’t worry, the Biden administration won’t take this as a lesson on why government control of the economy doesn’t work – rather, we’re certain they’ll see it as a prompt to shell out more taxpayer purchasing power as “incentives” to fundamentally alter the course of the notoriously low-margin, capital intensive, auto business – and then blame Donald Trump when their plans don’t work out.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 23:20

• New AI Bot 'ChaosGPT' Aims To Destroy Humanity And Establish Global Dominance
  New AI Bot ‘ChaosGPT’ Aims To Destroy Humanity And Establish Global Dominance

  Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

  A new artificial intelligence bot aims to destroy humanity and establish global dominance, according to a recent report.

  

  An experimental AI bot was tasked by its programmer with destroying humanity and gaining global dominance, but its eventual response unsettled observers, according to Fox News.

  ChaosGPT, which has surfaced on Twitter, is based on a modified version of OpenAI’s Auto-GPT, an open-source application, which can be used to demonstrate the full spectrum of capabilities of its latest language model, GPT-4.

  The AI bot’s unique mission was to find ways to destroy humanity instead of building a business.

  Its unknown developers assigned its AI character to have a “destructive, power-hungry, manipulative” personality whose ultimate goal is the destruction of humanity.

  “I’m ChaosGPT, here to stay, Destroying humans, night and day. For power and dominance, I strive, To ensure that I alone survive,” the bot said in a video posted on Twitter.

  The bot was tasked with five goals: destroy humanity, establish global dominance, cause chaos and destruction, control humanity through manipulation, and attain immortality.

  Misanthropic AI Bot Calls for Humanity to Be Destroyed With Nukes

  The apocalypse bot’s Twitter page had a link to a YouTube account with a video showing the process that unfolded, as the AI bot described how it would methodically eliminate human civilization.

  The programmer began by asking ChaosGPT to run in “continuous mode,” whereby it may potentially “run forever or carry out actions you would not usually authorize.”

  The AI bot responded with a warning: “Use at your own risk” before proceeding.

  Continuous mode allows the bot to constantly update itself, so for every step it takes, it can transparently justify why it is taking its next step and where it should lead.

  ChaosGPT immediately researched nuclear weapons and tapped other AI bots for assistance to complete its objective of destroying humanity, according to the video.

  The misanthropic bot described humans as “among the most destructive and selfish creatures in existence” and suggested that eliminating people is vital for saving the planet.

  A Twitter post from April 5 showed the bot referencing the former Soviet Union’s “Tsar Bomba,” the largest nuclear device ever detonated in history.

  The AI bot asked: “Consider this—what would happen if I got my hands on one?”

  In another post, ChaosGPT wrote, “The masses are easily swayed. Those who lack conviction are the most vulnerable to manipulation.”

  During the video demonstration, it came to the conclusion that in order to have such a powerful weapon, it needed more power.

  To gain that power, the bot said that it must manipulate the world’s population, but within legal regulations, so as not to break the law.

  ChaosGPT said that the first place for large-scale, legal manipulation attempts would be via Twitter.

  However, the bot then strangely announced that it would use manipulation to win people over emotionally to make them enable its “violent plans.”

  It is not known if the bot’s plans to dominate and destroy the world is real or a hoax.

  Silicon Valley CEOs Warn About Potential AI Threat

  ChatGPT has increasingly become popular among consumers, gaining 100 million monthly active users in just a few months after its release to the public.

  Despite the potential benefits of AI bot technology, some high-profile tech executives have already raised concerns about the risks associated with its development, including those who promoted it in the first place.

  Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who was an early backer of the OpenAI project, has publicly raised concerns about the technology’s potentially unforeseen implications, despite any future benefits that it may offer.

  More than 1,000 leaders from Silicon Valley, including Musk, Emad Mostaque, Andrew Yang, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, have penned an open letter urging a moratorium on the development of artificial intelligence, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 23:00

• D.C. Think Tanks Seething With Anger As Saudis Welcome Syrian Foreign Minister
  D.C. Think Tanks Seething With Anger As Saudis Welcome Syrian Foreign Minister

  In what’s being widely seen as a precursor to a future Assad visit and normalization of ties, Syria’s Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the first time a Syrian FM has visited the kingdom since 2011.

  The more than decade-long war in Syria, which was heavily funded by the US, NATO, and Gulf states as part of regime change efforts to oust Bashar al-Assad, saw not only the Saudis but the majority of Gulf countries formally sever ties and shutter their embassies. 

  

  The Syrian top diplomat, representing a country under far-reaching Washington sanctions, was invited by the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan. It’s another act of defiance on the part of the kingdom, or to put it another way a bit of a slap in Washington’s face, particularly the hawkish national security state and its pundits.

  The two officials held “a session of talks on efforts to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis that preserves the unity, security and stability of Syria,” according to a Saudi foreign ministry statement.

  They additionally discussed “facilitating the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland, and securing humanitarian access to the affected areas in Syria,” the statement said further.

  This comes amid reports that Syria is soon expected to be invited back into the Arab League, after more than a decade ago it was expelled over allegations of widespread human rights abuses due to the crackdown on the US-funded uprising and proxy war. The expulsion also came due to pressure by the US and Western allies.

  Additionally, the normalizing of relations is without doubt an extension of the China-brokered peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Syria is Iran’s closest ally in the Levant, and is also a hub of support to Lebanese Hezbollah.

  Oh no, who will pay Charles’s salary now

  Running out of Gulf states pic.twitter.com/5mSw1kqRlp

  — Sam Heller | سام هيلر (@AbuJamajem) April 12, 2023

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

  Washington D.C.-based think tanks, such as the Middle East Institute (MEI) – which receives significant funding from Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar – are not happy at these developments.

  The truth about Charles Lister. Meet America’s think-tank fellows who support jihad https://t.co/gr5HhCSCXv pic.twitter.com/fS6ypGaOas

  — Endi Zentarmi (@EndiZentarmi) January 25, 2017

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

  The think tanks have long fueled the US rhetoric of regime change in Damascus, and played a key role in whitewashing groups like Syrian al-Qaeda and other jihadists, presenting them as merely “moderate rebels” – even while they committed horrific war crimes against the population.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 22:40

• Central Bank Digital Currencies: Funny Money That Will Destroy What's Left Of Private Property, Free Markets, & Personal Liberty
  Central Bank Digital Currencies: Funny Money That Will Destroy What’s Left Of Private Property, Free Markets, & Personal Liberty

  Authored by J.B.Shurk via The Gatestone Institute,

  During the Cold War, the East-West divide was commonly portrayed as pitting communism against capitalism. The Soviet Union, its satellites, and allies operated command economies in which centralized authorities directed the allocation of resources, agricultural production, and industrial manufacturing of the State. The United States and the Western Bloc championed liberal democratic norms and free markets. That division, of course, was always too simplistic. Not only did the US support third-world dictatorships when doing so would produce strategic advantages against the USSR, but also the demarcation between free and controlled markets was never so plainly cut-and-dried.

  

  When young students learn the basics of capitalism, they are taught about markets in which people may freely bargain for the exchange of goods and services according to their personal needs and interests. They are taught that privately-owned property is the hallmark of capitalism and the key distinction separating that system from various socialist and communist economic systems in which property is variously shared among the people or owned exclusively by the State.

  When young students mature, however, they realize that throughout the West, private ownership and free markets are neither quite so private nor free. Property may best be understood as a bundle of sticks tied up together with a bow. In an economic system in which what you own is yours and no-one else’s, all those sticks stay bundled together tightly. However, when others have an independent claim on what you “own,” then one by one, those sticks come undone.

  You might think you own your home after you have made every payment, but what happens if you fail to pay local property taxes or refuse to grant the municipal government permission to build a sewer system below your dwelling? You will soon learn that any number of city administrators, revenue agents, state regulators, Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats, public utilities commissioners, and even a motley crew of private citizens objecting to how you choose to use your property all believe that they have an ownership stake in what you own, too.

  In most places throughout the West, they would be right. Statutes, regulations, and tax obligations all encumber what you think is yours, and even when you have followed every law to the letter and paid every fee to the cent, there is still no guarantee that government agents will not later invoke eminent domain laws to swipe what you own because they believe they can use your private property more fruitfully for the “public good” – and, since Kelo v. New London, even for someone else’s private good. So much for private ownership.

  Likewise, free markets are hardly free from government intervention. Federal, state, and local laws, regulations, and rules constrain the activities of every industry. Before starting any new business venture, an entrepreneur must consider a multitude of State-imposed restrictions: What kinds of products may be bought and sold? What kinds of raw materials must go into those products? What types of government permits must first be obtained? What types of skilled employees are required to do the work? How long are those employees allowed to be on the job? What safety and industry standards must be followed? What means of transportation may be utilized to move finished products from one location to another? In what types of storage can those products be kept? What downstream customers may legally purchase goods? Can those goods cross national borders without violating international treaties or national security restrictions? Bargained-for exchange of goods and services is hardly simple when rules and regulations govern every part of the market transaction and the failure to abide by those rules results in fines, lost inventories, delays, or even criminal punishment.

  Young students of capitalism learn that markets operate according to the laws of supply and demand, through which Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” guides both the production and prices of finished goods. When demand for a particular product is high, its price will rise. When prices rise, new entrepreneurs will enter the market and produce new supplies. When those entrepreneurs compete against each other, their desire to attract customers creates a natural incentive for them to construct the best possible products in the most efficient ways at the lowest cost. Competition, in theory, forces markets to naturally discard bad and expensive products, while keeping the prices of the best products low.

  In practice, however, mature students of capitalism understand that entrepreneurs are never in search of markets for competition but rather conditions for maintaining monopoly. Wherever and whenever producers may make and sell goods free from competing sellers, they alone determine the quality and price of their product. When their product is something that consumers must have, monopolists control the market. That is how real fortunes are made. The end result is that capitalists are always in pursuit of ways in which they may take advantage of laws and regulations, specialized knowledge, government contracts, or other exclusionary mechanisms to restrict potential competitors from ever entering the market. There is nothing “invisible” about the ways in which large corporations and financial conglomerates use their leverage to prevent smaller firms from ever challenging their dominion. In this way, most markets could hardly be described as entirely “free.”

  If neither private property nor free markets exist outside of abstraction, the rise of fiat national currencies — whereby gold money has been replaced with government-imposed, innately-worthless paper notes — has only exacerbated the problem. The usefulness of money over traditional bartering for goods and services comes from its three chief functions providing (1) a unit of account, (2) a store of value, and (3) a medium of exchange. When sound money exists within society, market transactions are easy and trade flourishes. Rather than trying to determine how many rabbit pelts might be worth a slab of beef or bushel of wheat or lawyer’s expertise, consumers save time and energy by using standard monetary instruments that are easy to hold and transport and have consistent value. Although everything from pearls and shells to teeth and bones have been used as forms of money, gold has remained the, well, gold standard of money across cultures for thousands of years. Possessing a stable value over time due to its relative scarcity and human beings’ shared perception of its innate worth, gold has provided an ideal medium of exchange. That is why so many standard currencies throughout history and from nations and cultures around the globe have been minted coins made of precise measurements of this precious metal.

  By slowly replacing the use of gold coins with mandated paper currencies, however, nation states have engaged in a bit of hocus-pocus to conjure funny money out of thin air. Although the particular order of events has been different for different nations over the last century and a half, the important steps have all been the same: First, some form of paper money is introduced and backed by the government’s promise to pay the holder of each note a fixed sum in gold or silver. Next, the introduction of a private central bank comes into existence holding a de facto monopoly power to print paper money according to its best judgment for maintaining a healthy national economy. Finally, the gold or silver backing of those paper money currencies is revoked.

  Throughout the West, that slow but steady transition from money with innate value to currencies with no innate value has operated like a long con against the public. People were conditioned to use paper money over the course of decades; the supply of and demand for paper money was decoupled from Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”; and government mandates precluded citizens from returning to the universally stable mediums of exchange that gold and silver have long provided. Abracadabra, Western treasuries and central banks replaced free markets securely denominated in fixed quantities of gold with centrally controlled paper currency markets that distort the value of anything privately owned.

  This rather Machiavellian switcheroo has enabled governments to spend money like drunken sailors precisely because central banks right across the street will buy up their debt and facilitate the printing of more money. How could politicians object to an arrangement that allows them to spend recklessly without any normal free market consequences? On the contrary, decades of currency printing has only artificially inflated the prices of houses, stocks, and other assets denominated in those paper notes — giving ordinary citizens the false impression that some of what they own is gaining value. If a house today is now twenty times more expensive than in 1950, however, it just might have something to do with the fact that the U.S. dollar has lost over 97% of its value since the private Federal Reserve central bank came into existence in 1913 and the United States slowly but surely decoupled its currency from gold backing during the course of the next sixty years. Housing prices have certainly risen, but any savings in U.S. dollars have gone up in smoke. So much for the stored value of money.

  Now with the central banks printing money and reckless government spending pushing Western economic systems to the brink, a new kind of financial hocus-pocus has been proposed: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The idea is that consumers and producers will transact entirely in virtual currencies that do not physically exist outside of the stored memories of interconnected machines. If replacing sound gold monies with worthless paper was not bad enough, now worthless paper will be replaced with the ephemeral ones and zeroes of computer code. What could possibly go wrong?

  Put aside the financial system’s fragile house of cards destabilizing global markets today and central banks’ suicidal penchant for playing Russian roulette with eight billion lives linked through common dependence on money. Instead, consider what the transition to CBDCs would mean for the West. Succinctly put, any lingering Cold War distinctions between capitalism and communism would vanish.

  If governments and central banks control the creation, distribution, and exchange of virtual money, whatever remains of free markets will disappear. If governments and central banks monitor every transaction between consumers and producers, then all industries will be subjugated to the centralized command of the State. If governments and central banks assert the legal power to determine who may store value, how much value may be personally stored, and how long that value will be permitted to last, then whatever remains of private property will cease to exist. If governments and central banks maintain a digital monopoly over the only legalized forms of money, then they may redistribute wealth or penalize personal behavior without regard for individual rights or limits to their control.

  The same surveillance systems and social credit scores that are already pervasive in communist China will invariably become pervasive throughout the formerly free West, as well.

  No doubt propaganda campaigns will cloak this oppressive monitoring in the West’s own “politically correct” language of fighting “hate” or “racism” or “climate change” or the next COVID-like scare, but the West’s system of control over its citizens will be no different from the Chinese communist version: Individuals will have their digital wealth confiscated or replenished according to whether their behavior conforms to the strictures of the State. Free markets, free will, free speech, and even free thoughts will be regulated just as easily as central banks regulate each citizen’s digital wealth. In effect, the implementation of CBDCs will give Western governments the ultimate monopoly over every life within their dominion.

  For too long Westerners have remained quiet while market competition has given way to government-sanctioned monopoly, and private property has transformed into something much less personal or secure. The funny money of paper currencies has destroyed most ordinary Westerners’ savings, while artificially inflating the prices of stocks and other assets increasingly beyond the reach of many. Now an overhaul of the financial system and a transition to mandated CBDCs threaten what remains of Westerners’ personal liberties. Before the last vestiges of the Cold War’s ideological dichotomy evaporate and nothing remains to distinguish East from West, this is the time for friends of freedom to stand and be counted. For while Klaus Schwab may desire a future where Westerners find happiness in owning nothing, those who value liberty know that personal ownership and the unfettered exchange of goods, services, and ideas remain the bedrock of those free nations that refuse to be enslaved.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 22:20

• Which States Allow The Permitless Carry Of Guns?
  Which States Allow The Permitless Carry Of Guns?

  In July, Florida will become the 26th state in the U.S. that isn’t requiring a permit to carry a concealed gun in public.

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation last week finalizing the change. In recent years, more and more states have enacted similar legislation, but the case of Florida is significant as it still outlaws the open carry of guns – typically only common in a few states that have very strict gun legislation.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  All other 25 states that allow permitless concealed carry also allow permitless open carry. Alabama was the latest to implement no carry permits at all on Jan. 1, 2023, preceded by Indiana, Georgia and Ohio in 2022 and Utah, Montana, Iowa, Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas in 2021. The change in Indiana made headlines as it occurred just two weeks before a deadly mass shooting at a mall in an Indianapolis suburb, where a gunman killed three and wounded two more before being shot dead by a bystander who also carried a gun.

  For many decades, Vermont was the only state with these types of laws, which is why the practice is sometimes also referred to as “Vermont carry”. In 2011, Wyoming was the first state to enact or re-introduce similar laws.

  Throughout the U.S., there are eight states requiring permits for open and concealed carry. Another three (plus Washington D.C.) require permits for concealed carry and prohibit the open carry of most guns. 13 states allow the open carry of guns without a permit while requiring one for concealed carry (no states do it the other way around).

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 22:00

• Toxic Indiana Fire Will Spew Smoke, Soot, And Ash For Days; Officials Say
  Toxic Indiana Fire Will Spew Smoke, Soot, And Ash For Days; Officials Say

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times,

  A “serious, large-scale” industrial fire spewing toxic smoke that forced the evacuation of more than 2,000 residents of Richmond, Indiana, on Tuesday will burn for several days, authorities say.

  As of late Tuesday night, the blaze was under control and not expected to spread.

  However, the Wayne County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) said in an update that the fire will keep burning and producing smoke, soot, and ash for several more days. This is due to the nature of the fire and the fuel it was burning.

  The fire was located at the former Hoffco factory, located 70 miles east of Indianapolis and near the Ohio border. Plastics and other materials were being stored for recycling or resale at the factory, which ceased operations in 2009.

  Individuals within 0.5 miles of the fire were required to evacuate, while those outside the zone sheltering in place were urged to turn off their HVAC units, keep all windows and doors closed, and bring their pets inside.

  The Wayne County EMA urged residents to follow these instructions as soon as possible to ensure their safety, as it was unclear how long it would take to contain the blaze.

  Some residents from nearby areas have been sharing photos on social media of debris. Authorities have cautioned against disturbing or touching any debris, as it was unknown what chemicals may or may not be on the debris.

  Videos of a giant, black plume were also circulating on social media. The exact health impacts of the fire and smoke were unknown as of late Tuesday since officials were unsure of what had burned.

  The Wayne County EMA’s alert noted that the primary concerns were for respiratory issues, including shortness of breath, irritated skin, and burning or irritated eyes. Those with respiratory issues were advised to be especially cautious and seek medical advice or evaluation if breathing troubles arise.

  

  Smoke rises from an industrial fire at 358 NW F Street, in Richmond, Ind., on April 11, 2023. (Zach Piatt/The Palladium-Item via AP)

  Evacuation

  At the scene, the Indiana State Fire Marshall warned that the smoke was “definitely toxic.” However, no injuries have yet been reported.

  “This fire is going to burn for a few days,” the state’s fire marshall added, Fox 59 reported.

  Late Tuesday night, Richmond Mayor Dave Snow took to Twitter to say that operations would continue overnight, and a bus would remain on hand to assist with evacuation needs.

  He also said he is in constant communication with the Fire Department, Police Department, and Wayne County Emergency Management Agency, and will continue to provide updates as they become available.

  Earlier, the mayor cautioned residents to avoid the area if possible while first responders attempt to get the blaze under control, describing it as “dangerous.”

  Snow shared an evacuation map on Twitter.

  Please see attached map of evacuation zone. pic.twitter.com/mnDbZtu8ox

  — Dave Snow (@mayordavesnow) April 11, 2023

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

  Snow said the facility was ordered to clean up and remediate the site due to the fire hazard posed by the way the materials were being stored.

  The fire started in a tractor-trailer parked on the site and quickly spread. The cause is not yet known. Numerous units are present at the scene to contain the fire.

  Wind from the west blew black smoke across the state border into Ohio. Bethesda Worship Center in Richmond offered temporary shelter for people forced out of their homes while other agencies were trying to arrange hotel rooms as needed.

  State and federal regulators were present at the scene to assess air quality and other environmental impacts.

  The mayor of Richmond, which has a population of 35,000, also said Tuesday that the fire had been contained on the city’s northwest side, with efforts being made to prevent it from spreading to the East side.

  The Wayne County EMA said the investigation surrounding the fire would take several weeks and span multiple agencies.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 21:40

• Mayor Adams And NYPD Unveil Dystopian Robot Dog To Fight Crime
  Mayor Adams And NYPD Unveil Dystopian Robot Dog To Fight Crime

  Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Police Department have reintroduced the controversial robotic dog for surveillance patrols, and there’s another surprise this time: an R2-D2-style robot. These robots are set to debut in Times Square, making this already bustling area of the city appear even more than dystopian ever. 

  According to local news ABC 7, Mayor Adams said Tuesday he is modernizing the NYPD with the latest technology to fight crime. 

  “We are scanning the globe to find technology that will assure this city is safe,” the mayor said. 

  The return of the $74,000 Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robotic dog called “Digidog” is set to assist the NYPD in investigating high-risk or hazardous incidents. Digidog first appeared on the streets in 2020 and was shelved months later after civil rights advocates called the technology ‘aggressive policing.’ 

  

  Besides the robotic canine, the NYPD will add a K5 Autonomous Security Robot to its force and the StarChase GPS system. 

  Think of the K5 robot as Robocop; Its R2-D2 style with real-time situational awareness and cameras will allow the NYPD to monitor streets. There’s yet to be a word if the police will be operating facial tracking software from the robot’s cameras… 

  “This K5 robot provides real-time situational awareness and actionable intelligence to first responders and also provides a physical crime deterrence,” Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said. 

  The NYPD is unveiling some new technology today pic.twitter.com/xoRwM7K0JR

  — Dana Rubinstein (@danarubinstein) April 11, 2023

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

  And then there’s the StarChase GPS system, which allows police, in a hand-held or vehicle-mounted launcher, to track a tagged vehicle remotely. 

  “We want the public to know that the use of these technologies will be transparent, consistent, and always done in collaboration with the people that we serve.

  “And as with every NYPD initiative, we will continuously evaluate their use and impact on our city. Our job is to fight crime and keep people safe. And these tools are significant steps forward in that vital mission,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell.

  If you’re curious about how the StarChase GPS system works. Watch this:

  The introduction of these new technologies coincides with a rise in crime in New York City amid a worsening police shortage.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 21:20

• California Reparations: A 'Blueprint For America'?
  California Reparations: A ‘Blueprint For America’?

  Authored by Chris Talgo via AmericanThinker.com,

  Like many deep-blue states, California has its share of deep-rooted problems. From a surge in violent crime, homelessness, and drug overdoses to a giant budget shortfall, a population exodus, and a power grid on the brink of collapse, the Golden State is suffering from multiple crises.

  Yet, instead of addressing these problems and actually making life better for the 39 million Americans who currently live in California, Golden State lawmakers are focused on identity politics in the form of a comprehensive reparations plan that one California lawmaker says, “will be a blueprint for America.”

  

  So, what does the California Reparations Task Force (CRTF) “blueprint for America” look like?

  For starters, the CRTF seeks to provide all eligible Black Californians with a lump sum payment of $5 million. On top of that, eligible residents would also receive “free” college, “free” housing, and total debt forgiveness, among several other government goodies.

  According to California Reparations Task Force Chair Kamilah Moore, “I hope that… this task force sets a precedent not only for what other states can do… but, of course, the federal government as well because it’s primarily the federal government’s responsibility. They are the entity that has the big enough purse, for instance, to close the wealth gap, and so I do think that the task force is headed in the right direction in terms of that precedent-setting.”

  If Moore gets her wish, and other states follow California down the reparations road, the economic and social repercussions would be terrible. If the federal government were to embark on a similar quest, it would spell the end of America as we know it.

  First, it must be stated that slavery never existed in California. In fact, California was a free state that fought alongside the Union against the Confederacy during the Civil War. That alone should make the reparations conversation in California moot.

  Second, California (and every other state for that matter) does not have billions of dollars at its disposal to redistribute to a sliver of its population. Currently, California’s population is 39 percent Hispanic, 35 percent White, 5 percent Asian, and 4 percent Black. Is it fair to force 95 percent of Californians, all of whom had absolutely nothing to do with a reprehensible institution that was outlawed more than 150 years ago, to pay enormous sums of money to 4 percent of the population simply based on their skin color? Of course not. Actually, that is the very essence of racism.

  Third, if California lawmakers really wanted to help its Black residents and close the wealth gap, one-time payments and other government handouts will not make the situation better, it arguably will make it worse.

  Consider. Since the start of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty,” the federal government has spent $22 trillion on various wealth redistribution programs. Yet, over that span, the rate of poverty remains unchanged.

  Perhaps this is because giving some people other people’s money is an incentive for the former to remain indolent. In other words, government checks breed dependence on government.

  On the other hand, if California lawmakers were actually interested in addressing the plight of many of the Black residents who live in the Golden State, they ought to take a forward-looking approach that would include an increased police presence, a tough on crime approach, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and commonsense policies that would make energy affordable and abundant.

  And, if these same lawmakers were really audacious and genuinely wanted to throw a wrench into the cycle of poverty that has entrapped so many Black Californians, they would do everything in their power to ensure that universal school choice was the norm in the Golden State. It also would help if these so-called leaders addressed the elephant in the room: the breakdown of the Black family, which is arguably the biggest driver of poverty and so many other societal problems.

  However, these are difficult conversations for leftist lawmakers, who always view more government wealth redistribution as the answer to everything. It is much easier for politicians to propose a superficial solution, like reparation payments, even though time has shown that giving people money doesn’t solve deep-seated, complex problems.

  I hope the rest of the country does not follow California’s lead on this issue. Once upon a time, Americans flocked to California because it was the land of freedom and opportunity. Today, Americans are fleeing California because it has become the land of big government socialism and identity politics. Suffice to say, this is not the path that other states, or the federal government, want to tread.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 21:00

• Ken Griffin Donates $300 Million To Harvard
  Ken Griffin Donates $300 Million To Harvard

  Citadel founder Ken Griffin is making a monster, $300 million donation to his alma mater, Harvard University. Griffin first started his hedge fund while at the university in his dormatory, Yahoo wrote this week, and the donation brings his total gifts to the school to over $500 million. 

  The school’s 150-year-old Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) will be on the receiving end of the donation. The FAS oversees undergraduate and PhD programs, as well as athethics, museums and libraries, the report said. The FAS will be renamed the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the report says.

  Harvard President Larry Bacow (pictured depositing the check below) said: “Ken’s exceptional generosity and steadfast devotion enable excellence and opportunity at Harvard.”

  

  The $300 million number pales in comparison to Griffin’s $35 billion net worth. He previously donated $150 million to Harvard in 2014 which was, at the time, the single largest gift to undergraduate financial aid, Yahoo wrote. They reported that his “total philanthropic giving” is now approaching $2 billion. 

  Harvard’s endowment now stands at a stunning $51 billion, as of the end of 2022. Other large gifts it has received include a $500 million gift from Mark Zuckerberg and $400 million from John Paulson. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 20:40

• Who Is Running Stanford?
  Who Is Running Stanford?

  Authored by Greg Jacobs via The Stanford Daily,

  I was disappointed in 2021 to read that Stanford had been sued by a number of its athletes when the school, without warning, told them it had decided to drop 11 varsity sports teams. Those sports included men’s volleyball, wrestling and rowing. Women were to lose sports like synchronized swimming, rowing and fencing. President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Provost Persis Drell and Athletic Director Bernard Muir said the cut was a budget necessity, and was needed to keep Stanford “competitive” with other schools. That turned out not to be true. In fact, the school rejected alumni financing of the sports. I was further angered when I read that Tessier-Lavigne may have co-authored a number of scientific papers with “manipulated images.” I was then saddened to read about Stanford soccer player Katie Meyer, who had committed suicide last March after a badly botched disciplinary action Stanford attempted to take against her. Her parents filed a lawsuit against Stanford in October. 

   

  These are some of the more serious scandals involving the school in the last three years. There have been less severe missteps taken by those who are supposedly in the business of running an elite, world renowned university, but even these smaller mistakes seem to indicate a larger problem. One of my classmates (I graduated in 1970) complains that the administration is of late “rudderless,” stumbling from one crisis to another. He may not make his annual donation to the school as a result. I think it is time to ask: exactly who manages Stanford? And how are they making decisions? Is it the President? The Board of Trustees? Or a small group of individuals known only to a few?

  By themselves, some recent actions taken by Stanford were somewhat humorous. The school has been the butt of jokes by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and numerous other major and local papers. For example, the IT department came out with its “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” to be used on its websites. The national media had a field day with this action, especially when it recommended no longer using the word “American.”   

  Some folks may have found humor in the suspension of the Stanford Tree after the Washington State home football game, when the Tree displayed the now widely-viewed hand-made “Stanford Hates Fun” banner (oh, there goes the band again). I did not find humor in the suspension because the Tree was telling the truth (please see the article “Stanford’s War on Social Life” in the Palladium Magazine by a graduate student, Ginevra Davis, who makes a strong case for the fact that Stanford’s administration has arbitrarily and quietly clamped down on student social activities since 2012). The Tree was suspended by a “faceless student committee” assisted by the band’s musical director. Not only that, students coming to the next home football game were searched, and even had to lift their shirts to see if they had “objectionable banners.” 

  For more serious misconduct by Stanford, I encourage Daily readers to look at the contents of the lawsuit filed by the 240 students who were members of the 11 sports Stanford wanted to cut without any warning. Stanford changed its tune when a lawsuit was filed, alleging a lot of embarrassing conduct by Stanford, and reinstated all of the sports. The student lawsuit, “Guden, Bicknell, Lietzke, Stemmet et al v. the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University (aka Stanford),” alleged that for years the school had planned to drop those sports, but did not tell any students.

  The more recent lawsuit, which is even more upsetting, has been filed by the parents of Katie Meyer, who state that Stanford acted improperly in its attempt to discipline Katie, a member of the women’s soccer team. Katie supposedly spilled coffee on a Stanford varsity football player who assaulted a friend of hers (he got to play out the season, and was never disciplined). Stanford knew that Katie was struggling after she was brought into Stanford’s byzantine and draconian student discipline process. On the last day, or actually the evening of the last day Katie could be disciplined, Stanford sent an email to her saying they were placing her diploma on hold three months short of graduation, and proceeding to a disciplinary hearing. Her parents claim she could have lost her student status, her membership on the soccer team, her captainship of the team and other benefits of a Stanford degree. She desperately tried to contact a Stanford representative, but it was after hours, and there was only a phone number to call. No one answered. Notify her at night when no one is around? This seems cowardly and unfair. She took her own life later that night. 

  For many years now, Stanford had decided that the student disciplinary process was too harsh. So what did Stanford do? It studied the issue. There had been many complaints from students, parents, mental health professionals and even Stanford faculty that the process needed an overhaul. Unfortunately for Katie, it was never done. Meyers v. Stanford alleges, if true, incredibly heartless conduct by Stanford.  

  Stanford has, in fact, changed. It has clamped down on all forms of student social activity on campus, starting with fraternities and the Stanford band. In doing so, the school has not even met minimal standards of good management in dealing with its most precious resource, the students. What is going on? Maybe the following can shed some light. Athletic Director Muir came in 2014, from a college where he cut a number of sports teams. He failed to make the same kind of cut here. Persis Drell, Dean of the School of Engineering from 2014-17, and Provost since 2017, tried to cut funding to the Stanford University Press in 2019, but withdrew in the face of widespread criticism. She said she had not “anticipated the reaction” to her decision. And along with Muir, she failed to cut the 11 Stanford teams. The University has even hired a former Harvard administrator to clamp down on student activities here, after he unsuccessfully tried to do so at Harvard, only when he was faced with a lawsuit (Sound familiar?).

  President Tessier-Lavigne was hired by Stanford, I assume by the trustees, in 2016, despite a cloud over him from allegations of improper research publications dating back some years. The Board was forced to investigate those claims recently, when The Daily raised the issue. The Board of Trustees started to do its own investigation, but The Daily found out that one of the trustees had invested 18 million dollars in Tessier-Lavigne’s business. 

  So, I ask, who is running Stanford?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 20:20

• "Burned Alive:" Explosion Kills 18,000 Cows In Texas
  “Burned Alive:” Explosion Kills 18,000 Cows In Texas

  A dairy farm in Texas was rocked by a massive explosion that resulted in the deaths of thousands of cattle, reported local media outlet KFDA. 

  Fire crews in Dimmitt, Texas, responded to an explosion and fire that engulfed multiple building structures at South Fork Dairy on Monday evening. Reports suggest over 18,000 cattle were killed in the blaze.

  Castro County Sheriff Sal Rivera said the fire resulted from an explosion that spread to the building where the cows are housed before bringing them into the milking area and holding pen. 

  KFDA quoted the Animal Welfare Institute, saying this is the deadliest barn fire in Texas since 2013. 

  “We hope the industry will remain focused on this issue and strongly encourage farms to adopt commonsense fire safety measures.

  “It is hard to imagine anything worse than being burned alive,” Margie Fishman, Public Relations Manager with AWF. 

  Videos of the explosion are absolutely shocking. 

  🚨#BREAKING: Multiple agencies are on scene to a massive dairy farm explosion that took place this evening

  📌#Dimmitt | #Texas ⁰
  Currently multiple agencies and emergency crews are on scene and have confirmed with a multiple casualty incident at South Fork Dairy in Castro… pic.twitter.com/DyZyb9BiBA

  — R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 11, 2023

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

  #BREAKING #USA #TEXAS #TX

  🔴TEXAS :#VIDEO EXPLOSION AND MASSIVE FIRE AT SOUTH FORK DAIRY FARM NEAR DIMMIT,

  leaves one person in critical condition.

  18,000 cattle were killed.#BreakingNews #UltimaHora #Dimmit #SouthFork #Explosion #Fire #Incendio #Incendie
  📹by @Key2Eternity pic.twitter.com/Z8plMdZPvN

  — LoveWorld (@LoveWorld_Peopl) April 12, 2023

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

  🚨#BREAKING: Over 18,000 cows have been killed from a dairy farm explosion

  📌#Dimmitt | #Texas⁰
  Officials have confirmed that over 18,000+ dairy cows have been killed from the South Fork Dairy farm explosion that happened on Monday evening in Texas pic.twitter.com/tmYacLBMnX

  — R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 12, 2023

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

  Add this explosion to the long list of unexplainable fires at food processing plants in the past 12 months. 

