• Snowden Didn't "Flee to Russia": Obama Trapped Him There
  Snowden Didn’t “Flee to Russia”: Obama Trapped Him There

  Authored by Brian McGlinchey via Stark Realities

  When Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on Monday, the news revived a long-simmering debate about the propriety of his revelations of U.S. government secrets. At the same time, it prompted reiterations of a widely-embraced falsehood: that Snowden “fled to Russia.”

  The disinformation-trafficking wasn’t limited to random people on social media. Among others, The New York Times, The Guardian, ABC, Christian Science Monitor and Canada’s CBC all asserted in the past week that Snowden “fled to Russia” in 2013 after revealing that the United States government had created a mass surveillance regime targeting its own citizens, in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

  What many people don’t realize — and what some people both inside the government and out of it purposefully ignore — is that Snowden wasn’t traveling to Russia, but merely through it.

  When he left Hong Kong after meeting with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras and turning over hundreds of thousands of stolen files, Snowden’s ultimate destination was Quito, Ecuador.

  It’s important to note that Snowden says that, before leaving, he destroyed his cryptographic keys that provided him access to the files, and didn’t bring any copies of the files with him.

  At the time, the Ecuadoran government was providing political asylum to Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange at the country’s London consulate, and Snowden hoped Ecuador would provide him asylum as well.

  Snowden’s itinerary was arranged such that he wouldn’t land in countries that would extradite him to the United States. Nor would he cross U.S. airspace along the way. He was to make four flights in all, taking him from Hong Kong to Moscow, then Havana, Cuba; Caracas, Venezuela and finally Quito.

  However, upon arriving in Moscow, Snowden was escorted by Russian security officials to an airport conference room, where they informed him that, while he was flying to Moscow, the Obama administration had invalidated his passport.

  He’d spend the next 40 days at the Sheremetyevo airport, during which he applied to 27 countries for political asylum. “Not a single one of them was willing to stand up to American pressure,” Snowden wrote in his memoir, Permanent Record, “with some countries refusing outright, and others declaring they were unable to even consider my request until I arrived in their territory — a feat that was impossible.”

  Seemingly tired of the spectacle, Putin granted Snowden asylum, and he’s been in Russia ever since. The essential point, however, is that Snowden is in Russia because the Obama administration deliberately trapped him there.

  In 2013 and ever since, rabid Snowden detractors have failed to acknowledge how that move by the Obama White House belied its own assertions that Snowden was a traitor who traveled to Moscow with highly valuable intelligence information and was at high risk of turning it over to the Russian government.

  Think about it: if Obama officials believed Snowden had possession of an extremely sensitive archive of top secret documents – as they insist but Snowden denies – why would they *want to trap him in Russia*?

  Because they knew it’d be easy to convince idiots he was a Kremlin spy.

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 26, 2022

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

  Aside from revealing the unconstitutional surveillance regime, Snowden’s disclosures also proved that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had committed perjury in testifying before Congress:

  Clapper didn’t merely escape perjury charges, termination or a shameful resignation — CNN actually put him on the payroll as a “national security analyst,” giving him a pulpit from which to continue spewing all manner of falsehoods on behalf of the national security establishment, on everything from Russiagate to Hunter Biden’s laptop.

  Meanwhile, though Snowden has been vindicated many times over — including a 2020 federal court ruling that the NSA’s surveillance program violated the Constitution — he’s compelled to live in Russia to escape prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917.

  Which brings us to another myth that goes hand-in-hand with “fled to Russia” falsehood: Detractors routinely say Snowden was a “coward” to flee the United States at all.

  The noble course of action, they say, would be to go to trial in America and let a jury of his peers decide whether he was justified in exposing his government’s crimes by leaking secret documents to journalists.

  However, as government-whistleblower attorney Jesselyn Radack explained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, that’s not how Espionage Act prosecutions work:

  “The Espionage Act has morphed into a strict liability law, which means the government does not have to show the defendant had a felonious intent. A defendant cannot argue that the information was improperly classified…The motive and intent of the whistleblower are irrelevant. And there is no whistleblower defense, meaning the public value of the material disclosed does not matter at all.”

  In short, the only way for Snowden to be treated justly is for him to be pardoned or given a plea deal with a very short sentence.

  As the intelligence community continues to wield excessive influence on our government, neither outcome is likely anytime soon.

  Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 23:30

• A Global Overview of Human Migration
  A Global Overview of Human Migration

  According to the latest data published by the United Nations, the number of international migrants amounted to 281 million in 2020, which is equivalent to 3.6 percent of the world’s population.

  By “migrant”, it is meant: Any person who, leaving his or her usual place of residence, crosses an international border, regardless of the nature and cause of the movement or the duration of the stay.

  The census therefore covers a wide range of circumstances and includes both war and economic refugees – estimated at more than 82 million – and voluntary migrants: workers, students, retirees, etc.

  This map by Statista’s Martin Armstrong provides an overview of the migration trends in the world…

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  It shows the annual net migration (arrivals minus departures) of all countries and territories, relative to their population size.

  Between 2017 and 2021, the regions of the world that lost the largest share of people via emigration were the Marshall Islands and American Samoa in the Pacific Ocean, followed by Lebanon and Venezuela.

  During this period, these four territories, some of which are experiencing severe economic hardship, experienced an average net loss of 28 to 42 inhabitants per 1,000 people per year.

  In contrast, the regions that attracted the most migrants relative to their population size were the New Zealand-administered Tokelau Archipelago, the Caribbean tax haven of the Turks and Caicos Islands and, in Europe, Malta.

  For these three places, the average annual net migration was between 22 and 45 additional persons per 1,000 inhabitants.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 23:00

• Firearm Background-Checks Now Report Home Addresses Of Gun Owners
  Firearm Background-Checks Now Report Home Addresses Of Gun Owners

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  Gun Owners of America has obtained an email from the FBI regarding changes to the NICS background check system to implement gun control. 

  On Monday, September 26, 2022, federal firearms licensees (FFL) will experience… new features of the FBI’s NICS transaction process. One… change is tied to the passage of the NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022. 

  Collection of Buyer’s Address— The NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022 requires the FBI’s NICS Section to notify state, local, or tribal law enforcement of all FBI NICS denied transactions within 24 hours. The FBI must provide notification to law enforcement based upon the location of the FFL and if different, the purchaser’s address. To support the determination of what local agency should receive the notification, FFLs will be required to provide the buyer’s complete address to NICS as recorded on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Form 4473 when transactions are denied or delayed. The address information will be required before the status can be provided or retrieved either by the NICS contracted call center or via the NICS E-Check.  

  

  That matches up closely with the NICS Denial notification act, which read: 

  “If the national instant criminal background check system…provides notice… that” a transferee is prohibited person then the DOJ shall “report to the local law enforcement [and] the State or Tribe of residence of the person—… within 24 hours”  

  This change would require that an investigation be launched into every background check denial, even though nine times out of 10, the NICS system has falsely denied law-abiding citizens from exercising their rights.  

  This is a significant change to the system, as, before the passage of the NICS denial notification act, dealers were only required to provide the state of residence of a customer. Now they will have to provide the transferee’s full address after the NICS system processes the background check in the event of a delay or denial.

  Delays in background checks are extremely common. Sometimes it’s as simple as having a common name or having a security clearance with the federal government.

  Check out GOA’s Coverage of this new gun control in the video above.

  GOA fought against the NICS Denial Notification Act in March, but since 2019, we’ve been fighting against all gun control in the Violence Against Women Act, also known as VAWA.  

  The NICS Denial Notification Act was among the gun control to pass this last congress. That’s because certain Republicans backstabbed gun owners, and for all the horrible gun control removed from the bill, some gun control remained: 

  • Sections 1101-1102: the NICS Denial Notification Act to launch criminal investigations into firearm background check denials—even though 9 out of 10 times the system falsely denies a law-abiding citizen. 
  • Section 1103: funding for ATF to deputize local police to enforce federal gun laws, especially to undermine Second Amendment Protection Act (SAPA) states. 

  Eighteen Republican senators voted with anti-gun Democrats in favor of the final passage of gun control. 

  These Senators believe they were given political “cover” as other ostensibly “pro-gun” groups backed the compromise by refusing to oppose the language publicly. 

  *  *  *

  We intend to fight gun control in that as well, but we need your help.  

  Congress may be immoral, but they’re also lazy.  

  You need to tell them they won’t get an easy vote or break if they stuff gun control in a government funding bill. 

  Our team in Washington, DC, couldn’t do the work we do or have the success without your grassroots activism.  

  We’ll hold the line for you in Washington.

  We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 22:30

• Visualizing The Global Wealth Pyramid
  Visualizing The Global Wealth Pyramid

  The level of financial inequality around the world is staggering…

  As Statista’s Martin Armstrong reports, according to a new Credit Suisse report, 47.8 percent of global household wealth is in the hands of just 1.2 percent of the world’s population.

  Those 62.5 million individuals control a staggering $221.7 trillion, as can be seen on this infographic…

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Below that, 627 million people own $176.5 trillion, 38.1 percent of global wealth, despite accounting for just 11.8 percent of the adult population.

  The base of the pyramid is the most poignant, and it shows how 2.8 billion people (53.2 percent of the world’s population) share a combined wealth of $5 trillion – which is just 1.1 percent of total global wealth.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 22:00

• Navy Attempting To Remove Sailor Who Refused Vaccine Under 'Pretext' Of Attempted Desertion: Attorney
  Navy Attempting To Remove Sailor Who Refused Vaccine Under ‘Pretext’ Of Attempted Desertion: Attorney

  Authored by J.M. Phelps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Navy Petty Officer Second Class Kristin Fregeau is being discharged from the Navy for attempted desertion, but her attorney contends that this is a cover for separating the officer because she had a religious objection to the vaccine mandate.

  “The Navy couldn’t separate [Fregeau] for vaccine refusal, so they drummed up a story about attempted desertion,” Sean Timmons, Freugeau’s attorney, told The Epoch Times.

  

  The attempted desertion charge arose from Fregeau leaving her base for 20 days in December 2021 without prior approval.

  But Timmons said the petty officer moved to Tennessee during that period to remove her child from moldy living conditions at the base that was harmful to their health.

  “She moved her family under duress, and out of necessity, away from mold-infested government quarters to move her children to reasonable living accommodations,” the attorney said.

  Fregeau’s Story

  In March 2020, Fregeau was temporarily assigned to shore duty at Navy Air Logistics Office (NALO) in New Orleans where she could receive help for dealing with postpartum depression. By November 2020, she had checked herself into a hospital program for mental health issues and began to address her struggles with some success.

  After returning to her previous work assignment at NALO, she began to experience mold issues at her residence. After many encounters and arguments with the housing administration, Fregeau said the ducts were cleaned and the leaking air conditioning unit was replaced.

  In the months prior to the mold issue being addressed, Fregeau’s first child began having asthma-like symptoms. They subsided following the work on the home’s duct and air conditioner. But four months later, the mold—although not visible at this time—returned in the wake of Hurricane Ida in September 2021, Fregeau said.

  “Our daughter became physically ill again and was not getting better,” the petty officer said. “She was coughing uncontrollably, was in a constant state of congestion and unable to sleep.”

  Out of concern for her daughter’s health, Fregeau took the child to a pediatrician who advised “it was an environmental mold issue and recommended we get out of the house,” she said. Rather than going through the ordeal again dealing with housing and waiting for the mold issue to be addressed, she and her husband decided to move out.

  The Fregeau family struggled to find immediate housing in the area due to Hurricane Ida. And that’s when another issue cropped up to add to Fregeau’s difficulties. In November 2021, she was denied religious accommodation for the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and the process to separate her from the Navy would begin.

  ‘Absent Under Duress’: Lawyer

  According to Timmons, a “confluence of tough events” led Fregeau to act “out of necessity and under duress” in moving her family off the base.

  “She moved her children to Tennessee to be with family while she sorted things out,” he said. This is what ultimately led to an alleged 20-day unauthorized absence, beginning Dec. 2, 2021.

  Timmons acknowledged Fregeau should have gotten “express approval” ahead of time. Because she didn’t, he admitted, “she is culpable and at fault.” However, the attorney went on to say that service members are rarely discharged for being absent without leave (AWOL) for a couple of weeks.

  “She was absent under duress, only concerned about the care, safety, and welfare of her children,” he said.

  “She didn’t miss any movement, mobilization, or deployment; she missed some office work,” he added. “But now that the Navy cannot separate her for vaccine refusal, they’re putting forth this bogus pretext that she’s being separated for attempted desertion.”

  Timmons argues that the elements for an unauthorized absence have not been met. Article 86 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice allows a service member to withdraw if it’s under necessity and under duress, he said, adding that “desertion requires being gone more than 30 days.”

  Fregeau said, “Once I pulled myself together, I didn’t feel comfortable going back to work without any legal representation, but I wanted to make things right and return to work.” With the help of a previous attorney, she checked back into command on Dec. 20, and “it was business as usual.”

  At this time, Fregeau said, “I was never sat down, and an investigation never took place to talk about any type of non-judicial punishment or anything of that sort.” However, she said, the Navy would continue the process of separating her for refusing to take the vaccine.

  But since then, the Navy did go ahead with pressing for non-judicial punishment (NJP).

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 21:30

• 'Range Anxiety' – How Far Can An EV Go On One Charge?
  ‘Range Anxiety’ – How Far Can An EV Go On One Charge?

  EV adoption has grown rapidly in recent years, but many prospective buyers still have doubts about electric car ranges.

  In fact, as Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada details below, 33% of new car buyers chose range anxiety – the concern about how far an EV can drive on a full charge – as their top inhibitor to purchasing electric cars in a survey conducted by EY.

  So, how far can the average electric car go on one charge, and how does that compare with the typical range of gas-powered cars?

  

  The Rise in EV Ranges

  Thanks to improvements in battery technology, the average range of electric cars has more than doubled over the last decade, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

  

   

  *Max range for EVs offered in the United States.
  Source: IEA, U.S. DOE

  As of 2021, the average battery-powered EV could travel 217 miles (349 km) on a single charge. It represents a 44% increase from 151 miles (243 km) in 2017 and a 152% increase relative to a decade ago.

  Despite the steady growth, EVs still fall short when compared to gas-powered cars. For example, in 2021, the median gas car range (on one full tank) in the U.S. was around 413 miles (664 km)—nearly double what the average EV would cover.

  As automakers roll out new models, electric car ranges are likely to continue increasing and could soon match those of their gas-powered counterparts. It’s important to note that EV ranges can change depending on external conditions.

  What Affects EV Ranges?

  In theory, EV ranges depend on battery capacity and motor efficiency, but real-world results can vary based on several factors:

  • Weather: At temperatures below 20℉ (-6.7℃), EVs can lose around 12% of their range, rising to 41% if heating is turned on inside the vehicle.

  • Operating Conditions: Thanks to regenerative braking, EVs may extend their maximum range during city driving.

  • Speed: When driving at high speeds, EV motors spin faster at a less efficient rate. This may result in range loss.

  On the contrary, when driven at optimal temperatures of about 70℉ (21.5℃), EVs can exceed their rated range, according to an analysis by Geotab.

  The 10 Longest-Range Electric Cars in America

  Here are the 10 longest-range electric cars available in the U.S. as of 2022, based on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) range estimates:

  

   

  Source: Car and Driver

  The top-spec Lucid Air offers the highest range of any EV with a price tag of $170,500, followed by the Tesla Model S. But the Tesla Model 3 offers the most bang for your buck if range and price are the only two factors in consideration.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 21:00

• FBI Singles Out Conservative Agents In 'Purge,' Retaliates Against Whistleblowers: GOP Lawmakers
  FBI Singles Out Conservative Agents In ‘Purge,’ Retaliates Against Whistleblowers: GOP Lawmakers

  Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  House Judiciary Republicans are asking a senior FBI official to testify in a transcribed interview, alleging the official has signed off on many “adverse personnel actions” against conservative agents, saying they were being targeted in a “purge.”

  Their allegations concern Jennifer Leigh Moore, the executive assistant director of the FBI’s human resources branch, according to a Sept. 29 letter from Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), and Mike Johnson (R-La.). Jordan is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

  “This is beyond outrageous,” the House Judiciary GOP wrote on Twitter.

  The lawmakers said they found out how conservative agents were being targeted while investigating “serious allegations of abuse and misconduct within the senior leadership of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “During the course of this investigation, we have received protected whistleblower disclosures that the FBI is engaging in a ‘purge’ of employees with conservative views by revoking their security clearances and indefinitely suspending these employees,” the lawmakers wrote.

  They added, “Many of the formal notices for these adverse personnel actions have been signed by you,” referring to Moore.

  What’s more, the three lawmakers allege that Moore has “retaliated against at least one whistleblower who has made protected disclosures to Congress.”

  

  That whistleblower shared information with the House Judiciary Committee about the Justice Department’s decision last year to create a threat tag label, to track cases of parents who protested at school board meetings, Jordan said in an interview with Fox News.

  “Once a whistleblower makes a protected disclosure, an agency is prohibited from retaliating against the employee for that disclosure by taking or failing to take a personnel action,” the lawmakers wrote. “Your efforts to interfere with FBI employees who seek to expose the Bureau’s misconduct by communicating directly with Congress cannot be condoned.”

  They added, “As we informed [FBI] Director Christopher Wray, we take whistleblower retaliation seriously and we therefore require that you appear for a transcribed interview as soon as possible.”

  Moore is asked to schedule her transcribed interview by Oct. 4, according to the letter.

  The FBI has denied wrongdoing in a statement to media outlets.

  “The FBI does not target or take adverse action against employees for exercising their First Amendment rights or for their political views; to allege otherwise is false and misleading,” an FBI spokesperson said. “The FBI is required to follow established policies and procedures, to include a thorough investigation, when suspending or revoking a security clearance.”

  “The FBI takes very seriously its responsibility to FBI employees who may make protected disclosures under the whistleblower regulations,” the spokesperson added. “FBI employees who report evidence of wrongdoing through a protected disclosure are protected from retaliation.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 20:30

• The Growing Global Reliance On Antidepressants
  The Growing Global Reliance On Antidepressants

  According to the latest OECD data, Iceland continues to have one of the highest levels of antidepressant use in the world – with an average consumption of 16 daily doses per 100 inhabitants in 2021.

  In general, the northern countries are among the biggest consumers, with Canada and Sweden also showing a ratio of over 10 doses per 100 inhabitants per day.

  

  Worth noting however is the absence of the United States from the data.

  As Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the infographic below, antidepressant use has become more widespread all around the world, with major increases from 2015 to 2020 or 2021 observed in Iceland, Portugal and Sweden, as well as Belgium and Greece.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The places with the lowest consumption levels of those analyzed are South Korea and Lithuania (not displayed), with a ratio of 2 to 3 daily doses per 100 people.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 20:00

• Malone: Human Cyborgs Are Just The Beginning
  Malone: Human Cyborgs Are Just The Beginning

  Authored by Robert W. Malone via Who is Robert Malone,

  Ever since I wrote the substack article on human augmentation and the UK Ministry of Defence and the German Military Complex , discussing that these two organizations advocate for human augmentation in a report entitled “Human Augmentation – The Dawn of a New Paradigm“, I have been wondering if the US government, that is to say the US Department of Defense (DoD) and the Administrative State which controls it, has developed similar plans.

  This week I did a little research starting with the key words – “human augmentation” and “DoD” and there “it” is. The “it” being the strategy playbook and battlefield field plan for creating human cyborgs…

  For those who lust for more stimulation and shaping after reading the following, this substack also relates to our June 16 substack entitled “ARPA-H, Intelligence Community within NIH”.

  

  To begin – there are various “hints” from various governmental agencies that human augmentation research is underway and has been ongoing for a number of years. For instance, this article:

  Inside the Military’s New Office for Cyborgs 2014

  DARPA’s Arati Prabhakar Tells Defense One That Cutting-Edge Biology Research Is the Future of National Security

  Defense One, April 1, 2014

  The ability to link human brains to machines, create new life forms and build Star Trek-style disease detectors will be the focus of a new Defense Department office soon.

  The new office, named the Biological Technology Office, or BTO, will serve as a clearinghouse for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, programs into brain research, synthetic biology and epidemiology. The office will cover everything from brewing up tomorrow’s bioweapon detectors and connecting humans to computers to designing entirely new types of super-strong living materials that could form the basis of future devices. Here are the key areas in more detail.