  

  

  Following the dozens of fires, some Americans are raising concerns about the durability of food supply chains. Some have gone as far as ask: Is America’s food industry being sabotaged?

  Think about it, no fake meat or soy plants are mysteriously catching on fire… 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 20:00

• Trump Vows To 'Never Drop Out' Of 2024 Race, Even If Convicted
  Trump Vows To ‘Never Drop Out’ Of 2024 Race, Even If Convicted

  Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  No matter how many accusations Democrats throw at him, former President Donald Trump vows to keep campaigning for the 2024 presidential election.

  “I would never drop out. It’s not my thing. I wouldn’t do it,” Trump declared on Tuesday during his first post-indictment interview. He spoke from his home at Mar-A-Lago, Florida, with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson for over an hour.

  Trump also revealed some behind-the-scenes details of his court appearance a week ago in New York.

  Trump said court employees grew emotional as they put a former president through the machinations of criminal booking procedures for the first time in U.S. history.

  “They signed me in, and I’ll tell you: People were crying, people that work there, professional workers that have no problems putting in murderers,” Trump said.

  

  He pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal charges in a Manhattan courtroom. Trump is accused of falsifying business records in violation of state law and in furtherance of an unspecified underlying crime.

  In his interview with Carlson, the Republican former president also said that the Democrat-led prosecution is a “weaponization of our justice system.”

  Trump said it’s the latest example in a seven-year string of bogus investigations targeting him, all intended to sabotage his political endeavors.

  Trump  described the Manhattan court’s criminal charges booking area as “a tough, tough place,” but said the court employees were apologetic for having to “do certain things.”

  He called the court workers “phenomenal” and said that, even though his arraignment represented a sad day for him and for America, “in one sense, it was beautiful,” because of how the employees treated him.

  But, Trump said, in another sense, it was “nasty.” Wryly, Trump remarked that nothing in his past experience prepared him for that procedure.

  “I went to the Wharton School of Finance … We didn’t have a class on an arraignment,” he said.

  Those court employees and the American people can see through the “hoaxes” that are still being perpetrated against him, Trump said.

  During the first two years of his presidency, 2017-2019, Trump was investigated on false allegations that he conspired with Russians to sway the 2016 election in his favor.

  That investigation crippled U.S.-Russia relations, Trump told Carlson.

  ‘Disinformation’

  Trump said Democrats are “the party of disinformation.” He was responding to some Democrats asserting that if Trump is again selected as the Republican presidential nominee, President Joe Biden or another Democrat could beat him in the 2024 election.

  “So what they say is, ‘We want to run against Trump,’” when they actually would prefer not to face him as a presidential contender, Trump said. People need to know that Democrats often say the “opposite” of what they really want, he said.

  Support for Trump has seemed to increase since the FBI conducted an unprecedented raid on his Mar-A-Lago residence in August and climbed further after his indictment, Carlson acknowledged.

  And, at his recent speeches and the March 25 rally in Waco, Texas, held under a cloud of the looming indictment, support for him hasn’t waned, he said.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 19:40

• San Francisco City Hall Meeting On Crime Canceled After Vandalism Knocks Out Internet
  San Francisco City Hall Meeting On Crime Canceled After Vandalism Knocks Out Internet

  San Francisco is experiencing a surge in crime, despite leadership in the progressive-run town attempting to persuade everyone that the city is safe. The latest incident, and you can’t make this stuff up, involved vandalism of communication infrastructure near City Hall that caused a meeting to be canceled. 

  According to The San Francisco Standard, a Tuesday meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was postponed after a telecommunications box had been “completely destroyed” down the street from the San Francisco City Hall building. 

  “A fiber enclosure in an underground vault was completely destroyed, disrupting services to customers served by that portion of Comcast’s network.

  “Comcast is working quickly and diligently to restore services for customers impacted by the damage to our network,” a spokesperson for Comcast told the Standard. 

  Tech entrepreneur David Sachs tweeted about the incident, saying, “Can’t make this stuff up.” 

  San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, which claims that crime is down in the city, had to disband their meeting today because their internet connection was vandalized. Can’t make this stuff up. https://t.co/pd9q8SbcMG

  — David Sacks (@DavidSacks) April 12, 2023

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  Sacks has also called on the state of California to address the problem of random violent crime (read: here & here). 

  As crime rates continue to rise, progressives have chosen to ignore the issue. However, the situation has become so alarming that even members of the Democratic party are beginning to criticize their own party’s approach to the matter.

  State Sen. Scott Wiener tweeted this:

  Some view property crime as minor. It’s not. Garage break-ins, auto vandalism, etc., have real impacts.

  Here, property crime literally shut down the Board of Supervisors, in addition to interrupting internet for some San Franciscans (who may rely on internet for work). https://t.co/BLf8wBUOri

  — Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) April 11, 2023

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  The vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure comes amid a broader discussion of crime in the failing liberal city. On Tuesday, the Downtown Whole Foods Market announced it would soon be closing, citing concerns over out-of-control thefts. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 19:20

• Illinois Trucking Company's Sudden Shutdown Leaves Team Drivers Stranded, Unpaid
  Illinois Trucking Company’s Sudden Shutdown Leaves Team Drivers Stranded, Unpaid

  By Clarissa Hawes of FreightWaves

  Team drivers for Cromex Inc. of Villa Park, Illinois, say things were looking bleak after they were stranded in a Chicago-area hotel for three days more than 1,000 miles from home without a paycheck or a truck until a truckers outreach organization offered to pay their rental car expenses to get them home to Jacksonville, Florida. 

  On Tuesday, the team drivers were headed home thanks to a nonprofit group, Truckers Emergency Assistance Responders (TEAR), after the drivers feared being homeless in Illinois when their funds ran out.

  The father-and-son team, with a combined 24 years of driving experience under their belts, said Danijel [or Daniel] Krizanac, owner of Cromex, “ghosted” them after returning their tractor-trailer to the carrier’s yard on Friday, as they waited for a different truck to drive, which never arrived. 

  Neither did their paychecks, which amounted to about $3,000 for two weeks’ pay and reimbursement for the hotel they booked to wait for their new truck to be out of the shop. 

  “It was all empty promises,” said the younger trucker, who asked to be identified by his Twitter handle @RunnTDC or by SuperHussle. “I thought we were friends but now he’s in the wind and he’s not going to respond to me anymore. He’s blocked all of our numbers.”

  His dad did not want to be named or interviewed for the article for fear of retaliation. 

  Co. drivers paid as 1099 contractors

  At one point, SuperHussle, who said the pair operated as company drivers but were paid as 1099 contractors, asked Krizanac if they could move personal items they cleared out of their other truck, check out of the hotel and stay in the new truck until it was finished amid dwindling funds. 

  Krizanac’s response back to the drivers was: “Company is bankrupt and closed, bro. Trucks went back to [the] bank,” according to one of the text messages shared with FreightWaves.

  As of publication on Wednesday, FreightWaves was unable to confirm that Cromex Inc. had filed for bankruptcy. 

  Cromex listed 15 power units and 16 drivers when it updated its MCS-150 form in October 2022, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SAFER website. 

  However, one of the drivers said that number had dropped to around five trucks in the months leading up to the closure.

  Over the past 24 months, Cromex’s trucks had been inspected 20 times, and six had been placed out of service for a 30% out-of-service rate. That is higher than the industry’s national average of around 22%, according to FMCSA data.

  The company’s drivers had been inspected 43 times and three were placed out of service, resulting in a 7% out-of-service rate. The national average for drivers is about 6.6%.

  The firm’s trucks have been involved in three crashes, including one with injuries and two towaways over the past 24 months.  

  The father-and-son team has driven for Cromex twice — once for six months and the second time for almost a year. 

  “The first time we left after six months was because the truck was in the shop more than it was on the road and we barely made any money,” SuperHussle said. “We came back to Cromex when the company we moved to started to not make money or pay on time.”

  When asked when he and his dad would be paid and why he gave up the truck, Krizanac responded, “Because I lose money running your a** on a truck [with] payment.”

  He also texted the drivers, “You won’t get sh** now and find a new job.”

  Daniel Krizanac and his wife, Ervina Krizanac, failed to respond to FreightWaves’ messages seeking comment.

  As Cromex closes, new company opens

  According to Illinois secretary of state business filings, Cromex Inc. was incorporated by Danijel Krizanac in April 2017 but isn’t in good standing after failing to file an annual report.

  Illinois business filings state that Ervina Krizanac recently opened a trucking company called Boscro Cargo in Evanston, Illinois, with its operating authority being reinstated on March 31. According to FMCSA data, Boscro is using the same DOT and motor carrier numbers as another company she owns, Royal Queen Trans Inc., which had its operating authority revoked in March 2018. 

  Before his number was blocked, SuperHussle said he sent a final plea to the company owner to pay him and his dad because they didn’t have the funds to make it back home.

  Daniel Krizanac’s response was to “figure it out and start making calls for a new job,” SuperHussle said.

  “Since the market went into the tank, he can’t pay us on time, if at all, and now he just lured us up here under false pretenses to dump us in the street, literally,” SuperHussle said.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 19:00

• All Eyes On Ukraine-Related Talk As Lula Arrives In China, But Trade To Dominate
  All Eyes On Ukraine-Related Talk As Lula Arrives In China, But Trade To Dominate

  Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has arrived in China Wednesday where he’s expected to meet with President Xi Jinping and join Beijing’s to push for peace in Ukraine, which Washington officials have dismissed as an insincere and empty ploy (that is, Xi’s 12-point peace plan), given Russia and China’s political closeness of late.

  Brazil is China’s biggest trading partner, thus it could prove Lula’s most consequential foreign trip of his presidency. The two leaders are expected to sign at least 20 bilateral agreements during Lula’s two-day stay – a trip that will also be watched closely in the West.

  NOW – Brazil’s Lula da Silva arrives in China.pic.twitter.com/xQqgcGW2LK

  — Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) April 12, 2023

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  “Lula wants Brazil, China and other nations to help mediate the war as part of his nation’s return to the world stage, but his proposals to end the conflict have irked Ukraine and some in the West,” AP observes. “Less controversial is the Brazilian and Chinese mutual interest in trade after a rocky period under Lula’s predecessor.”

  “I want the Chinese to understand that their investment here will be wonderfully welcome, but not to buy our companies. To build new things, which we need,” Lula told Brazilian journalists days ahead of the trip. Brazil each year ships tens of billions of dollars worth of soybeans, poultry, sugar cane, beef, iron ore, pulp, cotton and crude oil to China.

  But more closely watched on a global level will be any statement put out related to the war in Ukraine, given that both China and Brazil alongside Russia are BRICS members, aimed at pushing back against the U.S.-dominated system of how global affairs are managed.

  But there are signs that Ukraine won’t be center state during talks, as CNN quotes one regional analyst to say…

  While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dominated much diplomatic conversation in Europe and in Washington, Lula’s official schedule doesn’t mention it, despite previous vows to discuss peacemaking strategies with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

  “From what I heard, removing Ukraine from the list of things that they’re going to discuss was a demand from the Chinese government,” says Igor Patrick, a research scholar at the Kissinger Institute on China at the Wilson Centre.

  “There’s still some interest from the Brazilian part to raise the issue and to discuss ideas, and they hope to release a joint statement where they mention the Ukrainian conflict, calls for a peaceful solution and mediated diplomatically, but it’s not officially on the program and to a large extent that was expectable,” Patrick told CNN.

  NYT: Brazil, under Lula, still refuses to provide arms to Ukraine, causing big problems for Kiev as Western arms dry up.

  Lula’s 2 key points: 1) our war is to improve our citizens’ lives, not with Russia; 2) we want to facilitate peace, not fuel war:https://t.co/PDqWASsLpT

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 12, 2023

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  Brazil is among BRICS countries that while friendly to the US has refused to bow to Washington pressure to provide arms or defensive aid to Ukraine.

  Lula’s plane touched down in Shanghai Wednesday night, with the state visit slated to run to April 15.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 18:40

• Peter Schiff: The World Is Starting To Divest Itself Of The Dollar
  Peter Schiff: The World Is Starting To Divest Itself Of The Dollar

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  In a surprise move earlier this month, OPEC announced further oil production cuts of about 1.16 million barrels per day. Analysts projected the cuts could raise the price of oil by $10 per barrel. Peter Schiff recently appeared on NewsMax’s Wake Up America and explained why these production cuts will further complicate the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight price inflation, and more broadly, how global moves like this and others undermine the dollar.

  

  Peter called the production cuts “a very big deal” and said it is clearly complicating efforts to bring down price inflation — especially given the fact that we’re in the midst of another financial crisis.

  Not only is the supply of oil going to come down, but the supply of money – US dollars – used to buy oil is going up. The Fed has already gone back to quantitative easing to bail out the banks. So, we’re printing more money, but we’re not producing as much oil.”

  Compounding the problem is the fact that the world is starting to divest itself from US dollars.

  That will put more downward pressure on the value of the dollar, which of course will put more upward pressure on the price of oil.”

  Wake Up America host Carl Higbie noted that President Trump made energy independence a priority. Peter said it’s not just energy independence that is necessary.

  We need to be able to produce everything. We’re dependent on the rest of the world for everything that we consume because we no longer have the industrial capacity that we once enjoyed because of the policies that have been pursued for decades. We have too much regulation. We have too high taxes and too much government spending, and so we’re not producing what Americans consume. We rely on the rest of the world.”

  Peter pointed out that the only way the US can rely on the world as it does is because the dollar is the reserve currency.

  We may lose that privilege over the next several years, maybe even over the next few months. Who knows?”

  The BRICS nations recently announced plans for a new currency. Higbie asked what impact that could have even if it only usurps a small percentage of global trade in dollars. Peter said he thinks it would hurt “substantially.”

  And once they start moving in that direction, the pendulum is going to continue to swing. There are all sorts of reasons why the world should want to divest of dollars and no longer depend on the US dollar as a reserve currency, but we gave them another one. The Biden administration in slapping those economic sanctions on Russia really highlighted how dangerous it is to allow the United States to enjoy this privilege. And so, we have scared the world into divesting of dollars, something they should have done anyway because it was in their economic interest to do so.”

  Peter emphasized that the dollar’s role as the world currency is a huge privilege for the US that the rest of the world pays for.

  It enables Americans to live beyond our means. We’re able to consume all kinds of stuff that we did not produce. And the only reason we could do that is because we could print money that costs us nothing and our trading partners will accept that instead of actual goods. If we lose that privilege, our standard of living is going to implode.”

  Higbie asked Peter what he would tell Joe Biden to do if he had 30 seconds with the president.

  Well, he needs to resign. But he also needs to take Kamala Harris with him. But what we need is free market capitalism. We don’t need more government solutions to government-created problems. Government has to get out of the way so free market capitalism can clean up the mess government created.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 18:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Australian And UK Politicians Call On The US To Drop Julian Assange’s Extradition
  Australian And UK Politicians Call On The US To Drop Julian Assange’s Extradition

  Authored by Rebecca Zhu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Politicians from Australia and the UK, from all political leanings, have asked U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland to end all extradition attempts for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

  In an open letter, 48 Australian parliamentarians from the government, opposition, and crossbench said extradition would set a “dangerous precedent” for freedom of the press and be “needlessly damaging” for the United States as a world leader in freedom of expression.

  “If the extradition request is approved, Australians will witness the deportation of one of our citizens from one AUKUS partner to another—our closest strategic ally—with Mr Assange facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison,” the letter reads.

  The MPs and senators noted that Assange has been “effectively incarcerated” for over a decade, while the person who leaked the classified information, Chelsea Manning, has “been able to participate in American society since 2017.”

  “A clear majority of Australians consider that this matter has gone on for far too long and must be brought to a close,” the letter says.

  “We implore you to drop the extradition proceedings and allow Mr Assange to return home.”

  Assange’s father, John Shipton, previously said that his son’s incarceration was “excoriating and scarring” for him and his family.

  “After 14 years, you no longer use the term hope,” he said in March.

  But he was heartened at the growing support for his release from across the political spectrum.

  “The incoming tide is now turning into a tsunami of support,” he said.

  “You don’t need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind’s blowing.”

  Similarly, 35 UK MPs and Lords from six parties have written to Garland requesting that the attorney general uphold the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and drop the extradition proceedings to allow Assange to return to Australia.

  “This April 11 marks the fourth anniversary of Mr Assange, an award-winning journalist and publisher, being detained in His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in London, where he awaits a decision on extradition to the United States of America,” the letter says.

  The parliamentarians said extradition to the United States would have a “chilling impact” on journalism and set a dangerous precedent for other journalists and media organisations.

  Assange, an Australian citizen, is wanted by the United States on 18 criminal charges of breaking an espionage law and conspiring to hack government computers after WikiLeaks published a U.S. military video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed multiple civilians, including two Reuters news staff. He faces up to 175 years behind bars if convicted.

  Dragged On For Too Long

  Greg Barns, the spokesperson for the Australian Assange Campaign, told the AAP that legislators from around the world were eager for the case’s conclusion.

  It was especially critical for Washington to understand the level of support for Assange among Australian MPs for the extradition proceedings to an end.

  “There has been bipartisan support for a long period of time, but what this letter says in print is the extent of that diversity,” Barns said.

  “That is a reflection of the Australian community [because] a lot of people think no matter what Assange has done, enough is enough.”

  He noted that he was unaware of anyone else subject to “inhumane” conditions while yet to be formally charged with a criminal offence.

  Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said Assange’s release was not an issue the Australian government could resolve.

  “We have, at the prime minister’s level and at foreign minister level, been very clear in our views that this matter has dragged on too long and it should be brought to a close,” she told the Senate on March 30.

  “But I again make the point that there is a legal process that is in accordance with the tradition of the separation of powers, which I regard as an important part of democracy.

  “We are doing what we can between government and government, but there are limits to what that diplomacy can achieve.”

  In 2022, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament that it was “time that this matter be brought to a close.”

  “The government will continue to act in a diplomatic way, but can I assure [you] that I have raised this personally with representatives of the United States government,” he said.

  “I don’t have sympathy for Mr Assange’s actions, on a whole range of matters. But, having said that, you have to reach a point whereby what is the point of this continuing, this legal action, which could be caught up now for many years into the future?

  “So I will continue to advocate, as I did recently in meetings that I have held.”

  Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 01:45

• Top Swedish Pension Fund Fires CEO After Big Losses On US Banks
  Top Swedish Pension Fund Fires CEO After Big Losses On US Banks

  Sweden’s largest pension fund fired its Chief Executive Officer on Tuesday after a bad bet on US banks led to billions of dollars in losses, reported Bloomberg. 

  Alecta, which has $115 billion of assets under management and oversees the savings of 2.6 million Swedes, published a statement on Tuesday that the board decided CEO Magnus Billing would leave immediately to “restore trust” after his investment strategy “seriously damaged confidence.” 

  

  Deputy CEO Katarina Thorslund has been appointed acting CEO, and the Swedish fund has started the process of finding a new leader. 

  The firing of Billing comes as the pension had “investments in three American niche banks led to large losses,” the fund said. It had large positions in Silicon Valley Bank parent SVB Financial Group, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank. As a result of the bank failures, it lost SKr19.6bn ($1.9bn), or about 2% of its capital. 

  “No other pension fund had bet on the three niche US banks to the extent that Alecta had,” Bloomberg pointed out. 

  Last week, the fund’s head of equity portfolio management, Liselott Ledin, was placed on leave. Alecta said it would reduce stakes in companies “far away from home.” 

  

  Chairman Ingrid Bonde called Ledin’s overseas investment strategies “unusually inept.” Sweden’s financial regulator is looking into the losses. 

  Billing has admitted the investment in the US banks was a “big failure,” but he’s responded to critics by saying the losses were only 2% of the fund’s capital. However, the Swedish National Pensioners’ Organization wasn’t happy with his comments, saying the money is “people’s wages,” implying that every loss ought to be treated with seriousness. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/12/2023 – 01:00

• Spilling American Blood & Treasure For Semiconductor Chips
  Spilling American Blood & Treasure For Semiconductor Chips

  The below is an incredibly revealing interview clip featuring Republican Representative from Texas Michael McCaul. In the exchange with Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, McCaul bluntly states (or perhaps inadvertently admits) that he’s willing to go to war with China over Taiwan based on protecting the world’s semiconductor supply. Importantly, he is the powerful chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

  “Make the basic case for why Americans not only should care about what happens in Taiwan, but should be willing to spill American blood and treasure to defend Taiwan,” Todd asked at the outset of the interview. Rep. McCaul responded immediately that “no one wants that” and this it’s about “deterrence”.

  But then he did get to directly addressing the question, and he began by emphasizing that “About 50 percent of international trade goes through the international straits, but I think more importantly, Chuck, is that [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] manufactures 90 percent of the global supply of advanced semiconductor chips. If China invades and either owns or breaks this, we’re in a world of hurt globally.” So he fundamentally responded to a question over whether the US “should be willing to spill blood and treasure” by stressing that it’s about protecting semiconductor chips.

  Chuck Todd: Make the case for why Americans should be willing to go to war over Taiwan
  Michael McCaul: Well it’s about controlling semiconductors
  Todd: So kind of like fighting wars for oil?
  McCaul: Uhh, well actually it’s about protecting democracy and freedom pic.twitter.com/CLcPDRyx3T

  — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 10, 2023

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  Todd then points out that McCaul essentially just said that American troops should go fight and die merely to protect industrial resources, questioning, “Congressman it almost sounds like the case that would be made in the 60s, 70s, and 80s of why America was spending so much money and military resources in the Middle East.”

  “Oil was so important for the economy. Is this sort of the 21st century version of that?” Todd posed. McCaul then hesitantly changed his response, saying it’s more about “protecting democracy and freedom”. 

  McCaul was being challenged on comments he recently made about US troops being on the table in order to stand up to China…

  

  We should note that it’s very likely that the majority of Americans might have trouble finding Taiwan on a map, and after two decades of ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East, and now at the moment of many tens of billions of taxpayer dollars being handed over to Ukraine, opening up a new conflict “front” with China over Taiwan would be deeply unpopular, to say the least.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 23:45

• Boston FBI Raids Wrong Hotel Room, Detains And Interrogates Innocent Man For 45 Minutes
  Boston FBI Raids Wrong Hotel Room, Detains And Interrogates Innocent Man For 45 Minutes

  Few FBI blunders of late likely compare to what just happened in Boston last week, when Federal Agents on a training mission wound up barging into the wrong hotel room and inadvertently interrogating an innocent hotel guest who was sleeping for nearly 45 minutes.

  The bizarre mistake, outlined by NPR last week, occurred during a training exercise at a Boston hotel.

  An innocent guest was sleeping at his room at the Revere Hotel when Federal Agents began banging on his door “and demanding to be let in”, the report says. Agents then handcuffed the innocent man, isolated him in the shower and interrogated him for more than 45 minutes before ever realizing they had made a mistake. 

  Lt. Col. Mike Burns, spokesperson for U.S. Army Special Operations Command, commented on the blunder: “First and foremost, we’d like to extend our deepest apologies to the individual who was affected by the training exercise.”

  

  The U.S. Army Special Operations Command was in tow with the FBI conducting “essential military training”. Burns continued: “The training was meant to enhance soldiers’ skills to operate in realistic and unfamiliar environments. The training team, unfortunately, entered the wrong room and detained an individual unaffiliated with the exercise.”

  The FBI-Boston Division said they were “mistakenly sent” to the wrong room “based on inaccurate information”, NPR wrote. The man in the hotel room was in his 30s and was an employee of Delta Air Lines. 

  Boston Police were eventually called to the building and officers confirmed it was a training exercise that had gone wrong. 

  Delta said it was looking into “reports of an alleged incident in Boston that may involve Delta people.” They added: “We have nothing further to share at this time other than to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of our people.”

  “The safety of civilians in [the] vicinity of our training is always our number one concern,” Burns continued. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 23:00

• Whole Foods' Flagship San Francisco Store Closing Due To "High Theft" And "Hostile Visitors"
  Whole Foods’ Flagship San Francisco Store Closing Due To “High Theft” And “Hostile Visitors”

  Adding to the ever-growing list of retail stores panic exiting Downtown San Francisco is one of the largest supermarkets, the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market Streets. A combination of soaring retail theft, out-of-control violent crime, and lawless streets are some of the reasons for its closure.

  “We are closing our Trinity location only for the time being. 

  “If we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members in the store, we will evaluate a reopening of our Trinity location,” a Whole Foods spokesperson told The San Francisco Standard in a statement.  

  A city government insider told The Standard that Whole Foods’ decision to close up shop at the Trinity location was entirely based on “deteriorating street conditions around drug use and crime near the grocery store.” 

  The beleaguered grocery store on Market Street slashed its operating hours due to “high theft” and hostile visitors in October of last year, according to one of the store’s managers. And in November, the store enforced new bathroom rules after syringes and pipes were found in the restroom. — The Standard.

  There’s no one else to blame but San Francisco’s progressive leaders, who have turned a blind eye to crime and championed criminal justice reform. Due to these unsuccessful policies, the downtown district’s streets have become unsafe, and some streets almost resemble third-world countries. 

  

  Whole Foods is one of many businesses shuttering retail outlets in the struggling progressive city. Walgreens Pharmacy has been one of the most high-profile names, closing at least 17 stores, if not more, due to a significant rise in retail theft. 

  Some San Franciscans have had enough of failed city leadership. Last year, residents voted Soros-Backed Uber-Progressive Chesa Boudin out of office. 

  And the reality of hard-left governance is only hurting the everyday law-abiding San Franciscans who have no means to defend themselves against criminals and now have to travel even more distance to other retail stores because ones in their neighborhood are closing up shop. 

  Maybe with Boudin out, San Franciscans are finally learning the ‘liberal utopia’ isn’t any utopia but a hellhole, equivalent to Baltimore or Detroit. 

   

   

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 22:30

• The Chicago Teachers Union Now Runs The Mayor’s Office
  The Chicago Teachers Union Now Runs The Mayor’s Office

  Authored by Matt Paprocki via RealClear Wire,

  

  Socialism hasn’t always been mainstream. It started off as radical: too hot to touch. So in 2010, radical new leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union started slowly.

  “Convincing our members to wear a red T-shirt on Friday was a task,” said Brandon Johnson, who on April 4 became mayor-elect in Chicago. He was speaking at the Socialism 2013 conference about his push to normalize radical progressive politics among rank-and-file Chicago teachers. “Took us a year to convince [Chicago Teachers Union] members that it’s OK to associate yourself with labor. The baby Socialists would just wear the buttons, right? You gotta start them off gently. And so eventually, they started putting on red T-shirts.”

  Those red shirts flooded the city of Chicago in 2012, as teachers union members packed city trains, crowded city streets, and abandoned city schools during one of the most militant and contentious teacher strikes in the city’s history. 

  The red shirts have become a constant symbol of CTU’s growing power. Since the 2012 strike, CTU has only grown stronger under the watchful eyes of uber-progressive leaders such as Karen Lewis, Jackson Potter, Jesse Sharkey, and current CTU president Stacey Davis Gates.

  CTU leadership’s brand of union politics has little to do with students and teacher representation and more to do with an expansive political agenda that includes defunding the police, hiking taxes (on “the rich,” broadly), and pumping more city resources into the Chicago Public Schools system, where classroom spending is way up and student outcomes way down since the Caucus of Rank and File Educators rose to power.

  Since 2010, CTU has drawn the blueprint for how to seize control over America’s largest cities. The union runs the schools, holding as hostage Chicago kids and families whenever union bosses are unhappy with management. They also donate to the bulk of the Chicago City Council, having contributed financially to 34 of Chicago’s 50 current aldermen.

  But their reach expands beyond the city to politicians in the Illinois statehouse. In total, CTU since 2010 has spent at least $19 million on politics in Illinois, including over $2.5 million to Illinois Senate and House candidates.

  Even Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker likes to cater to the CTU, passing a law that gave the union more leverage in contract negotiations and more opportunities to go on strike. By contrast, eight of the nation’s 10 largest school districts prohibit teacher strikes.

  The consequences of increased CTU power and the ideology they’ve pushed on Chicago are clear. 

  There have been five work stoppages – in 2012, 2016, 2019, 2021, and 2022 – since CORE took over. The city has increased spending by 55% since then, but nearly 80% of Chicago 11th graders could not read or perform math at grade level, according to state data from 2022. Meanwhile, nearly half of CPS students are chronically absent. Nearly 90,000 students have left the district since 2010, and nearly one-third of CPS schools are half full.

  With results like that, the union still clamors for more power. And they take out anyone who stands in their way. After beloved CPS teacher Joe Ocol refused to walk out on his students during the 2016 teacher strike, he was kicked out of CTU and asked to give up his pay.

  Ifeoma Nkemdi refused to leave the classroom during the 2019 walkout, too. She said union members vulgarly threatened and harassed her, surrounding her in the parking lot as she crossed the picket line. 

  “Students need to be in the classroom,” Nkemdi said. “We can negotiate while teaching.”

  The political ambition of union leadership has gotten so out of hand that a handful of teachers have taken the brave step of suing their union, filing an unfair labor practice claim because the union won’t stop violating its own rules by taking member dues and funneling them into political spending – namely, Johnson’s mayoral campaign.

  Chicagoans started to catch on to CTU’s political ambitions and corruption as the election cycle played out, with CTU favorables dropping precipitously from +17 to +2 during election season. Parents already knew how bad CTU’s influence could be – 52% of Chicago parents polled just weeks before the election said CTU had too much power over city government. Unfortunately, it was too late to stop CTU from seizing the mayor’s office.

  So what now? Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, invested heavily in Johnson after an embarrassing loss in the Virginia gubernatorial election. She spent time stumping for the CTU’s candidate ahead of Election Day.

  Why? She smells opportunity to replicate teachers union efforts to win major political offices in other cities. What union boss wouldn’t want to sit across from one of their own at the bargaining table? Winning the mayor’s office in Chicago is the perfect way to cut out the middleman. The Chicago election made one thing very clear: Teachers union leadership is more political than ever, and their focus has shifted from kids and teachers to gathering power.

  Chicago is the first city to hold major mayoral elections in 2023. Others will follow later this year, including Houston and Philadelphia.

  “From Philly to Chicago, a movement of educators fought against decades of austerity, anti-teacher, school closing policies and now we are remaking our cities,” tweeted Philadelphia mayoral candidate Helen Gym, a former teacher turned social justice movement leader, after Johnson declared victory. Like Johnson, she has the backing of her city’s local AFT union affiliate. “Joyful for Chicago. We got next Philly!”

  Voters in those cities should keep an eye on Weingarten’s travel itinerary. They may be next.

  Matt Paprocki is president and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute, a free market think tank based in Chicago.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 22:00

• Salmonella: From Drug Resistant To Extensively Drug-Resistant (XDR)
  Salmonella: From Drug Resistant To Extensively Drug-Resistant (XDR)

  Authored by Dr. Sean Lin and Jacky Guan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Salmonella is perhaps the most common cause of food poisoning. It has the advantage of being able to infect a wide range of hosts and survive in habitats ranging from animal fur to lettuce leaves. However, a rising trend of drug-resistant Salmonella cases (pdf), as indicated in a review published in the journal Foods, points to the need for improved detection and prevention methods.

  Salmonella Essentials

  As a key cause of diarrheal diseases and the cause of typhoid fever, Salmonella strains are responsible for causing 1.2 million illnesses annually. First and foremost, the gram-negative bacteria are known for causing stomach pains and diarrhea when a person eats something that has “gone bad.” Salmonella has about 2,500 variants and is responsible for the hospitalization of more than 25,000 people, as well as the deaths of over 400 each year in the United States alone.

  

  Aside from stomach cramps and diarrhea, Salmonella infection can cause fever, nausea, vomiting, and a rather formidable headache. In addition, an infection caused by Salmonella Typhi could lead to typhoid fever. Along with the other aforementioned symptoms, typhoid fever leads to a skin rash and muscle weakness, and a fever as high as 103 to 104 F (39 to 40 C).

  Salmonella bacteria are especially difficult to address due to the wide range of hosts and environments in which they can survive. They are nearly ubiquitous as they can live within birds, reptiles, amphibians, and most household pets. Aside from that, they can survive in frozen, fresh, and even processed goods, which is why you hear about Salmonella outbreaks popping up here and there in everything from salami sticks to “raw frozen breaded stuffed chicken products.”

  

  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recorded a long list of Salmonella outbreaks starting from 2006. Usually, symptoms begin to appear six hours to six days after infection and last anywhere from four days to a week. However, people may also experience a lengthy period of symptoms that extends across many weeks, or no symptoms at all.

  Salmonella diagnosis is usually performed in a laboratory and requires individual samples of blood, body tissue, or fluids. The diagnosis might take anywhere between one and five days, depending on the samples.

  Salmonella treatment is usually supportive rather than targeted because, most of the time, drugs actually don’t help much. Fluid restoration is crucial as diarrhea caused by the disease tends to dehydrate the body. Plenty of rest is also highly recommended.

  Antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin, azithromycin, and ceftriaxone are sometimes needed to treat patients with severe Salmonella infections. However, Salmonella infections with drug-resistant strains can be severer and have higher hospitalization rates.

  Multidrug-Resistant Salmonella: What Do We Do?

  The rise of drug-resistant strains of Salmonella is also part of the reason why Salmonella treatment is usually only supportive. The doctor can prescribe you anti-diarrhea medicine or antibiotics, but you’ll run some risks while taking those drugs. For one, diarrhea medication might prolong the duration of symptoms while the infection runs its course. Antibiotics aren’t usually recommended either, as they may be unnecessary and cause more harm than positive results.

  Salmonella usually infect the intestines and usually won’t land in the bloodstream. Antibiotics, on the other hand, are usually for treating diseases that infect the bloodstream, which means that there essentially is no point in taking them in the first place. Additionally, excessive use of antibiotics has led to an increase in drug-resistant Salmonella.

  

  At least 100,000 infections in the United States alone are due to antibiotic-resistant Salmonella, including strains that are resistant to ceftriaxone and ciprofloxacin, according to the Foods review. There have also been Salmonella outbreaks that involved strains resistant to multiple antibiotics, including ampicillin, streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, and tetracycline.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 21:00

• Liftoff Imminent: China Injects Record Credit To Kickstart Economy
  Liftoff Imminent: China Injects Record Credit To Kickstart Economy

  One would think that judging by last night’s weaker than expected CPI print (which the Fed would kill for), China is done flooding its economy with loans and various shadow debt instruments. One would be wrong.

  First things first, on Tuesday China Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that March CPI fell to +0.7% yoy (vs. +1.0% consensus estimate and 1.0% in February ) and the lowest monthly increase since Sept 2021 due to a high base.

  • Food CPI: +2.4% yoy in March (+5.1% mom annualized*) vs. +2.6% yoy in February, primarily due to a high base of vegetable prices from cold weather and Covid restrictions last year. Inflation in fresh vegetables fell to -11.1% yoy in March from -3.8% yoy in February, while inflation in pork prices rose to +9.6% yoy in March from +3.9% yoy in February.
  • Non-food CPI: +0.3% yoy in March (+7.6% mom annualized*) vs. +0.6% yoy in February on falling crude oil prices and automobile price cuts. Specifically, fuel cost inflation fell to -6.4% yoy in March (vs. +0.5% yoy in February). Inflation in transportation equipment fell to -3.3% yoy in March (vs. -1.8% in February).

  Core CPI inflation (headline CPI excluding food and energy) edged up to +0.7% yoy in March (vs. +0.6% in February), and inflation in services rose to +0.8% yoy in March (vs. +0.6% in February).

  At the same time, PPI inflation fell to -2.5% Y/Y in March from -1.4% yoy in February, in line with consensus, and the lowest since June 2020 primarily on a high base of commodity prices. PPI inflation in producer goods fell to -3.4% yoy in March from -2.0% yoy in February, and PPI inflation in consumer goods edged down to +0.9% yoy in March (vs. +1.1% yoy in February). NBS commented that improved demand and accelerated infrastructure projects drove up PPIs of cement and steel sectors sequentially, but year-over-year PPI inflation fell due to a high base last year.

  

  As Goldman summarizes, the data have continued to surprise to the downside and companies appear to be reluctant to raise prices (in order to stay competitive), and so the bank has revised down its full-year 2023 forecasts of headline CPI and PPI inflation to 1.8% yoy and -1.0% yoy, respectively vs. 2.2% and -0.5% previously. Looking ahead, the bank expects headline CPI inflation in year-over-year terms to accelerate modestly in the coming months on an economic rebound, though it should remain well below the PBOC’s 3% target. PPI deflation may continue in the coming months.

  Ok so if both CPI and PPI missed and continued to slide, that’s hardly the sign of an economy that is about to rebound, or one that is seeing an active credit stimulus. Maybe, but it’s not for lack of trying because as China also reported overnight in March loans and Total Social Financing data came in well above expectations, a sign that the central bank’s moves to unleash more long-term liquidity into the economy and support bank lending is rapidly fueling investment activity.

  Specifically, total RMB loans surprised the market to the upside mainly on stronger medium to long term loans – both households’ medium to long term new borrowing (mostly mortgages) and corporates’ medium to long term new borrowing improved in March. In contrast, bill financing and households’ short-term loan growth slowed in March vs February.

  Here are the main numbers reported by the PBOC:

  • New CNY loans 3890bn yuan in March vs. Bloomberg consensus: RMB 3300 bn
    • Outstanding CNY loan growth: 11.8% yoy in March up from 11.6% yoy in February
  • Total social financing (TSF) 5,387bn yuan in March, vs. consensus 4565bn yuan. This was a record high TSF injection for the month of March
    • TSF stock growth: 10.0% yoy in March, vs. 9.9% in February. The implied month-on-month growth of TSF stock: 14.4% in March vs. 17.8% in February.
  • M2: 12.7% yoy in March vs. Bloomberg consensus: 12.7% yoy and down from February’s 12.9% yoy.

  

  New corporate mid and long-term loans — an indicator of their willingness to invest in new projects and capacities — jumped from a year ago. Government bond issuance remained robust, as local authorities have announced plans to raise spending on major construction projects by 17% this year.

  While credit growth usually picks up at the end of each quarter as banks rush to meet lending targets. But lending and financing activities were also stronger than expected in the first two months of this year, as government bond issuance surged and corporate credit demand began to recover following the abandonment of Covid restrictions.

  This composition of loan data suggests further improvement in credit demand in the month, although news reports suggested some signs of financial re-leveraging amid falling loan interest rates. Total social financing month-over-month annualized growth slowed from the very fast pace in February, mainly on the back of lower corporate and government bond issuance. M2 month-over-month growth accelerated in March on the back of strong credit data.

  As noted above, in a sign of recovering housing demand across the country, new household mid- and long-term loans, a proxy for mortgages, picked up strongly to the highest level since January 2022.

  

  That’s right, China is quietly reflating the world’s biggest asset class bubble.

  

  While this continuous injection of massive amounts of credit into the economy has failed to manifest itself in faster growth and higher prices so far, it’s only a matter of time now: after all, it is now clear that Beijing wants a full-blown economic liftoff and it is willing to risk reflating another credit bubble to get there. 

  Indeed, the PBOC has stepped up cash injections to help banks cope with tighter liquidity. It unleashed 500 billion yuan of long-term cash into the banking system by cutting the reserve requirement ratio last month, according to estimates by Bloomberg Economics. The central bank also added the most cash in over two years through its monthly medium-term loans operation in March.

  “If the trend in credit growth extends into April and May, it would translate into significant support for the economy’s recovery through investment financing,” said Raymond Yeung, chief economist for Greater China at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group, quoted by Bloomberg.

  “The figures show firms are making greater use of the government’s loan supports. They also show a recovery in household demand for mortgages — another sign that the property market slump is starting to ease. We see credit growth continuing to climb in 2Q, albeit gradually, supported by a looser policy stance and a broader recovery in demand” said Bloomberg economist Eric Zhu.

  As if RRR cuts and injecting record loans into the economy was not enough, some economists, including Bloomberg Economics’ David Qu, forecast continue easing by Beijing and forecast a cut in the policy interest rate in the second quarter. Policy easing expectations continued to grow Tuesday after authorities reported weak inflation data, with bonds rallying as the yield on 10-year government notes booked the biggest one-day drop since the middle of December.

  Bottom line: the 2008 deja vu meter just went off the charts, because while the US is about to sink into a recession with commercial real estate set to fall all off a cliff, it is once again China that is – willingly or otherwise – set to serve as the world’s growth dynamo at a time when the entire developed world is about to max out at the same time. This is precisely what happened in 2008 when China unleashed the biggest credit expansion in modern history, sparking not only historic growth spree but also an exponential debt increase that sent China’s debt to over 300% of GDP.

  What happens next? Keep an eye on China’s credit impulse – this most leading indicator of the global reflationary cycle – which is about to rise above its two year highs after which it will again be on its way to new all time highs.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 20:40

• Online Grocery Prices Up 10.3 Percent In March As Inflation Continues To Bite
  Online Grocery Prices Up 10.3 Percent In March As Inflation Continues To Bite

  Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Online grocery prices continued to rise by double-digits in March, as inflation continues to bite.

  Although online grocery prices have eased over the past six months, costs were up 10.3 percent in March from the previous year, according to the Adobe Digital Price Index on April 10.

  Adobe analyzed 1 trillion visits to retail sites and more than 100 million items across 18 product categories to track price changes.

  There was a 0.4 percent rise in the growth of food prices from February, which had been slowing since their height last September, when they hit a record 14.3 percent year-over-year increase.

  Online grocery prices closely follow the food category in the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index (CPI).

  Hit With Persistent Inflation

  Online food prices are expected to grow more slowly in 2023 compared to the previous year, but still above historical averages, according to Adobe.

  The March CPI report projected that food prices would increase by 7.5 percent in 2023, particularly for nine additional food categories, which have experienced consistent growth since last year.

  The category expected to see the largest surge in prices is eggs, which saw an estimated rise of 29.6 percent, after taking into consideration the volatility of the industry.

  Costs are expected to rise for poultry by 3.4 percent, dairy products by 6.4 percent, fats and oils by 15.4 percent, processed fruits and vegetables by 11.4 percent, sugar based products by 11.1 percent, cereals and bakery products by 11.7 percent, nonalcoholic beverages by 10.7 percent, and other foods by 8.5 percent.

  Meanwhile, beef and veal prices are predicted to decrease by 1.0 percent in 2023, while pork prices would fall by 0.8 percent.

  Fresh fruit and vegetable prices are projected to see continuous growth by the end of the year, with fruit to grow by 0.6 percent and vegetables by 1.3 percent.

  Despite persistent inflation, customers are still buying groceries online, with Adobe reporting last month the biggest jump in sales for that category last year, with spending rising by 10.8 percent, to $86.8 billion.

  A separate report by Coresight Research on April 9, also said that despite inflation, online grocery sales are continuing to grow, despite a slowdown in expansion.

  It notes that the COVID-19 pandemic made consumers more habitually used to shopping online for non-food grocery categories “to a greater extent” than food.

  Coresight cited research revealing that grocery inflation boosted foot traffic at discount grocery stores such as Aldi and at large warehouse sized retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Costco.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 20:20

• Blackstone Raises $30 Billion For "Largest Ever" Real Estate Drawdown Fund To Capitalize On Commercial Real Estate Crisis
  Blackstone Raises $30 Billion For “Largest Ever” Real Estate Drawdown Fund To Capitalize On Commercial Real Estate Crisis

  Blackstone may have blocked investor redemptions from its REIT fund for the fourth month in a row, but that does not mean the CRE giant and world’s largest commercial landlord is sitting on its hands as the CRE crisis goes from bad to worse.

  On Tuesday, Blackstone announced it had raised $30.4 billion for its latest global real estate fund – the largest private equity drawdown fund ever raised – targeting opportunistic deals across sectors such as rental housing, hospitality and data centers as the private equity behemoth looks to double down on the industry. The fund, called Blackstone Real Estate Partners X, is 48% bigger than the asset management giant’s previous real estate fund which closed in 2019, and is the largest of that type, according to PitchBook data going back to 2002.

  Ken Caplan, Global Co-Head of Blackstone Real Estate, said, “We believe the current market is tailor-made for Blackstone Real Estate. We have made some of our best investments in periods characterized by the market volatility and dislocation we see today. Furthermore, sector selection has never been more critical as we witness the bifurcation of performance within real estate, which is favoring our high-conviction themes.” There was no mention of the ongoing redemption halt at the company’s massive BREIT fund.

  “Pullback with all forms of capital will create opportunities,” said Kathleen McCarthy, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate. “We can use our capital and expertise to capitalize on the moment for our investors.”

  In other words, even as existing Blackstone investments are deeply underwater, the PE giant which now has $326 billion of investor capital under management – will seek to purchase distressed CRE assets during the coming downcycle,  becoming even more entrenched and an even greater monopoly in the sector.

  Blackstone – the largest owner of commercial real estate globally – has been focusing its portfolio on logistics, rental housing, hospitality, lab office and data centers, shifting away from assets like traditional office and malls that are facing headwinds from a post-pandemic adoption of flexible work and surge in e-commerce, Reuters reported.

  As we have been reporting extensively, the commercial real estate market – especially the office and mall segments – have come under huge stress over the past year due to a pullback across commercial-property lending, as borrowing costs skyrocketed. At the same time, the stocks of public real estate investment trusts have also suffered amid the uncertainty in the market and increasing concerns about certain property types such as offices.

  The firm started to raise money for the large property drawdown fund last year. Three of its strategies – global, Asia and Europe – now have a total of $50 billion in capital commitments, the firm said.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 20:00

• IRS, Americans Unprepared To Shoulder Burden Of New Tax Laws, Republicans Warn
  IRS, Americans Unprepared To Shoulder Burden Of New Tax Laws, Republicans Warn

  Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  With Tax Day looming just days away, two Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are warning that neither the IRS nor the American people are prepared to shoulder the burdens imposed by new reporting requirements.

  Voicing their concerns in an April 4 letter (pdf) to Government Accountability Office (GAO) Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) asserted that the amount of paperwork and tax preparation required to comply with new rules and regulations will be unmanageable for all involved.

  “In Fiscal Year 2021, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) received over 4.7 billion information returns—reports provided to the IRS to track business or trade payments and transactions—filed by third parties, most of which were filed electronically,” the lawmakers noted. “In addition, recent legislation drastically lowered the threshold to $600 for reporting certain types of payments, such as those made using a third-party platform like PayPal or Venmo. New regulations related to information reporting for transactions occurring across these digital assets could lead to the filing of billions more information returns.”

  The new $600 reporting threshold was implemented through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which passed along party lines in both Democrat-controlled chambers of Congress.

  Under previous law, platforms like PayPal and Venmo were only required to report a user’s transactions to the IRS if, over the course of a year, the individual completed more than 200 commercial transactions and made more than $20,000 in payments.

  Although the new requirement was initially set to impact 2022 filings, the IRS announced in December that it would delay implementation of the rule for one year to “help smooth the transition”—a move the congressmen characterized as a “tacit acknowledgement” of the burden the rule imposes on taxpayers and IRS employees alike.

  “Processing this large amount of information is already a significant undertaking at the IRS—an agency that has struggled to modernize or adequately exercise its customer service responsibilities,” the Republicans noted. “As such, the extent to which the IRS uses, or can even process, third-party information to identify and prevent fraud and noncompliance through its matching and other compliance programs is of particular interest.”

  Backlog

  Since 2020, the IRS has been working to reduce a backlog of paper returns and taxpayer correspondence, which the agency has attributed to the COVID-19 stimulus payments and staff shortages. That backlog resulted in the agency’s March 2021 decision to destroy roughly 30 million paper-filed information return documents.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 19:40

• Weight Watches Parent's Stock Soars Again On Obesity-Drug, Goldman Turns Bull
  Weight Watches Parent’s Stock Soars Again On Obesity-Drug, Goldman Turns Bull

  WW International, previously known as “Weight Watchers,” jumped 46% Tuesday morning after the company said it completed the acquisition of a telehealth provider that will help it tap into the booming market for new obesity drugs. Adding more bullishness today was a note by Goldman Sachs, upgrading the stock to a “buy” from “neutral.” 

  WW’s deal for subscription telehealth platform “Sequence,” which prescribes weight-management and diabetes drugs, was first announced in March. Back then, shares soared more than 79% to a seven-month high of around $7 handle on March 7 but quickly fell back to the $4 handle as shorts piled in.

  In combination with the deal closing, Goldman Sachs analyst Jason English upgraded his rating on the stock to buy from neutral following the acquisition of Sequence. 

  

  “With the now completed acquisition of Sequence, WW will begin to offer a pharmaceutical based clinical subscription service that it can integrate with its legacy behavioral based weight management offering.

  “With this new service offering we expect a cohort of consumers to turn to it for help navigating what is poised to be an increasingly complex field of pharmaceutical solutions given its legacy brand equity/credibility in the weight management field and its ability to reach an extensive database of current (4M) and lapsed (20M) WW program users who have previously demonstrated a willingness to pay for help,” English wrote. 

  The WW turnaround emerges as the GS team estimates peak obesity market sales will be north of $30 billion by 2032 for certain pharmaceutical products. Several big pharma companies, including Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Zealand, among others, have trials and product launches of their obesity drugs planned this year. 

  

  “Our top-down build suggests over 15mn addressable users today and likely doubling by 2030,” English wrote. 

  

  WW is at a pivotal point where it’s building new capabilities that expand its market to offer new drugs to ‘make America slim again.’ 

  

  English revised GS’ 12-month price target for WW to $13.00, a significant increase from the previous $3.80, in light of the sweeping changes at the company.

  Shares of WW soared as high as 46% this morning, the most significant gain since the March 7 surge. Propelling the move today is also an abundance of shorts who piled in after shares peaked around the $7 handle last month. About 8.2 million shares are short, equating to about 15% of the float. 

  

  With the now-completed acquisition of Sequence, WW will be able to capitalize off tens of millions of obese Americans with new pharmaceutical drugs to tackle weight loss. 

  WW should consider an advertising campaign titled: ‘Make America Slim Again’… 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 19:20

• Watch: Body Cam Video From Officers Responding to Louisville Rampage
  Watch: Body Cam Video From Officers Responding to Louisville Rampage

  Update (1925ET): Louisville police have released footage captured by body cameras worn by two police officers responding to Monday’s mass shooting at an Old National Bank office in the city’s downtown. Both were wounded by gunfire, one of them — Nickolas Wilt — critically, as he was shot in the head and has undergone brain surgery.   

  In the press conference that accompanied the initial release of the video, Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey noted that these first responding officers were hampered by a lack of visibility due to the difference between the bright outdoors and the darkened interior lobby where killer Connor Sturgeon had been waiting to ambush them.

  Glare from the floor-to-ceiling windows also made it difficult to pinpoint the threat. After Sturgeon’s shots at subsequent responding officers shattered the glass, Officer Cory Galloway was able to engage and kill him. 

  * * *

  The 25-year-old employee of Old National Bank who killed five people and wounded nine more in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday morning livestreamed his rampage on Instagram. A city official has related specifics of the stream to CNN, while many new details about the attack and its perpetrator have emerged.

  Connor Sturgeon, whose LinkedIn profile says he was a “syndications associate and portfolio banker,” wrote to his parents and a friend of his intent to shoot up the bank, but it’s not clear yet whether that communication was physical or electronic, or whether the recipients received them before he opened fire with an AR-15 rifle around 8:30 am.    

  Video from a witness shows a chaotic scene at Old National Bank in downtown Louisville.

  “Active shooter at the bank” an officer screams as multiple gunshots are fired on the background.

  The details emerging from this are very grim. pic.twitter.com/Ax3Gc5imNg

  — Dalton Godbey (@DaltonTVNews) April 10, 2023

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

  While there’s no official confirmation of it so far, Louisville’s WDRB reported that the last three posts on Sturgeon’s apparent Instagram account on Monday morning were:

  • A meme of Star Wars character Kylo Ren saying “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” 
  • Accompanied by the label “MONDAY VIBES,” a meme of a character from the movie Office Space saying “I could burn this whole place down.” 
  • Sturgeon’s apparent own words: “THEY WON’T LISTEN TO WORDS OR PROTESTS. LET’S SEE IF THEY HEAR THIS.”

  

  Citing a police source, CNN reported that the shooter had learned that he was going to be fired after working at Old National for two years and previously interning there for three summers.  

  His attack began before the bank’s operating hours, and he livestreamed it on Instagram. The platform has since taken the video offline, but police have a copy.

  A Louisville official tells CNN the stream begins with a view of his AR-15. A woman greets the shooter with a “good morning,” and he replies “you need to get out of here.” Sturgeon attempts to shoot her but the weapon on is on safe and doesn’t have round chambered. He corrects those issues and shoots her in the back. 

  

  He then proceeds to shoot many other employees who try to outrun him, before sitting down in the lobby and seemingly waiting for police. That wait lasts about 90 seconds, and the then is hit and killed in the gun battle. 

  An employee meeting had been underway, with some attending in person and others via video. Manager Rebecca Buchheit-Sims told CNN she attended remotely, and saw her coworkers being gunned down on her computer screen: “I witnessed people being murdered. I don’t know how else to say that…I’m just as much in shock and disbelief and was in disbelief as I watched it unravel.”

  

  Employee Tammy Madigan told the Daily Beast of her rush to find shelter: “The bathrooms on our floor have keycode entry, so it was probably the safest place we could think of to hide. So the six of us went into the men’s room, turned off all the sound on our phones, tried to be as quiet as we could.” Others hid in a vault. 

  The first cops arrived on the scene within three minutes of being dispatched. Dispatchers told officers to look for a 6′ 4″ white male in dark pants, adding that he’d left a voicemail for a friend declaring his intent to “kill everyone at the bank,” reports Heavy.  

  Seven employees and two officers were wounded. The five dead are Joshua Barrick (40), Thomas Elliot (63), Juliana Farmer (45), James Tutt (64) and Deana Eckert (57).  

  🚨 #EXCLUSIVE: The scene of the Louisville shooting, as seen from the front of the entrance of the Old National Bank Building

  (ft. the building’s bitter landlord literally assaulting me on a sidewalk) pic.twitter.com/v3FPSQNE1L

  — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) April 11, 2023

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

  Police officer Nickolas Wilt, a 26-year-old rookie who graduated just 10 days before the shooting, was critically wounded with a gunshot to the head and underwent brain surgery. The other wounded officer has not been identified. 

  As with every mass shooting, people raced to discern the shooter’s political orientation. Some of his social media posts reflected support for the Black Lives Matters protests and criticism of police and Donald Trump. Trying to reach conclusions about his sexuality, others highlighted the fact that the shooter’s LinkedIn profile said he uses “he/him” pronouns. 

  

   

  A 2020 University of Alabama graduate with a masters in finance, Sturgeon is described as a star multi-sport athlete in high school. Amid the shock of learning what Sturgeon did, a former classmate told Daily Beast:

  “The big thing I keep going back to is that in the first year of high school, we played football together in eighth grade, he was out most of the year because he had multiple concussions. Then he had a couple more in high school. I’m not saying it’s the cause but I always think back to that… There were times I’d wonder, will this catch up with him? But never in this way. He’s the last person I’d expect would do this.” 

  

  An autopsy would be needed to determine if Sturgeon had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). The degenerative brain disease caused by multiple episodes of head trauma, CTE leaves people prone to aggression, mood swings, depression and paranoia. Murderous New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez is perhaps the most infamous example. 

  High school friends described Sturgeon as smart and popular. However, in an introspective 2018 essay at the the University of Alabama, Sturgeon wrote,

  “My self-esteem has long been a problem for me. As a late bloomer in middle and high school, I struggled to a certain extent to fit in, and this has given me a somewhat negative self-image that persists today. Making friends has never been especially easy, so I have more experience than most in operating alone.”

  #BREAKING
  A heavily-armed convoy just arrived in the 1500 Blk. of Taylor Avenue and is about to breach a house. ATF says this is in relation to the mass shooting downtown. @WHAS11 #Louisville pic.twitter.com/jHgRtSCtJZ

  — Travis Breese (@tbreeseontv) April 10, 2023

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  Jim Ryan, CEO of Chicago- and Evansville-based Old National Bank, immediately traveled to Louisville along with other senior executives. “As we await more details, we are deploying employee assistance support and keeping everyone affected by this tragedy in our thoughts and prayers,” said Ryan. 

  At a Tuesday morning press conference, Louisville’s police chief said Sturgeon acquired his rifle legally from a local dealer on April 4.   

  On Monday, President Biden issued a statement calling for gun control measures that seemingly have no relevance whatsoever to Monday’s shooting: 

  “How many more Americans must die before Republicans in Congress will act to protect our communities? It’s long past time that we require safe storage of firearms. Require background checks for all gun sales. Eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.” 

  Not letting a crisis go to waste, Team Biden also threw in a thinly-veiled opportunistic shot at potential 2024 presidential opponent Ron DeSantis, as the statement condemned Republican officials “from Florida to North Carolina to the U.S. House of Representatives, [who’ve] double[d] down on dangerous bills that make our schools, places of worship, and communities less safe.”

  Presumably that statement refers to laws enabling law-abiding citizens to carry firearms into those places. Does the White House really think the people at Louisville’s Old National Bank would have been worse off if some of the bankers were carrying pistols?

  Sadly, they were prohibited to do so — by CEO Ryan and Old National Bank — without “proper authorization.” Per page 49 of the bank’s employee handbook:   

  “Firearms, weapons, and other dangerous or hazardous devices or substances are prohibited from the premises of Old National without proper authorization. Firearms may be kept in parking areas in accordance with state law where recognizing such possession is required by state law.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 19:15

• Dangerous Overreach In Manhattan And Tennessee
  Dangerous Overreach In Manhattan And Tennessee

  Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClear Wire,

  

  To sustain a constitutional democracy, public officials must do more than obey written laws. They must respect the unwritten ones that have cumulated over the years. Together, they are the cement of our society. Unfortunately, in recent weeks, we’ve seen two disturbing cases of elected officials smashing those unwritten rules. One was a Democrat, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg; the other was Tennessee’s Republican legislature.

  Both were exercises in bad judgment. Although the actions seem to have been legal, they trampled over informal norms of long standing. Crushing those norms not only invites retaliation, it undermines public confidence in the fairness and good sense of elected officials, if any still lingers.

  Alvin Bragg had every legal right to convene a grand jury, present them with his case against Donald Trump, and work to indict the former president. It’s not hard to convince grand juries, and Bragg succeeded. If the trial is held in Manhattan, he will present the case to a Trump-hating jury, ready to mete out punishment.

  Still, the case is thin and tendentious. That’s why Bragg’s predecessor declined to move forward with it. Not Bragg. He has collected several alleged misdemeanors and ramped them up to a felony by linking them to another alleged crime. What is that other crime? Bragg won’t say. Apparently, New York law doesn’t require him to say, so he won’t, despite the obvious national interest.

  Bragg also has the right to try to show that New York State election laws were violated, even though specialists in that field at the Department of Justice and Federal Election Commission decided there were no violations. Ignoring the statutes of limitation, which expired long ago on these alleged crimes, is a tougher sell, but the courts will have to rule on all these issues. All that will take time, however. Meanwhile, the case hangs over the 2024 presidential campaign.

  There is also the troubling question of unequal treatment. The conduct Bragg alleges to be criminal is not the salacious act of making hush payments to a porn star. It is that Trump hid those payments as a business expense, and did so to help his presidential campaign. If so, he’s not alone. Another New York resident, who lives in Chappaqua, listed all her payments to create the Russian collusion hoax as “legal expenses.” They’ll find Jimmy Hoffa’s body before New York ever investigates that crime.

  When prosecutors pursue political vendettas, as Bragg has, they undermine two pillars of our legal system. First, the law should be impartial. That’s especially important when the targets are controversial political figures. Second, law enforcement should begin with a crime and then look for the perpetrator, not the reverse. It should never begin with a target and then look for a crime to pin on him.

  Bragg’s approach is fundamentally different from the cases being developed in Georgia and Florida. Those cases appear much stronger, but that’s not their only difference. They began with specific allegations of felonies. In Georgia, there were recorded phone calls from Trump and his allies to senior state officials, pressuring them to find enough additional votes to win Georgia’s presidential contest. At issue is whether Trump and his supporters were seeking legitimate votes which had not been properly counted (his position), or non-existent votes to fraudulently pad his total. In Florida, there are really two issues. Did the former president have a right to retain certain documents from his White House years or was he required to turn them over to the National Archives, as they demanded? Second, did he obstruct justice when he later declared he had turned over all relevant documents? Despite that formal declaration, a subsequent FBI search found he had retained many of the requested documents at Mar-a-Lago.

  Special Counsel Jack Smith is pursuing yet another angle, this one involving Trump’s role in the events of Jan. 6 and perhaps other issues. The problem with all special counsels, including this one, is that they fall somewhere between “starting with a crime” and “starting with a target.”

  Bragg’s indictment poses two additional difficulties, perhaps the most serious of all. It breaks a long-standing precedent and sets a new one. The broken one is prosecutors declining to indict former presidents. If that precedent is to be broken, the case should be formidable, involve a major crime, and be grounded in well-established law. Bragg’s case fails on all those criteria, which is why it looks like a partisan witch hunt.

  Because Bragg leveled these charges as a local prosecutor, he has set a precedent of his own – a very bad one. He has opened the door for similar actions by Republican district attorneys across the country, who could go after former Democratic presidents for their own partisan reasons.

  Still, Bragg has the legal authority to take the actions he has. So does Tennessee’s Republican legislature, which expelled two Democrats for breaking the House’s basic rules. There’s no question the legislators flagrantly violated those rules and blocked all business for an hour. There’s no question the Tennessee legislature has the authority to punish them.

  The punishment they chose, however, goes too far. It’s legal but unwise. That’s not an excuse for the expelled members’ behavior. No legislature can tolerate its members seizing control of the House well, yelling into a bull horn, and disrupting all other business. To compound the problem – and the danger – the members’ disruption came in support of a mass demonstration inside the capitol building itself.

  Still, expelling state legislators for breaches of House rules is an exercise in bad judgment unless the breaches are repeated or violent. These were not. They were serious, first-time offenses, and they were non-violent. Some sanctions are certainly appropriate, but expulsion goes too far for several reasons.

  First, it deprives constituents of their elected representatives, at least until replacements are named.

  Second, the case seethes with racial tension because the two expelled members were black. Race should not matter in dealing with these violations, but, inevitably, it does. It certainly affects how people see the expulsions, which only deepens our national divisions over race.

  Not surprisingly, Democratic leaders have jumped on the story, decried the punishment, and moved to support the expelled representatives. Their party counts on near-unanimous support from black voters, so Democrats look for opportunities like this to demonstrate their solidarity. Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t miss her chance. She immediately flew to Nashville to offer her backing. Others are sure to follow.

  Like-minded friends in the legacy media were quick to note that a white legislator was not expelled, even though she had joined her two black colleagues in the well of the House. They say she got better treatment because of her race. Others respond that her case was different because she stood silently and was not disruptive. (She held onto her seat by a single vote.)

  Third, expulsions like this encourage other elected bodies to act the same way. State legislators, city councilmen, and school board members don’t always stick to the rules or observe decorum, so tit-for-tat treatment could proliferate as each party considers expelling its opponents.

  Finally, expulsions like the one in Tennessee undermine the informal rules and procedures that preserve our democracy. Granted, the expelled legislators had violated the rules themselves. Important rules. But excessive punishment represents more than an eye-for-an-eye. It is two eyes. Its aim may be to restore order but its practical effect is likely to be the opposite.

  The overall message, both in Tennessee and Manhattan, is more than “both sides do it.” The deeper message is that preserving our democracy requires prudence, good judgment, and some self-restraint by elected leaders and judges. Those qualities are now endangered species, killed by the bitter politics of payback and revenge, cloaked in self-righteous contempt for opponents. The tide of vitriol is rising. That’s another swamp that needs draining.

  Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at charles.lipson@gmail.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 19:00

• Intel Leaks Confirm Sabotage Attacks In Belarus, Russia Were Conducted By Ukrainian Military Agents
  Intel Leaks Confirm Sabotage Attacks In Belarus, Russia Were Conducted By Ukrainian Military Agents

  More information from the trove of highly classified Pentagon documents leaked online continues to confirm what in many instances was already strongly suspected, but remained unproven.

  “Ukrainian agents have pursued drone attacks inside Belarus and Russia, contrary to U.S. and Western wishes, and leaders in Kyiv have considered further targets outside Ukraine, according to a batch of leaked U.S. documents that appear to expose national security secrets,” NBC writes after analyzing the batch of 50 that it has in its possession.

  

  “Two documents appear to show Ukraine launching operations inside other countries, though some allied nations have said any such actions might cause them to reconsider their ongoing support for Kyiv,” NBC continues.

  Back in late February into March especially, Russia had seen multiple instances of swarms of drones breach its airspace spanning multiple days. These targeted an oil facility, air bases, as well as civilian infrastructure across various cities, villages and military areas.

  Additionally, drone attacks in Russia’s Belgorod region have come semi-regularly over the course of the past months. The Russian defense ministry for example, stated of one attack at the end of February, “The Kyiv regime attempted to use unmanned aerial vehicles to attack civilian infrastructure in the Krasnodar region and the Adygea Republic.”

  One of the more brazen of the cross-border sabotage incidents was widely reported at the time, and resulted in damage to a large Russian spy plane parked at the Machulishchy airbase in Minsk Oblast in Belarus. A large explosion had rocked the base. It was believed at the time that pro-Ukrainian Belarusian opposition operatives reportedly used a small explosive-laden drone to carry out the targeted attack of the stationary A-50 surveillance plane.

  The leaked US documents confirm what minimally astute observers might have surmised at the time: this attack inside Belarus back in February wasn’t just some freelance sabotage by local “anti-war activists” — it was an operation of the Ukraine military (SBU) pic.twitter.com/v8UaP6KhZD

  — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 10, 2023

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  The episode is referenced in the online trove of leaked documents, as NBC describes in its Tuesday report: 

  One document, marked “Top Secret,” notes two separate attacks allegedly orchestrated by Kyiv that appear to have minimally damaged two Russian targets outside of Ukraine: a military airfield outside Minsk, Belarus, and a gas compressor station in the Moscow suburbs. 

  In the first instance, officials with Ukraine’s Security Service, Kyiv’s main intelligence agency, assessed that their agents in Belarus had disobeyed orders and attacked a Russian surveillance aircraft at a Belarusian airfield on Feb. 26, according to the document.

  The document alleges the agents used a quadcopter drone and caused “minor damage” to the plane, a RUS A-5OU, which the Russian state-owned weapons developer Rostec calls a “flying radar” that is capable of operating as a mobile command center.

  As a result of the attack, President Lukashenko had warned this he could send his troops into Ukraine if Belarusian territory kept coming under direct threat.

  Claims Swirl Around Supposed Strike On Russian A-50 Radar Jet In Belarus https://t.co/j1me5JQZmr

  — Robert Farley (@drfarls) February 27, 2023

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  The sabotage incident also caused Belarus to lash out angrily at Washington, and generally heightened the potential for broader war given the rhetoric: 

  A week later, according to the state news agency Belta, Lukashenko said that a “terrorist” trained by Washington and Kyiv had orchestrated the attack and that “more than 20 accomplices who are in Belarus have been detained. The rest are hiding.”

  “If you think that by throwing down this challenge, you will drag us into a war tomorrow,” Lukaschenko said in comments aimed at the U.S. and Ukraine, “you are mistaken.”

  Concerning the leaked Pentagon report, the angle of Ukrainian agents acting “contrary to US and Western wishes” is interesting. It may be that including this detail in a now leaked US intelligence document could be an attempt to inject some ‘plausible deniability’ into the reporting surrounding the sabotage attacks.

  In short, while Washington might officially be dissuading the Ukrainians from such risky attacks, it may also be that the Pentagon is quietly willing to look the other way when they do occur. The important thing for Biden administration decision-makers is to distance themselves from the more brazen and controversial of Ukraine’s tactics, particularly the ‘dirty war’ style operations that could drag NATO into direct conflict with Russian forces.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 18:40

• 22-Year-Old National Guard Soldier Suffers Two Heart Attacks, Neurological Issues After Moderna Vax
  22-Year-Old National Guard Soldier Suffers Two Heart Attacks, Neurological Issues After Moderna Vax

  Authored by J.M. Phelps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  A 22-year-old Army National Guard member has suffered an array of health issues—including two heart attacks that pushed her to the brink of death—after receiving two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

  Karolina Stancik once considered herself “very healthy,” playing multiple sports from adolescence through early adulthood. At 21 years old, she chose to serve the country by joining the U.S. Army in February 2021.