  This author does let “the cat out of the bag”, so to speak, by his use of the word “cyborg” in the article’s title. That is the “military’s new office for cyborgs.” But the actual content of the article does little to enlighten us as to what the DoD actually has planned.

  It is getting hard to tell who is driving the bus here, the Pentagon or Paramount pictures’ script writers. Do DARPA locker rooms have pinups of Jeri Ryan? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Is Bruce Sterling actually a deep state operative and CIA consultant?

  

  Moving on to more recent news.

  ---

  Another fascinating title and article – this search was a little like following the bread crumbs to grannies house…

  Researchers Help DoD Consider Challenges of Human Enhancement

  DEVCOM CBC Public Affairs
  November 18th, 2019

  Peter Emanuel, Ph.D., the Army’s Senior Research Scientist for Bioengineering, sees a future 30 years from now where a U.S. Soldier can direct a swarm of drones in battle through a direct brain-to-machine connection using a neural implant. The implant also allows him to see exactly what each of those drones is seeing, then digitally integrate this information in his brain and send it as data to other machines, fellow Soldiers or his command and control element.

  This is a little more helpful.

  Note that the person being interviewed for this article is Dr. Peter Emanuel. This is important later on in this Substack. Trust me, it is a “Where’s Waldo” kind of thing.

  Also, interesting that now the DoD is using the language “human enhancement” – so much softer and gentler than “human cyborg,” don’t you think?

  ---

  This article is even a little more current. Of note – The COVIDcrisis most definitely took the spotlight off the whole “human cyborg” research agenda. Something tells me that the DoD didn’t mind that too much.

  US Space Force Chief Scientist Says Human Augmentation ‘Imperative’

  The Defense Post, May 05, 2021

  Today we’re on the brink of a new age: the age of human augmentation

   

  Human augmentation should be embraced by the West to keep up with the competition, US Space Force chief scientist Dr. Joel Mozer said during an event last week at the Airforce Research Laboratory.

  “In our business of national defense, it’s imperative that we embrace this new age, lest we fall behind our strategic competitors,” Mozer said.

  Mozer added that unprecedented developments are forthcoming in areas such as artificial intelligence, which will allow the military to craft tactics and strategies that “no human could.” Autonomous programs will eventually provide real-time advice to commanders, and multiple autonomous agents will be able to assist commanders and decision-makers in reconnaissance and fire control.

  The chief scientist further explained that human augmentation will eventually develop into technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality — including “nerve stimulation” to enhance the simulation of physical sensations.

  “You could put [an] individual into a state of flow, where learning is optimized and retention is maximized,” Mozer said. “This individual could be shaped into somebody with very high-performing potential.”

  (I mean, who isn’t up for a little “nerve stimulation” among friends?)

  The language used is really helpful in tracking the origins of the ideas. Bruce Sterling’s classic cyberpunk novel Schismatrix is all about the conflict between Shapers and Mechanists, Shapers being the group that alters the body through genetic modification and specialized mental training. Mechanists are the group that modifies bodies through computer software and external alterations.

  Yeah, we’ve seen that movie too.

  ---

  Then we have the Big Kahuna, the report that begins to lay out the true intent of the military in all of this.

  This large, year-long assessment – commissioned by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and conducted by the DoD Biotechnologies for Health and Human Performance Council was published at the end of 2019. It is entitled:

  

  “Cyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and the Implications for the Future of the DoD”

  Subject terms: “Cyborg” and “Human/Machine Enhancement”

  That abstract of that assessment reads:

  Abstract: The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Alexandria, VA) established the DOD Biotechnologies for Health and Human Performance Council (BHPC) study group to continually assess research and development in biotechnology. The BHPC group assesses scientific advances for improved health and performance with potential military application; identifies corresponding risks and opportunities and ethical, legal, and social implications; and provides senior leadership with recommendations for mitigating adversarial threats and maximizing opportunities for future U.S. forces. At the direction of the BHPC Executive Committee, the BHPC study group conducted a year-long assessment entitled “Cyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and the Impact for the Future of the DOD”. The primary objective of this effort was to forecast and evaluate the military implications of machines that are physically integrated with the human body to augment and enhance human performance over the next 30 years. This report summarizes this assessment and findings; identifies four potential military-use cases for new technologies in this area; and assesses their impact upon the DOD organizational structure, warfighter doctrine and tactics, and interoperability with U.S. allies and civil society.

  This analysis was made public when published, but then COVIDcrisis soon overwhelmed us all and it quickly faded from public memory.

  If you didn’t read this report back in the beginning of 2020 or if you have forgotten about it, below is the executive summary of this 50 page report (or click on the linked title above to read the whole report):

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  A DoD Biotechnologies for Health and Human Performance Council (BHPC; Alexandria, VA) study group surveyed a wide range of current and emerging technologies relevant to assisting and augmenting human performance in many domains. The team used this information to develop a series of vignettes as case studies for discussion and analysis including feasibility; military application; and ethical, legal, and social implication (ELSI) considerations. Ultimately, the team selected four vignettes as being technically feasible by 2050 or earlier. The following vignettes are relevant to military needs and offer capabilities beyond current military systems:

  • ocular enhancements to imaging, sight, and situational awareness;
  • restoration and programmed muscular control through an optogenetic bodysuit
  • sensor web;
  • auditory enhancement for communication and protection; and
  • direct neural enhancement of the human brain for two-way data transfer.

  Although each of these technologies will offer the potential to incrementally enhance performance beyond the normal human baseline, the BHPC study group analysis suggested that the development of direct neural enhancements of the human brain for two-way data transfer would create a revolutionary advancement in future military capabilities. This technology is predicted to facilitate read/write capability between humans and machines and between humans through brain-to-brain interactions. These interactions would allow warfighters direct communication with unmanned and autonomous systems, as well as with other humans, to optimize command and control systems and operations. The potential for direct data exchange between human neural networks and microelectronic systems could revolutionize tactical warfighter communications, speed the transfer of knowledge throughout the chain of command, and ultimately dispel the “fog” of war. Direct neural enhancement of the human brain through neuro-silica interfaces could improve target acquisition and engagement and accelerate defensive and offensive systems.

  Although the control of military hardware, enhanced situational awareness, and faster data assimilation afforded by direct neural control would fundamentally alter the battlefield by the year 2050, the other three cyborg technologies are also likely to be adopted in some form by warfighters and civil society. The BHPC study group predicted that human/machine enhancement technologies will become widely available before the year 2050 and will steadily mature, largely driven by civilian demand and a robust bio-economy that is at its earliest stages of development in today’s global market. The global healthcare market will fuel human/machine enhancement technologies primarily to augment the loss of functionality from injury or disease, and defense applications will likely not drive the market in its later stages. The BHPC study group anticipated that the gradual introduction of beneficial restorative cyborg technologies will, to an extent, acclimatize the population to their use.

  The BHPC study group projected that introduction of augmented human beings into the general population, DOD active duty personnel, and near-peer competitors will accelerate in the years following 2050 and will lead to imbalances, inequalities, and inequities in established legal, security, and ethical frameworks. Each of these technologies will afford some level of performance improvement to end users, which will widen the performance gap between enhanced and unenhanced individuals and teams. The BHPC study group analyzed case studies and posed a series of questions to drive its assessment of the impact to DOD programs, policies, and operations. The following are the resulting recommendations (not listed in order of priority): (RM- I have only posted the top summaries for these recommendations, please go to the report for more detail).

  1. DOD personnel must conduct global assessments of societal awareness and perceptions of human/machine enhancement technologies.

  2. U.S. leadership should use existing and newly developed forums (e.g., NATO) to discuss impacts to interoperability with allied partners as we approach the year 2050. This will help develop policies and practices that will maximize interoperability of forces.

  3. DOD should invest in the development of dynamic legal, security, and ethical frameworks under its control that anticipate emerging technologies.

  4. Efforts should be undertaken to reverse negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies.

  5. DOD personnel should conduct tabletop wargames and targeted threat assessments to determine the doctrine and tactics of allied and adversarial forces.

  6. The U.S. Government should support efforts to establish a whole-of-nation approach to human/machine enhancement technologies versus a whole-of-government approach.

  7. The DOD should support foundational research to validate human/machine fusion technologies before fielding them and to track the long-term safety and impact on individuals and groups.

  ---

  This rabbit hole then led me to the DARPA website – and wow! This research -to create human cyborgs, it is actually happening.

  A quick glance at the Biological Technology Office and DARPA reveals that programatic goals of building cyborg capabilities are being conducted at an astounding rate. The webpage search engine allows a search of the non-classified programs already being developed. So, one can go to this site and envision many, if not most of these technologies listed as being used for warfare. The military is developing human augmentation for military uses, not civilian. This is important to keep in mind.

  So, I spent a little time searching and webmining the more “interesting” DARPA projects. Below are just a few of the abstracts of research projects being funded by DARPA and the DoD:

  ---

  The Measuring Biological Aptitude (MBA) program aims to address the need for a more capable fighting force by helping individual warfighters identify, measure, and track personalized biomarkers related to training and peak performance for specialized roles. If the program succeeds, MBA technologies will give warfighters the ability to understand the underlying biological processes that govern their performance. Specifically, these technologies would elucidate the internal expression circuits (e.g., genetic, epigenetic, metabolomic) that shape militarily relevant cognitive, behavioral, and physical traits. New devices for continuously tracking these expression circuits could be integrated into the body to provide instantaneous user feedback, helping the warfighter to improve performance throughout training, assessment, selection, and mission execution for a given military specialty.

  ---

  DARPA’s multi-year AI Next portfolio of programs and investments seeks to develop contextual reasoning in artificial intelligence systems to improve human/machine teaming.

  The Agile Teams (A-Teams) program aims to discover, test, and demonstrate generalizable mathematical abstractions for the design of agile human-machine teams and to provide predictive insight into team performance. While human-machine teams have been the subject of considerable past work in artificial intelligence and autonomy, designing agile team architectures remains largely a trial-and-error enterprise. The A-Teams program seeks to create a systematic methodology to design teams that best use the capabilities of both humans and machines and that can achieve enhanced performance in uncertain, dynamic, and co-evolving environments. These new abstractions will be validated using experimental testbeds aimed to support reproducible evaluation of human-machine team architectures in a diverse range of problem contexts.