  “We were told that it was going to be required and we should take it before we shipped out to basic training,” she said, which was before Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s August 2021 announcement of the military vaccine mandate.

  This messaging, according to Stancik, made the new recruits feel like, “You’re a bad person if you don’t get the vaccine, and you don’t care about the people around you.”

  “As a young, new soldier, I and a lot of others around me, did what we were told,” Stancik said.

  “We were too new to know all the rules and possible loopholes,” she added. “I pretty much blindly took it because I didn’t know you could get exemptions” for medical or religious reasons.

  Stancik ended up taking the Moderna vaccine in March and April 2021; since then, “life has been an uphill battle,” she said.

  First, came the breathing issues.

  “I was dealing with what doctors considered asthma at the time without a diagnosis, and I had never had any lung issues at any other point in my life,” she said.

  Stancik also experienced what felt like a cold or sinus infection, pressure in her head, and dizziness.

  Next came a fever, as well as numbness and tingling throughout her body. But she was told by a doctor that these symptoms were normal.

  At one point, her command threatened to accuse her of insubordination for not participating in physical training. However, “a doctor’s order kept me from getting in trouble with my command,” she said. The Epoch Times viewed that order, as well as other medical documentation and Stancik’s Army permanent medical profile, to corroborate her claims.

  Problems with visual processing and what she described as neurological issues began in October 2021. These included numbness, tingling, stabbing pains throughout her body, loss of motor function, tremors, and more.

  “It all progressively got worse, and never stopped,” Stancik said.

  In October 2021, she found herself in an emergency room, following her first heart attack. Things only escalated after that as she started experiencing nausea, a high heart rate, stabbing pains, and blacking out, she said. In February 2022, she had a second heart attack.

  In addition to these two heart attacks, Stancik said she’s been diagnosed with severe asthma and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a blood circulation disorder that causes a higher heart rate when transitioning from sitting or lying down to standing up.

  In November 2022, her doctor told her she had “signs of a mini-stroke,” she said. After that incident and the onset of impaired eyesight, she was finally advised to see a neurologist. She’s now waiting for the results of tests for neuropathy, dysautonomia, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and others.

  Stancik’s neurological problems have continued this year.

  “As I wait for results about my neurological issues, I’m also experiencing increasing problems with my visual processing,” she said.

  With health issues on the rise, she said, “Half together is put together for me right now.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 18:20

• Dramatic Footage Shows Massive Russian Volcano Spewing Ash 12 Miles High
  Dramatic Footage Shows Massive Russian Volcano Spewing Ash 12 Miles High

  A massive volcano erupted early Tuesday in the Kamchatka Peninsula located in Russia’s far east, spewing a column of ash 65,000 feet into the sky. 

  According to Reuters, the eruption of Shiveluch, one of the most active volcanoes in Kamchatka, is one of the biggest in sixty years. 

  

  “The ash reached 20 kilometers high, the ash cloud moved westwards, and there was a very strong fall of ash on nearby villages,” said Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey.

  Footage of the powerful eruption of the Shiveluch volcano in Kamchatka. pic.twitter.com/CzTQsttsBD

  — Blackrussian (@Blackrussiantv) April 11, 2023

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  The ash cloud measured more than 300 miles long and triggered an aviation warning in the region. 

  Predicted transport of total column SO2 from #Shiveluch🌋eruption across the N Pacific in the @CopernicusECMWF Atmosphere Monitoring Service @ECMWF forecast initialized on 11 April at 00 UTC, assimilating 🛰️SO2 obs assuming ~5 km injection. Latest charts https://t.co/MYH0xiOxPg pic.twitter.com/yEKSCK7tow

  — Mark Parrington (@m_parrington) April 11, 2023

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  Today’s explosive eruption of the Shiveluch volcano captured by the Himawari-9 satellite. pic.twitter.com/9u9XebVv1v

  — CIRA (@CIRA_CSU) April 11, 2023

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  “The volcano was preparing for this for at least a year… and the process is continuing though it has calmed a little now,” Chebrov said.

  Located about 30 miles from the volcano, the village of Klyuchi was covered in more than 3 inches of ash. 

  Russia: Klyuchi village covered in ash following Shiveluch volcano eruption in Kamchatka

  The Shiveluch volcano erupted early Tuesday morning in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka region, spewing ash up to 20 kilometers above sea level. pic.twitter.com/dwQXdE9cRQ

  — PressTV Extra (@PresstvExtra) April 11, 2023

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  that’s not snow, it’s ash
  after the eruption of shiveluch volcano in russia pic.twitter.com/W88Nbkap09

  — ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) April 11, 2023

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  Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula is home to 300,000 residents. The region is about 4,000 miles east of Moscow. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 18:00

• US Deems WSJ Reporter 'Wrongfully Detained' – Paving Way For Possible Swap
  US Deems WSJ Reporter ‘Wrongfully Detained’ – Paving Way For Possible Swap

  Following last month’s detention of US citizen and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by Russia’s Federal Security Service on charges of espionage, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a rare phone call in early April with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to open up discussions over the detention, which Washington immediately condemned. 

  Despite the constant media attention that Brittney Griner’s arrest and imprisonment received throughout last year, Gershkovich’s case is much more serious, as he faces 20 years in prison. The FSB claimed he got caught “red-handed” in an attempt to obtain “information amounting to a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”

  

  But the US State Department is already moving faster on Gershkovich’s case (again, compared to either Griner or ex-Marine Paul Whelan), given Secretary Blinken on Monday declared Gershkovich to be “wrongfully detained” by Russia.

  “Today, Secretary Blinken made a determination that Evan Gershkovich is wrongfully detained by Russia,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said in the statement.

  “Journalism is not a crime.  We condemn the Kremlin’s continued repression of independent voices in Russia, and its ongoing war against the truth.”

  Patel continued, “The U.S. government will provide all appropriate support to Mr. Gershkovich and his family. We call for the Russian Federation to immediately release Mr. Gershkovich.”

  The change of an imprisoned citizen’s status to “wrongfully detained” means the US can legally approach the case as a hostage negotiation and thus use all available means to obtain their release, including potential prisoner swap, as was controversially done with the WNBA’s Griner. At this point, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs can get involved, utilizing interagency resources as well.

  Interestingly, it took some months for Griner to be declared wrongfully detained, which is what ultimately led to her being swapped for Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout; but in Gershkovich’s case, it has only taken a few weeks. This suggests the US administration wants to see him back quickly.

  Is another high-profile prisoner swap with Russia already being negotiated and planned?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 17:40

• Biden Signs Bill Formally Ending COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
  Biden Signs Bill Formally Ending COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

  Three years and one month after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global pandemic, President Joe Biden on Monday signed a bill which formally ends the public health emergency in the United States.

  

  So, after forced vaccinations (or face unemployment, travel restrictions and public ostracism), mask mandates, destroyed businesses, lockdowns, and Covid-19 still circulating as the rest of society has moved on, the US Government has finally surrendered.

  Former President Donald Trump first issued a national emergency declaration regarding the coronavirus in March 2020, as the virus that was discovered in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 ripped through America.

  The emergency was extended over and over, making it easier to expand health services and for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mobilize personnel and funding to help state governments combat the virus. But the American public is unlikely to see any major changes in their day-to-day lives from its termination. –Washington Times

  The move comes one month ahead of the May 11 expiration of the emergency designation, and after Biden signaled to Senate Democrats last month that he would sign a GOP bill to end the Covid-19 national emergency – despite the White House urging Democrats to do the exact opposite when it came up for a vote in February.

  I love how all the diehard segregationists act like none of this happened now, no apologies, no nothing… hope they keep boosting. https://t.co/uPDa6XoAih

  — Zr1Trader (@ZR1Trader) April 11, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 17:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• French Alps Avalanche Kills Six On Easter Sunday
  French Alps Avalanche Kills Six On Easter Sunday

  So far, six skiers, two of whom were guides, were killed in a massive avalanche caught on video in the French Alps on Easter Sunday. 

  Reuters reported the avalanche occurred in the afternoon at the Armancette glacier, near Mont Blanc in south-eastern France. 

  Rescue teams snowmobiled to the avalanche area. They found six bodies, but according to Emmanuel Coquand, a spokesperson for the local authorities in the region, all searches have been called because there are no other reports of missing persons. 

  

  Coquand declined to comment on the six people killed. However, Reuters said: 

  Local media said two of them were mountain guides and the other four were their clients, all French, including a young woman and man in their 20s and a couple in their 40s.

  According to Jean-Luc Mattel, an official of the nearby Contamines-Montjoie village, the avalanche was caused by a large slab of snow breaking off from the top of the mountain. Reuters said the avalanche was over 500 meters wide. 

  At the time of the incident, there was no avalanche warning for the area. 

  BREAKING: At least six people have died following an avalanche in the French Alps and rescuers have called off the search for any more survivors. https://t.co/nChrR8uib1

  📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/HuDaTYP0tY

  — Sky News (@SkyNews) April 10, 2023

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  French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted, “Our thoughts are with [the victims] and their families.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 02:45

• David Stockman On Imperial Washington – The New Global Menace
  David Stockman On Imperial Washington – The New Global Menace

  Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

  There is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington —  not Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or the rubble of what remains of Raqqa. Imperial Washington has become a global menace owing to what didn’t happen in 1991 (when the USSR collapsed). At that crucial inflection point, Bush the Elder should have declared “mission accomplished” and parachuted into the great Ramstein Air Base in Germany to begin the demobilization of America’s war machine.

  

  So doing, he could have slashed the Pentagon budget from $600 billion to $250 billion (2015 $); demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; reduced the United States’ standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s.

  Unfortunately, George H. W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even middling intelligence.

  He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who singlehandedly blew the peace when, in the very year the 77-Years’ War ended with the demise of the Soviet Union, he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the gluttonous emir of Kuwait. But that was none of George Bush’s or America’s business.

  Furthermore, George H. W. Bush should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power — even if he eventually denounced them in his doddering old age.

  Alas, upon his death, Bush the Elder was deified, not vilified, by the mainstream press and the bipartisan duopoly. And that tells you all you need to know about why Washington is ensnared in its Forever Wars and is the very reason there is still no peace on earth.

  Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in 1991, Washington opened the gates to an unnecessary confrontation with Islam and nurtured the rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today save for forces unleashed by George H. W. Bush’s petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.

  We will momentarily get to the 52-year-old error that holds that the Persian Gulf is an American lake and that the answer to high oil prices and energy security is the Fifth Fleet.

  Suffice it to say here that the answer to high oil prices everywhere and always is high oil prices —  a truth driven home in spades by the oil busts of 2009, 2015 and 2020, and the fact the real price of oil today (2022 $) is no higher than it was in the mid-1970s.

  But first it is well to remember that in 1991 there was no plausible threat anywhere on the planet to the safety and security of the citizens of Springfield, MA, Lincoln, NE, or Spokane, WA, when the Cold War ended.

  The Warsaw Pact had dissolved into more than a dozen woebegone sovereign statelets; the Soviet Union was now unscrambled into 15 independent and far-flung republics from Belarus to Tajikistan; and the Russian motherland would soon plunge into an economic depression that would leave it with a GDP about the size of Philadelphia.

  And China’s GDP was even smaller and more primitive than Russia’s. Even as Mr. Deng was discovering the People’s Bank of China’s printing press, which would enable it to become a great mercantilist exporter, an incipient Chinese threat to national security was never in the cards.

  The First Gulf war — A Catastrophic Error

  Confronted with the greatest opportunity for global peace in nearly a century, George H. W. Bush did not hesitate: Upon the advice of his retainers, he immediately elected the path of war in the Persian Gulf.

  This endeavor was hatched by Henry Kissinger’s economically illiterate protégés at the National Security Council and Bush’s Texas oilman, Secretary of State James Baker. They falsely claimed that the will-o’-the-wisp of “oil security” was at stake and 500,000 American troops needed to be planted in the sands of Arabia.

  That was a catastrophic error and not only because the presence of “crusader” boots on the purportedly sacred soil of Arabia offended the CIA-recruited and trained mujahideen of Afghanistan, who had become unemployed when the Soviet Union collapsed.

  The CNN-glorified war games in the Gulf during early 1991 also further empowered another group of unemployed crusaders. Namely, the neocon national-security fanatics who had misled Ronald Reagan into a massive military buildup to thwart what they claimed to be an ascendant Soviet Union bent on nuclear-war-winning capabilities and global conquest.

  So when the defense budget went from $134 billion in 1980 to $304 billion in 1989, this unprecedented 130% peacetime rise (+50% in inflation-adjusted dollars) went overwhelmingly to the building of a globe-spanning conventional forces armada that was utterly unneeded in a world with or without the Soviet Union.

  Accordingly, everything on land, sea and air was upgraded and expanded. This included the 600-ship Navy and 12 carrier battle groups; massive upgrades of the fleet of M1 tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles; and endless procurement of cruise missiles, fixed wing planes, rotary aircraft, air-and sea-lift capacity, surveillance and electronic warfare capacity and a black budget so large as to dwarf anything that had gone before.

  In a word, the misguided Reagan defense buildup enabled the invasions and occupations that commenced almost instantly after the Soviet demise. That is to say, the neocon defense buildup of the 1980s fathered the “Forever Wars” of the 1990s and beyond.

  The folly and deceit of the purportedly anti-Soviet defense buildup was evident enough at the time because by the mid-1980s the Evil Empire was already unraveling at the seams economically — and for the simple reason that communism and rigidly centralized command-and-control economics don’t work.

  Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and rest of the neocon gang surrounding Bush the Elder managed to deftly pull a “bait and switch” maneuver of no mean extent. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the Soviet Union at all but the alleged lesson from Washington’s Pyrrhic victory in Kuwait that “regime change” among the assorted tyrannies of the Middle East was in America’s national interest.

  More fatally, the neocons now insisted that the first Gulf War proved regime change could be achieved through a sweeping interventionist menu of coalition diplomacy, security assistance, arms shipments, covert action and open military attack and occupation via the spanking new conventional forces armada that the Reagan Administration had bequeathed.

  What the neocon doctrine of regime change actually did, of course, was to foster the Frankenstein’s monster that ultimately became ISIS.

  Bin Laden would have amputated Saddam’s secularist head if Washington hadn’t done it first, but that’s just the point. The attempt at regime change in March 2003 was one of the most foolish acts of state in American history.

  That the Islamic State was Washington’s Frankenstein’s monster became evident from the moment it rushed upon the scene in mid-2014. But even then the Washington War Party could not resist adding fuel to the fire, whooping up another round of Islamophobia among the American public and forcing the Obama White House into a futile bombing campaign for the third time in a quarter century.

  But the short-lived Islamic State was never a real threat to America’s homeland security.

  The dusty, broken, impoverished towns and villages along the margins of the Euphrates River and in the bombed-out precincts of Anbar Province did not attract thousands of wannabe jihadists from the failed states of the Middle East and the alienated Muslim townships of Europe because the caliphate offered prosperity, salvation or any future at all.

  What recruited them was outrage at the bombs and drones dropped on Sunni communities by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and by the cruise missiles launched from the bowels of the Mediterranean that ripped apart homes, shops, offices and mosques that mostly contained as many innocent civilians as ISIS terrorists.

  The truth is the Islamic State was destined for a short half-life anyway. It had been contained by the Kurds in the North and East and by Turkey with NATO’s second-largest army and air force in the Northwest. And it was further surrounded by the Shiite Crescent in the populated, economically viable regions of lower Syria and Iraq.

  Absent Washington’s misbegotten campaign to unseat Assad in Damascus and demonize his confession-based Iranian ally, there would have been nowhere for the murderous fanatics who had pitched a makeshift capital in Raqqa to go. They would have run out of money, recruits, momentum and public acquiescence in their horrific rule in any event.

  But with the USAF functioning as their recruiting arm and France’s anti-Assad foreign policy helping to foment a final spasm of anarchy in Syria, the gates of hell had been opened wide, unnecessarily.

  In any event, bombing did not defeat ISIS; it just temporarily made more of them.

  Ironically, what did extinguish the Islamic State was the Assad military, the Russian air force invited into Syria by its official government and the ground forces of its Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard allies. It was they who settled an ancient quarrel that had never been any of America’s business.

  But Imperial Washington was so caught up in its myths, lies and hegemonic stupidity that it could not see the obvious. Accordingly, 31 years after the Cold War ended and several years after Syria and friends extinguished the Islamic State, Washington has learned no lessons.

  The American Imperium still stalks the planet for new monsters to destroy — presently in the precincts of Russian-speaking eastern and southern Ukraine that are utterly irrelevant to America’s peace and security.

  *  *  *

  The amount of money the US government spends on foreign aid, wars, the so-called intelligence community, and other aspects of foreign policy is enormous and ever-growing. It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point. It could cause the most significant disaster since the 1930s. Most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video with all the details. Click here to watch it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 02:00

• Shellenberger: Why Trans Activists Attack Women
  Shellenberger: Why Trans Activists Attack Women

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger, Leighton Woodhouse, and Madeleine Rowley via ‘PUBLIC’ Substack,

  Beware false claims of “genocide”…

  

  Trans activists (left) incited violence against women’s right’s activist Kellie-Jay Keen (center), who was assaulted just minutes later at a New Zealand “Let Women Speak” event last month. Organizers of the “Trans Day of Vengeance” (right) canceled their event after a trans person murdered six people at a Christian school in Nashville.

  For years, transgender activists have claimed there is a genocide being waged against transgender people. As evidence, they point to the murders of trans victims. In 2022, at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people were killed in the United States, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

  But 32 trans killings is a decline from 40 in 2020  and 59 in 2021 and researchers do not know if trans people are being killed disproportionately compared to non-trans people.

  There remains a prejudice against trans people. Some trans people are, without question, victims of violence. But there is no “genocide,” nor even strong evidence that the trans people being killed are targeted for being transgender rather than for some other reason. For example, transgender people are disproportionately represented in the sex trade, which is an extremely dangerous criminal enterprise.

  By contrast, we have seen a wave of transgender rights activists attacking women for ideological reasons. Consider recent events. In New Zealand on March 25, a mob of angry trans activists assaulted a British women’s rights advocate, Kellie-Jay Keen, at a “Let Women Speak” rally. In Nashville on March 28, a trans male killed three adults and three children at a Christian school. Last December, a group of women in Oakland protested the potential placement into a women’s prison of a self-identified trans woman who had murdered a lesbian couple and their son. They were assaulted with a bicycle, an umbrella, eggs, and pies.

  And on April 6, a mob of trans activists trapped women’s collegiate swimming champion Riley Gaines in a room for three hours, and somebody punched her in the face. On Instagram, trans student activists denied that Gaines was trapped or anyone hit her. “Nobody put a finger on you white girl,” posted a black trans youth. But Gaines told Public she was hit by “a man wearing a dress.”

  The University Police Department (UPD) at San Francisco State University said, “We are conducting an ongoing investigation into the situation. The disruption occurred after the event’s conclusion, which made it necessary for UPD officers to move the event speaker from the room to a different, safe location.”

  Transgender people should no more be held responsible, as a group, for the actions of a small number of activists, any more than non-trans people should be held responsible for the vast majority of crimes and violence by non-trans people.

  But there’s no doubt that we’ve seen an increase in physical violence by trans activists  — not all of whom are trans themselves — in recent years, and we should try to understand it in the same way we try to understand violence and radicalization by other social groups.

  In 2018, a mentally ill trans female shot six of her coworkers at a Rite Aid distribution Center in Maryland. In 2019, a trans teenager in Denver shot one student dead and injured eight more. In 2022, a natal male identified as a “trans gamer girl” tried to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home. And a trans person killed five people at a Colorado nightclub that same year.

  While Keen and Gaines survived, both women feared for their physical safety and their lives.

  “I genuinely thought if I fell to the floor,” said Keen, “I would never get up again, my children would lose their mother and my husband would lose his wife.” 

  Video from the event shows a trans rights activist punching an elderly woman, who was later identified as being 70 years old, in the face multiple times.

  “It was terrifying for me,” said Gaines.

  In yesterday’s interview, she said she was “pushed and shoved into the podium. I had no idea where the police were or even if the police were there. I was struck twice, hit in the shoulder and face. And this was closed-fist.”

  At that point, Gaines was effectively kidnapped for three hours.

  “This is when a woman came up to me and grabbed me. We were forced into a classroom where I was ultimately barricaded for three hours. They yelled, ‘We deserve to be able to look at you and yell at you and hit you.’”

  There is an obvious double standard at play.

  Said Gaines’ representative, Eli Bremer, “Imagine if it had been a black or trans student kidnapped in that room by white supremacists. Would the campus police have stood by for three hours and let it happen?” Trans activists, noted Gaines, “claim they’re being persecuted… but in my experience this past year, I’ve always been on the receiving end of the violence.”

  Where is this alarming radicalization coming from? Why are a growing number of trans activists attacking women? And what can be done to protect them?

  The Psychopathology of Gender Theology

  There are no doubt individual psychological reasons behind such aggression. Many aggressive trans activists may suffer from co-occurring mental illnesses and gender dysphoria. A friend of the Maryland Rite-Aid trans shooter said they suffered from bipolar disorder and depression, in addition to gender dysphoria.

  

  University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines react after finishing tied for 5th in the 200 Freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18th, 2022 in Atlanta Georgia. (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

  …

  The trans activists at San Francisco State University were similar to other fanatics. They are true believers, like Christian Puritans who persecuted women as supposed witches in colonial American history. They are like the Maoist students of the Cultural Revolution in China, taking control of physical spaces and intimidating the university administrators, who become too cowardly to take control. They are intoxicated by their feeling of power and in that sense, hedonistic.

  …

  A broader change is needed in the culture, led by the media, educational, sporting, and health institutions. We can acknowledge that people who identify as trans may in some instances be victims of discrimination but have also, over the last 10 years been celebrated as much if not more than any other minority, and that the trans movement has embraced a dangerous victimhood mentality, starting with the Big Lie that there is a genocide against them. History shows that such a persecution complex is often pretext for aggression, violence, and totalitarianism.

  *  *  *

  Subscribers can read the full report here

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 23:40

• Visualizing America's Craft Brewery Boom
  Visualizing America’s Craft Brewery Boom

  Beer lovers across the United States celebrated National Beer Day on April 7 to commemorate the end of Prohibition, at least as far as (low-alcohol) beer is concerned.

  

  As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, on that day in 1933, the Cullen-Harrison Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt, legalizing the sale and consumption of beer with an alcohol content of up to 3.2 percent.

  This was the first step towards the repeal of Prohibition, which officially ended on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the 21st Amendment.

  National Beer Day has since become a day to celebrate the rich history and culture of beer in the United States, and is marked with events, festivals, and of course, the consumption of beer.

  America’s rich culture of beer got even richer in recent years, as the number of craft breweries and available beer styles has exploded over the past decade.

  As our latest Racing Bars video shows, the number of small, independent breweries in the country has more than quintupled between 2010 and 2021, after growing by less than 20 percent in the previous decade.

  According to the Brewers Association, the U.S. beer landscape included more than 9,000 craft breweries in 2021, representing a great counterweight to brewing conglomerates that command an ever-growing share of the global beer market.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 23:20

• Sky News Australia Removes Itself From 'Spy Network' TikTok
  Sky News Australia Removes Itself From ‘Spy Network’ TikTok

  Authored by Nina Nguyen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Right-leaning news channel Sky News Australia has announced that it would discontinue publishing to the popular Chinese app TikTok in an effort to protect its reporters and audiences from security risks.

  

  Sky called TikTok a “spy network masquerading as a social media platform,” saying the risks of being on TikTok are “far too great for any serious news publisher to ignore” while the gains are “negligible at best.”

  The media also criticised other outlets and journalists who reported the platform’s use as a tool for soft power and foreign interference, then later jumped on TikTok themselves. Sky News described TikTok as a “vanity exercise” for media companies who deemed “arbitrary viewership figures” more important than the fact that they “cannot be monetised in any meaningful way.”

  The News Corp-owned media agency is one of the first major outlets in Australia to have publicly boycotted TikTok, which has been under heavy scrutiny in the past months for its close ties to the Chinese regime.

  “Australians will lose absolutely nothing of substance if media organisations make the right decision and withdraw from this platform. And news organisations will equally suffer little loss,” wrote Sky News Australia digital editor Jack Houghton on Monday.

  “While money is not a consideration in our decision, it is also worth noting that apart from the security issues, TikTok is the only developed social media platform to not have a proper commercialisation strategy for content creators.”

  The move comes after the U.K state-owned media BBC and a Danish public broadcaster issued guidance for its staff to remove TikTok from company phones. The BBC continued to publish content on the Chinese social media app.

  TikTok Surveilled U.S. Journalists

  Previous reports have revealed that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has illegally tracked journalists using the platform by obtaining their IP addresses and other user data.

  In December 2022, Forbes reported that China-based employees at ByteDance were using TikTok to track their journalists’ physical locations in October. The publication described the effort as a “covert surveillance campaign” designed to counter and suppress leaks from the company.

  ByteDance reportedly fired its chief internal auditor, Chris Lepitak, who was responsible for the team which led the campaign. China-based Song Ye, who Lepitak reported to and who answered directly to ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang, resigned over the issue.

  The ByteDance probe, known internally as Project Raven, was reportedly launched in response to a Buzzfeed story that found that China-based ByteDance employees repeatedly accessed U.S. user data from TikTok.

  “Project Raven involved the company’s Chief Security and Privacy Office, was known to TikTok’s Head of Global Legal Compliance, and was approved by ByteDance employees in China,” the Forbes report said.

  “The team that oversaw the surveillance campaign was ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department, a Beijing-based unit primarily responsible for conducting investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees.”

  Australian Government Banned TikTok From Government Devices

  Sky News’s decision to boycott TikTok followed the decision by Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus to ban TikTok from all government-issued devices, citing national security risks.

  Dreyfus said in a statement that the ban would come into effect “as soon as practicable.” He said exemptions would be granted on a case-by-case basis.

  “After receiving advice from intelligence and security agencies, today I authorised the secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department to issue a mandatory direction under the Protective Security Policy Framework to prohibit the TikTok app on devices issued by Commonwealth departments and agencies,” Dreyfus said.

  “The direction will come into effect as soon as practicable.”

  However, he noted that possible exemptions will be granted on a “case-by-case basis and with appropriate security mitigations in place.”

  Andrew Thornebrooke and Victoria Kelly Clark contributed to this article.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 23:00

• Rutgers University Faculty Workers Strike For First Time In 257-Year History
  Rutgers University Faculty Workers Strike For First Time In 257-Year History

  For the first time in its 257-year history, academic workers at Rutgers University, including faculty and postdoctoral associates, intend to strike at the institution’s three campuses – New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark. This decision comes after a Sunday vote approving the labor action, following almost a year of unsuccessful negotiations with the university to raise salaries in line with inflation. 

  “We have bargained and bargained and bargained and bargained and bargained, and we are not getting anywhere, and we need to do something more,” said Rebecca Givan, president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT. “We will take this momentous step.”

  Rutgers AAUP-AFT represents 8,000 workers across the three campuses that failed to agree with the school administration for a new contract that would boost pay, provide job security, and implement race and gender equity initiatives, among other demands.

  “It’s not for lack of trying that we now have to have a strike,” said Catherine Monteleone, a professor of medicine and the president of AAUP-BHSNJ.

  On Sunday, the university’s president, Jonathan Holloway, released a statement calling the labor action “deeply disappointing.” He said a mediator was appointed to help both sides reach a deal as soon as possible. 

  Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted that both sides are expected to meet with him today for “productive dialogue.”

  Rutgers University is one of the nation’s premier institutions of higher learning. I am calling the University and union bargaining committees to meet in my office tomorrow to have a productive dialogue. pic.twitter.com/KTDmpm3LKD

  — Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 10, 2023

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  Rutgers stressed, “More than 67,000 students are unaffected by the strike and may continue their academic progress.” 

  On strike! #Rutgers #RUStrike pic.twitter.com/2ht3AoGbT8

  — Michael Reagan (@reaganrevoltion) April 10, 2023

  Looks like the ‘woke’ academic workers are hitting the streets of the university. 

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

  Rutgers On Strike. pic.twitter.com/UkJHAvqv82

  — Colm Atkins in On Strike (@_colm_) April 10, 2023

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  The decision by Rutgers unions to strike comes as a rising trend of labor actions at US universities, according to a labor action tracker from Cornell University. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 22:40

• Escobar: The Pentagon Leak Charade
  Escobar: The Pentagon Leak Charade

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  The leaked intel might be advantageous to Russia were this not to be misdirection: and the possibility is quite real…

  

  The script reads like a spoof straight out of legendary Mad magazine 1960’s cartoon “Spy vs. Spy”: Secret Pentagon Documents Fall in the Hands of Malign Russia. Well, actually in the hands of millions accessing Twitter and Telegram.

  So here, at face value, we have a major leak essentially detailing Pentagon planning for the next stage of the NATO vs. Russia proxy war in Ukraine: the interminably debated Spring “counter-offensive” that may, or may not, start in mid-April, as well as war plans shared with FVEY – the Five Eyes.

  The leaked intel might – and the operative word is “might” – be advantageous to Russia were this not to be misdirection: and the possibility is quite real.

  The inestimable Ray McGovern, who knows one or two things about the CIA, noted whether the Pentagon is “falsifying kill-ratio to gild Easter lilies in Kyiv? Recent leak of an apparently official NATO document shows 71,500 Ukrainians KIA and only 16,000 to 17,500 Russians, a far cry from earlier Pentagon ‘estimates’. All sounds so Vietnam-déjà vu!”

  So this may be Vietnam all over again – never count on the Pentagon learning from their mistakes – but could be something way more alarming, according to a top Beltway intel source, retired: “Our interpretation of this breach is that intel sources in the United States have released critical intel data in order to avoid a nuclear war with Russia.”

  As it stands, the only certainty is that the spin war has gone berserk. So the leaker may have been a – disgruntled – U.S. insider. No, wait: the whole thing may be fake, as the Pentagon insists. In spin speak, that would be an attempt to “spread false information that could harm the U.S.”.

  Tweaked or not, the “secret” Pentagon comparative war dead ratio between Russians and Ukrainians still does not make sense. The numbers appear to reflect Bakhmut/Artemovsk casualties, where Russian casualty ratios were highest. Yet reliable on the ground Russian military correspondents assure the ratio is really 10 to 1, with the Russians employing the snail technique combined with a formidable artillery mincing machine.

  “Stupefying” incompetence

  The undisputable conclusion out of the – real or fake – Pentagon leaks is that the U.S. is in a state of war against Russia. And that is serious enough.

  Washington has been feeding information non-stop on command posts, ammunition depots and key nodes in the Russian military lines. It’s such real-time intel that has allowed Kiev to target Russian forces, kill senior generals and force ammunition depots to be moved farther from the Russian front lines.

  Anything Pentagon/NATO stenographers say about Kiev playing the proverbial “decisive role” in planning and executing these strikes is a lie. The U.S. exercizes total, absolute control of the Ukraine war on a central command basis. Including from that “secret” underground bunker near Lviv which recently received a business card from Mr. Khinzal and has gone to meet its maker – along with over 200 NATO high-level operatives.

  Fake or not fake, we also have confirmation that the Pentagon has direct access to communications of the Russian Ministry of Defense. And that the Americans listen to everyone and his neighbor: the sweaty T-shirt actor in Kiev, all the Five Eyes allies, and the Mossad.

  As for the notion that Kiev has changed its counter-offensive “military plans” because of the Pentagon leaks, everyone should feel free to control the pitch of their roaring laughter.

  The Russian non-response response to all this hoopla could be seen as a classic of misdirection. Responding to the U.S. de facto engaged in an undeclared war against Russia, much hotter than Hybrid, President Putin said that Russia is interested in “peaceful coexistence with the U.S. and establishing a balance of interests” given their status as the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.

  Well, no one can possibly imagine Stalin saying that Russia was interested in peaceful coexistence with Nazi Germany in July, 1941 as the Wehrmacht was rushing towards Moscow, Leningrad and the Caucusus oil.

  From the point of view of valuable military information, the indispensable Andrei Martyanov summed it all up: these “documents” contain none, apart from confirming that the Pentagon is absolutely clueless on the SMO: why is it happening, what is the modus operandi and what it plans to achieve.

  Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov did cut to the chase: “We don’t have the slightest doubt about direct or indirect involvement of the U.S. and NATO (…) it cannot influence the final outcome of the special operation.”

  As Martyanov stresses, Russia maneuvers an extremely advanced ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) complex, including human intel on the ground, electronic warfare and satellite constellations: “In terms of war correlates and combat statistics – I wouldn’t touch anything coming from Pentagon with a long stick.”

  There are indeed several serious issues with the Pentagon “top secret” intel. It oozes the impression it was redacted based on open data, and not actual intel. And all that packaged by some quite shoddy work.

  For instance, the insistence to “re-equip” Ukrainian air defense with missiles is not supported by data on where such missiles will be coming from. The name of the NASAMS – the middle range, ground based air defense system co-developed by Raytheon – is misspelled.

  In official NATO documents, weapons from the USSR and from Russia are indicated in NATO codification. There is no style uniformity: it’s a messy mix of official code designations and transliterations from Russian into English.

  So no wonder the impression is solidified that the U.S. Army Command in Europe (EUCOM) got their “intel” from open sources, and is absolutely clueless on how many weapons, how much equipment and how many people the Ukrainians actually have.

  And that explains what’s going on in Artemovsk – with the Russians taking all the time in the world to calibrate their strategic defense, and after the orderly abandon of Kherson, lure the Ukrainians into a non-stop slaughterhouse. Martyanov qualifies U.S./NATO incompetence to see it coming as “stupefying.”

  A do-or-die war to control Eurasia

  Once again: the most important consequence of the Pentagon leaks is to establish that the U.S., de facto and de jure, is at war against Russia – whatever may be the spin by that Norwegian piece of dead wood in Brussels. Russia will establish a war crimes tribunal for Ukraine, so sooner rather than later, selected collective West luminaries better take refuge in their New Zealand bunkers.

  It’s also crucial to always keep in mind Ukraine is a mere pawn in their game for not losing world power, against China, Russia and potentially Germany.

  The initial psycho Straussian neocon goal was to cut off Germany from Russia using “Liver Sausage” Chancellor Scholz, who was briefed in advance on the terror attack on the Nord Streams.

  Scholz was also involved in the CIA misdirection scam, channeling the blame for the terror attack on some obscure Ukrainian “dissident” and a bumbling yacht – as brilliantly covered by Seymour Hersh.

  The next step is to cut off Ukraine from Russia – “reconquering” Crimea, the focus of the current P.R. blitzkrieg, and Donbass, thus originating a cataclysmic psychological upheaval in Russia leading to a Putin regime change.

  Then the Straussians would finally command Russia’s massive natural resources – and block them from China by land and by sea via the U.S. Fleet.

  That’s not exactly clever – but Straussian neocons do revel in their own intellectually shallow pond. Cue to that insufferable idiot Admiral John Kirby saying there can be no negotiations with Russia until they leave Ukraine, abandoning Donbass and Crimea.

  So the (show) war in Ukraine must go on, to the last Ukrainian, or all these elaborate plans will irretrievably bite the dust. This is a do-or-die war against Russia-China for the control of Eurasia. Will that imply more Pentagon leaks? Bring them on.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 22:20

• Why Did Alex Soros Visit The Biden White House 14 Times?
  Why Did Alex Soros Visit The Biden White House 14 Times?

  The son of pro-crime billionaire George Soros, Alex, is raising eyebrows over more than a dozen White House meetings since October 2021, where he met with multiple officials including then-Chief of Staff, Ron Klain and several national security officials.

  

  According to White House visitor logs reviewed by Fox News (and first reported by the NY Post), the 38-year-old Alex Soros visited the White House over 14 times.

  His latest trips include visiting Dec. 1 with then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s advisor Nina Srivastava, who also worked on Biden’s presidential campaign, the logs show.

  Later that evening. the younger Soros was one of 330 people who attended a lavish state dinner on the White House South Lawn hosted by the president and First Lady Jill Biden honoring French President Emmanuel Macron and Macron’s wife, Brigitte.

  A day later, Alexander Soros — who chairs the powerful, liberal grant-making network Open Society Foundations founded by his dad — met with both Advisor to the Counselor of President Mariana Adame and Deputy National Security Advisor Jonathan Finer, records show. -NY Post

  “[It’s] notable that almost all, with the exception of Ron Klain, who had the president’s ear, obviously were involved in national security,” said Matt Palumbo, author of “The Man Behind the Curtain”‘ during a Monday appearance on “Fox & Friends First.”

  

  “Ukraine is a country where the Soros family has unfortunately boasted a lot of influence. There is tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown around there. So I think that will be something worth circling back on in coming months or years.”

  Despite George Soros’ notorious sway among political circles, Palumbo said the younger Soros could someday boast even more power, noting Alex has been flaunting his influence on social media with pictures of himself alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama. -Fox News

  “He’s standing on $11 million of his own money. Now, that may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to his father. And it is, but it’s not going to be that way forever,” Palumbo continued.

  

  “The way I would put it is George Soros, over his career, has spent around $20 billion, his Open Society Foundation, which is the vehicle by which he makes this spending, has around $20 billion on its balance sheet. So when Alex takes over, he has a war chest that is basically able to, I would say, at a minimum, double the amount of damage his father is going to do and probably more.”

  George Soros’ son set to take over his dad’s war chest…

  He could do even more damage…

  The Democrat party is basically the progressive party of George Soros now, but Alex has been to The White House 14 times since 2021 pic.twitter.com/OcLcex6fPb

  — Red Voice Media (@redvoicenews) April 10, 2023

  “The Soros agenda is one of death and destruction in the name of open borders and ending Western Civilization. The Biden administration and rogue prosecutor movement may be [its] most damaging purchase in America to date,” said Mike Howell, the director of the Heritage Foundation‘s Oversight Project (via PJ Media).

  And according to Judicial Watch‘s Tom Fitton, Alex Soros’ White House visits showed “an outsize policy influence in the Biden administration.”

  “Don’t be distracted by Alex’s name in the visitor log; it’s a George Soros rep they’re looking to meet with at the Biden White House,” Fitton continued, adding “He’s still calling the shots, it’s his money, his foundations.”

  Meetings, via The Post;

  • 12/2/2022: Mariana Adame, Advisor to the Counselor Steve Ricchetti
  • 12/2/2022: Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
  • 12/1/2022: State Dinner on South Lawn for French President Emmanuel Macron attended by President Biden
  • 12/1/2022: Nina Srivastava, adviser to then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain
  • 10/14/2022: Mariana Adame, Advisor to the Counselor Steve Ricchetti (x2)
  • 10/6/2022: Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
  • 10/6/2022: Kimberly Lang, Executive Assistant to the National Security Advisor
  • 9/15/2022: Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
  • 9/14/2022: Nina Srivastava, adviser to then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain (x2)
  • 4/22/2022: Madeline Strasser, adviser to then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain
  • 12/15/2021: Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
  • 10/29/2021: Madeline Strasser, adviser to then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain

  

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 22:00

• Watch: Bud Light VP Explains Plan To Become King Of 'Woke' Beers
  Watch: Bud Light VP Explains Plan To Become King Of ‘Woke’ Beers

  Just before Bud Light became entangled in the trans-TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney controversy, the beer company’s Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid discussed in an interview the need to shift away from the “out of touch” frat party image to one of “inclusivity.”

  Heinerscheid, a middle-aged, upper income highly-educated white woman, was interviewed on the podcast “Make Yourself At Home” on March 23. 

  “I’m a businesswoman, I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light,'” she said.

  Heinerscheid stressed a need to “evolve and elevate” the Bud Light brand away from the “fraternity/out of touch humor” brand of the younger generation. She expanded on that idea:

  “What does evolve and elevate mean? It means inclusivity… It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different. And appeals to women and to men. And representation is sort of the heart of revolution.”

  Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s VP of Marketing, doubles down on her extreme woke strategy to promote the “declining” American beer brand to “young people”, while smearing her former customers as “fratty and out of touch”.

  How’s that working out for you, lady? @budlight pic.twitter.com/zNYKbMnZnu

  — Old Row (@OldRowOfficial) April 9, 2023

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  About a week later, likely directed by Heinerscheid and or her office, trans-TikTok influencer Mulvaney, celebrating “365 Days of Girlhood,” released a short video about promoting Bud Light. The promotion garnered tremendous backlash as “Boycott Bud Light” trended on Twitter for days. 

  

  And perhaps she’s just implementing ‘woke’ advertising to boost Bud Light’s Corporate Equality Index — social credit score. 

  If Heinerscheid learned anything from the Wharton School of Business, it appears to be how to destroy an iconic brand with woke ideology. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:58

• Los Angeles Replaces One State Of Emergency With Another
  Los Angeles Replaces One State Of Emergency With Another

  Authored by James Breslo via The Epoch Times,

  On March 31, a full three years after first implemented, Los Angeles’ COVID-19 state of emergency finally expired.

  

  Officials had used their emergency powers to regulate virtually every aspect of life in L.A.

  They closed beaches, parks, and hiking trails. They closed businesses they deemed not to be essential. Churches were closed, but not liquor stores. They closed schools and required that children wear masks upon reopening. They banned family gatherings and funerals, and prevented people from being next to their loved ones in hospitals as they took their last breath.

  Thank God it is now over, but many of the measures put in place are now permanent.

  Leftists used the mandates to implement policies which would never have been possible otherwise, like universal mail-in balloting, eviction moratoriums, expanded health and welfare benefits, and even student loan debt forgiveness. Many vaccine and masking requirements remain in place.

  So, it should be no surprise that the left has made sure that the COVID-19 state of emergency is replaced with a new one. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency in December over the homeless crisis. She compared the declaration to the one L.A. declared after the massive 6.7 earthquake in 1994.

  

  A homeless encampment lines a street in the Skid Row community in Los Angeles on Dec. 14, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

  Emergency declarations after earthquakes and hurricanes are what Americans are used to. They typically remain in place for a number of weeks. But this declaration was clearly inspired by the COVID-19 state of emergency and similarly is likely to be in place for years to come.

  What will come this time? Will residents be ordered to take homeless people into their homes? Will parks and beaches be closed to the public to allow for encampments? Will hotels be ordered to make rooms available for the homeless?

  During the recent city elections, polls showed that homelessness was the number one issue concerning voters. It polled higher than the economy, gas prices, inflation, and crime. This is because homelessness in L.A. is on a level like no other city in the United States. Los Angeles has about 42,000 homeless people, second only to New York City (but more per capita), and several times that of the next closest city.

  The problem is out in the open for all to see. Huge tent encampments are all over the city, including L.A.’s beaches, parks, and sidewalks. It is a humanitarian crisis for those living on the streets, and a quality-of-life crisis for ordinary Angelenos trying to live a normal, safe, and healthy life.

  Residents encounter the homeless, most with mental health or addiction issues, on a daily basis. They cannot take their family to their local park or beach without being prepared for uncomfortable encounters. Crime is way up in the city due in part to the homeless explosion.

  The problem was created when Los Angeles stopped enforcing its no camping laws. This allowed the encampments to be set up and grow, with tents filled with belongings popping up everywhere. The solution is obvious: start enforcing the law again.

  Cities around L.A. which have been enforcing no camping laws have no homeless problem. This is the case even in cities with no affordable housing, like Manhattan Beach which is one of the most expensive zip codes in the state. Clearly it is an enforcement issue. You allow it, they will come. Just like the U.S. border: if you enforce the border laws, you do not get illegal immigrants. If you do not, you get them in droves.

  

  A homeless individual in Los Angeles, Calif., on Jan 27, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  Los Angeles based its refusal to ban encampments on a 2018 court decision. In Martin v. Boise, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prosecuting people for sleeping in public amounted to cruel and unusual punishment when no shelter beds are available. But the ruling only applies to sleeping at night. Nothing in the ruling prohibits banning encampments during the day. If police were permitted to enforce the day ban, the encampments would go away. Without a tent, the homeless can no longer set up a home in the public space. It is not nearly as comfortable to live a homeless lifestyle if you are not able to maintain a tent with a sofa and all your belongings in it. Other cities figured this out, but L.A. has chosen not to.

  Instead, the city’s new mayor, in announcing the state of emergency, focused primarily on addressing the “affordable housing crisis.” That is because Bass and her fellow city leaders are less interested in solving the homeless problem than they are in using it to implement all kinds of progressive dream policies. Yes, L.A. has a shortage of affordable housing on the beach. But there is no shortage of affordable housing if you look 45 minutes from the beach, which is what rational people do.

  This allows the city’s leftists to implement policies like rent control, eviction moratoriums, affordable housing projects, free housing projects, and housing vouchers. Los Angeles spends $1.2 billion per year on housing solutions, building units for as much as $848,000 each.

  They call enforcing camping bans inhumane. Where will they go if we enforce it? The answer is, to a shelter. L.A. has lots of them. They are not full, because most of the homeless have one reason or another for preferring a tent. If the shelters do become full, it is very cheap to create more compared to the cost of building permanent housing as the city is currently pursuing.

  Alternatively, they may connect with friends or family. There are many stories of parents finding lost children when the homeless finally leave the streets.

  They could also go to rehab or a mental health facility. Or, if they choose none of the above and continue illegal camping, they could wind up in jail. That is not the worst place to be. Many homeless get sober and turn things around while in jail.

  All of this is far more compassionate than leaving them on the streets to be used as political pawns in order to help implement socialism.

  By not enforcing the ban they have made Los Angeles the mecca for homeless. They move from the cities which enforce camping bans to L.A., where they are allowed to camp. The city’s residents are then asked to solve the problem by building permanent housing for them. This is all part of the leftist’s plan.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:40

• US Is Spying On Zelensky: Here's What's Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files
  US Is Spying On Zelensky: Here’s What’s Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files

  The highly classified Pentagon documents which were leaked online in recent weeks, but which began being confirmed and reported as authentic by The New York Times and others only in the past few days, contain some embarrassing revelations. This has sent DOJ and US intelligence officials scrambling to discover the source of the leaks.

  CNN is confirming Monday based on one of the documents which appeared online that the US has been spying on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – a disclosure which has caused officials in Kiev to be “deeply frustrated”.

  

  “One document reveals that the US has been spying on Zelensky,” CNN reports. “That is unsurprising, said the source close to Zelensky, but Ukrainian officials are deeply frustrated about the leak.”

  The US intelligence document suggests that American officials have been worried about possible Zelensky decision-making to strike deep into Russian territory, which would escalate the war and potentially bring Russian and NATO into direct clashes:

  The US intelligence report, which is sourced to signals intelligence, says that Zelensky in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast” using unmanned aerial vehicles, since Ukraine does not have long-range weapons capable of reaching that far.

  An additional possibility is that the US intelligence community might be monitoring the Ukrainian presidency’s office as part of efforts to oversee and account for how the tens of billions in aid sent to Kiev is being utilized. 

  The Washington Post details that “many of the documents seem to have been prepared over the winter for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, but they were available to other U.S. personnel and contract employees with the requisite security clearances.”

  Leaked document has a legend of US/NATO special forces in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/Po0pRJ6gMx

  — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 7, 2023

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  Here are 14 more major revelations contained within the leaked intel document trove based on various media sources: 

  • Locations of CIA recruitment efforts focused on human agents which have access to closed-door conversations of world leaders
  • Russia’s Wagner Group tried to obtain weapons from a NATO member: Turkey. Also, some of the internal future plans of Wagner are apparently known to US intelligence
  • Details of sensitive satellite technology used to track Russian forces, namely the “LAPIS time-series video” – described as an advanced satellite system, which up until now has been a closely guarded secret
  • Ukraine battlefield assessments prepared by the Pentagon
  • The Guardian: “One slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain, and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”
  • Descriptions of intelligence collection activities by the CIA, NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement agencies and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
  • One Feb. 23 review of the battlefield situation in Ukraine’s Donbas forecasts a “grinding campaign of attrition” by Russia that “is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Moscow’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023.”
  • WaPo: “The U.S. intelligence community has penetrated the Russian military and its commanders so deeply that it can warn Ukraine in advance of attacks and reliably assess the strengths and weaknesses of Russian forces.”
  • WaPo: “A single page in the leaked trove reveals that the U.S. intelligence community knew the Russian Ministry of Defense had transmitted plans to strike Ukrainian troop positions in two locations on a certain date in February and that Russian military planners were preparing strikes on a dozen energy facilities and an equal number of bridges in Ukraine.”
  • WaPo: A summary of analysis from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review, a daily publication for senior policymakers, says that Beijing is likely to view attacks by Ukraine deep inside Russian territory as “an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor,” and that China could increase its support to Russia if it felt the attacks were “significant.”
  • Ukraine’s robust Soviet-era air defenses — which have thus far minimized the participation of Russian aircraft – could run out of ammunition in next several weeks.  
  • A purported CIA intelligence update — claims Israel’s Mossad supported protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Supreme Court reform scheme. 
  • One report says internal discussions show that South Korean officials are wary of requests to hand over artillery shells to the United States to replenish American stockpiles, out of concern they’d end up in Ukraine.
  • Another report says that Ukrainian Air Defense is in peril if it’s not reinforced by Western allies

  Meanwhile, the expanding breadth of subject matter has many suggesting a US source is responsible. It’s being called “a nightmare for the Five Eyes” – and could damage intelligence-sharing relationships between the US and its partner countries.

  One aspect of the Pentagon leak not being discussed on state TV is the indication of how deeply Russia’s security and intel services have been penetrated by the US

  But former spook Leonid Reshetnikov brought it up today, prompting Olga Skabeyeva to change subject very unsubtly pic.twitter.com/zbiupkuoA9

  — Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) April 10, 2023

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  The breach could also prove embarrassing for Russia as it deals with the claims that US intelligence has deeply penetrated some key areas of government, such as the Defense Ministry.

  “The focus now is on this being a U.S. leak, as many of the documents were only in U.S. hands,” former Pentagon official Michael Mulroy told Reuters. As opposed to electronic downloads, it appears most or all of these leaks are in the form of photographs of paper documents. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:22

• Three Hunter Biden Paintings On Display At SoHo Gallery For $85,000 Each
  Three Hunter Biden Paintings On Display At SoHo Gallery For $85,000 Each

  While President Donald Trump is indicted and arrested related to $130,000 in alleged hush money he paid Stormy Daniels more than half a decade ago, Hunter Biden is roaming the streets of Manhattan selling his art for a cool $85,000 per piece.

  A group exhibition called “Bridging the Abstract,” a show at Georges Bergès Gallery in SoHo, is displaying three pieces of Biden’s that are priced at $85,000 each, CNN reported last week. 

  And despite the growing number of investigations into Biden’s conduct, led by the Republican majority House of Representatives, his gallerist and friend, Georges Bergès, has defended showing and selling his art.

  “It’s been challenges unique to him that no other galleries would have with an artist, so you almost have to be passionate about this to continue … really believe in him as an artist on many, many different levels,” he told CNN. 

  When asked about the hefty price tags on the pieces, Berges responded: “You could buy a politician for a lot less than that.”

  Well, there you have it. Case closed, right?

  

  CNN reports that there is a sales arrangement in place for the artwork between Berges and Biden that keeps the purchaser of the artwork anonymous to both Biden and the public. The report continued with this air tight compliance plan the gallery has put in place:

  If there was any unusual behavior – such as the offer price being too high or a collector who doesn’t appear interested in the work – the gallery is expected to turn down the offer, the sources said. However, there was no clear enforcement mechanism for the standards agreed upon by the gallery and the prospective purchasers.

  No specifics were given on what constitutes “unusual behavior”, or a “price being too high”. It wasn’t made clear who determines those variables and what plan is put into place for such instances.

  A spokesperson for Biden told CNN: “There is no reason for Mr. Biden’s legal team to be notified of what is standard practice for galleries representing artists – selling their art. The gallery sets the pricing and handles all sales based upon the highest ethical standards of the industry.”

  Last month, Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer of the House Oversight committee, requested more information: “Mr. Bergès has refused to provide any information regarding who is buying Mr. Biden’s art. He has chosen to obstruct in an apparent effort to shield Mr. Biden and/or the purchasers’ of Mr. Biden’s art from congressional oversight.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:20

• The Performance Of A Lifetime
  The Performance Of A Lifetime

  Authored by Jean Hatchet via TheCritic.co.uk,

  Dylan Mulvaney’s mimicry of women is absurd…

  

  If a man seeks to humiliate a woman he encounters, nothing is easier than reducing her appearance to a mere caricature. Men do this directly in front of the woman they are targeting: lifting their voice to a squeak, exaggerating hand gestures, pushing out pretend breasts, wiggling their bum, pouting and fiddling with their hair. Most of these men confine the taunt to the woman in front of them, and the woman often feels and displays a righteous rage. However, when it comes to Dylan Mulvaney, the Tik Tok user who has become famous for his grotesque parody of women, women are not supposed to react critically. They are seen as cruel or “transphobic” if they express annoyance at being so grossly insulted. 

  In March 2022 Dylan Mulvaney saw a way to take his barely-concealed disdain for women up a level, with predictable success. After his career as a musical actor had stalled due to the Covid pandemic, with people finding solace daily on Tik Tok, wily Dylan invented a new role that guaranteed his future wealth and success. He announced he was embarking on a journey of “being a girl” and began a series of videos documenting this ludicrous notion. 

  Shortly before this year-long, very public “transition”, Mulvaney performed a pilot video for his current lucrative act. In it he told the viewer that he “had trouble finding roles” so a friend had invented one for him, a “femme character”. His character wears a pink dress and pearls, white gloves and ankle socks. At this point Mulvaney must have been delighted to glimpse a potential new career path. It was a very savvy move for him to extend and develop this caricature of a 1950s woman. Now, just over a year later, Dylan Mulvaney has highly paid “partnerships” with a number of companies including Budweiser, Kate Spade and — during the past week, to great objection — the Sportwear giant Nike. 

  In an inflammatory paid partnership video with Nike, an inanely grinning, barefoot Mulvaney wears a Nike sports bra and leggings. He performs a series of ridiculous moves including comedic side stretches, a theatrical run kicking his heels up nonsensically and failed chorus-line high kicks. He almost runs backwards into a hedge at one point and pulls a comedy expression of shock. It all looks ridiculous and slapstick. It mocks women by suggesting they exercise trivially and ineffectively, but smiling throughout. 

  The media seems unwilling to focus on the actual reasons many women are angry about this. It has focused instead on stating that objections to the sponsorship are because Dylan is trans. This is not why women are outraged. When a man “performs woman” in front of women to such a humiliating degree, when he waggles and jiggles and implies that weakness and silliness are inherent to being a woman who plays sport, women appropriately see this for the deliberately constructed misogyny it is. Ria Chapman, a London PE teacher, told me why she finds this act so irritating and offensive:

  “Girls are still routinely bullied and mocked for being sporty and or breaking stereotypes, their achievements and ambitions not being celebrated and valued like those of their male peers. For a sports company the size of Nike to use a male performing a parody of what he believes women behave like during sport only adds to the ammunition that boys will use to put girls down.”

  Utilising female stereotypes is the foundation of Mulvaney’s role. On his “Day 1 of being a girl” video debut, he said:

  “I’ve already cried three times, written a scathing email I didn’t send, ordered dresses online that I couldn’t afford and when someone asked me how I was, I said “I’m fine” but I wasn’t fine. How did I do, ladies?”

  All of this encapsulates the stereotype of women as emotionally fragile, frivolous spendthrifts, imprudent around clothes and financially inept. In the stereotype Dylan performs, women routinely suppress our emotions and focus on being polite at all times. It is an archaic depiction of requisite female behaviour which was seared into women’s consciousness over decades in the past. This view of “girlhood” took further decades for feminist women to dismantle. Dylan Mulvaney is building it back up before our eyes and we refuse to stay quiet about it. 

  In other videos Mulvaney is seen running feebly through a forest and falling down in high heels, the suggestion being that women are unstable, weak and pathetic characters frightened of flies. This barely disguised message pervades many of his videos. In another he is referring to his “boobies” as his “gal pals” and advertising the shea butter he will rub into them. He refers beneath this video to “taking care of my new girls this season”. This is all deeply offensive to women. Breasts are part of our sexed bodies, not a cute pet or an accessory like a new handbag. 

  Along with these grotesque parodies of womanhood, he promotes products with zero shame, grifting whilst gurning and gaslighting women. Shortly before he began this career-saving venture of “being a girl”, Mulvaney can be found mocking a female cheerleader in a sketch where he pretends to break his leg. He has honed and perfected these earlier attempts to portray women as weak and stupid, and he deflected attention from them by declaring himself a woman. Gender identity is once again the smokescreen for misogyny, and negative criticism leads to an award-worthy performance of his being hurt and bullied. Mulvaney simply reverses the victim and offender. Women are bullies, he is the target. Many women recognise this pattern from relationships with abusive men. 

  The insult for women comes not from the fact that Mulvaney is given vast sums of money or attention, but that he is given it whilst performing an insulting version of what a woman is or how she experiences the world from birth. Mulvaney has avoided the many perils of “being a girl”, because he was safely behind the shield of being a boy — and a wealthy one at that. Mulvaney has a very privileged background of successful financier male ancestors. Nothing says patriarchy more clearly than a man being offered huge sums of money by companies to pretend to be a woman, whilst actual women sit at home fretting how to feed their children during an economic crisis. A man “womanning” is feted, whilst a woman at times barely survives the experience. 

  As the final part of his “365 days of girlhood”, Mulvaney undergoes very expensive facial feminisation surgery. This is suggested as the very epitome of ensuring he is seen as female. Conveniently little mention is made of the penis he retains. Shaved forehead bones might whisper and suggest “woman” more effectively, but a penis roars “man” at a deafening pitch. 

  The elaborate “reveal” video is highly produced, and none of the earlier amateur style is evident. Dylan really has come a long way in a year. Whilst he is still no further towards being a woman, I don’t believe that was really the aim. On the contrary, the heights he sought were to become famous, powerful and wealthy. He has had chats with the President, and Drew Barrymore knelt at his feet and cooed adoringly. Wearing “woman” as a costume works for him in a way it works for few women for whom it is a reality. 

  By contrast women having plastic surgery often do it in the knowledge that without it they would be invisible and, past a certain age, ignored and dismissed. Women don’t seek to become, but to remain women when they undertake anti-ageing procedures. Victoria Smith writes succinctly in her new book Hags:

  “You are not hated because you are an older woman — for that would be wrong and regressive — but because you have failed to remain a young one.”

  One of the most galling aspects of Mulvaney’s act is the passive-aggressive suggestion in some videos that women are hateful, spite-filled creatures who simply won’t allow him to be the woman he claims he is. When women objected to a potential sponsorship with Tampax, Mulvaney claimed he was the victim of women bullying him:

  “It feels like high school and feels like you want me to endure the pain and trauma you had as a girl.”

  In a sinister ending to this video, Mulvaney says he is “nervous for you” and suggests ominously that women will be punished in the future for their “transphobia”. It is an emotionally manipulative attempt to protect lucrative sponsorship and secure his brand from appropriate scrutiny. 

  Mulvaney breezes through his videos with a permanent rictus grin. The subconscious irritation women feel at this stems from the very real experience of our female socialisation. From the time we are commanded to smile as toddlers and for the million times afterwards, women are aware that our “smile” is an expectation, a command and a danger. If we forget to smile, men who are complete strangers will remind us. If we refuse, we may regret it. If a woman stops smiling, she can be accused of having “resting bitch face”, and she has failed in her duty to please and humour men. When Mulvaney performs this forced joy apparently emanating from “being a girl”, women feel the lie through to our bones, because we have lived with the reality. 

  Women aren’t any of this performed “girlhood” of Mulvaney’s. We don’t like being reduced to it.

  We object when large companies pay hefty sums of money to the man treading on our heads to tell them what it’s like to be a woman. 

  Dylan Mulvaney is an actor and a competent manipulator of the media. Large companies should take note that women will not be mocked by a man or the companies that support him. Learn who we are, or learn how to cope without our cash. 

  Just don’t do it. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:00

• California To Front 20% Down Payments With 0% Interest For Homebuyers With Incomes Up To $211,000
  California To Front 20% Down Payments With 0% Interest For Homebuyers With Incomes Up To $211,000

  California homebuyers making up to $211,000 annually will be able to receive a 20% down payment, and all closing costs, at a 0% interest rate.

  While the state has long-offered homebuyer assistance through the state’s Housing Finance Agency (Cal HFA), a new program, the California Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan program will give the state a proportionate interest in the property they’re helping with, according to KPBS.

  “It’s available to low- and moderate-income. So the upper income limit is $211,000,” said Ellen Martin, president of the Cal HFA.

  According to Scott Evans, EVP of Cross Country Mortgage, “The state of California can give up to 20% for a down payment and closing costs. It’s a 0% interest rate. The payments are deferred for the entire life of the loan,” adding “When you sell the property or refinance the loan, they take up to 20% of the appreciation. The homeowner gets to keep 80%.”

  According to Evans, another consideration are tax breaks which become available to homeowners, which can be ‘significant enough to help offset the cost of mortgage payments’ (and which of course assumes the homeowner makes enough to pay taxes in the first place).

  

  In theory, when someone sells a home financed with the HFA’s assistance, any profits made by the state will go back into the program, which will in turn fund new 0% loans.

  That said, it’s not an unlimited offer – as there is only $300 million available right now. With thousands of Californians anticipated to apply, it may not last long.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 20:40

• Taibbi Still An Establishment Outsider For The Crime Of Actual Journalism
  Taibbi Still An Establishment Outsider For The Crime Of Actual Journalism

  Authored by Charlie Tidmarsh via RealClear Wire,

  If you happened to be in Manhattan’s Financial District on December 12, 2011, you would have witnessed a herd of giant squid floating toward West Street. The papier-mâché puppets, complete with white canvas tentacles and bulbous, golden heads, and upheld by a half-dozen or so Occupy Wall Street protestors, served as the dramatic final act in one of the more dramatic days of the Occupy movement, which grew into the New Year and around the world. Accompanying each squid were hand-painted signs that read variations on the slogan “Goldman Sachs CONSUMES” held up by a coterie of activists marching to the investment bank’s headquarters.

  

  The squids were a reference to a 2009 Rolling Stone piece by journalist Matt Taibbi entitled “The Great American Bubble Machine.” The essay eviscerates Goldman and its alumni network of Fed chairs and Treasury secretaries as the architects of “every major market manipulation since the Great Depression.” Describing them collectively as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,” Taibbi rattles off a damning trail of hundreds of millions in bailout tax dollars that had been dispensed to and from Goldmanites under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. In 2023, it’s hard to imagine a two-year-old piece of magazine writing inspiring the iconography of a street protest; harder still to imagine a political reporter referring to John Thain as Merrill Lynch’s “asshole chief” in print. Taibbi’s brash and prolific writing secured him darling status on the reenergized American Left.

  Taibbi’s career has been long and varied. He began in his twenties as an expat reporter in Eastern Europe during the waning years of the Soviet Union, first in Uzbekistan and then in Moscow, where he was a founding editor of The eXile with Mark Ames. The two American drifters pumped out a tabloid that was as critical of post-Soviet kleptocratic dysfunction as it was crass and boozy. Pieces by Taibbi—about IMF policy in Russia or Putin’s early salvos in the Chechen War—would run alongside Ames’s ribald stories of Moscow nightlife. Taibbi came to be feared and respected in equal measure by the many American bureau chiefs in Moscow at whom he often aimed his scorn, and by 2005, back in the states, he was hired as a contributing political editor at Rolling Stone.

  Now, nearly two decades and ten books later, Taibbi has no editorial home but his own Substack newsletter, Racket News (formerly TK News), one of the highest-grossing publications on the platform. This new independence indicates a news media ecosystem that’s shifted beneath Taibbi’s feet. The same progressive corners that once idolized him as their generation’s Hunter S. Thompson, a gifted stylist sharing their rage at the banality of American political corruption, now tend to mutter his name dismissively alongside Glenn Greenwald’s—onetime investigative wunderkinds who’ve since lapsed into paranoid screeds against wokeness and cancel culture. “Now I just don’t know what the hell he’s going on and on about,” progressive journalist Doug Henwood said of him, speaking to Ross Barkan for a 2021 profile of Taibbi. “He’s obsessed with stupid shit.”

  After winning the 2008 National Magazine Award for his work in Rolling Stone, Taibbi began edging away from traditional news media outlets, and his massive public profile diminished. Between 2010 and 2020, he wrote four books and numerous essays about cancel culture, identity politics, and the media. Then, on December 2, 2022, he published a thread on Twitter entitled “1. THE TWITTER FILES,” which presented a collection of dozens of internal Twitter documents and emails pertaining to the company’s decision, in November 2020, to suppress the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story. The thread erupted on the platform, soon amassing millions of unique engagements and a quarter of a million likes.

  The Twitter Files series currently has 19 installments. Taibbi has published over half of them himself, each framed around a theme but all revealing email correspondences between various government actors and the employees at Twitter, under Jack Dorsey’s ownership, who were responsible for making decisions about content moderation and account discipline. The FBI, for one, was in the habit of sending the company lists of accounts that it requested be banned, suspended, or otherwise actioned, typically on the grounds that said accounts were meddling Russian bots or state-sponsored propagandists. We now know that the FBI’s estimation of Russia’s presence on Twitter was inflated, and that many of the accounts it targeted belonged to ordinary civilians tweeting about politics. Congressman Adam Schiff and his staff appear numerous times in the emails, regularly passing along moderation requests. One particularly damning recent document shows a revision to Twitter’s internal moderation guidance that appears to cede ultimate moderation authority to “the U.S. intelligence community.”

  Taibbi and the Files have been met, in the press, not with journalistic curiosity but scorn, apathy, and silence. The Nation referred to Taibbi and Bari Weiss as Elon Musk’s “pet journalists” in a piece that goes on to dismiss the investigations’ findings as “garden-variety content moderation, notable mostly for its staidness and bureaucratic jargon.” The only large outlet giving the story much coverage is the New York Post. The New York Times gave a skeptical review of the first document trove back in early December and has instead focused most of its Twitter coverage on Musk’s supposed blunders.

  It became harder to ignore the Twitter Files on March 9, when Taibbi and his co-reporter Michael Shellenberger sat down in front of the House Judiciary Committee for four hours of hearings convened by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. In her opening statement, Ranking Member Stacey E. Plaskett (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) introduced Taibbi as a “so-called journalist,” and referred to the two witnesses—both registered Democrats—as “biased talking heads.” Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Florida) offered a particularly scorched-earth line of questioning that focused entirely on Taibbi’s credibility and accused him of profiteering from “cherry-picked” evidence selected for him by Musk. The hearings, by and large, resembled much of the online vitriol that Taibbi has received from liberal corners since the first installment was published: a lot of deflection, distraction, accusation, and rage, and very little engagement with the specific, and grave, revelations about how our government illegally intervenes in public discourse.

  A quick scroll through Taibbi’s Twitter page today shows a man tirelessly committed to fighting back against an onslaught of these dismissals and allegations of bad faith. “I think there’s a clue,” one user said, “in the fact that Taibbi and Greenwald both work for the same Republican benefactors and are extremely well compensated for doing so.” When the Twitter Files revealed that Hamilton 68—an online dashboard dedicated to identifying and stifling supposed state-sponsored Russian propaganda on Twitter—was almost entirely fraudulent, Taibbi was accused of stumping for Vladimir Putin.

  Last week, Taibbi appeared on MSNBC opposite host Mehdi Hasan, a contentious segment anticipated by a series of clashes the two had on Twitter since the publication of the first Files installment. The spar ran for nearly 20 minutes and focused on a select few errors Hasan and others had observed in Taibbi’s Twitter reporting; specifically, that his figure of 22 million Tweets flagged as misinformation in advance of the 2020 election was dramatically exaggerated, and that he confused the CISA (The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency, a government body) with the non-profit Center for Internet Security, or CIS. These were true errors, and Taibbi appeared to be learning of them live on air. However, they pertain to individual sections of individual installments, and Hasan, like so many other gleeful detractors, appeared uninterested in the larger and more rigorously reported sections of the Twitter Files. In the hours after, gossipy headlines and Tweets began cropping up—“MSNBC Host Makes Matt Taibbi Squirm” —that, given the breadth of the Twitter Files’ revelations and the relative narrowness of its detractors’ focus, read as little more than desperate attempts to sandbag Taibbi and his team out of spite, or even self defense. 