  ---

  The Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program is pursuing key technologies to enable precision control of and sensory feedback from sensor-equipped upper-limb prosthetic devices. If successful, the resulting system would provide users near-natural control of prosthetic hands and arms via bi-directional peripheral nerve implants.

  

  The Safe Genes program supports force protection and military health and readiness by protecting Service members from accidental or intentional misuse of genome editing technologies. Additional work will leverage advances in gene editing technology to expedite development of advanced prophylactic and therapeutic treatments against gene editors. Advances within the program will ensure the United States remains at the vanguard of the broadly accessible and rapidly progressing field of genome editing.

  Safe Genes performer teams work across three primary technical focus areas to develop tools and methodologies to control, counter, and even reverse the effects of genome editing—including gene drives—in biological systems across scales. First, researchers are developing the genetic circuitry and genome editing machinery for robust, spatial, temporal, and reversible control of genome editing activity in living systems. Second, researchers are developing small molecules and molecular strategies to provide prophylactic and treatment solutions that prevent or limit genome editing activity and protect the genome integrity of organisms and populations. Third, researchers are developing “genetic remediation” strategies that eliminate unwanted engineered genes from a broad range of complex population and environmental contexts to restore systems to functional and genetic baseline states.

  Overall, the Safe Genes program is creating a layered, modular, and adaptable solution set to: protect warfighters and the homeland against intentional or accidental misuse of genome editing technologies; prevent and/or reverse unwanted genetic changes in a given biological system; and facilitate the development of safe, precise, and effective medical treatments that use gene editors.

  ---

  The Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program aims to develop high-performance, bi-directional brain-machine interfaces for able-bodied service members. Such interfaces would be enabling technology for diverse national security applications such as control of unmanned aerial vehicles and active cyber defense systems or teaming with computer systems to successfully multitask during complex military missions.

  Whereas the most effective, state-of-the-art neural interfaces require surgery to implant electrodes into the brain, N3 technology would not require surgery and would be man-portable, thus making the technology accessible to a far wider population of potential users. Noninvasive neurotechnologies such as the electroencephalogram and transcranial direct current stimulation already exist, but do not offer the precision, signal resolution, and portability required for advanced applications by people working in real-world settings.

  The envisioned N3 technology breaks through the limitations of existing technology by delivering an integrated device that does not require surgical implantation, but has the precision to read from and write to 16 independent channels within a 16mm3 volume of neural tissue within 50ms. Each channel is capable of specifically interacting with sub-millimeter regions of the brain with a spatial and temporal specificity that rivals existing invasive approaches. Individual devices can be combined to provide the ability to interface to multiple points in the brain at once.

  To enable future non-invasive brain-machine interfaces, N3 researchers are working to develop solutions that address challenges such as the physics of scattering and weakening of signals as they pass through skin, skull, and brain tissue, as well as designing algorithms for decoding and encoding neural signals that are represented by other modalities such as light, acoustic, or electro-magnetic energy.

  ---

  The Neural Evidence Aggregation Tool (NEAT) program aims to overcome current limitations by developing a new cognitive science tool that identifies people at risk of suicide by using preconscious brain signals rather than asking questions and waiting for consciously filtered responses. By aggregating preconscious brain signals to stimuli, NEAT would determine what a person believes to be true, false, or indeterminate about specific types of knowledge that could be used to detect signs of depression, anxiety, or suicidal ideation earlier and more reliably than ever before. If successful, NEAT will not only significantly augment behavioral health screening, but it could also serve as a new way to assess ultimate treatment efficacy, since patients will often tell their clinicians what they think the clinician wants to hear rather than how they are truly feeling. Ultimately, NEAT intends to augment current behavioral health screening programs by providing clinicians with previously unavailable information to enable earlier interventions and more reliable measures of successful treatment.

  ---

  The research activities that are being conducted by DARPA and the DoD are considerable. Even the small sampling of abstracts published above only begins to document just how large this endeavor is.

  These technologies are further along than we might think, and we deserve to know more about them. This is the future that our government is planning for us, whether we like it or not, and it is a future that is opaque. From genetic engineering to new synthetics development for neural implants, to replacing and enhancing limbs for warfare – our military is “going there.” But the truth is, some places “we” shouldn’t go. Just because they “can,” doesn’t mean they “should”.

  If you have learned anything since January 2020, I hope that you have learned to question the wisdom and insight of the insider cliques within the US Government and “Administrative State” who believe that it is acceptable to march ahead with genetic and mechanical engineering of human beings without meaningful oversight, let alone self awareness and any sense of bioethical boundaries.

  If we truly wish to have a say in these new technologies, society (which is to say “we”) must be informed. “We” have a right to be informed. That means you and me. As these technologies develop, transhumanism will become all the rage. Think about that. These new technologies will be what future generations will have to look forward to. Human cyborgs are their futures. They, that is human cyborgs, will be our children and our grandchildren.

  We are Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us.

  Thanks, Paramount. We need more “normalizing their vision of the future” in our lives please.

  

  The military is already working on propaganda to “reverse negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies.” So, once again – we are being played before we even know what the playing field looks like.

  Like I said before, we have all seen that movie too.

  The full scope of this program needs to be revealed to the American people. Although the executive report barely mentions gene editing technologies, the military is investing heavily in them and clearly with the intention of using them for the war fighter. The executive report barely skims the surface of the research that is currently being carried out by DARPA, and that is only one office within the Department of Defense. The public’s right to know about this research and what the final goals are is crucial. Congress must demand answers and must demand open and transparent responses. As the report rightly points out, what happens in the military will make its way into the public sphere. We have a right to know what is being planned for our future “evolution.” I don’t use that word lightly. But that is how the UK Ministry of Defence has labeled human augmentation research.

  Turns out that Silicon Valley darling and Klaus Schwab’s evil mini me Yuval Noah Harari (author of Homo Deus, which literally means “Man God”) is not so far out there in his thinking as we had thought.

  The bioethics of human augmentation are complex. The regulatory processes must be developed before the technologies come into being, not the other way around. People must envision how these technologies will be used in civilian life, in military life and as life-saving treatments. People need to decide if and which of these technologies really are for the good of society. People need to become involved now.

  That starts with education. Which begins with transparency by our government. In future Substacks, I hope that you and I will begin exploring the bioethics, the impact of these technologies, privacy issues, the targets, future visions of society and just what this all means.

  After all, what could possibly go wrong?

  Reposted from the author’s Substack

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 19:30

• Visualizing The World's Population At 8 Billion
  Visualizing The World’s Population At 8 Billion

  At some point in late 2022, the eight billionth human being will enter the world, ushering in a new milestone for humanity.

  In just 48 years, the world population has doubled in size, jumping from four to eight billion.

  Of course, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley and Avery Koop detail below, humans are not equally spread throughout the planet, and countries take all shapes and sizes. The visualizations in this article aim to build context on how the eight billion people are distributed around the world.

  For extended coverage of this moment and what it means to the world, you can get access to our full report and webinar by signing up to VC+, our premium newsletter.

  Now, here’s a look at each country’s population as of September 2022:

  

  Below are regional breakdowns of population.

  Africa’s Population by Country

  As of 2022, Africa’s total population stands at 1.4 billion people. Many of the countries with the fastest growth rates are located in Africa and by 2050, the population of the continent is expected to jump to 2.5 billion.

  

  Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy. Based on current growth rates, Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, could even emerge as the world’s top megacity by the end of the century.

  Africa has by far the lowest median age of any of the other continents.

  Asia’s Population by Country

  With 4.7 billion people in 2022, Asia is by far the world’s most populous region.

  The continent is dominated by the two massive population centers of China and India. In 2023, a big shift will occur, with India surpassing China to become the world’s most populous country. China has held top spot for centuries, but the mismatch between the two countries’ growth rates made it only a matter of time before this milestone arrived.

  

  Asia is a region of contrast when it comes to population growth. On the one end are countries like Singapore and Japan, which are actually shrinking. On the other, are Middle Eastern nations like Oman and Qatar, which have robust population growth rates of 4-5%.

  Vietnam is on the cusp of becoming the 15th country to surpass the 100 million population mark.

  Europe’s Population by Country

  Europe’s population in 2022 is 750 million people—more than twice the size of the United States.

  A century ago, Europe’s population was close to 30% of the world total. Today, that figure stands at less than 10%. This is, in part, due to population growth throughout other regions of the world.

  More importantly though, Europe’s population is contracting in a number of places—Eastern Europe in particular. Many of the countries with the slowest growth rates are located in the Balkans and former Soviet Bloc countries.

  

  Russia remains Europe’s largest country by population. Although the country’s landmass extends all the way across Asia, three-quarters of Russia’s people live on the European side of the country.

  Germany is the second largest country in Europe, followed by the UK, France, and Italy.

  Ukraine is the seventh largest population center in Europe, but it remains to be seen how the current conflict with Russia impacts the country’s long-term population prospects.

  North America’s Population by Country

  North America’s population is 602 million people as of 2022.

  The continent is dominated by the United States, which makes up more than half of the total population. America’s population is still growing modestly (by global standards), but perhaps more interesting are the internal migration patterns that are occurring. States like Texas and Florida are seeing an influx from other states.

  

  Canada has one of the highest population growth rates of major developed economies thanks to international migration.

  Mexico is currently the 10th most populous country, but will eventually be bumped from the top 10 list by fast-growing African nations.

  South America’s Population by Country

  The population of South America in 2022 is 439 million. Brazil makes up nearly half of that total.

  

  Sometime this decade, Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, will become the region’s fifth megacity (which is defined as having a population of 10 million or more). São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Lima are South America’s current megacities.

  Oceania’s Population by Country

  The population of the Oceania region is 44 million people—just slightly higher than the population of California.

  Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea make up the lion’s share of the population of this region.

  

  Interestingly, many of the smallest countries by population can also be found in this region.

  When Will Earth’s Population Hit 9 Billion?

  The next global population milestone—nine billion—will likely be hit sometime in the 2030s.