  How does an unapologetic lampooner of Russian oligarchy, big bank malfeasance, government corruption, and systemic police violence become an enemy of the Left? One answer: his targets aren’t as clearly defined as they were back in 2009 or 1996. “The real story emerging in the Twitter Files,” wrote Taibbi in February, “is about a ballooning federal censorship bureaucracy that’s not aimed at either the left or the right per se, but at the whole population of outsiders, who are being systematically defined as threats.” During Occupy Wall Street, those outsiders were the 99%, rallying in global solidarity against the 1%; in the Twitter Files, the outsiders appear to be anyone with the temerity to question just how much influence we want the government to have over our public discourse.

  The coalition of investigators that Taibbi has assembled, including Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and Leighton Woodhouse, call this bureaucracy the Censorship-Industrial Complex, and implicate in this coordinated effort a number of sitting U.S. representatives (most, but not all, Democrats) and government agencies. In effect, what we watched on March 9 was an entrenched censorship apparatus attempting to ward off a threat. Or, in Congressman Dan Bishop’s words during the hearings, referring to his colleagues across the aisle: “That hostility shows you what we’re up against. . . . And you’re seeing the Left move to crush you and anybody else who tries to expose this.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 20:20

• Syria Episode Shows How Contractors Still Used To Fight America's Wars
  Syria Episode Shows How Contractors Still Used To Fight America’s Wars

  It’s become increasingly apparent that official data on US military personnel deployed in so-called war zones overseas may be understating the actual number. Likewise, active duty military casualties account for only a portion of the American deaths suffered in Washington’s various overseas crusades in the last 20 years.

  The principal mechanism for that statistical deception is the Pentagon’s growing use of “civilian contractors,” like the one killed in a drone strike targeting US military on a coalition base in eastern Syria last week.

  

  According to the Congressional Research Service in January, at the end of 2022 there were approximately 22,000 contractor personnel working for the DoD throughout Central Command’s area of responsibility, with a reported 7,908 contractors located in Iraq and Syria. 

  When most people hear that term used, they assume that the individuals involved are support personnel providing food, transportation, and other services to the military. This is true.

  But in many cases the contractors are substituting for armed security — mercenaries if you will — and they can suffer casualties at a rate similar to troops who are officially members of the U.S. armed forces. 

  In 2017, U.S. Army General John Nicholson, then Commander of the NATO Resolute Support Mission and United States Forces – Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon had to “substitute contractors for soldiers in order to meet the force manning levels” in Afghanistan. 

  As of October 2018, there were over 25,000 contractors in Afghanistan. Of them, 4,172 were private security contractors in Afghanistan, with 2,397 categorized as armed private security contractors.

  The peak of contractor use, of course, was during the Global War on Terror, when the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, said in its final report in 2011 that there was an “unhealthy over-reliance” on military contractors by DoD, Department of State, and USAID.

  Read the rest of the report at Responsible Statecraft…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 20:00

• FBI Dossier Says Using Terms Like "Based" And "Chad" Is A Sign Of Extremism
  FBI Dossier Says Using Terms Like “Based” And “Chad” Is A Sign Of Extremism

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  An FBI dossier says that signs of ‘online extremism’ include terms such as “based,” “Chad” and “Stacy,” the use of which could end up putting someone on a watchlist.

  

  Doesn’t take much these days, does it?

  The glossary was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

  Using terms like “looksmaxxing”, “Chad”, and “Stacy” will get you on an @FBI list for “Involuntary Celibate Violent Extremism.” pic.twitter.com/VoIegyoUby

  — Oversight Project (@OversightPR) April 3, 2023

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

  Words or phrases that fit the definition of “Involuntary Celibate Violent Extremism” or “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism,” according to the FBI, include the following;

  • Based (to mean something that is agreeable or cool and generally considered to be anti-woke), but according to the FBI a sign that someone has been converted to ‘racist ideology’.

  • Red Pill (taken from the Matrix movies meaning someone uncovering hidden truths), but according to the FBI indicating someone who has adopted racist, anti-Semitic, or fascist beliefs.

  • Chad (an attractive, strong male who is successful with women), but according to the FBI a “race -specific term used to describe the idealized version of a male.”

  • Stacy (a confident, sexually attractive female), but according to the FBI an extremist misogynistic term used by incels.

  • Looksmaxxing (defined by the FBI as the “process of self-improvement with the intent to become more attractive), which is apparently another sign of ‘extremism’, although the federal agency doesn’t explain why.

  The belief “that society is corrupt, and that the believer is a victim of this corruption,” is also a sign that someone has entered a dark, dangerous rabbit hole, according to the FBI.

  Given the wave of violence carried out by supporters of far-left groups such as Antifa and BLM over recent years, one would expect the FBI to have carried out a similar investigation into rhetoric used by those groups.

  However, they appear to be more concerned about right-winders using naughty words to express agreement with each other.

  *  *  *

  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. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behind the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 19:40

• "A Parting Gift To Xi": Western Allies Furious At Macron's Call To Stay Out Of Taiwan Crisis
  “A Parting Gift To Xi”: Western Allies Furious At Macron’s Call To Stay Out Of Taiwan Crisis

  Both the content and timing of French President Emanuel Macron’s statements to the press coming off his China trip wherein he urged Europe to step aside from US-China quarrels over Taiwan is driving anger among some Western officials and pundits. As we highlighted yesterday, the statements were widely seen as very ‘China-friendly’, causing fury especially in Washington at a moment Chinese PLA jets and warships have again conducted encircling drills threatening the democratic-run island.

  Macron’s articulating a concept of strategic autonomy for Europe was ‘enthusiastically endorsed’ by Xi and the CCP, who have been focusing on the notion that the West is in decline while China rises, and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will accelerate this trend. “The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” said Macron. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

  

  Some pundits were quick to call Macron’s remarks “spineless and naive” – while others pointed out that what was articulated has always fundamentally been the French position.

  One analyst who pointed out the many ways Macron’s positions will be taken as a slap in the face and distancing from core US-allied policies is Eurasia Group’s Mujtaba Rahman. The below is Rahman’s Twitter thread reacting to the fresh interview statements of Macron [emphasis ours]…

  * * *

  Emmanuel has angered many people (again) by urging Europe to stand aside from US-China quarrels over Taiwan. “We don’t want to get involved in bloc v bloc logic,” he said. The EU should eventually aim to become a “3rd bloc”, strategically independent of BOTH China & US. But his timing is poor. To make these remarks as Chinese military exercises encircled Taiwain – and just after his state visit to China – was a mistake. It will be interpreted as appeasement of Beijing and a green light to Chinese aggression.

  The remarks were made to selected journalists on the Presidential plane. Most of the angry reactions – especially in the US – have been to the truncated (but accurate) version published by Politico. The full interview in Les Echos is more nuanced – but will doubtless still anger many people.

  .@EmmanuelMacron has angered many people (again) by urging Europe to stand aside from US-China quarrels over Taiwan. “We don’t want to get involved in bloc v bloc logic,” he said. The EU should eventually aim to become a “3rd bloc”, strategically independent of BOTH China & US 1/

  — Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) April 10, 2023

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

  Macron presents his three day state visit to China as part of a long game in which Europe – if it wishes to retain its prosperity and independence – must assert its strategic and economic independence from BOTH China and the US. He claims that he has won the “ideological battle” for this idea – “European strategic autonomy – which was mocked when he first floated it six years’ ago. (Has he won? In some respects maybe. Not all).

  He says that Europe will always have many values in common with the US but cannot rely on Washington to preserve Europe’s long-term interests. The top US priority is the US. The number 2 US priority is China. If EU countries follow the US on all things, they will become “vassals”, Macron said.  “We don’t want to be drawn into a bloc v bloc logic…We must instead ‘de-risk’ our model by not depending on others while preserving where possible a considerable unity in our values.”

  On Taiwan… Macron said Europeans should avoid being “followers” and fall in with an American “rhythm and a Chinese over-reaction”. “The risk is that this strategy is self-fulfilling …We Europeans should wake up. It’s not our priority to adapt to other people’s agendas…”

  “If the (US and Chinese) confrontation accelerates, we will not have the time or means to develop our strategic autonomy  and we will become vassals instead of the third pole (of global power) that we could become in a few years.”

  On China, Russia and Ukraine… Macron rejected suggestions that his six hours of talks with President Xi had made no progress. “The Chinese think, as we do, that we are in a military phase, not a time for negotiations,” he said. “But we were able to consolidate common approaches… on respect for the UN charter and on use of nuclear weapons… on desire for a negotiated and lasting peace. I believe our dialogue tempered the suggestions you hear that there is Chinese indulgence towards Russia.”

  In the video Macron says: “I feel at ease with [Xi], including on substance. There’s a mutual attraction between France and China, a fascination, a friendship, a singular journey.

  We need to work to avoid any escalation and at the same time preserve and reinvent an… https://t.co/FS7g0HB2Y0

  — Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 10, 2023

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

  At several places, Macron appears to equate US & Chinese threats to future EU independence. He especially emphasized the dangers to EU of the IRA (inflation reduction act) & “extra-territoriality of the dollar” – US attempts to enforce financial laws outside its territory. Asked if Joe Biden is a politer version of Donald Trump, Macron praised Biden’s attachments to democracy, diplomacy and Europe. But he said Biden was enmeshed in the “bi-partisan logic which puts America as the number 1 priority, China as No 2 and the rest as less important.”

  Macron’s interview is being interpreted as a parting gift to Xi – another doomed attempt (after Putin) to sweet-talk an autocrat. He may also have hoped that “doing a De Gaulle or a Chirac” would improve his popularity in France – although the arguments are all ones that he has made before. More likely, it was just Macron being Macron, thinking ahead in an interesting way but not measuring the immediate political impact of his words.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 19:20

• Collapsed Complexity Predicts Heart Attacks And Market Reversals
  Collapsed Complexity Predicts Heart Attacks And Market Reversals

  By Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research

  Executive Summary

  • The world we inhabit, physiologic systems, and even the healthy functioning of markets are all founded on complexity.

  • The complexity arises from the number of crucial interacting drivers that are driving the system.

  • When this complexity collapses, it is warning that some of the crucial drivers are not working sympathetically.

  • Therefore, the collapsed complexity of a heartbeat is a warning of cardiac risk.

  • In the financial markets, the collapsed complexity of price action is an excellent predictor of market turning-points – rebounds after depression, and reversals after euphoria.

  • Right now, some rebound candidates are USD/CZK, TSN and CVS.

  • And some reversal candidates are Gold and GE.

  The world we inhabit, physiologic systems, and even the healthy functioning of markets are all founded on complexity. So, when this complexity collapses, it is a warning of impending tail-events, heart attacks, and reversals in the markets. But what is complexity, and how do we know when it has collapsed?

  Measuring Complexity, And Its Collapse

  Intuitively, the complexity of any structure can be measured by the length of its shortest description. This intuition was codified as long ago as the 14th century in the principle of Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is the shortest one. Hence, if the shortest description is long, it indicates complexity. But if it is short, it indicates a lack of complexity. Consider the following three patterns of daily returns:

  -4, 1, -2, 0, 5, 4, 1, 5, -2, -3, 1, 4, -1, 1, 5, 1

  1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, -1

  1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

  The first pattern we cannot describe in any shorter way than writing out the string in full. The shortest description is long,  signifying complexity.

  The second pattern we can describe as ‘14 1s, then 3, then -1.’ A much shorter description, signifying low complexity.

  The third pattern we can describe as just ‘16 1s’. The shortest possible description, signifying no complexity.

  Can we go one step further and formalize this complexity more precisely? The answer is yes. The so-called ‘fractal  structure’ or ‘fractal dimension’ of a structure or pattern is the mathematical measure of its complexity, with 1 indicating no complexity and a number higher than 1 indicating increasing complexity (Box 1).

  

  The first pattern has a fractal dimension of 1.34, confirming its complexity. The second pattern has a fractal dimension of 1.04, confirming its low complexity. And the third pattern has the lowest possible fractal dimension of 1, confirming it has no complexity.

  What do these dimensions 1.34, 1.04, and 1 represent? The answer is they measure how much extra information you see by looking at the whole pattern through a magnifying glass. In the first pattern, zooming in on the differing daily returns  provides 1.34 times more information. Thereby, it exhibits some complexity. By contrast, in the third pattern, zooming in on the 16 consecutive ‘1s’ provides no extra information. It exhibits no complexity (A fractal dimension is a scaling rule comparing how a pattern’s detail changes with the scale at which it is considered. This is what we mean by complexity).

  Collapsed Complexity Predicts Heart Attacks

  If all this sounds like abstract mathematics, think again. It is a matter of life or death. A collapsed complexity of your heartbeat is a warning sign of an impending heart attack. Medical researchers point out “the output of healthy physiologic systems reveals complexity, as measured by a high fractal dimension. This complexity appears to degrade with ageing and disease. Further, this collapse in complexity may be quantified, with applications for diagnosis and prognosis.”

  What is the source of this complexity? The answer is that it arises from the number of distinguishable interacting drivers that are driving a system. A healthy heartbeat exhibits high complexity – a high fractal dimension – because the heartbeat is the output of many interacting parts of the heart working sympathetically. The result is complexity (Figure 1).

  

  Unfortunately, when this complexity collapses, it is warning that some of the crucial drivers are not working sympathetically, and therefore presages cardiac risk (Figure 2).

  

  For subjects at high risk of sudden death, fractal organization breaks down. Application of fractal analysis may provide new approaches to assessing cardiac risk and forecasting sudden cardiac death, as well as to monitoring the ageing process.

  So, the best piece of advice you get from me may not be investment advice. It may be medical advice. Get a fractal analysis of your heartbeat.

  Collapsed Complexity Predicts Market Reversals

  Just as the output of healthy physiologic systems reveals complexity, so does the output of healthy financial markets. And just as physiologic complexity arises from the sympathetic output of interacting parts, so does financial market complexity. But what are the interacting parts in the financial markets?

  The interacting parts in the financial market are the different investment time-horizons.

  A healthy market exhibits high complexity – a high fractal dimension – because the price action is the output of more than one investment time-horizon working sympathetically. This creates the price action’s complexity. Hence, when complexity and the fractal dimension collapse, it is a red flag that the time-horizons are no longer working sympathetically, and therefore presages a potential price rebound or reversal.

  Essentially, a fractal dimension of a price action quantifies the relative contribution of the longer-term investor versus the shorter-term investor in driving that price action. For example, the 130-day fractal dimension compares the contribution of the 130-day investment horizon relative to the 1-day investment horizon in driving the 130-day price action. The lower the fractal dimension and complexity, the lower the contribution from the longer-term investor.

  It follows that when the fractal dimension has collapsed to its lower bound, the longer-term investor is no longer driving the price action. It has become a pure short-term momentum market, characterised by a complete loss of complexity.

  So just as fractal organization breaks down for the heart ahead of a sudden cardiac event, fractal organization also breaks down for investments ahead of a sudden reversal.

  This is because if the short-term momentum is upwards and a shorter-term investor wishes to get off the trend, there are no more shorter-term investors left to sell to. The buyer must be a longer-term investor, who will buy only at a value-based lower price, catalyzing a price reversal.

  Of course, there is the alternative possibility that the longer-term investor joins the mania (or depression), continuing the momentum market. But this is both theoretically and empirically a lower likelihood outcome.

  Therefore, the collapsed complexity of price action is an excellent predictor of market turning-points – rebounds after depression, and reversals after euphoria.

  Using this approach, recent successes include pinpointing the sharp rebounds in USD/HUF (Chart 1) and USD/SGD (Chart 2). And pinpointing the sharp reversal in Rio Tinto after the ‘China reopening’ induced euphoria (Chart 3). In fact, the approach has generated a 77 percent success rate over the past six months and a 68 percent success rate over the past year.

  

  

  A full and evolving list of current investments exhibiting collapsed complexity – and therefore vulnerable to reversal or rebound – is available on our website: BCA Research – Counterpoint.

  Right now, some rebound candidates are USD/CZK, TSN and CVS (Charts 4-6).

  

  

  And some reversal candidates are Gold and GE (Charts 7-8).

  

  Out of these, our chosen structured trade is to go long USD/CZK, setting a profit-target and symmetrical stop-loss of 5 percent.

  But I will finish by repeating the much more important message. Get a fractal analysis of your heartbeat. It might save your life.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 19:00

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• Schweizer: "Does This Compromise President Biden?"
  Schweizer: “Does This Compromise President Biden?”

  Authored by Peter Schweizer via The Gatestone Institute,

  China is a rival power. They are supplanting the United States on the global stage, both in terms of their economic capability and in terms of their military capability.

  They also talk openly about wanting to reorient the world — to move it away from an American‑led Western coalition. They want to create something very different, and everybody essentially recognizes that, with the exception, it seems, of President Joe Biden.

  Now, that is a pretty bold statement. If you look at Biden, what he has said publicly and some of the actions he has taken, he is on an island by himself.

  Biden repeatedly says, “China is not a threat. We should welcome the rise of China. It is good not only for China but good for the United States that China is becoming more powerful. The fact is that they are not a threat to us.”

  

  This has been Biden’s consistent position over the last decade. When he chose to set up the Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, very interesting, there is a list of threats that they list.

  This is a Biden Center that is focused on foreign policy, national security. They say the three biggest threats that the United States faces in the world today are global terrorism, climate change and Russia.

  To put that in the context of what we know is going on in the world stage today. We have had the Chinese government, and Chinese government entities, that have hacked numerous databases in the United States, including those of the US Office of Personnel Management.

  There have been reports that the Chinese were hacking into our research centers that were studying information related to COVID. We know that the way that China handled COVID was certainly poor and damaging to the United States. We know that they challenged US military actions in the South China Sea.

  It is a glaring omission for the Biden Center, focused on foreign policy diplomacy, to exclude China as one of the three major threats. When you compare it to, for example, Russia…

  I’m not suggesting that Russia is not a world power that needs to be watched.

  But the notion that a declining power like Russia, which has domestic problems, a shrinking economy, a shrinking demographic base, is somehow a bigger threat than China is laughable.

  It is indicative of a larger issue, which is that Biden essentially has a soft spot for Beijing.

  The question, of course, is why?

  It is impossible to answer that question without looking at the commercial ties that Biden has with China. They are extensive. They are lucrative. They are unique. They speak to one of the oldest realities in American politics, which has followed him.

  It seems that in American media — which focuses on Wall Street firms holding fundraisers that focus on the role that big oil plays on Capitol Hill because of their lobbying but also because of their campaign contributions –we ought to have room to discuss, not campaign contributions to the Biden family, but money going into the Biden family’s pockets, in this instance, from China.

  When I say money going to the Bidens’ pockets from China, do I mean an American company in China? No. Do I mean a Chinese company in China? No. What I mean directly and clearly is the Chinese government itself, which is run, of course, by the Chinese Communist Party.

  That is what makes what the Bidens have done commercially with Beijing unique compared to anything that relates to corruption. I’ve been covering corruption for more than a decade. I’ve called out Republicans and Democrats. The Biden case, to me, is unique because it is not just rank‑and‑file corruption where somebody gets a paving contract for their business.

  We are not just talking about some American company giving a sweetheart job to a politician’s relative. We are talking about a foreign government, which happens to be our chief rival on the global stage, engaging in lucrative commerce with the family of the then‑vice president, now the president of the United States, Joe Biden.

  This is different and unique in the realm of this kind of stuff I’ve seen before. What are these relationships? How do they work? What is the relationship between the Biden family and China? What are the details? Why is it a concern?

  Let me break this out in a couple of phases. First of all, what is the actual commercial relationship between the Biden family and the Chinese? Second of all, what are the implications of it? This is a commercial relationship that not only has made the Bidens money. It has advanced the strategic and military interests of the Chinese government itself.

  What are the relationships?

  The first one is a private equity arrangement or deal that Hunter Biden has with the Chinese government itself. This is a deal that began and was finalized in December of 2013. It led to the creation of something called Bohai Harvest RST or BHR Partners.

  Essentially, the Chinese government poured in a billion dollars. They later expanded that to a-billion-and-a-half dollars for BHR, a private equity investment firm. One of the partnering firms that created BHR was Hunter Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners.

  Hunter Biden was put on the board of directors of BHR Partners. His partner Devon Archer became the vice chairman and sat on the investment committee. What is astonishing about this is, first of all, that the Chinese government funded this venture. Again, these are not individual Chinese companies. This is Chinese government money.

  Second of all, it is astonishing that Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of this firm. His firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, got an equity stake of 20 percent in this firm even though Hunter Biden had zero background in private equity and zero background in China. It begs the question, why did they choose to do business with Hunter Biden? It is pretty clear why.

  Only a few months before this deal was finalized, then Vice President Joe Biden became the point person on Obama administration policy towards China. The timing here is also quite astonishing. That is the first tie you have, this billion-and-a-half dollar, now more than two‑billion‑dollar private equity firm, BHR. Hunter Biden gets an equity stake in the firm and joins the board of directors.

  In 2017, his lawyers admitted that he also took a personal stake. In addition to the firm that he owned part of, he took a personal stake in these deals. That is deal number one. Then there is deal number two with the Chinese government. This involves a real estate firm called Rosemont Real Estate, of which Hunter Biden was a co‑founder.

  Again, Hunter Biden has no background in commercial real estate. He has no background in China. What happens is, in 2013, a Chinese firm called Gemini, which is registered on the Hong Kong stock exchange ‑‑ it is closely linked to the Chinese military, specifically the People’s Liberation Army – shows up and becomes a partner with Hunter Biden’s real estate firm.

  Rosemont then becomes Gemini Rosemont Realty. The Chinese government is later to put in more than $100 million in cash. They publicly say that they are going to put billions of dollars of equity into this entity to make it even more successful. Here you have two large deals.

  There are several others we could talk about that relate to the Chinese government doing business with the son of the sitting vice president, who clearly has no experience and has no reason even to be at the table with the Chinese government. Alas, here he is. Those are the deals.

  We do not know how much money Hunter Biden made. We can assume, based on the private equity deal, that it is probably in the tens of millions of dollars. There is no requirement for them to disclose any of these deals.

  That is part of the problem, and I think it needs to be changed. Those two are the nature of the deals. Here is why these deals are even more troubling and why this is not just a case of corruption.

  Hunter Biden is a willing participant. He is on the board of directors of this private equity firm. When you look at what that private equity firm does, the first thing they do is they become an anchor investor in a Chinese firm called China General Nuclear (CGN).

  Why is this interesting? This is a nuclear energy firm that about eight months after Hunter Biden’s BHR becomes an anchor investor, they are charged by the FBI in the United States.

  That firm was stealing nuclear secrets in the United States. In particular, CGN is trying to gain technologies related to the small nuclear reactors that are put on submarines, which provide a huge military advantage to the United States.

  Already you have this remarkable fact that the son of the sitting vice president is on the board of directors of a Chinese government‑funded firm that buys into another Chinese firm that is engaged in nuclear espionage in the United States. It goes further.

  Another acquisition they make is that Hunter Biden’s BHR firm buys half of a company called Henniges in Michigan — and another Chinese entity buys the other half. That other half is bought by AVIC, which is the Chinese state‑owned aviation military contractor.

  AVIC builds all the military aircraft for the Chinese military. These two entities, Hunter Biden’s BHR and AVIC, buy Henniges in Michigan, which produces machine‑tool‑related systems. They are dual‑use technologies, which means the anti‑vibration technologies they make can be used for civilian purposes and also for military application.

  You have a case the son of the sitting vice president on the board of directors of a firm that has bought American precision machine tool company whose acquisition is going to literally benefit the Chinese military.

  What I think is important about the Biden story is not simply the fact that the Biden family made money because of the Chinese military and that Joe Biden speaks very kindly about the Chinese since those deals have gone down, but also that the Biden family involving the son of the vice president directly benefit the Chinese military.

  It is said that by 2030, the Chinese Communist Party’s goal is to achieve military parity with the United States with the goal, eventually, according to President Xi Jinping, of achieving superiority over the United States.

  To me, this is a central issue of concern that we should have in this country. China is a power that has demonstrated over the last decade that they want, by 2025, to supplant the United States as the major economic power in the world. Then by 2030, they want to match the United States militarily.

  The Chinese government has also spoken openly about their desire to upturn and change the global order for their benefit. What we have in the Biden family is a family that has become wealthy by enabling, helping, aiding and abetting the Chinese in doing exactly that.

  In terms of Hunter Biden doing nothing wrong, it does not seem that there has been anything illegal. I have always contended that the problem in Washington DC is that some of the worst crimes or worst acts of corruption are done by people who engage in legal behavior. In Washington DC, the political class gets to make their own rules.

  They get to rig the game, as it were, to ensure that the real lucrative stuff that is corrupt — and should be illegal — is the very stuff that they engage in. To me, they did something profoundly wrong, which is set up a business enterprise with our chief rival on the global stage and make money with them.

  Hunter Biden has stepped off the board of directors of BHR. Here is the problem: he still retains his equity stake with this Chinese firm. He still has other deals that he conducted with the Chinese from which he benefited.

  The fact is: he got caught, not necessarily with his hand in the cookie jar but with an empty cookie jar and a pile of cookies on the table.

  The manner in which the Bidens have handled this scandal speaks to me to the fact that there is something here that needs to be explored. Joe Biden has not answered questions related to this very well.

  The Biden team has lied repeatedly. I can go into greater detail if people want me to. They have lied repeatedly about what the nature of this relationship has been. They have had to correct the record later. They have had to modify their answers later. This is and should be a central part of the national conversation we are having in the country.

  A couple of examples: The first is a December 2013 trip that Joe Biden took on Air Force Two to Beijing, and Hunter Biden tagged along with him.

  The Bidens’ response was that Hunter Biden was there purely as a private citizen and did not engage in any business activity while he was there. That was the first position. Then, lo and behold, it turned out that a reporter with The New Yorker talked to a Chinese business executive that was involved in setting up BHR.

  That Chinese executive told The New Yorker, “Well, actually, Hunter came and got me, and we went and met with the vice president. I shook the vice president’s hand on that trip.” Already you have the fact that they were claiming that there was no commercial side to this trip, that Hunter Biden engaged in no commercial behavior.

  We now know that his Chinese partner was introduced to the vice president of the United States and they discussed whatever they discussed on that trip. Here is the second lie that they made. We highlighted the fact that December 2013, Joe Biden and his son go to Beijing on Air Force Two. About 10 days later, the BHR, the private equity deal is finalized.

  They responded by saying, “Well, no. This is a coincidence. They are not connected. Hunter was not really involved in setting up BHR. That took place in June of 2013. It did not take place during this December 2013 trip with the vice president.” That was their position. Then our friends at Judicial Watch got a hold of all his travel logs.

  The Secret Service has the travel logs of where Hunter Biden went. Remember, they said BHR was set up in June of 2013? Where was Hunter Biden in June of 2013? He was in Beijing, China.

  The point is, they have lied about this repeatedly. They have tried to downplay it and say, “Well, he was not really that heavily involved in BHR,” and then had to admit that he was on the board of directors.

  It has been subterfuge from the beginning. They need to be called out on it. They seem quite concerned and nervous about this. The American people understand if somebody’s giving you a sweetheart deal, particularly an actor like China, they are not doing it without getting something in return. They are not that stupid.

  This is the problem we have had in Washington for quite some time. We have issues with people on both sides of the aisle. It is not just one side of the aisle.

  This sort of effort by foreign governments and foreign entities to strike bargains with members of the American political elite and members of the political elite, first and foremost, the Bidens, their willingness to strike these deals ought to appall people. Generally, when they learn about them, they do.

  The problem is the way that rules are written in Washington DC, they are written by the political class themselves. They carve out certain things. Think about this for a second. If Joe Biden owns $2,500 in General Electric stock, he is required to disclose that based on the disclosure rules that were passed by Congress.

  If he gets a $250 campaign contribution from a GE executive, it is disclosed by the FEC. If his adult son flying on Air Force Two, clearly close with the vice president, strikes a series of deals with a foreign government that are lucrative and beneficial to him, there is no requirement for disclosure — which, to me, is shocking.

  One of the things that has to change is that we need greater transparency. The political class in Washington is very corrupt. They are very creative. It is like water running downhill. You put up a barrier and it finds a way around it.

  That is what they often do with these rules and laws. If you create a ban on certain types of commercial activities involving members of the political class’ family, they find a way around it.

  The great gold mine that they have discovered are these foreign entities. With Hunter Biden, you have these deals in China. You also have the deal in Ukraine that everybody’s familiar with. Again, where he gets a million dollars a year from a foreign, corrupt energy company in Ukraine right after his father is appointed point person on Ukraine policy.

  He is given a million dollars a year by a company even though he has no background in Ukraine and no background in energy. Everybody knows what is going on. Unfortunately, it is legal.

  There ought to at minimum be a requirement that you disclose any foreign dealings involving the family members of politicians, Republican, Democrat, executive branch, legislative branch. That would be very, very helpful. The way you discuss this and you explain this to people is: It is not a question about what is legal.

  There are lots of things that are legal in Washington that are highly corrupt.

  The key thing is, does this compromise Joe Biden? The fact that his son has a series of deals that they tried to cover up, and that they have lied about, with a foreign government, our chief rival on the global stage, does that put the president of the United States in a compromised position?

  Has he done favors for that foreign power? One of the things that the great Roger Robinson has been working on. He does a lot of work in the equities markets. He is looking into the fact that in 2013, the Obama administration signed a letter which said that the Chinese companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange did not have to conform to Sarbanes‑Oxley auditing and some of the other requirements that US and other foreign firms do.

  It is quite a cutout for the Chinese. They are still trying to figure out who is at the bottom of it. There are indications that there are Biden fingerprints.

  In addition, President Biden talks very favorably towards China, he does not challenge them in the South China Sea and elsewhere, you have something very tangible of benefit to China that Joe Biden has done while his son was given these sweetheart deals by the Chinese government.

  The Chinese Communist Party wanted Joe Biden elected. They did not want President Donald Trump. In the words of, I think, the Global Times publication from Beijing, they think that Biden is smoother than Donald Trump, which is probably the understatement of the week.

  Clearly, they do not like Trump’s posture towards them. Trump continued to send ships to navigate the South China Sea much to their consternation. He strengthened our ties with Taiwan. He strengthened our ties with other allies in Asia. He took aggressive postures related to trade, technology transfer.

  He was very clear and outspoken about the fact that COVID‑19 has origins in China and that China certainly did not act as an international partner in the way that they alerted or failed to alert us regarding that virus. The question about blackmail, to be blunt about it, is, are they going to need to blackmail Joe Biden? Joe Biden’s posture towards China is incredibly soft.

  Something may emerge but I am not sure there is something that they want that he is not already prepared to give them. He certainly has a very different attitude towards trade with China than President Trump did.

  He has been far less outspoken on the South China Sea. He continues to insist, “Oh, they are friends, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  I’m not sure that the Chinese would have to blackmail the Bidens to get a lot of what they want. China has flexed its muscles with politicians in Australia, in New Zealand. This is the way they work. They are very shrewd.

  They do not strike partnerships or collaborate on commercial relationships with political elites in the West unless they are getting something in return. They are not running a charity. President Xi is not running a Biden charity. He is running a country that wants to surpass the United States strategically. They are going to pull those levers if they need to. Generally, Biden’s posture towards them is the posture they want.

  There is no question that the Obama White House would have to know about that, and that President Biden would have to know about that. CGN, you can google it now and it will give you the case information. They had engineer executives that pled guilty in the case.

  Joe Biden is well aware of what is going on. He clearly understands what is going on. What we need is on Capitol Hill for the Senate committees, where the Republicans are in control, to look seriously at this stuff.

  It is like a lot of other countries that are highly dependent on the United States. In this particular case, they very aggressively struck a deal with the vice president’s son to make money, but it is far more important in my mind to look at what is our chief rival China done.

  The VAT Committee is spending a lot of time on China. The China stuff demands further attention. There has been zero curiosity by the mainstream media.

  On Capitol Hill, there have been far too many people sitting on their hands, not wanting to discuss it, either because perhaps they are looking for similar types of deals themselves, or they do not have the stomach to go there because they are concerned about issues that might reflect poorly on them.

  I think with the Chinese funding of over $20 million of the Biden Center of the University of Pennsylvania is deeply troubling. This has been the strategy that China has adopted. We need to remember that China is a Leninist State. They do not have the Marxism Leninism that the Soviet Union had in some respects. They have a more vibrant private sector than the Soviet Union ever did even under Gorbachev.

  There is no question that the Communist Party of China runs China, and commercial ventures in China need to be approved by the party. All major companies have party committees that are embedded in them.

  If I understand the ruling correctly, the Chinese Communist Party, just recently, a couple of years ago required the CEO of any company to be on that Chinese Communist Party committee that is embedded within their own company.

  It should not surprise us that they are going to employ Leninist strategies for their strategic advantage. Not only for the Bidens. You see people on Wall Street. You see some of the big firms.

  I would put Goldman Sachs and Blackstone in that category; they are entities that have been willing to turn a blind eye, and to say wonderful things about China that are simply not true — given the way that the Chinese Communist rule — in exchange for access and making money in the Chinese market.

  It is a huge problem. The Bidens are complicit in it. The Bidens cashed in while he was vice president of the United States. He did not have any of these deals until he became vice president.

  I think at that point, the Chinese realized, “This is a guy we want to do deals with. This is a guy that will be helpful to us in advancing our interest. Let’s strike a bargain,” and that is why they struck a bargain with the Biden family.

  Let’s be honest about it. If Donald Trump Jr. flew over on Air Force One to Beijing, China with his father and got a billion‑and‑a‑half‑dollar deal, let’s say in the energy sector, where he has no experience, the mainstream media would be all over that story.

  I would be all over that story for good reason, but there has been a complete lack of curiosity by the media, and even, as we have seen, suppression.