  In fact, Earth’s population is expected to continue growing until it hits a peak at some point in the 2080s—possibly over the 10 billion mark.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 19:00

• Senate GOP Judiciary Committee To Investigate 'Excessive' FBI Raid Of Pennsylvania Pro-Life Activist’s Home
  Senate GOP Judiciary Committee To Investigate ‘Excessive’ FBI Raid Of Pennsylvania Pro-Life Activist’s Home

  Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Attorney General Merrick Garland has received a flurry of stern letters, including notice of an investigation, from Republican members of Congress in the days since the FBI’s Sept. 23 raid on the Pennsylvania home of pro-life activist Mark Houck.

  “Not only did your office turn a local dispute into a national case, but the FBI reportedly executed the search warrant in as extreme a manner as one can imagine,” a Sept. 26 letter, sent individually by Sen. Josh Hawley said.

  “The FBI admitted in a statement that as many as 20 agents were present with their guns drawn.”

  

  Houck was handcuffed in front of his wife and seven children during the 7 a.m. arrest and search of his home.

  A Sept. 27 letter from 22 Republican House and Senate members asked why the FBI was deployed for state-level assault charges were dismissed by local authorities in Philadelphia.

  “At the moment, it appears to be an extraordinary overreach for political ends,” the joint letter said. “We request an explanation for the excessive level of force used by the FBI in this case, and why the power of federal law enforcement was once again used against an American citizen in what should be a state and local matter.”

  Next, a Sept. 28, a letter to Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray from 12 Republican senators, offers more insight into the incident and askes Garland to provide answers to five specific questions by Oct. 12, so Congress can perform an independent review of the matter.

  This letter was led by Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and signed by Senators Toomey (R-Pa.) , Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

  More Details About Raid

  The FBI arrest warrant is based on an event that happened on Oct. 13, 2021.

  According to the letter, the incident involved an abortion clinic worker who allegedly shouted obscenities at Houck’s then-11-year-old son and invaded his personal space, refusing to leave him alone. Houck allegedly pushed the individual away from his son.

  Houck’s attorney for that incident, John Williamson, told the committee the Philadelphia Police declined to arrest or prosecute Houck. Despite that, the clinic worker filed a criminal complaint against Houck which was dismissed after the clinic worker failed to appear in court at least twice.

  During that case, the district attorney suggested settling the matter as a civil case instead of a criminal one, but the abortion clinic worker disagreed, the Senate letter said.

  After the complaint against Houck was dismissed on April 22, 2022, he received an April 27, 2022 letter from the Justice Department, advising that he was under investigation for potential violations of the FACE Act. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act prohibits threatening or obstructing people entering or exiting an abortion clinic.

  Houck was likely familiar with the act as he regularly volunteered as a sidewalk counselor.

  After receiving a letter from the DOJ, Houck hired attorney Matt Heffron, a former federal prosecutor. Heffron told the committee that he left two voicemails and sent an email to Assistant U.S. Attorney Anita Eve but did not hear back.

  

  In the communications, Heffron told the DOJ that if it intended to indict Houck, he would receive the summons on Houck’s behalf and that he would appear voluntarily.

  “Given their cooperation with federal law enforcement, the family did not expect to be awakened at 7 a.m. with reportedly over 20 FBI agents surrounding their home wearing armor plated tactical vests, ballistic helmets and holding ballistic shields and long guns,” the Senate letter said.

  Once he was handcuffed, the letter says Houck asked his wife for his Catholic rosary and a sweatshirt. Then he was taken to jail.

  The committee notes that on May 20, 2022, Garland sent a memo to Justice Department employees about its use of force policy. The memo, titled “De-escalation,” said officers must be trained in de-escalation tactics designed to gain voluntary compliance from a subject before using force, and such tactics should be used if feasible and if they would not increase the danger to the officer or others.

  The actions taken by the FBI call into question whether they complied with DOJ’s use of force policy, the committee letter said.

  “The FBI must explain their justification for their actions on September 23, 2022,” the letter said.

  Five Questions

  The letter signers ask the following questions about why Houck was not allowed to self-report for his arrest and arraignment after his attorney said he was willing to do so, and whether political considerations were made to approve and execute the warrant.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 18:30

• Deepfake Bruce Willis To Return To Movie Screens
  Deepfake Bruce Willis To Return To Movie Screens

  Bruce Willis retired from acting following a diagnosis of aphasia, which causes a person to have difficulty communicating with others, but a “digital twin” of the American actor using deepfake technology will live on in future films and commercials. 

  The Telegraph reported Willis is the “first Hollywood star” to sell the rights of his digital twin in perpetuity. The actor will license his digital rights through a company called Deekcake, which specializes in artificial intelligence. 

  In a statement on Deepcake’s website, Willis said:

  “I liked the precision with which my character turned out. It’s a mini-movie in my usual action-comedy genre. For me, it is a great opportunity to go back in time.

  “With the advent of modern technology, even when I was on another continent, I was able to communicate, work and participate in the filming. It’s a very new and interesting experience, and I thank our entire team.”

  Deepcake’s website said, “We make digital twins of people you won’t tell from real.” They added this technology is very disrupting to the film industry: 

  We create digital-twins of celebrities, and the actual production process doesn’t require the physical presence of a celebrity on stage. Deepcake is only team able to make digital twin in 4K quality, On top, we can hyper-personalize your brand’s message, and jump on arena of performance marketing with A-List celebrities

  Engadget said Deepcake’s engineers created the digital double by training its AI platform to study the actor’s face in several past films, including Die Hard and Fifth Element. Then the AI grafted Willis’ face on another actor.

  Willis’ digital twin has already appeared in a commercial for a Russian telecoms company.

  There are concerns deepfake technology could be used to spread misinformation via digitally manipulated footage of people saying and doing things that never happened. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 18:00

• Our Emperor Has No Brain
  Our Emperor Has No Brain

  Authored by Bill Rice Jr via Substack,

  Biden must know he’s losing his mind

  Staying in office is clearly more important than doing the right thing and resigning…

  

  I normally feel great sympathy for any person battling the terrible disease of dementia. However, in the case of President Biden, who the whole world knows is battling this affliction, the sentiment I feel is closer to disgust.

  The reason my normal empathy is lacking is that President Biden himself must know he has this condition … and he won’t acknowledge this and do what’s best for the country and resign.

  Not only does Present Biden know this so too does his wife and children. So too does every person who works in the White House. Indeed, it now must be a 24-hour operation for White House aides to write the teleprompter scripts and stage directions they must produce for President Biden.

  The best (dark) comedy bit proving my conjecture occurred when White House aides dressed up a volunteer as the Easter Bunny and said Easter Bunny performed his assigned task of keeping our president away from reporters and Easter egg hunters.

  What motivated me to write this column is the cringe-inducing moment that happened yesterday when President Biden (going off script) asked if a deceased Congress person was in the room.

  We’ve all known people who are obviously losing their mental sharpness. I know several friends who are struggling with this condition right now. (In fact, I wonder if this “brain fog,” at least in some people, might be an adverse reaction to the Covid “vaccines.”)

  Regardless of the cause, most people going through this struggle actually admit this, either to themselves or others. When people start to suffer from this condition, they have plenty of moments where their brain functions as well as always. I’ve had people (all retired by the way) confide in me, “Bill, I’m losing my mind.”

  So I have no doubt President Biden knows what’s happening to him.

  My main point is that any person with an iota of genuine character would acknowledge what is occurring to him, and for the good of the country he’s supposed to be leading, step aside. Absent this happening, one would hope the people who love and care about this person would persuade him to do this.

  But these aren’t the type people who are “leading” our country. Instead, they are the type people who care only about their position, status and power and have no qualms whatsoever about participating in a conspiracy to cover up the truth. (An even more sinister possibility is the Powers that Be behind the curtain actually like the fact they have a puppet this easy to control.)

  The Real Scandal (the Same-Old Same-Old) …

  The conspiracy to ignore Biden’s obvious dementia is almost as large as the conspiracy to conceal the fact the “vaccines” are dangerous and ineffective. Certainly every reporter who covers the president and the White House knows his condition. But just like all the “off-limits” Covid truths, it’s taboo to mention the emperor has no brain.

  We’ve all probably known a loved one who had dementia. Knowing this, we all know this condition never improves. It gets worse, often in rapid fashion. So at some point, one assumes, one “adult in the room” will take President Biden aside and convince him he has to resign.

  When this day happens, the press is going to HAVE to report the real reason our president decided to belatedly exit political stage left  …. probably after first wandering off toward stage right, which – bad joke or not – has actually happened several times.

  I can’t wait for this day if only to see how the press spins the fact it covered up this story for  years.  (“Our President is suffering from dementia” is, in fact, a story). When this day arrives, I hope more than a few Americans ask our truth-seeking journalists one question: Why didn’t you cover this story? And then an even more important question: What other important stories have you refused to investigate and report?

  Truth be told, the Biden-has-dementia unreported story ties into all the other unreported stories. The real scandal is that America is “served” by a watchdog press corp that seemingly exists to cover-up real scandals, especially when they involve politicians and leaders on “their team.”

  The Biden dementia story also probably gives us one reason the press corps will never expose all the Covid scandals and lies. If the mainstream press did belatedly report this, they’d be admitting they covered up or ignored a massively-important story for years. Not going to happen.

  Above, I predict that President Biden will resign before the end of his term. But this is probably a naive assumption. (I also once thought that if and when the “vaccines” were proven to be ineffective at preventing infection or spread our government couldn’t possibly mandate such an experimental shot).

  My new maxim is that what shouldn’t happen … will happen (and vice versa).  So it’s very possible President Biden will still be president in January 2025. At that point, I can’t imagine the post-traumatic stress of White House handlers who got “Bernie” through not one weekend, but 208 weekends.

  Every day will include more presidential “gaffes,” gaffes which once might have provided the nation much-needed comic relief but are now no longer funny.

  It actually strikes me as cruel that so many people who ostensibly care about President Biden won’t do anything to help him. It’s also malfeasance or an abdication of some moral or ethical duty that these people allow a man who could start a nuclear war to remain in office.

  One day someone will write the White House tell-all of all tell-alls and the public will belatedly learn how severe President Biden’s cognitive condition really was. Until that day, we’ll continue to live in the surreal world depicted in the Peter Sellers’ cult classic “Being There.”