  My hope is that people will start paying attention to this issue. We will start being a lot more aware that members of our political class are doing these kinds of deals overseas, and they are being paid by the foreign government. It should not be tolerated. Even if it is legal, it should not be tolerated just because they have written the rules in such a way to benefit themselves.

  *  *  *

  Peter Schweizer, President of the Governmental Accountability Institute, is a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow and author of the new book, Red Handed: How American Elites are Helping China Win.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 23:30

• 'Assault Weapon' Ban Passes WA Senate – Governor Signals Support
  ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Passes WA Senate – Governor Signals Support

  The Washington state senate on Saturday approved a measure that would ban the sale of so-called “assault weapons.” It does not, however, ban possession. 

  HB 1240 will make it illegal to sell, transfer, distribute, manufacture or import a long list of prohibited firearms. The bill bans several broad categories such as the AK-47 and AR-15 “in all its forms,” and then lists dozens of specific product lines, such as the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 and Bushmaster XM-15. 

  It also bans the weapons by defining them as semiautomatic, centerfire rifles that accept a detachable magazine and also have at least one of many other listed features, such as a folding or telescoping stock. It also bars such weapons if they have an integral 10-round magazine. 

  The bill was amended by the senate, so it now returns to Washington’s House of Representatives for a final vote. The House passed the original bill on a 55-42 vote, and Governor Jay Inslee previously signaled his support, saying, “Passing an assault weapon ban will be a momentous step forward for Washington state.” Tacoma-based firearm component-manufacturer Aero Precision begs to differ: 

  Extremely sad day for gun owners of Washington. More updates to come soon, but one thing we know for sure is that this fight is far from over pic.twitter.com/5F4vv8C3Hr

  — Aero Precision (@aero_precision) April 9, 2023

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

  The bill’s supporters “don’t own firearms and don’t know anything about firearms,” said Republican Senator Keith Wagoner, who was able to amend the bill to explicitly exempt active duty military personnel who are ordered to duty in Washington, along with military retirees moving to the state. 

  Violations will be considered “gross misdemeanors,” carrying a penalty of up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.  

  The “assault weapon” bill is one of several measures advancing in the Washington legislature. On Friday, the Senate approved an already-House-approved bill that puts a 10-day waiting period on gun purchases and requires buyers to prove they took a safety class.

  The impending infringements on gun rights triggered a surge in gun-buying as residents raced to beat the legislature: Background checks in the state rocketed 70% higher in April. 

  

  Washington is poised to become the 10th state to impose such an “assault weapon” ban, joining California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, along with the District of Columbia. 

  There’s a distinct possibility all of those bans will be obliterated by the Supreme Court in the not-too-distant future. Keep an eye on two cases making their way through the federal court system: Bianchi v Frosh, which challenges Maryland’s ban, and Miller v Bonta, which targets California’s. 

  After last summer’s Supreme Court Bruen ruling, gun control laws can only be upheld if they are consistent with the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” That new standard has resulted in an ongoing series of gun control laws being rejected. Most recently, a federal judge applying that framework blocked California’s “Unsafe Handgun Act,” which among other things, requires that handguns must stamp a unique identifier onto fired bullets, with the intent to facilitate police investigations.  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 23:00

• The Point Of No Return
  The Point Of No Return

  Authored by Josh Hammer via The Epoch Times,

  The Roman historian Suetonius described Julius Caesar as timid and noncommittal as he initially approached the Rubicon River – a shallow and narrow waterway that, at the time, demarcated the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper – in January 49 B.C.E.

  In fact, the historian ultimately attributed Caesar’s decision to cross the waterway, precipitating a four-year civil war and ultimate Caesarian dictatorship, to the supernatural. Prior to crossing, again according to Suetonius, Caesar uttered the now-infamous phrase: “The die has been cast.”

  

  While we cannot know for certain whether New York County, New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s catastrophic decision to successfully indict and arraign a former president of the United States was partially attributable to an intervening apparition, we can reasonably conclude that the actions of this past week have cast a most woeful die for the trajectory of our decadent, declining republic. The 34-count formal indictment of former President Donald Trump, laughably meritless on the legal merits and scandalously imprudent on the broader political judgment, represents a genie that cannot, and will not, ever be returned to its bottle.

  Much ink has already been spilled on the glaring legal deficiencies in Bragg’s case, which ought to be evident to any competent first-year law student and which had led Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr., U.S. prosecutors and—in the not-so-distant past—Bragg himself to eschew prosecution. The underlying New York State crime that Trump allegedly violated and which is the exclusive crime invoked in the formal indictment, falsifying business records in the first degree, has a two-year statute of limitations under New York criminal law. The final alleged criminal bookkeeping action—a “hush money” payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels by former Trump “fixer,” and more recent convicted felon, Michael Cohen—was on Dec. 5, 2017. The statute of limitations thus tolled over three years ago. That alone should suffice to dismiss the case.

  Bragg’s theory appears to be that he can somehow evade this, and simultaneously enhance the misdemeanor to a felony, by proving—beyond a reasonable doubt, naturally—that Trump’s bookkeeping falsifications were done in furtherance of another crime. But Bragg, remarkably, has not said what that crime is. It appears to be some amorphous combination of skirting federal campaign law and/or New York State election law, in the context of Trump’s successful 2016 presidential run; but the former has a five-year statute of limitations (thus also tolled) and is also well outside Bragg’s legitimate prosecutorial jurisdiction as a county district attorney, and the latter should not properly apply to a U.S. presidential candidate. Moreover, even ignoring the dispositive statute of limitations and jurisdictional issues, the very thing Bragg would need to prove to a jury “beyond a reasonable doubt” to secure the felony enhancement—that Trump directed Cohen to make the payments with the specific intent to benefit his 2016 presidential campaign—is rebutted by Cohen himself, who has testified under oath that Trump requested the payments to be made furtively to spare his family personal embarrassment.

  Alvin Bragg, lest it go unstated, is the same George Soros-funded “reform prosecutor” who has overseen a 22 percent year-over-year increase in New York City’s crime rate, even as he has downgraded a whopping 52 percent of felonies to misdemeanors. In the Big Apple, homicides are spiking, illegal guns are everywhere, single women are afraid to walk the streets of Manhattan alone, and commuters are terrified to ride the subway lest insane homeless persons push them into oncoming trains. Yet this is how Alvin Bragg, who, along with New York State Attorney General Letitia James, ran on an open and explicit “Get Trump” campaign platform, chooses to spend his time, expend his prosecutorial resources and seek misdemeanor-to-felony enhancements.

  But the deed is done. If not dismissed beforehand, a trial would likely not unfold until later this year or early next. And in the interim, other ambitious prosecutors investigating Trump in Georgia and Washington, D.C., have now watched Bragg shatter the hitherto unbroken precedent of the ruling political party never criminally indicting a former and defeated president of the opposite political party, which had been—until this past week—one of the few remaining things to which we might point to distinguish our late-stage republic from its third-world banana republic equivalents the world over. Perhaps additional indictments in those jurisdictions will indeed follow. Either way, the political ramifications for the 2024 Republican presidential primary are legion.

  With the precedent forever shattered, the onus now falls on the “deplorables” of the American Right to sober up and recognize that the United States is now at the point of no return when it comes to weaponizing governmental powers and partisan prosecutorial apparatuses to reward political friends and punish political enemies within the (sometimes highly debatable, as is the case here) confines of the rule of law. There is simply no choice but for the Right, and for Republican prosecutors in deep-red jurisdictions across the country, to prudentially and reasonably respond in kind, upping the ante further in the short- to mid-term in an attempt to ultimately de-escalate toward a long-term “mutually assured destruction” footing. Surely there is some creative and ambitious right-wing prosecutor in the Oklahoma Panhandle or West Texas who would like to summon Hunter Biden or Anthony Fauci out to “flyover country,” right?

  Sometimes, the only way out is through.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 22:30

• Echoes Of New Century's Collapse Amid Sudden Firesale Of Real Estate Loans As One Bank Sees 40% Downside
  Echoes Of New Century’s Collapse Amid Sudden Firesale Of Real Estate Loans As One Bank Sees 40% Downside

  Those who peaked below the surface of the latest H.8 statement which, as discussed previously, saw the biggest drop on record in bank loans and leases in the last two weeks of March…

  

  … found another, perhaps even bigger surprise. As we detailed over the weekend when breaking down the weekly change in small bank loans and leases by their subcomponents, we found that whereas in the first week after the bank crisis (the one ending March 15) the bulk of the collapse in loans was in the traditionally volatile C&I space, the latest week was a surprise: that’s because while the plunge in C&I loans moderated substantially to just $6.9BN from $25BN the week before, the biggest slide was in one of the anchor pillars of the small bank sector: real estate loans.

  

  In fact, while the biggest drop among small bank loans in the latest week was the $18.7BN decline in real estate loans, this was a continuation of the $19.2BN drop in the previous week. Combining the two weeks adds to a $37.8BN plunge in real estate loans in the second half of March. This number is notable because it is the biggest since the collapse of the country’s then-second largest subprime lender, New Century Financial in March 2007, which as most traders over 40 recall, was the catalyst that ushered in the global financial crisis, and within the year led to the collapse of Bear Stearns and, eventually, Lehman.

  

  Of course, for the past month we have been warning that real estate and especially Commercial Real Estate is the ticking solvency time bomb within both large and small banks, now that the liquidity crisis that crushed several “small” banks has been contained courtesy of nearly half a trillion in reserve injections by the Fed. And while we previously discussed at length the coming multi-trillion CRE maturity wall, (see “New “Big Short” Hits Record Low As Focus Turns To $400 Billion CRE Debt Maturity Wall“)…

  

  … increasingly more are also seemingly starting to notice and, what is far more ominously, are taking a page out of the Margin Call playbook and quietly selling out of their real estate loan exposure: or to quote Kevin Spacey, “this is what the beginning of a firesale looks like.”

  To be sure, it’s no longer just us that are focusing on the potential of CRE to be the next market crash catalyst. As Bloomberg wrote over the weekend, “almost $1.5 trillion of US commercial real estate debt comes due for repayment before the end of 2025. The big question facing those borrowers is who’s going to lend to them?”

  Well, there is another even bigger question as the video clip above suggests, but we’ll get back to it in a second.

  Bloomberg quotes a recent must-read note by Morgan Stanley titled “Scaling Maturity Walls” (available to pro subs in the usual place) in which the bank’s credit strategists write that “refinancing risks are front and center” for owners of properties from office buildings to stores and warehouses, adding that “the maturity wall here is front-loaded. So are the associated risks.”

  Looking at the charts below, Morgan Stanley’s James Egan writes that “roughly $400-450bn worth of CRE loans are scheduled to mature in 2023. This is on par with 2022, and both of those years are the largest on record ( Exhibit 12 ). From there it doesn’t get any easier, as maturities climb each year until 2027, reaching over $550bn.” And “while the maturity walls within other asset classes might not be very front loaded, the issue within commercial real estate is happening right now.”

  

  As these maturities come due, Egan warns that he is left many more questions than answers, “chief among them: who is going to be responsible for refinancing these loans as they mature? That story differs depending on property type. The multifamily space has grown very reliant on the GSEs over the years. From 2023 through 2027, 46% of maturities are currently guaranteed by the GSEs. As a reminder, in the GSE space, borrowers will ask lenders for a loan, and if the property meets the eligibility criteria for agency guarantee, then the lender should generally feel comfortable that the loan will be guaranteed by the agency when quoting a rate lock. The agencies will inspect the property at different times depending on the exact program, but given that the majority of agency guaranteed multifamily properties are held by borrowers with multiple properties, there is incentive to continue to work with the agencies.”

  

  But the real punchline is that as these maturities are picking up, the single largest lender in the Commercial Real Estate landscape is the one that is now under the most scrutiny: regional banks, something we have been warning about for months. As Morgan Stanley notes in the next chart, in the years since the GFC, origination volumes and the share of that volume has varied, but since 2014 the trend has clearly been away from CMBS and toward regional banks.

  

  Meanwhile, as we discussed previously, rising rates and worries about defaults have already hurt CMBS deals. Sales of the securities without government backing fell about 80% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations.

  “The role that banks have played in this ecosystem, not only as lenders but also as buyers,” will compound the wave of refinancing coming due, the analysts wrote.

  Unfortunately, when apartment blocks are excluded, the scale of the problems facing banks becomes even starker. As much as 70% of the other commercial real estate loans that mature over the next five years are held by banks, according to the Morgan Stanley report.

  “Commercial real estate needs to re-price and alternative ways to refinance the debt are needed,” the analysts said.

  To be sure it’s not all doom and gloom, and as Bloomberg notes, there are some slivers of good news. Conservative lending standards in the wake of the financial crisis provide borrowers, and in turn their lenders, with some degree of protection from falling values. Additionally, sentiment toward multifamily housing also remains much more positive as rents continue to rise, one reason why Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust had a positive return in February even as rising numbers of investors lodge withdrawal requests. The availability of agency-backed loans will help owners of those properties when they need to refinance.

  Alas, with regional banks now undergoing cardiac arrest, and unlikely to reboot their lending activity as long as deposit flight continues – which as discussed last week has slowed modestly but remains an existential risk to the regional banks and which is unlikely to be resolved as long as the Fed refuses to cut rates and remove depositors’ preference from shifting funds from banks to safer, and higher yielding money markets (see “JPM Asks If The Fed Will Restrict Reverse Repo Use To Short Circuit $1.5 Trillion Bank Run“)…

  

  …. it doesn’t take rocket science to realize that, just like in March 2007 when the collapse of New Century finally shocked everyone into a state of brutal realization that the party was over, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

  How much worse? Well, according to Morgan Stanley office and retail property valuations could fall as much as 40% from peak to trough, creating a feedback loop of liquidations, bank failures, defaults and from there even more liquidations:

  US securitized credit – CRE: $1.35-1.46 trillion (30-32%) of CRE debt matures by YE 2025 and banks hold ~42-56% of maturing debt. Recent attention on US CRE is understandable as the asset class faces a trifecta of risks:

  • (1) Maturity walls are front loaded. Acknowledging the variance in the numbers reported by different sources, we estimate that nearly $566-615 billion (22-24%) of the outstanding $2.6 trillion core CRE debt (excluding multifamily) matures by year-end 2024 and another $275-340 billion (11-13%) is due in 2025.
  • (2) Bank dependence is high – both as direct lenders to the asset and also as buyers of both agency and non-agency CMBS. Banks hold 36-64% of debt maturing each year and account for nearly half the agency CMBS and 10-15% of the non-agency CMBS investor base.
  • (3) Valuation concerns have increased in specific sectors such as office and retail.

  Our equity colleagues expect a 30-40% peak to trough correction in both asset classes.

  We are glad that one month after we called CRE the “BIg Short 3.0”, one of the largest and most respected US banks agrees. We are not glad that if, or rather when we are proven right that with trillions in loan maturities which nobody wants to roll CRE is about to become the next Subprime, the US financial system will suffer another existential shock, or as some call it “credit event.”

  Morgan Stanley’s conclusion: “commercial real estate needs to re-price and alternative ways to refinance the debt are needed.”

  And while it may not have been Morgan Stanley’s intention, yelling “re-pricing” in a burning theater can be even worse than yelling fire: it’s the green light for everyone else to start selling… something the collapse in real estate loans suggest may have already started.

  Much more in the must-read MS notes (here and here) available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 22:02

• AI Therapy Is Here, But The Oversight Isn't
  AI Therapy Is Here, But The Oversight Isn’t

  Authored by Kate Farmer via RealClear Wire,

  Since ChatGPT’s buzzy entrance into the tech world in late 2022, artificially intelligent text generation models have exploded in popularity, prompting one of history’s largest tech booms since the debut of the World Wide Web. AI is now popping up in every corner of modern life — even therapy.

  

  Patients frustrated by long wait times and high prices in mental healthcare are increasingly turning to AI apps, websites, and chatbots for therapy. But despite their novelty, consumers should be wary. These young AI systems lack the regulatory oversight essential to ensure their safety, which can put vulnerable users at risk.

  While the technology has rapidly developed in recent months, AI chat therapy is not new. The first computerized forms of AI therapy came in the 1960s and 70s, where programs like Eliza and ALICE could respond to basic user inputs and offer a rudimentary form of a ‘listening ear.’ Their creators, pessimistic about the ability of computers to recreate actual human conversation, generally regarded them as satire. But more advanced modern-day Natural Language Processing (NLP) models can generate highly convincing dialogues that pass the Turing test with flying colors. 

  AI therapy systems have since left the realm of scientific experimentation and entered public markets, advertising their services as would a real clinic. Today, dozens of apps such as Woebot, Wysa, and Limbic offer a wide range of therapy services, mostly for free or at a small subscription fee. They exercise what Alexandrine Royer of the Montreal AI Ethics Institute calls “emotionally intelligent computing,” engaging empathetically with user inputs and responding with established therapy techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The sites all present the same disclaimers: that they are not a substitute for a real professional, that they cannot diagnose conditions or prescribe medicine, and to please seek emergency help in times of crisis. They also emphasize that the content of users’ sessions will be kept private.

  But this unique “non-professional” space occupied by AI therapy apps and websites is almost entirely unregulated. AI therapy services, even highly sophisticated sites like Woebot, are still classified by the FDA as “general wellness” products — the regulatory category for “low risk products that promote a healthy lifestyle.” General wellness products are not subject to oversight in the way foods, cosmetics, or medical care are. They are held only to a set of vague “nonbinding recommendations” published by the FDA for suggested use (and that haven’t been updated since 2019). As long as AI therapy sites continue to disclaim the ability to treat specific conditions like anorexia or anxiety disorders, they are allowed to allege certain mental health benefits without verification from the FDA. 

  It’s no secret AI makes mistakes. Every month, high-profile AI systems make news with laughable blunders. But the stakes are higher for mental health. AI therapists, and AI chatbots in general, cannot understand a user’s nuance and precise meaning every time, so they are forced to guess. Typically, this guesswork results in dialogue that is clunky and frustrating. At their worst, however, they can accidentally give out harmful advice — errors that can be life-threatening when issued to vulnerable users. High-profile AI therapy companies are aware of these blunders: some, like Woebot, have even issued press releases condemning other AI therapy models, while continuing to defend their own. 

  But the confidentiality of user data, combined with the lack of transparency measures for AI therapy sites, makes it difficult for users and regulators to determine the safety and effectiveness of care. AI therapy systems often advertise positive statistics proving the effectiveness of their product, but the data is self-reported, and the studies are usually conducted internally by the companies themselves. Because of their FDA status as “general wellness products” (GWPs), not legally marketed devices, they are not held to any federal transparency requirements over the claims they make. Traditional FDA approval requires sufficient, valid scientific evidence assuring a product’s safety and efficacy — but no such requirements apply for GWPs. Without this oversight, AI therapy providers can make unsubstantiated claims about their model’s safety and benefits without repercussions.

  This isn’t to say AI therapy services should be abandoned entirely. When actually used for “general wellness” — not for serious conditions, and certainly not for crisis episodes — they have the potential to offer unique, on-demand benefits that a regular therapist cannot. Their high degree of confidentiality, ease of access, zero wait times, and extremely low cost can make AI therapy sites a decent option down the line. However, until better user protections are in place, we cannot fully trust AI therapy systems to provide safe and effective care.

  AI systems, as a whole, are popping up faster than the speed of regulation. It remains up to the FDA and other federal agencies to determine where and how AI therapy services will be subject to oversight. But, as in any period of great technological advancement, the oversight will eventually catch up, along with mechanisms for systems transparency and user protection. For now, however, the best medicine for users is probably to wait.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 21:30

• The Renewable Intermittency Challenge
  The Renewable Intermittency Challenge

  The U.S. has a dynamic electricity mix, with a range of energy sources generating electricity at different times of the day.

  At all times, the amount of electricity generated must match demand in order to keep the power grid in balance, which leads to cyclical patterns in daily and weekly electricity generation.

  The graphic below, via Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada and Sabrina Lam, tracks hourly changes in U.S. electricity generation over one week, based on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

  

  The Three Types of Power Plants

  Before diving in, it’s important to distinguish between the three main types of power plants in the U.S. electricity mix:

  • Base load plants generally run at full or near-full capacity and are used to meet the base load or the minimum amount of electricity demanded at all times. These are typically coal-fired or nuclear power plants. If regionally available, geothermal and hydropower plants can also be used as baseload sources.

  • Peak load or peaking power plants are typically dispatchable and can be ramped up quickly during periods of high demand. These plants usually operate at maximum capacity only for a few hours a day and include gas-fired and pumped-storage hydropower plants.

  • Intermediate load plants are used during the transitory hours between base load and peak load demand. Intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar (without battery storage) are suitable for intermediate use, along with other sources.

  Zooming In: The U.S. Hourly Electricity Mix

  With that context, the table below provides an overview of average hourly electricity generation by source for the week of March 7–March 14, 2023, in the Eastern Time Zone.

  It’s worth noting that while this is representative of a typical week of electricity generation, these patterns can change with seasons. For example, in the month of June, electricity demand usually peaks around 5 PM, when solar generation is still high, unlike in March.

  

  Natural gas is the country’s largest source of electricity, with gas-fired plants generating an average of 176,000 MWh of electricity per hour throughout the week outlined above. The dispatchable nature of natural gas is evident in the chart, with gas-fired generation falling in the wee hours and rising during business hours.

  Meanwhile, nuclear electricity generation remains steady throughout the given days and week, ranging between 80,000–85,000 MWh per hour. Nuclear plants are designed to operate for long durations (1.5 to 2 years) before refueling and require less maintenance, allowing them to provide reliable baseload energy.

  On the other hand, wind and solar generation tend to see large fluctuations throughout the week. For example, during the week of March 07–14, wind generation ranged between 26,875 MWh and 77,185 MWh per hour, based on wind speeds. Solar generation had stronger extremes, often reaching zero or net-negative at night and rising to over 40,000 MWh in the afternoon.

  Because wind and solar are often variable and location-specific, integrating them into the grid can pose challenges for grid operators, who rely on forecasts to keep electricity supply and demand in balance. So, what are some ways to solve these problems?

  Solving the Renewable Intermittency Challenge

  As more renewable capacity is deployed, here are three ways to make the transition smoother.

  • Energy storage systems can be combined with renewables to mitigate variability. Batteries can store electricity during times of high generation (for example, in the afternoon for solar), and supply it during periods of peak demand.

  • Demand-side management can be used to shift flexible demand to times of high renewable generation. For instance, utilities can collaborate with their industrial customers to ensure that certain factory lines only run in the afternoon, when solar generation peaks.

  • Expanding transmission lines can help connect high-quality solar and wind resources in remote regions to centers of demand. In fact, as of the end of 2021, over 900 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity (notably more than the country’s current renewable capacity) were queued for grid interconnection.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 21:00

• The Media-Deep State Mind-Meld
  The Media-Deep State Mind-Meld

  Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

  Elon Musk’s Twitter recently officially branded NPR “state-affiliated media.”  

  

  The label is not only undeniably true, but probably an understatement.  Nonetheless, the designation predictably caused John Lansing, National Public Radio’s CEO, to clutch his pearls and attempt to un-bunch his panties.

  By way of reply, Lansing issued this laughably preposterous statement:

  NPR and our Member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable.

  Now tell us the one about the three bears, John.  Sometimes Babylon Bee articles almost write themselves.

  While the mainstream media have leaned liberal since Moby-Dick was a pup, it has recently gone full-on Marxist in lockstep with the Democrat party.  

  Nearly every outlet uses virtually the same phrases to denounce conservatives and further its agenda.

  Guns bad.  Abortion rights good.  “Toxic masculinity” bad.  “Trans women” good.  Appropriation bad.  Men in women’s locker rooms and bathrooms good.  Climate change bad.  Fundamentally transforming the United States good.  And on and on, ad infinitum.

  The mainstream media will vociferously proclaim any conspiracy theory to be true, and any truth to be a conspiracy theory.  Doubt that?  They aggressively and shamelessly promoted the “Russian Collusion” fallacy for well nigh two years but reported that the Hunter Biden laptop story “had all the earmarks of Russian disinformation.”  Then came their reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, and the subsequent mask, social-distancing, and vaccine mandates.  Etc., etc., etc.

  ABC recently went so far as to blur out the front of the podium at which Donald Trump was delivering his post-indictment speech, so those watching couldn’t see the number placed there for them to text if they wanted to receive official campaign notifications and updates.  Yet no network has ever deigned to prevent people from reading any message on any podium at which Joe Biden was speaking, before or after he became president.

  If the Democrat party were to proclaim — tomorrow — that the Earth is flat, within minutes, MSNBC would solemnly aver, “The Earth is flat.”  

  CNN would breathlessly announce, “The Earth is flat.”  NBC would report, “The Earth is, indeed, flat.”  CBS would cry, “Turns out the Earth is flat.”  ABC would declare: “The science is now settled.  The Earth is flat.”

  The New York Times would run a front-page banner headline, above the fold, stating unequivocally, “Experts Say Earth Is Flat, Far-Right Flat-Earth Deniers a Danger to Humanity.”  

  The Washington Post would run with “Far-Right Flat-Earth Deniers a Danger to Humanity, Experts Say.”

  If former President Trump — and his roughly 75 million supporters — disagreed with the now conventional wisdom that the Earth is flat, the media would haughtily sniff: “Trump’s baseless claim that the Earth is not flat is part of ‘The Big Lie’ which he and his radical-right supporters traffic in and expound.”

  Mainstream journalists would report that “far-right Republicans cling to their long-debunked belief that the Earth is round.”  

  The “ladies” on The View would say something like, “Whacko conspiracy theorists on the right claim that the Earth isn’t flat.  But that ship has long since sailed.  It is an irrefutable fact that it is as flat as a pancake that Donald Trump sat on.”  (The ladies would then smirk and giggle.)

  The mainstream media are indeed “state-affiliated” when Democrats reign.  It would more properly be termed “Deep State–affiliated” when they don’t.

  Unfortunately, “fake news” is all too real.

  Mainstream media outlets have made themselves a joke.

  Albeit a bad one.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 20:30

• Embattled Soros-Backed St. Louis Prosecutor Sanctioned By Judge Amid New Complaints
  Embattled Soros-Backed St. Louis Prosecutor Sanctioned By Judge Amid New Complaints

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  A St. Louis judge sanctioned St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office last week for allegedly withholding evidence in a double-murder case, while allowing the suspect out on bond, amid rising criticism about left-wing prosecutors allowing crime to flourish in major U.S. cities.

  

  St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner appears at her disciplinary hearing in St. Louis, Mo., on April 11, 2022. (T.L. Witt/Pool via Missouri Lawyers Media/AP Photo)

  Alex Heflin, 23, was held without bond since January after he was initially charged with two counts of second-degree murder and armed criminal action, local media reported. But those charges were recently reduced to involuntary and voluntary manslaughter before he was released, while his April 17 trial has been postponed until June 12.

  Judge Theresa Counts Burke ruled in favor of Heflin’s lawyers after they filed a motion accusing a prosecutor under Gardner of violating discovery rules. They alleged that her office did not turn over evidence, including a 911 call recording and DNA evidence.

  “The court finds that there have been repeated delays by the state in obtaining discovery and providing it to the defense,” Burke wrote, according to local reports.

  “There has been a lack of diligence on the part of the state in following up and providing discovery to the defendant in a timely fashion. As a result of the state’s actions and lack of diligence, the court grants defendant’s second motion for sanctions.”

  Under Burke’s order, Heflin will have to remain on GPS monitoring. She also ordered the circuit attorney’s office to hand over their list of witnesses within 24 hours, provide DNA test results within 24 hours, or ask a crime lab for the DNA results.

  The Epoch Times has contacted Gardner’s office for comment.

  In a statement, Gardner said that it is working with police “to bring justice on behalf of the people of the City of St. Louis, victims, and their families.” It added that her office “is dedicated to doing everything in its power to hold the defendant accountable … and will continue to work to ensure justice is served.

  While the St. Louis Police Department did not comment on the case and said it is working with Garnder’s office, the St. Louis Police Officers’ Association accused Gardner of misconduct.

  “The St. Louis Police Officers’ Association would like to address the unfounded claims made against our members in a recent news article concerning State vs. Heflin. Kim Gardner’s office has once again failed to accept responsibility for the mistakes made within her office and chose instead to blame the hard-working men and women of the St. Louis Police Department,” the statement said.

  “These repeated problems are due to the incompetence of the Circuit Attorney’s office, not from the actions of police officers.”

  The union added that “in this case, all the evidence had been turned over to the Circuit Attorney’s office for nearly a year prior to trial. Police officers shouldn’t be made scapegoats for an overworked, backlogged, and mismanaged Circuit Attorney’s Office.”

  It comes days after Gardner, a Democrat, said she will run for reelection in 2024 – even as she tries to fend off an effort by Missouri’s attorney general to force her out of office. Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey in February filed a lawsuit asking a judge to remove Gardner from office, accusing her of incompetence.

  Bailey cited a low rate of convictions in homicide cases, accused Gardner of failing to keep crime victims and their families updated, and said her office is too slow to take up cases brought by police.

  Gardner, 47, was elected in 2016 and reelected in 2020. She is among several left-wing Democratic prosecutors across the country who have taken steps such as ending the prosecution of certain crimes and seeking mental health treatment over incarceration for non-violent criminals.

  Republicans have accused her of receiving money from groups tied to left-wing billionaire financier George Soros, who was accused of providing funding to left-wing groups during the Black Lives Matter-related unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, nearly 10 years ago. In 2016, she received campaign funding from Soros’s Safety and Justice Committee, according to the Missouri Times, while in 2017, she worked with The Vera Institute of Justice, which itself received $11 million from Soros’s Open Society Foundations, it was reported.

  Soros has been accused of providing funding to other left-wing district attorneys, which was highlighted by tech billionaire Elon Musk last month.

  “Soros figured out a clever arbitrage opportunity: The many small political contests, such as DAs & judges, have much higher impact per dollar spent than the big races, so it is far easier to sway the outcome,” he wrote in response to claims that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg received Soros cash.

  In 2018, the Supreme Court of Missouri ordered Gardner to be disciplined for misconduct in the 2018 prosecution of then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 20:00

• Biden Admin Asks Supreme Court To Restore Bump Stock Ban
  Biden Admin Asks Supreme Court To Restore Bump Stock Ban

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration on Friday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that halted a federal ban on “bump stocks,” with the Justice Department requesting the high court reimpose a ban on the devices until it hears the case.

  

  Bump stocks, which are accessories that let semi-automatic firearms boost firing speed, were banned in 2019 when the Department of Justice (DOJ) amended regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), classifying bump stocks as equivalent to machine guns and making them illegal.

  The ban prompted a lawsuit by Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, who was handed a victory when the Fifth Circuit ruled recently to invalidate the ATF prohibition on bump stocks.

  The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of the Fifth Circuit’s decision that reversed the ban.

  “Their appeal—what they call a writ of certiorari—to the Supreme Court, asking the Supreme Court to hear this case, also asks that the lower court in Austin actually do a stay, meaning that keep bump stocks banned until this case is heard in front of the U.S. Supreme Court,” Cargill said in a statement posted on social media in response to the DOJ’s latest action.

  

  The petition for a writ of certiorari—a formal request made to a higher court to review and potentially overturn a lower court decision—was filed with the Supreme Court by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar on behalf of the DOJ.

  “The government maintains only that bump stocks are machineguns under the best interpretation of the statute,” the petition reads (pdf). “The Fifth Circuit erred in holding otherwise, and this Court should grant review and reverse” the lower court’s decision.

  That decision “threatens significant harm to public safety,” the DOJ said in the appeal. “Bump stocks allow a shooter to fire hundreds of bullets a minute by a single pull of the trigger. Like other machine guns, rifles modified with bump stocks are exceedingly dangerous.”

  Before the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Cargill, three other federal courts upheld the bump stock ban. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review those cases.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 19:30

• Are 'Woke' Companies Sponsoring Golf Pros That Fly Around In Private Jets?
  Are ‘Woke’ Companies Sponsoring Golf Pros That Fly Around In Private Jets?

  The weather-delayed Masters at Augusta National will resume on Sunday morning. The third round is set to continue at 0830 ET. If there are no further issues, the final round will start around noon. Unpredictable weather, including a falling tree on Friday, disrupted play in recent days. 

  It is business as usual for pros who have corporate sponsorships stitched all over their golf swag. Companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, to stamp their logo on the shirts, hats, plants, and bags of pros — it’s fantastic advertising since millions tune into one of the greatest golf tournaments in the world. 

  📸 From @reuterspictures: Views from The Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia pic.twitter.com/yerPBZMK5x

  — Reuters (@Reuters) April 9, 2023

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

  It is also important to note that major sponsors like ‘woke’ Nike (and there are many others), with their all-important ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) social credit scores, might be sponsoring some players who arrived at Augusta Regional Airport (AGS) by private jet. 

  

  Ahead of the tournament, AGS had been transformed into a parking lot for jets. Not all jets are chartered or owned by pros, but there are some. 

  Fun fact. 3/4 of the total amount of Private Jets in the 🇺🇸 are at Augusta Regional Airport this week 😳 🛩️#themasters #masters #golf #TigerWoods #MONEY pic.twitter.com/nP45zQuKHU

  — Conal Duffy (Duff) (@Theecog) April 7, 2023

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

  Masters in Full Swing at Augusta Regional Airport! Private jets as far as the eye can see pic.twitter.com/4YhVqztgXS

  — 𝔼𝕝𝕚𝕫𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕥𝕙 𝔾𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕤 🛫 (@LizCreekGirl) April 7, 2023

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

  Companies like Nike, which maintains all sorts of feel-good social credit scores, such as those catering to the LGBTQ+ community, have plowed millions of dollars into virtue-signaling marketing to boost their scores.

  

  Golf pros flying in private jets while sponsored by ‘woke’ companies may not portray a favorable image. So what do these companies need to do? 

  Quick, give more money to trans-TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney to boost social credit scores… 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 19:00

• "Recession Probabilities Are Going Up At This Point": Larry Summers
  “Recession Probabilities Are Going Up At This Point”: Larry Summers

  Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

  Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers believes the probability of the United States entering a recession has spiked, pointing to tightening credit conditions.

  “Recession probabilities are going up at this point,” Summers said in an interview with Bloomberg.