  

  In that movie, the simple-minded gardener hadn’t been elected president yet. So America did get there.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 17:30

• Election-Denier Stacey Abrams Loses Again After Judge Tosses 'Voter Suppression' Lawsuit
  Election-Denier Stacey Abrams Loses Again After Judge Tosses ‘Voter Suppression’ Lawsuit

  Stacey Abrams, the current and former Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, has tossed out a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s election system following her 2018 loss to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.

  

  The lawsuit – filed nearly four years ago by Abrams’ PAC, Fair Fight Georgia, sought to change how the state conducts elections. Earlier this year, the judge narrowed the scope of the lawsuit by dismissing many of its original claims.

  Abrams claimed there was “misconduct, fraud or irregularities” in the voting process – a cardinal sin if you’re a conservative who similarly questions election integrity. She took legal action to stop counties from throwing out rejected provisional and absentee ballots when updated vote totals made clear that Kemp was the likely winner.

  “Although Georgia’s election system is not perfect, the challenged practices violate neither the constitution nor the [Voting Rights Amendment],” said U.S. District Judge Steven Jones in his ruling.

  The failed candidate and MSM pundit has repeatedly said that her refusal to concede to Kemp is different from election fraud claims by former President Trump, because she “never denied that I lost.”

  Yet, even the Washington Post didn’t let Abrams get away with revisionism – noting:

  Abrams at various times has said the election was “stolen” and even, in a New York Times interview, that “I won.” She suggested that election laws were “rigged” and that it was “not a free or fair election.” She also claimed that voter suppression was to blame for her loss, even though she admitted she could not “empirically” prove that. While she did acknowledged Kemp was the governor, she refused to say he was the “legitimate” governor. -WaPo

  Abrams’ clear refusal to accept her loss sparked a barrage of criticism – including insensitive memes:

  

  Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the lead defendant in the case, hailed the ruling.

  “This ruling allows local officials to focus on the task at hand this year—running a safe, secure, and accessible election,” he tweeted. “Stolen election and voter suppression claims by Stacey Abrams were nothing but poll-tested rhetoric not supported by facts and evidence.”

  As the Epoch Times notes;

  In a statement on Friday, Abrams said despite the loss, the case “had measurable results,” including “the reinstatement of over 22,000 ballots, substantive changes to voting laws, and a platform for voters of color to demand greater equity in our state.”

  “During this suit, more than 3,000 voters shared their stories, creating an unprecedented and lasting record of voter testimony, which highlighted the suppressive effects of the Secretary of State’s actions on vulnerable voters,” she said on Twitter.

  Abrams vowed to “expand the right to vote” for minorities if she wins the gubernatorial election.

  After losing in 2018, lawyers for Abrams’s campaign and the Democrat Party of Georgia asked the court to order that provisional ballots that were rejected due to missing or incorrect information be restored. Her lawsuit also demanded that counties that had already certified vote returns correct their totals and re-certify the results.

  The complaint specifically demanded to restore the votes of 1,095 Gwinnett County voters whose absentee ballots were rejected.

  Abrams’s campaign contacted voters in Georgia asking if they experienced issues casting a vote.

  Kemp’s campaign accused Abrams of trying to steal the election by filing legal challenges and “desperately trying to create more votes for Stacey Abrams.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 17:00

• FDA Withholding Autopsy Results On People Who Died After Getting COVID-19 Vaccines
  FDA Withholding Autopsy Results On People Who Died After Getting COVID-19 Vaccines

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

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is refusing to release the results of autopsies conducted on people who died after getting COVID-19 vaccines.

  

  The FDA says it is barred from releasing medical files, but a drug safety advocate says that it could release the autopsies with personal information redacted.

  The refusal was issued to The Epoch Times, which submitted a Freedom of Information Act for all autopsy reported obtained by the FDA concerning any deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System following COVID-19 vaccination.

  Reports are lodged with the system when a person experiences an adverse event, or a health issue, after receiving a vaccine. The FDA and other agencies are tasked with investigating the reports. Authorities request and review medical records to vet the reports, including autopsies.

  The FDA declined to release any reports, even redacted copies.

  The FDA cited federal law, which enables agencies to withhold information if the agency “reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by an exemption,” with the exemption being “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

  Federal regulations also bar the release of “personnel, medical and similar files the disclosure of which constitutes a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

  The Epoch Times has appealed the denial, in addition to the recent denial of results of data analysis of VAERS reports.

  ‘Easily Be Redacted’

  Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who advises the FDA as part of the Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee, said that the reports could be released with personal information blacked out.

  “The personal information could easily be redacted without losing the potential learnings from [the] autopsy,” Witczak told The Epoch Times via email.

  People make the choice to submit autopsy results to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, Witczak noted.

  “If someone submits their experience to VAERS they want and expect to have it investigated by the FDA. This includes autopsy reports,” she said.

  Autopsies are examinations of deceased persons performed to determine the cause of death.

  “Autopsies can be an important part of postmortem analysis and should be done especially with increased deaths following COVID-19 vaccination,” Witczak said.

  FDA Responds

  An FDA spokesperson noted that deaths following COVID-19 vaccination are rare, citing the number of reports made to VAERS.

  As of Sept. 14, 16,516 reports of death following COVID-19 vaccination have been reported. Approximately 616 million doses have been administered in the United States through September.

  The spokesperson declined to say whether the FDA would ever release the autopsy results, but pointed to a paper authored by researchers with the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 16:30

• Fed "Begins To Split" On Rate Hikes As "Chaotic Market Breakdown" Looms
  Fed “Begins To Split” On Rate Hikes As “Chaotic Market Breakdown” Looms

  Back in early 2018, around the time the Fed was confident it could hike its way to around 4% without an accident, and with balance sheet QT on “autopilot”, we first warned that every fed tightening cycle leads to a crisis.

  Deutsche: “Every Fed Tightening Cycle Creates A Crisis” https://t.co/Lv2CM5gmEo

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 24, 2018

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  A few months later, in late December, this was confirmed when the Fed panicked and ended its tightening cycle very prematurely. Shortly after it started restarted (NOT) QE, which was then followed by the liquidity supernova that was the covid global lockdowns, and everyone knows the rest.

  So fast forward to the start of 2022, when just as the Fed was setting off on its latest tightening campaign, we again reminded readers that “every Fed tightening cycle ends in disaster and then, much more Fed easing.”

  Remember, every Fed tightening cycle ends in disaster and then, much more Fed easing pic.twitter.com/zX7Dur8nLG

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 5, 2022

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  While this warning was (again) ignored for far too long, with global central banks hiking rates no less than 294 times since Aug 2021 (vs 1302 rate cuts since Lehman), last week the Bank of England confirmed that this time won’t be different when it quickly ended its QT and restarted QE (“temporarily” of course) to avoid a brutal collapse of the UK pension system (which for some bizarre reason, had been allowed to use margin to hedge duration exposure). And while so far the Fed has shown it is confident it is immune to the crushing consequences of the biggest ever tightening cycle and reversal in global liquidity…

  

  … recent events are starting to make some high-profile financial luminaries nervous, starting with Mohamed El-Erian, who openly agreed with us on Friday saying that an “economic accident” would precede any central bank pivot…

  Mohamed El-Erian has a cautionary word for anyone anticipating an end to interest-rate increases https://t.co/WRysTFcfg3

  — Bloomberg (@business) September 30, 2022

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  … an “accident” which Bank of America’s credit strategists warned could be imminent when they said that “credit stress approaching critical levels, now is the time to put emphasis on risk management“, and unless the Fed slows down its hiking pace, it is about to break the all-important corporate bond market, to wit:

  With credit stress approaching critical levels, now is the time to put emphasis on risk management. This means slower pace of rate hikes at immediate upcoming meetings and a potential pause subsequently, to allow the economy to fully adjust to all the extreme tightening already implemented, but still working its way through the financial system’s plumbing. Failure to do so raises the risk of credit market dysfunction, which, if occurred, would be difficult to contain and fix.

  Or maybe we are wrong and the Fed is finally becoming aware that it its actions are about to break the economy and market again. That’s what Charlie Gasparino reported yesterady when he tweeted that, according to several big investors, “federal reserve officials getting increasingly worried about “financial stability” as opposed to inflation as higher rates begin to crush bonds.” Gasparino continued that the Fed was growing “worried about possible “Lehman Moment” with a 4% FF rate as Bonds and derivatives tied to them crash, given the enormous debt issued in just the past 3 years at super low rates. A Fed watcher told me the UK intervention was not “a one off” and the same systemic risk could happen here, which might cause the Fed to pause.“

  (2/2) tied to them crash, given the enormous debt issued in just the past 3 years at super low rates. A Fed watcher told me the UK intervention was not “a one off” and the same systemic risk could happen here, which might cause the Fed to pause. More later on @FoxBusiness

  — Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) September 30, 2022

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  While that may sound like a lot of wishful thinking by the “big investors” it is becoming increasingly clear that Bank of America’s warning is certainly starting to resonate with Fed officials. As a reminder, the BofA team warned that to avoid “credit market dysfunction”, the Fed should slower “the pace of rate hikes at immediate upcoming meetings and a potential pause subsequently, to allow the economy to fully adjust to all the extreme tightening already implemented.”

  It now appears that they are doing just that, because according to Bloomberg, Federal Reserve officials “are starting to stake out different views on how fast to raise interest rates as they balance hot inflation against rising stress in financial markets.” Translation: here come the cold feet.

  As Bloomberg elaborates, “with Fed target range now at 3% to 3.25% and only a few moves from reaching their forecast peak, officials are starting to speak differently about the urgency with which they need to get there. Hawks like Cleveland Fed chief Loretta Mester say they must keep raising rates aggressively to win the battle against inflation even if that causes a recession.” However, Vice Chair Lael Brainard has offered a slightly softer assessment while continuing to stress the need to tighten policy. Brainard’s speech Friday — the first from Fed board leadership since officials met last week — said policy will need be restrictive for some time and avoid the risk of prematurely pulling back.

  But unlike her hawkish colleagues, “she injected a note of caution about how fast they need to go, while discussing a number of ways in which the global rate-hiking cycle could spill over on the US economy.” San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly also highlighted the cost of doing too much — as well as too little — to cool prices.

  As Bloomberg notes, their comments injected a slight variation into what has been a uniformed stream of insistence from regional Fed presidents declaring unflinching resolve to crush inflation.

  To be sure, the costs to the economy have already been telegraphed in the form of falling asset prices with the S&P 500 plunging 9.3% in September – the worst September since 2008 – as markets have now lost over $10 trillion from the all time high.

  

  But it’s the elusive economic collapse that is seen as the greenlight for any Fed pivot – just two days ago Loretta Mester went so far to say that not even a recession would stop the Fed from hiking further…

  • *MESTER SAYS RECESSION WON’T STOP FED FROM RAISING RATES

  … a view which seems dangerously naive and ignores the political fallout (for the Democratic party) that millions of lost jobs will lead to. Furthermore, while bond and stock values have cratered, for now the financial system – at least in the US – seems to be working just fine.

  But if the BofA strategy team is correct, that’s about to end with a bang. Indeed, even Bloomberg brings attention to what we reported last night, saying that “Bank of America Corp. says credit stress is at a “borderline critical level” beyond which dysfunction begins. That’s something the Fed wants to avoid because market breakdowns are difficult to control and can accelerate downturns.”

  In any case, the growing divisions among officials showed up in their forecasts released Sept. 21 that showed 8 officials estimating they would finish the year with rates in a 4% to 4.25% range while nine were a quarter point higher. Their 2024 forecast was even more bizarre and clueless.

  

  Another novel narrative to emerge in Brainard’s speech, was her warning that it will take time for the full extent of tightening to bite down broadly across the economy, another way of arguing for some patience starting now.

  “Uncertainty is currently high, and there are a range of estimates around the appropriate destination of the target range for the cycle,” she told a conference hosted at the New York Fed on financial stability. “Proceeding deliberately and in a data-dependent manner will enable us to learn how economic activity and inflation are adjusting to the cumulative tightening.”

  That contrasts sharply with Fed hawks. In fact, Mester has argued aggressively against down-shifting into more deliberative policy, as officials have done in past tightening cycles when high uncertainty lead the central bank to inch rates up a quarter-point at a time. At a time when inflation is too high, and the direction of inflation expectations is hard forecast, overshooting is better than undershooting, Mester said:

  “Some results in the literature suggest that when policymakers confront more uncertainty either in their data or in their models, they should be more cautious in acting, that is, be more inertial in their responses,” she said in a Sept. 26 speech. “Subsequent research has shown that this is not generally true.”

  “It can be better for policymakers to act more aggressively because aggressive and pre-emptive action can prevent the worst-case outcomes from actually coming about,” she added.

  Ironically, just as she read those words, the Bank of England capitulated and pivoted back to QE.

  Yet while a fissure is finally emerging within the FOMC over how fast to hike to peak rates, so far not a single official is talking about easing rapidly once they get there. Labor markets are strong with forecasters estimating another 250,000 jobs added in September, while the latest inflation report was discouraging. But expect all that to change and soon, because as Bloomberg summarizes, “What ultimately determines the pace might be just whether markets remain orderly or not.“

  This matters because while the Fed’s favorite economic indicators are backward looking and lag anywhere between 6 and 9 months, the market still anticipated key turning points and traders accordingly.

  “They have made the decision they are going to tighten more rather than less, which guarantees they will over-tighten. How are we going to see it? You are going to see it in financial conditions,” said former Fed staffer, Julia Coronado, founding partner at MacroPolicy Perspectives.

  “I don’t think they really understand” the risk of chaotic market breakdowns, she added. “When you say we are hellbent on being the fastest car on the road, that encourages a lot of positioning that is one way.”

  And speaking of chaotic market breakdowns, it is not just the credit market that is on the edge: according to another former NY Fed staffer, and current rates strategist at Bank of America, Mark Cabana who on Friday wrote a must read note (available to pro subscribers), in which he warned that Treasury “market functioning breakdown is a growing risk & may see long-end duration sell-off + curve bear steepen. The Fed is unlikely to tolerate a UST market functioning breakdown for long; if the UST market doesn’t work, broader markets likely don’t work.“

  Here, one look at the record low liquidity…

  

  … and exploding volatility in the Treasury market which was already blown above the 2020 covid crash and is on the verge of surpassing Lehman levels…

  

  … suggests that the Fed has already lost control of the Treasury market which is no longer functioning properly. How long until the Fed admits this, and how much additional pain it will tolerate before it capitulates, is a different question.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 16:00

• California Gasoline Is Now More Than Double The Price In Texas
  California Gasoline Is Now More Than Double The Price In Texas

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  California leads the nation in top gasoline prices, over double Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana…

  

  Gas prices courtesy of AAA

  According to the AAA, the National Average Gas Price on October 1, 2022 is $3.80.

  California lead the nation in price at $6.358 per gallon. That’s more than double the price paid in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Its nearly double the price paid in eight other states.

  Oregon has the second highest average price at $5.41 per gallon. That’s about 95 cents less than California pays.

  Mono County California has the dubious distinction of the highest county in the highest state at $6.937 per gallon. 

  

  Gavin Newsom’s Gas Price Premium

  Please consider Gavin Newsom’s Gas Price Premium

  Cash-strapped Americans have received relief from falling gas prices in recent weeks, but not Californians.

  The average gas price in the Golden State this week surged to $6.29 a gallon—$2.50 more than the national average—and the reasons are worth distilling since Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to export the state’s energy policies nationwide.

  Taxes add about 66 cents to the price of a gallon, about twice as much on average as other states. California’s cap-and-trade program and low-carbon fuel standard add roughly another 46 cents a gallon.

  These climate regulations are causing refineries to shut down or convert to producing biofuels that are more profitable because of rich government subsidies. California lost 12% of refining capacity between 2017 and 2021 and is set to lose another 8% by the end of next year. Yet refineries outside of the state can’t produce its supposedly greener fuel blend.

  So when California refineries experience problems, gasoline supply becomes tight and prices shoot up.

  “If you’re a (refiner) on the Gulf Coast, your gross profit on gasoline is about $6.60 (per barrel of oil). If you’re in Los Angeles it’s about $101,” Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service told the Mercury News.

  Expect California Governor Gavin Newsom to run for President in 2024. 

  If you want to pay higher prices for everything, he’s the man to root for.

  *  *  *

  Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 15:30

• Pfizer CEO Bails On EU Testimony After Report Highlights 'Secretive' Vaccine Deal
  Pfizer CEO Bails On EU Testimony After Report Highlights ‘Secretive’ Vaccine Deal

  Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has bailed on an appointment to testify before the European Parliament’s special committee, where he was expected to face tough questions over secretive vaccine deals, Politico reports.

  

  Bourla was scheduled to appear before the panel on Oct. 10, alongside key officials involved in the EUs vaccine procurement process, in order to discuss how to respond to future pandemics. According to the report, “Other pharmaceutical executives have addressed the committee, including the CEO of Moderna and senior officials from AstraZeneca and Sanofi.”

  Bourla? Not so much.

  The committee’s chair, Belgian MEP Kathleen Van Brempt, told POLITICO she “deeply regrets” the decision taken by Pfizer.

  After a visit to BioNTech’s headquarters last week, Van Brempt had said in a written statement that she looked forward to discussions “with other CEOs” including “Mr. Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer” on October 10. -Politico

  In early September, an audit repirt into the EU’s vaccine procurement strategy raised questions over Bourla’s relationship with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen before they struck a multibillion-euro vaccine deal.

  The report, by the European Court of Auditors, found that von der Leyen had been directly involved in preliminary negotiations for the EU’s biggest vaccine contract, for up to 1.8 billion doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, which was concluded in May 2021. This was a departure from the negotiating procedure followed with other contracts, where a joint negotiating team made up of officials from the Commission and member countries conducted exploratory talks. -Politico

  In April, von der Leyen admitted that she had been texting with Bourla for a month straight while they were negotiating the massive contract. Two months later, the texts disappeared, triggering accusations of maladministration by the EU’s ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly,” Reuters reported at the time.

  

  Bourla and von der Leyen’s cozy relationship was noted last year by the NYT, which Bourla told they had “developed a deep trust, because we got into deep discussions.”

  “She knew details about the variants, she knew details about everything. So that made the discussion, way more engaged.”

  And now Bourla won’t have to answer questions about it.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 15:00

• U.S. Pension Funds Could Face Their Own "Lehman Moment"
  U.S. Pension Funds Could Face Their Own “Lehman Moment”

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  Last night I had the pleasure of speaking with Jason Burack from Wall Street for Main Street to offer up my updated thoughts on the Federal Reserve, the economy and the state of the world in general.

  The first thing we talked about was current Fed policy, which I told Jason I thought was a case of too much, too late. I made the argument that the Fed is, as it always does, overshooting its mark, and doing so at the wrong time.

  This, as I have written several times, is why I believe the market is going to be in for a serious crash at some point within the next several months. I reiterated my stance to him that the economy and stock market have not yet truly digested 3% interest rates and, when they do, there will be hell to pay.

  “They’re so nervous about the inflation issue, they have said ‘come hell or high water, we’re going to 4%’. I believe the consequences of 300bps of hikes in nine months have not even begun to be felt yet,” I said.

  “I think we’re going to have a serious moment of real panic, probably an order of magnitude bigger than the one they just had in England,” I said. “They’re going to try and ram this thing through and get us to 4% by the end of the year. The consequences will be devastating. It’s going to be a wild ride.”

  I also talked to Jason about why I think equity markets wind up 30% to 40% lower from here easily, assuming the Fed holds its course. If the Fed does decide to pivot, it would be a different story – but for now, with the Fed holding course, I think it is inevitable that our markets run into a brick wall, relatively soon.

  I laid out my most recent game theory on the Fed’s current options – including whether it will pivot or not, and how it will react to the Bank of England restarting quantitative easing – in my article I wrote on Wednesday of this week: Did The Global Pivot Back To QE Just Begin?

  One of the things that we talked about that I haven’t written about is the trouble that U.S. pension funds could be in.

  The Bank of England intervention this week was a result of pension funds potentially having a “Lehman Moment”. Reports noted that pension plans overseas were hastily selling bonds to try and meet margin calls, a scenario that I am certain we are not far off from here in the U.S.:

  Pension schemes had been selling gilts to meet emergency collateral calls or reduce exposure, pensions advisers said.