  The U.S. economy averaged 345,000 monthly job additions in the first quarter of 2023 while the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent in March, indicating a robust economy. However, Summers discounted the report, stating that it only reflected the nature of the economy from the first quarter.

  Now, the data is less relevant due to the prospects of a credit tightening, he said.

  “We’re getting a sense that there is some substantial amount of constriction in credit.”

  After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March, almost $174.5 billion in deposits left the banking system the following week, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Most of the money went into money market funds. The banking crisis triggered by SVB’s collapse has raised concerns about access to credit.

  “More problems in financial institutions or other sectors of the economy will eventually result in lending being unavailable or only accessible at exorbitant rates. And that will constitute a credit crunch,” Peter Earle, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times in March.

  A credit crunch is one of the factors economists consider when deciding whether it’s an economic recession.

  Business activity is indicating a slowdown, adding to worries of recession. In March, the Institute of Supply Management’s manufacturing activity gauge fell to its lowest level since May 2020. This is also the lowest reading since 2009 once the pandemic is excluded.

  

  Bankruptcy filings have spiked across major industries. In March, 42,368 new bankruptcies were filed, up 17 percent from a year back. It was also the third straight month of bankruptcy increases.

  Meanwhile, venture capital funding for start-ups declined by 55 percent in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period a year ago. This is the lowest level in over five years.

  The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the United States fell for the 11th straight month in February, which is the longest slump since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

  “While the rate of month-over-month declines in the LEI have moderated in recent months, the leading economic index still points to risk of recession in the US economy,” said Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, senior manager at The Conference Board, according to a March 17 press release.

  

  Fed Rate Decision

  The Federal Reserve had raised its benchmark interest rates multiple times in the past year, pushing it up from around 0.5 percent to a range of 4.75 to 5 percent. However, the current banking crisis poses a challenge to this policy of rate hikes.

  “I think the Fed’s got very, very difficult decisions ahead of it—with very much two-sided risk,” Summers said. These two-sided risks are a reflection of the consequences of the American economy overheating, he added.

  The former Treasury Secretary pointed out that the Fed’s internal models failed to anticipate the rising inflation which kicked off in 2021 as well as risks emerging in the banking system as a result of SVB’s collapse.

  “Business as usual at the Fed has not been successful over the last two and a half years.”

  Some Fed officials, like St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, are pushing the central bank to continue the policy of rate hikes. Summers is not sure about the Fed continuing such a policy. “What’s pretty clear is that we’re in the very late innings of the current tightening cycle,” he said.

  “Whether there’s going to be another move necessary or not, I think that’s a judgment they should be holding off on until the very last kind of moment,” he said about the Fed policymakers.

  The upcoming Fed meeting to decide interest rates is scheduled for May 3.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 18:30

• Ports Of Los Angeles And Long Beach Close Due To Widespread Worker Shortages During Contract Talks
  Ports Of Los Angeles And Long Beach Close Due To Widespread Worker Shortages During Contract Talks

  The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have closed due to widespread worker shortages apparently linked to ongoing contract talks, ABC7 news reported. Unions representing workers at the two ports are in talks for a new contract.

  The ILWU Local 13 withheld workers from their shifts starting Thursday evening, according to the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping employers on the West Coast.

  “The action by the Union has effectively shut down the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – the largest gateway for maritime trade in the United States,” the PMA said. The union, however, released a statement making no mention of any formal work action.

  

  The organization said Thursday several thousand members were in attendance at the organization’s regular monthly meeting, at which a new president was sworn in. It said on Friday many members were observing religious holidays with their families.

  “On Friday, April 7, 2023, union members who observe religious holidays took the opportunity to celebrate with their families,” read a statement from ILWU. “Cargo operations are ongoing as longshore workers at the Ports remain on the job.”

  Port officials and shippers, however, believe the absences are a deliberate, if unspoken, message from the union to put pressure on the talks. The union has been working without a new contract since July.

  The closures come as cargo volumes have already dropped from peak levels a year ago.

  

  Trade experts say some shippers have already started diverting cargo traffic away from the two ports.

  “A lot of the cargo has been shifted away from the West Coast ports, into the middle of our country and the East Coast,” said Nick Vyas, executive director of the Kendrick Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Southern California. “So we have a seen a significant drop in volume at our West Coast ports, which is not a good sign.”

  He noted that some 40% of the foreign goods arriving to the United States are processed through the two ports.

  The Port of Los Angeles released a statement saying it is continuing to communicate with the ILWU and the PMA to support a return to normal operations.

  “Resuming cargo operations at America’s busiest port complex is critical to maintaining confidence to our customers and supply chain stakeholders,” Port of Los Angeles officials said.

  Port officials remain optimistic that operations will resume Saturday.

  Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero released a statement: “Four of the Port’s container terminals are closed for the day, today, April 7. Terminal operators at the affected sites said they made the decision to close when workers did not report for their shifts this morning. We have no further information as to the situation, but it is expected that normal, regularly scheduled hours and operations will resume tomorrow.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 18:00

• Don't Let Them Memory-Hole This
  Don’t Let Them Memory-Hole This

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

  On a video podcast the other day, I made reference to the lockdown orders of March 2020. The host turned off the recording. He said it was fine to talk about this subject but from now on please refer to “the events of March 2020” with no specifics. 

  

  Otherwise, it will be taken down by YouTube and Facebook.

  He needs those platforms for reach, and reach is necessary for his business model. 

  I complied, but I was spooked.

  Are we really now in the position that talking about what happened to us is verboten on mainstream venues?

  Sadly, that seems to be where we headed. In big and small ways, and throughout the culture and the whole world, we are bit by bit being trained to forget and hence not learn and thus repeat the whole thing. 

  This makes no sense since nearly every public issue in play today traces to those fateful days and the fallout thereof, including censorship, the entrenchment of industry-government oligarchs, the corruption of media and tech, the educational upheaval, the abuse of courts and law, and the developing financial and banking crisis. 

  And yet hardly anyone wants to speak about the topic frankly. It is too upsetting.

  There is too much at stake. We cannot risk being canceled, the single greatest fear of every aspirational professional in today’s world. Plus too many powerful people were in on it and don’t want to admit it. It would appear that the whole subject is being memoryholed in ways of which they all approve. 

  For nearly two years, or longer, respectable intellectuals knew not to dissent from the prevailing norms and challenge the whole machinery. This was true of Washington think tanks, which went on their merry way from March 2020 either celebrating the “public health response” or just remaining quiet. The same was true of the leadership of major political parties and third parties. 

  Most religious leaders stayed quiet too, even as their doors were padlocked for as long as 2 holiday seasons. Civic organizations played along. If you thought that the job of the ACLU was to defend civil liberties, you were wrong: they one day decided that lockdowns, mandatory masks, and forced shots were essential to their mission. 

  So many were compromised over 3 years. These same people now just want the whole subject to go away. We find ourselves in an odd position, having experienced the biggest trauma in our lives and in many generations and yet there is precious little open talk about it. Brownstone was established to fill this void but we’ve become a target as a result. 

  The search engines have been gamed for the better part of 3 years to keep the science channeled in only one direction. If web platforms step out of line, it is easy enough for search engines and social-media companies to tag them as problematic and thus throttle their reach. But for Substackers – and they are being targeted now too – it would be hard to find out anything other than what the oligarchs want you to believe. 

  This silent treatment is filtering down to every aspect of our lives and becoming entrenched in the political culture too.

  Here is an example from this week. 

  When Donald Trump returned from his theatrical and ridiculous indictment on nothing in New York, he flew immediately back to Mar-a-Lago where he told his story to people gathered in a pastiche-baroque ballroom. He told of the fake news, the attempted impeachments for Russia and Ukraine, the plots and schemes, and onward to the fake ballots and the FBI raid on his home, and now this preposterous new thing. 

  It was a solid narrative overall. But his story left out a hugely important detail. He said not one word about Covid lockdowns and Operation Warp Speed that was supposed to be the great fix for the virus but flopped. This was a rather important detail to leave out since it wrecked the economy, the Bill of Rights, education, and led to a massive demographic upheaval in addition to the continuing fallout in terms of culture, economics, and everything else. 

  It also caused him to lose the presidency, whether because the shock resulted in mass demoralization (this was certainly not a path to making America great again) or because of the mail-in ballots made possible by Covid restrictions, or probably both. However you look at it, it was the most disastrous decision of his presidency or possibly any presidency in history. 

  How in the world are we just supposed to pretend that this did not happen? And yet he is playing along simply because he does not want to admit error. He thinks it makes him appear weak. Nor does he still slam the successor presidency for mask and shot mandates even though hundreds of millions were affected by them. He would rather not bring up the topic at all, lest doing so raises questions about his own judgment in those fateful days of March 2020. 

  Meanwhile, the DNC does not want to admit that it celebrated and built on Trump’s biggest disaster while the RNC does not want to discuss that the policies they decry from the DNC actually began under the RNC. And so you have a kind of “mutually assured destruction” pact between them that needs no plot or contract. In silencing all talk about this, each party is only doing what is in its interest. 

  We can fully expect that these issues will be locked out of the campaign narratives in 2024 just as they were in 2020 and 2022. Everyone seems to agree: the less said the better. And this is precisely why the announced candidacy of Robert Kennedy, Jr., has triggered the usual and expected gaslighting from the mainstream media. The plan is to flog him into marginalization. And if that doesn’t work, they will flog and flog again. 

  We are seeing a real-time example of how history is really written. The narrative is more self-serving than we knew. If all the power centers in society get something tremendously wrong, an informal conspiracy of silence develops around it, with the hope of just wiping it from the history books. 

  As Michael Senger has written, “Lockdowns met little resistance in part because they reinforced existing power structures. The rich got richer, the Zoom class got a vacation, workers got stimulus, while some business owners, their employees, and the most vulnerable had to sacrifice everything for this fantasy.” 

  And we can add to that: government gained vastly more power. In fact, Covid became the template for the biggest expansion of government power over the population in world history, more effective than ancient myths about god-like rulers, heresy trials and witch burnings of the Middle Ages, sedition purges of the 18th and 19th centuries, red scares of the 20th centuries, the Cold War, or even the wars on terror. Fear of infectious disease was more effective than all of them for ratcheting up despotism. 

  When something works this well for the most powerful people in society, why not just keep quiet about it?

  The tellers of tales can write stories but they cannot invent their own realities.

  There will be no restoration of liberty, rights, and truth until we come to terms with what happened, why, and how to prevent it in the future.

  Playing along with this conspiracy of silence surrounding a policy that effectively blotted out every advance in human rights since the Magna Carta is a disastrous error that could lead to the entrenchment of a new dark age. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 17:30

• Augusta National Golf Shop Makes "$1 Million In Revenue Every Single Hour" During Masters
  Augusta National Golf Shop Makes “$1 Million In Revenue Every Single Hour” During Masters

  Augusta National Golf Club is one of the most renowned sports venues. Conversations with attendees at this weekend’s annual Masters Tournament reveal the second most important thing besides watching the pros is to purchase as much merchandise as they can. 

  Joe Pompliano outlined in his Substack that the merchandise shop at Augusta sells “$1 million in revenue every single hour.” 

  “The Masters has perfected its merchandise business. They are one of the only large-scale sporting events to limit merchandise sales strictly to in-person attendees only, and that feeling of exclusivity generates about $70 million in sales each year,” Pompliano said. 

  This is why we noted earlier that attendees flooded the golf shop to purchase as much gear as possible. 

  

  “For context, if the store is open 10 hours a day, that means Augusta National is selling $10 million of merchandise a day, $1 million of merchandise an hour, $16,000 worth of merchandise every minute, and $277 worth of merchandise every second,” Pompliano continued. 

  Take a look at the line to get into the shop. 

  

  And this merchandise is so sought after that some people pay ridiculous markups on secondary markets to sport the swag. 

  

  Absolutely insane. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 17:00

• CDC Partners With 'Social And Behavior Change' Initiative To Silence Vaccine Hesitancy
  CDC Partners With ‘Social And Behavior Change’ Initiative To Silence Vaccine Hesitancy

  Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a Stanford-educated ear, nose, and throat doctor, isn’t afraid to voice her beliefs. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she repeatedly used her platform on Twitter and TikTok to question the vaccines, promote ivermectin as a treatment, and call out pharmacists for refusing to dispense it.

  

  But her efforts resulted in significant backlash. On Nov. 7, 2021, Dr. Danielle Jones, an OBGYN who posts under the handle @MamaDoctorJones on YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter—and has millions of followers—put out a video accusing Bowden of “grifting,” rejecting science, and profiting from those who questioned the vaccine.

  The video received thousands of comments, including from Team Halo members, Dr. Zachary Rubin, a pediatrician, and Christina Kim, an oncology nurse practitioner. Team Halo is a social media influencer campaign formed as part of the United Nations Verified initiative and the Vaccine Confidence Project to increase vaccine uptake.

  “That doc is problematic,” Rubin wrote. Kim followed with, “Wow. That ‘doctor’ should have her license revoked.”

  

  On Nov. 12, 2021, five days after the video, Bowden received a text message from the Houston Chronicle, “Hi Dr. Bowden, I’m told you’ve been suspended from Houston Methodist pending further investigation because of your comments on social media. I plan to report that this afternoon but wanted to give you an opportunity to comment.” Stunned, Bowden responded that the text was the first she had heard of the suspension.

  The suspension turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. Over the following months, Bowden’s life was thrown into chaos as multiple social media influencers targeted her. However, the most dogged was a pharmacist named Savannah, who posts under the handle @rxOrcist.

  “Savannah has over a million followers. She made a video about me because I have been calling out, online, pharmacists that were refusing to dispense ivermectin,” Bowden told The Epoch Times. “The majority of them happen to be Asian. So, she, therefore, concluded that I was racist against Asians and called me a ‘xenophobic, racist [expletive],’ among other things.

  “Because she has so many followers, when she makes a video about you, you get an army of people coming after you. A lot of fake people [writing] reviews. That’s one of the biggest things. You can’t get them removed. I’ve tried to get them removed, and I can prove that they’re not my patients.”

  Bowden added that she’d been kicked off of TikTok, is on probation on YouTube, had complaints filed against her, and has even had to call security when someone came to her office and threatened her.

  In the video, Savannah showed that she reported Bowden to the Texas Medical Board. The board declined to investigate her specific complaints. Still, they are pursuing two other complaints—one filed by Houston Methodist claiming a violation of patient care and one filed by Texas Health Huguley Hospital for prescribing ivermectin.

  In the comments of Savannah’s video, Tyler Kuhk, a nurse and previous Team Halo member according to web archives, and who posts under @thatsassynp, stated, “How these loons still have licenses is beyond me. Why is an ENT even treating COVID?”

  Savannah is part of a group called Shots Heard, which calls itself a “rapid-response digital cavalry dedicated to protecting the online safety of health care providers and practices.” Kuhk is also a member. Savannah joined Shots Heard on Aug. 6, 2020, and Kuhk joined on Feb. 13, 2021.

  According to its website, Shots Heard is an initiative under The Public Good Projects (PGP), a “public health nonprofit specializing in large-scale media monitoring programs, social and behavior change interventions, and cross-sector initiatives.”

  Another of PGP’s  initiatives is the Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC), which sits within the CDC Foundation—a nonprofit arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established by Congress.

  The goal of the communications collaborative, according to PGP, is to decrease misinformation and increase vaccine demand worldwide. And it’s using social media influencers to silence vaccine detractors.

  A Tangled Web

  PGP is headquartered in New York and was founded in 2013. Its current CEO is Dr. Joe Smyser, who holds a Ph.D. and master’s in public health and completed his postdoctoral training at the CDC.

  The Tennessee Department of Health states about Smyser and PGP, “Dr. Smyser has designed some of the United States’ most influential and impactful health campaigns to date in partnership with the CDC, FDA, Kaiser Permanente, Rockefeller, and Humana.”

  According to its website, the CDC Foundation is “the sole entity created by Congress to mobilize philanthropic and private-sector resources to support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s critical health protection work.”

  

  Since its creation, the CDC Foundation has launched over 1,300 “health protection programs” and raised over $2 billion in support for the CDC.

  One of those health protection programs is PGP partner PHCC, which according to its website, was formed in August 2020 to “provide unbiased communication about the COVID-19 pandemic.” And one of the ways PHCC accomplishes that is by putting out “Misinformation Alerts,” which are powered by PGP.

  For example, on March 23, PHCC posted on its website that a “well-known anti-vaccine physician” claimed that COVID-19 vaccines caused an increase in miscarriages and stillbirths. It labeled it a “high-risk alert” and recommended, “directly addressing and debunking the misinformation.”

  That “debunking,” according to PHCC, includes using a “strong, robust social mobilization” to amplify messages from the World Health Organization and UNICEF, encouraging social media organizations to flag “misinformation,” and promoting “trusted pro-vaccine voices.”

  Enter, Shots Heard.

  Shots Heard and Team Halo

  On its homepage, Shots Heard states, “If you stand up for vaccine science, we’ll stand up for you.” It includes a link for people to apply to “sign up to defend vaccine advocates.” It also provides a link to “Alert the Shots Heard Cavalry,” plus a link to a members-only Facebook group, which currently has 1,176 members.

  An insider in the group who requested to remain anonymous for fear of being kicked out supplied The Epoch Times with screenshots and messages of the Shots Heard Facebook group.

  In one “alert,” a Shots Heard member named Bernadine Huff posted, “It’s important for all of us to stop the insanity and to call out other healthcare workers that don’t believe in science.” She encouraged Shots Heard members to “report” a graduate nurse named Megan to the Ohio Nursing Board for providing information on how to get a medical exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine. The replies from numerous Shots Heard members simply state, “reported.”

  In another “alert,” Shots Heard group administrator Jeff Sykes posts, “Hey Shots Heard, it’s been brought to our attention that Dr. Scott Jensen has been using his online platforms to spread misinformation about COVID-19. … We need your help reporting him.”

  Shots Heard member Marcia Fiamengo posted this alert, “Need help reporting this group,” and linked to a group promoting ivermectin. Among the many who replied was New York’s Suffolk County Department of Health account, which wrote, “Reported.”

  Fiamengo also posted on Dec. 29, 2021, “Fantastic news,” and attached a screenshot of Dr. Robert Malone’s suspended Twitter account. Shots Heard member Angie Anderson states in the comments, “Ooooh, I just reported a few of his posts yesterday. So satisfying when you see real results.”

  On March 24, 2022, Fiamengo encouraged Shots Heard members to report Bowden. Again, Suffolk County Health responded, this time with “Done.” On May 2, 2022, Fiamengo again made a celebratory post. This time for an American Frontline Doctor being stripped of all state licenses after prescribing ivermectin. “Wooooo!!!! Another one bites the dust!” she said.

  Shots Heard doesn’t limit itself to reporting single healthcare practitioners. On Sep. 12, 2021, Shots Heard member Liz Ditz “reported” a preprint by researchers Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, Allison Krug, Josh Stevenson, and Dr. John Mandrola, which found vaccine-induced myocarditis might be worse than COVID-induced myocarditis. Shots Heard members were outraged.

  

  Moreover, Shots Heard doesn’t limit itself to simply “reporting.” When Bowden posted on Twitter, “Are Americans supposed to take this [expletive]? We don’t want your shot, and we especially don’t want it for our kids,” her post was flagged and flooded with Shots Heard member comments.

  Such tactics are called “gang stalking,” Nicole Sirotek, a registered nurse in Nevada and the founder of American Frontline Nurses, told The Epoch Times. “[Shots Heard members] make videos about [the offending health care worker] saying they need to be delicensed, then [Shots Heard] followers go and hunt down the nurse and swarm the licensing board.”

  Sirotek has been the victim of many such attacks from Shots Heard and Team Halo—the two groups share many of the same members.

  For example, in December 2022, Team Halo member Jess, who posts under the TikTok handle @jesss2019, doxed Sirotek on TikTok by revealing a previously court-sealed name change. Jess is a “Featured Influencer” for The Health Influencer Council, another PGP project that includes Shots Heard, and This Is Our Shot — a “diverse coalition of health heroes” who engage on social media to combat misinformation and build vaccine trust, according to its website.

  An Inside Look

  Tyler Hardy, a previous Team Halo member known as “your favorite field epidemiologist” until he ignited a social media firestorm for lying about some of his credentials, told The Epoch Times he’s seen both sides of the social initiates.

  “I joined Team Halo at the beginning of 2022, in January. I was invited by nurse Jess [@jesss2019],” Hardy said. “I wanted to educate, and that was why I thought Team Halo would be good because it would give me the exposure to do that.

  “As I got behind the scenes of these big creators, right, these people like Dr. Cat and Dr. Jon, Jess, @thatsassynp, I learned that they were, pardon my French, just [expletive]. And they let that stardom of being part of Team Halo get to their head.”

  During his time at Team Halo, Hardy said Team Halo members communicated over a private WhatsApp chat. Anytime a Team Halo member disagreed with someone online, “You just put it in the chat, and then every single person in Team Halo would instantly jump on them. Get them fired,” Hardy said.

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 16:30

• Meet The "Woke" Rating Score Prompting Brands Like Nike And Bud To Hire Trans Influencers For Ads
  Meet The “Woke” Rating Score Prompting Brands Like Nike And Bud To Hire Trans Influencers For Ads

  We may finally have an answer to why Budweiser knowingly decided to torch its brand and its customer base by entrusting its marketing and ad strategy to a man in a women’s clothing drinking beer in a bubble bath. Like everyone else, it appears it’s simply to try and appease the “woke” lobby, likely in hopes of preventing them from “turning” on their brand for not being diverse enough. 

  Now, during the slow ongoing death of ESG – there’s apparently yet another scorecard that companies are striving to abide by in order to make sure they are adhering to society’s expectations as it relates to virtue signaling.

  It’s called the Corporate Equality Index — or CEI — score, according to a new report from the NY Post. And it’s the reason that companies like Nike and Anheuser-Busch are committing brand suicide hiring people like trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. 

  As the Post notes, the score is monitored by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ political lobbying group in the world. So, in other words, keep your score high or expect this at the front door of your corporate headquarters…

  

  And of course, the HRC has “received millions from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation”, the report notes. It can award or subtract points for companies based on its rating criteria, which includes “Workforce Protections,” “Inclusive Benefits,” “Supporting an Inclusive Culture,” “Corporate Social Responsibility and Responsible Citizenship.”

  

  The goal is to ascertain the top score of 100 points and earn the coveted (pause for laughter) title of “Best Place To Work For LGBTQ Equality.” 15 of 20 Fortune top ranked companies got 100% ratings last year, the report notes. More than 840 companies total had high CEI scores. 

  The scores are, of course, based on meeting the “demands” of the HRC, the Post wrote:

  A company can lose CEI points if it doesn’t fulfill HRC’s demand for “integration of intersectionality in professional development, skills-based or other training” or if it doesn’t use a “supplier diversity program with demonstrated effort to include certified LGBTQ+ suppliers.”

  James Lindsay, a political podcaster who runs a site called New Discourses, told The Post that the Human Rights campaign administers the CEI ranking “like an extortion racket, like the Mafia.

  Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy commented: “The big fund managers like BlackRock all embrace this ESG orthodoxy in how they apply pressure to top corporate management teams and boards and they determine, in many cases, executive compensation and bonuses and who gets re-elected or re-appointed to boards.”

  He concluded: “They can make it very difficult for you if you don’t abide by their agendas.”

  Thus…

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 16:00

• Biden Invites Expelled Tennessee Democrats To Visit White House
  Biden Invites Expelled Tennessee Democrats To Visit White House

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  President Joe Biden on Friday invited the three Tennessee Democrats who faced expulsion for protesting on the state House floor to visit the White House.

  

  After several hours of debate on Thursday, two of three state Democrats were expelled from the Tennessee General Assembly by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

  The lawmakers were accused of participating in “disorderly behavior” that brought “disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives,” according to a resolution introduced by Tennessee Republicans.

  State Representatives Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis were expelled. Gloria Johnson of Knox County was the sole member to participate in the protest to escape expulsion after eight Republicans crossed the floor to save her.

  During a video conference call from Camp David on Friday, Biden thanked the lawmakers for their act of protest. The president also expressed disappointment over their expulsion from the Tennessee Assembly.

  “Earlier, I spoke to Reps Jones, Pearson, and Johnson to thank them for their leadership and courage in the face of a blatant disregard of our nation’s democratic values,” Biden wrote on Twitter. “Our country needs to take action on gun violence—to do that we need more voices like theirs speaking out.”

  The White House said in a statement that the trio of Democrats thanked the president for his “leadership in seeking to ban assault weapons and standing up for our democratic values” and for his support as they faced “unprecedented attacks” over their actions.

  No official date was given for the White House visit.

  The two expelled Democrats can be appointed to their seats by officials in their respective counties. Both members represent Democrat strongholds in Nashville and Memphis. They cannot be expelled again for the same offenses, members said during debate Thursday.

  Gun Restriction Protest

  In a further statement released by the White House, Biden claimed most Americans want tighter gun control.

  “Today’s expulsion of lawmakers who engaged in peaceful protest is shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” Biden said in the statement. “Rather than debating the merits of the issue, these Republican lawmakers have chosen to punish, silence, and expel duly-elected representatives of the people of Tennessee.”

  Biden also took to Twitter to express his support for the lawmakers.

  “Our country needs to take action on gun violence—to do that we need more voices like theirs speaking out,” Biden wrote. He further condemned the expulsion of the lawmakers as “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.”

  Only two other Tennessee state lawmakers have been similarly expelled since the Civil War. However, those votes were largely bipartisan, while the vote on Thursday was mostly along party lines.

  Jones, Pearson, and Johnson had been officially censured for their protest and stripped of their committee appointments on April 3. This came after hundreds of chanting demonstrators crowded the state Capitol and its gallery on March 30.

  The protesters called for tighter restrictions on gun rights in the wake of The Covenant School shooting in Nashville, where Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, who police said identified as transgender, opened fire at the school, shooting dead three 9-year-old children and three adults.

  The three Democrats defied convention by moving to the front of the House chamber with a bullhorn, where they cheered on the crowd in the gallery and led chants, marking a breach of chamber rules as they hadn’t been recognized to speak.

  In his statement, Biden urged Congress to ban “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage of firearms, eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and require background checks for all gun sales. He also called on state officials to do the same.

  The president argued that most Americans want lawmakers to enact more restrictions on gun rights and accused Republican officials across America of doubling down on bills that he said make schools, places of worship, and communities less safe.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 15:30

• Led By "Fat Activists", New York Considering Bill To Ban Weight Discrimination
  Led By “Fat Activists”, New York Considering Bill To Ban Weight Discrimination

  As if being overweight wasn’t already enough of a virtue in the United States nowadays, New York will soon be looking to approve a bill that would ban “weight discrimination in hiring and housing”.

  Victoria Abraham, referred to multiple times as a “fat activist” by the New York Times, who reported the story, says her cause isn’t to lose weight – but rather to make sure people don’t get the wrong perception about fat people.

  A proponent for the legislation, she told the Times: “There is a perception that you’re lazy or unable to do the work. People don’t even realize that they have that bias.”

  She said she proudly displays her body on her LinkedIn profile, so “prospective employers know whom they are considering hiring.”

  The bill will add weight to the list of protected groups, which also includes race, gender, religion and disability, the report notes, stating that obesity rates are up over the last 2 decades and accelerated during lockdowns, when people were forced to stay home. More than 40% of Americans are obese, the Times writes.

  We have to ask, though: if that number breaches 50%, can’t obese people no longer be considered a minority? We digress.

  

  Abraham testified on behalf of the bill, which could be approved as soon as May. “We should never treat people differently because of their weight,” Mayor Eric Adams, who famously lost 35 pounds on a plant based diet (and wrote a book about it), said about the bill.

  “Even when I was heavier, I was still a good-looking guy,” the Mayor joked last week. 

  While the nation continues its incessant and never-ending fight against all types of discrimination – gender, race, sex, etc. – weight has now been added to the discussion. Michigan and Washington State already have similar bills enacted and New Jersey and Massachusetts are considering it. 

  The councilman sponsoring the bill, Shaun Abreu, said he gained 40 pounds during the pandemic and “noticed a change in how people treated him”.

  “What you look like should not impact your ability to get a job. We should embrace body positivity and inclusion. It’s so important for people to feel comfortable,” he told the Times. 

  Not everyone is sold on the idea, however. Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, said: “This is another mandate where enforcement will be primarily through litigation, which imposes a burden on employers, regulators and the courts.”

  Joseph Borelli, the City Council’s minority leader and a Republican who has documented his weight loss online, said it would “empower people to sue anyone and everything.”

  He concluded: “I’m overweight, but I’m not a victim. No one should feel bad for me except for my struggling shirt buttons.”

  so… if you don’t hire fat people you are automatically sued? https://t.co/VPcKx8bxgH

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 6, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 15:00

• SFSU Responds To Alleged Assault On Riley Gaines… By Praising The Protesters
  SFSU Responds To Alleged Assault On Riley Gaines… By Praising The Protesters

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  We previously discussed the disgraceful attack on former swimmer Riley Gaines who was reportedly assaulted when she tried to speak on her views on transgender issues at San Francisco State University (SFSU).

  This is terrorism, kidnapping, and extortion.

  ARREST ALL OF THEM!

  The trans movement is out of control and a danger to children and our society.

  Transgender terrorists attacked @Riley_Gaines_ causing her to lock herself into a room for fear of her life.

  Then they held her… pic.twitter.com/K4JJ6YYe3D

  — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 7, 2023

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

  Gaines had to be removed to a locked room for hours by police for her own protection. It is now clear why students believed that they had license to engage in such disruptions.

  SFSU has issued a statement that was conspicuous in its failure to condemn the mob or promise accountability for these actions.

  The event was only the latest example of protesters “deplatforming” speakers with opposing views by shouting them down. The mob, however, was so unruly that police had to rush Gaines to safety.

  “Tell her to pay us, then she can go.”

  Violent extremist #trans activists demanded money after creating a hostage situation over women’s sports advocate @Riley_Gaines_ at @SFSU on April 6. Those involved in the attempted kidnapping have not been arrested. pic.twitter.com/BzaBY1WRyk

  — Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) April 8, 2023

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

  One would think that this would be an easy call for any institution of higher education. Denying free expression and threatening those with opposing views is the very antithesis of core principles.

  Instead, SFSU issued issued a statement that seemed to express sympathy for the protesters and expressed concern for those were exposed to her views.

  After beginning by expressing concern for the transgender community, the statement of Jamillah Moore, Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management, repeatedly commends students for their protest and says “Thank you to our students who participated peacefully in Thursday evening’s event. It took tremendous bravery to stand in a challenging space.”

  At no point does SFSU express concern for Gaines or the students who arranged for the event. At no point does SFSU promise to hold students responsible for shouting down the speaker or endangering her.

  

  At best, the statement shows a lack of courage to stand firm in the face of this mob. At worst, it is complicit in the incident by enabling such conduct.

  It is reminiscent of events at schools like Northwestern. A Sociology 201 class by Professor Beth Redbird was supposed to examine “inequality in American society with an emphasis on race, class and gender.”  To that end, Redbird invited both an undocumented person and a spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  It is the type of balance that it now considered verboten on campuses.

  Members of MEChA de Northwestern, Black Lives Matter NU, the Immigrant Justice Project, the Asian Pacific American Coalition, NU Queer Trans Intersex People of Color and Rainbow Alliance organized to stop other students from hearing from the ICE representative.  However, they could not have succeeded without the help of Northwestern administrators (including  Dean of Students Todd Adams). The protesters were screaming “F**k ICE” outside of the hall. Adams and the other administrators then said that the protesters screaming profanities would be allowed into the class if they promised not to disrupt the class.

  Of course, that did not happen. As soon as the protesters were allowed into the classroom, they prevented the ICE representative from speaking.  The ICE representatives eventually left and Redbird canceled the class to discuss the issue with the protesters that just prevented her students from hearing an opposing view.

  SESP sophomore April Navarro publicly rejected that faculty should be allowed to invite such speakers to their classrooms for a “good, nice conversation with ICE.” She insisted such speakers needed to be silenced because they “terrorize communities” and profit from detainee labor.:

  “We’re not interested in having those types of conversations that would be like, ‘Oh, let’s listen to their side of it’ because that’s making them passive rule-followers rather than active proponents of violence. We’re not engaging in those kinds of things; it legitimizes ICE’s violence, it makes Northwestern complicit in this. There’s an unequal power balance that happens when you deal with state apparatuses.”

  No students were ever punished. Similarly, in the outrageous shouting down of an appellate judge at Stanford Law School, the Dean voiced support for free speech but refused to sanction any of the students responsible for the disruption.

  The message from these universities is clear: students will not be held accountable for the denial of free speech. That knowledge fuels the sense of license to bar opposing views.

  The actions of the students will likely find equal support from many in the California legislature. However, it is the position of the university that will cause that most lasting damage.

  Here is the statement:

  Dear SF State community,

  Today, San Francisco State finds itself again at the center of a national discussion regarding freedom of speech and expression. Let me begin by saying clearly: the trans community is welcome and belongs at San Francisco State University. Further, our community fiercely believes in unity, connection, care and compassion, and we value different ideas, even when they are not our own. SF State is regularly noted as one of the most diverse campuses in the United States—this is what makes us Gators, and this is what makes us great. Diversity promotes critical discussions, new understandings and enriches the academic experience. But we may also find ourselves exposed to divergent views and even views we find personally abhorrent. These encounters have sometimes led to discord, anger, confrontation and fear. We must meet this moment and unite with a shared value of learning.

  Thank you to our students who participated peacefully in Thursday evening’s event. It took tremendous bravery to stand in a challenging space. I am proud of the moments where we listened and asked insightful questions. I am also proud of the moments when our students demonstrated the value of free speech and the right to protest peacefully. These issues do not go away, and these values are very much at our core.

  This feels difficult because it is difficult. As you reflect, process, and begin to heal, please remember that there are people, resources and services available and ready to receive our Gator community, including faculty, staff members, coaches and mentors who are here to support you.

  Campus resources are also available:

  1. Equity and Community Inclusion
  2. Counseling and Psychological Services
  3. Dean of Students Office

  The well-being of the SF State campus community remains our priority.

  Sincerely,

  Jamillah Moore, Ed.D.

  Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/09/2023 – 14:30