  “There are schemes running out of cash at the moment,” one pensions consultant said before the BoE intervention.

  From FT, here’s what scared the BoE straight:

  “At some point this morning I was worried this was the beginning of the end,” said a senior London-based banker, adding that at one point on Wednesday morning there were no buyers of long-dated UK gilts. “It was not quite a Lehman moment. But it got close.”

  I told Jason yesterday that I don’t think the United States is far off. All I have been reading over the last five years is how pension funds here (1) can’t meet their targets despite the market ripping and (2) were taking on leverage, managed by their obviously unqualified CIOs, to try and deploy the world’s worst carry trade and play catch-up/generate more yield.

  “I think what they did in Chicago was once they failed to meet their targets – first off, several funds have turned over their CIOs – they then issued a bond or something ridiculous to try and put on this carry trade where they’re going to pay 50bps on the bond and try and generate an extra 100bps of return. Some asinine, basically borrowing money to try and invest it,” I told Jason. “You have nonsense like that all throughout the [pension fund] system.”

  “If we can’t meet our obligations with pension funds when the market is screaming higher, what are we going to do now? I guarantee you there are pension funds right now already in big, big, big trouble and we just haven’t seen the news yet,” I continued. “We don’t know the extent of it yet.” 

  The fact that these funds were unable to post the returns that they needed during arguably the most euphoric bull market in history is extremely concerning. When conditions get worse for poor managers like these, like they are now, the capital destruction could be devastating.

  

  From there, we went on to talk about how government policy has enabled terrible monetary policy and how it could play a role in upcoming elections.

  We also talked about the state of Covid lockdowns, the Canadian government finally surrendering its long-coveted travel restrictions and the state of politics globally.

  “I think we’re going to see similar conservative populist movements throughout the world [like the one we just saw in Italy],” I told Jason. 

  I made the argument to Jason that the political poles (not polls) had reversed – in essence, the party that was once liberal has now become fascist, and the party that was once conservative has now become liberal.

  I talked to him about how the disintegration of US cities, combined with the economic destruction and the authoritarian lockdowns put forth by the current administration are all going to be tough to ignore for voters during the upcoming midterm elections. I further explained to him that I wasn’t surprised about the results of Italy’s latest election and predicted that many other countries globally would start to soon follow suit.

  My full interview with Jason lasted a little bit over an hour and you can listen to it here:

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/01/2022 – 14:30

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• Anti-Globalism Is Going Mainstream – Which Means Engineered Disaster Is About To Strike
  Anti-Globalism Is Going Mainstream – Which Means Engineered Disaster Is About To Strike

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

  I have noted in the past that criminals tend to brag about their criminality when they believe there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Frankly, in their narcissism many of them can’t help but revel in the moment and let everyone know how “superior” they are to the rest of us. We witnessed many moments like this from elitists within globalists institutions the past couple of years at the height of the pandemic pandemonium.

  There were people like the globalist academics at MIT proclaiming that we were “never going back to normal” and that we were going to have to accept the loss of many of our freedoms for the rest of our lives in order to combat the spread of covid. There were people like Klaus Schwab declaring the beginning of the “Great Reset” and the launch of what the Davos crowd calls the “4^th Industrial Revolution.” There have also been MANY political leaders like Joe Biden that strut around on the media stage accusing ideological opponents (conservatives mostly) of being “enemies of democracy.”

  If their vision of “democracy” is medical tyranny and the forced expansion of cultural Marxism, or if their idea of democracy is government cooperation with corporate monopoly and the erasure of our country’s founding principles, then yes, I suppose I am indeed an enemy of “democracy.”

  The globalists were really basking in the glow of their assumed victory. They thought they had us peasants by the scruff of the neck and that their agenda was all but assured. But as I have been arguing since last year, the money elites may have celebrated a little too early.

  The covid agenda utterly failed if the goal was to implement longstanding mandates and restrictions across North America and Europe. If you want to know what success for the globalists would have looked like, just examine China with its endless lockdown cycles and digital vaccine passports. The elites wanted that outcome for the west and they didn’t get it. They came close, but millions of Americans, Canadians and Europeans stood their ground and the cost to force us into compliance would have been too great.

  Even Joe Biden has openly admitted that the pandemic is over. They dropped the mandates because they knew if it came to war, they would lose.

  If the goal of the pandemic fear factory was simply to get the population injected with the mRNA vaccines, here they also failed. With many states in the US 40% unvaxxed (according to official numbers) and many parts of the world with large unvaxxed populations, there is a massive control group for the covid vaccines. If there are going to be constantly developing health problems associated the mRNA vax (like Myocarditis) then the public is going to know what caused them because of this control group. The globalists needed near-100% vaccination and they did not get it. Not even close.

  There is no escape for them – They greatly overestimated the public’s apathy when it comes to authoritarianism. The rebellion is too large and they will eventually be held accountable for their trespasses.

  Case in point: The latest election in Italy has resulted in a landslide win for the conservative coalition and the new prime minister (and first woman prime minister), Georgia Meloni, gave a rousing victory speech this week which directly exposed the far-left invasion of western nations, globalism and the poisonous collusion with woke corporations to silence dissent. She called for a return to freedom, and what was the mainstream media response? They are calling her a “fascist.”

  The Italian election is just a small part of an ongoing trend, an awakening of the people to the imminent threats presented by globalists, and the globalists can’t stop it.

  The fear among them is palpable. Anti-globalism is now going mainstream, and as it does people are going to start looking for answers. Why have our economic conditions been so degraded? Why are we facing stagflationary crisis? Why are prices on everything continuing to climb? Why did we almost lose all of our civil liberties in the name of fighting a virus with a tiny 0.23% official median Infection Fatality Rate? Why are pointless carbon controls being instituted in the middle of a supply chain crisis? Why are politicians and banks making everything so much worse?

  The public outcry for a reckoning is growing and it’s the heads of globalists that will end up on the chopping block. All roads to destruction lead back to them and the policies they have forced upon the populace.

  

  Of course, when criminals feel like they are being cornered they will sometimes set fires and take hostages in a last ditch effort to stay alive and slip through the net. I believe we are closing in on that stage of this terrible drama. It’s important to accept the conditions of the battlefield as they are and not underestimate the enemy. The truth is, globalists have extensive means at their disposal to wreak havoc and they have already set some of these disasters in motion.

  As I warned many years ago (way back in 2017 in my article ‘The Economic End Game Continues’), tensions with eastern nations are being used to diminish the role of the US dollar as the world reserve currency and the petro currency. The conflict is also causing resource shortages and supply chain weakness, not to mention an energy crisis in Europe that is now irreversible with the sabotage of the Nord pipelines.

  I also predicted in 2017 that the Federal Reserve would repeat a pattern of raising interest rate into severe economic weakness causing increased economic turmoil. They used a very similar tactic at the onset of the Great Depression, which former federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke openly admitted was the cause of the long term deflationary collapse.

  From my article in 2017:

  “The changing of the Fed chair is absolutely meaningless as far as policy is concerned. Jerome Powell will continue the same exact initiatives as Yellen; stimulus will be removed, rates will be hiked and the balance sheet will be reduced, leaving the massive market bubble the Fed originally created vulnerable to implosion.

  An observant person…might have noticed that central banks around the world seem to be acting in a coordinated fashion to remove stimulus support from markets and raise interest rates, cutting off supply lines of easy money that have long been a crutch for our crippled economy.”

  The Bank for International Settlement’s, the central bank of central banks and the institution that writes global policy initiatives for all other member banks, called for MORE rate hikes last week. Aside from a minor intervention by the Bank of England, the evidence shows that the globalists WANT a crash and are engineering conditions of instability. They set up the dominoes in advance and now they have decided to knock them down. I think this is a fail-safe; a panic trigger in the event that they did not get the control they wanted from the covid pandemic.

  They will blame Russia, they will blame China, they will blame conservatives, they will blame anything and anyone besides themselves in an attempt to divert public attention away from the international banking actions that created the crash conditions in the first place. We can’t let them. Whatever happens next, it is vital that people remember who really did this to us and who needs to be punished.

  Over the course of the next couple of years the establishment power brokers are going to attempt to use a chaos screen in order to sow seeds of fear in the population. They are going to try to exploit that fear to gain even more centralized governance and change the very foundations of our society while suffocating what’s left of our liberties. It’s the only play they have left, but at least we now know for certain that there are millions of us out there – millions of people that will not comply and that will fight back. And, we know that the globalists are afraid; if they weren’t then they would not be falling back to such drastic measures.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 23:45

• Global 'Unhappiness' Is Soaring
  Global ‘Unhappiness’ Is Soaring

  Last year was a difficult period for many people, and as Gallup’s latest Negative Experience Index indicates, unhappiness continued to rise worldwide in 2021, “as the world overall became a sadder, more worried and more stressed-out place”.

  

  But, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong details below, in two countries – Afghanistan and Lebanon – more people were living in misery than anywhere else on the planet.

  In the 2021 survey, the two countries recorded the two highest scores in the world on the index, which is based on people’s daily experiences of sadness, stress, worry, anger and physical pain. Higher scores on the index mean more of a population is experiencing these emotions.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As summarized by Gallup, “most of the countries with the highest scores on the Negative Experience Index were contending with some type of economic or political instability in 2021”.

  On Afghanistan specifically:

  “When Gallup surveyed Afghanistan as the Taliban retook control last year and as the U.S. withdrew its troops, Afghans’ emotional state reflected the chaos and uncertainty. 80% of Afghans were worried, 74% were stressed, and 61% were sad.”

  

  Tellingly, “no other population in the world has ever reported feeling this worried in the history of Gallup’s trend.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 23:20

• 'Libs Of TikTok' Threatens To Sue Twitter Over New Suspension
  ‘Libs Of TikTok’ Threatens To Sue Twitter Over New Suspension

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Twitter temporarily suspended the popular Libs of TikTok account on Sept. 25, which boasts of around 1.4 million followers, accusing the account of propagating “hateful conduct policy.”

  

  In a blog post on Sept. 29, Libs of TikTok stated that Twitter had wrongly imposed a seven-day suspension as a result of a “targeted harassment campaign from the Left” to deplatform the account. “The truth is I haven’t engaged in hateful conduct. I’ve just exposed the Left’s depravity by reporting the facts. There’s no rule against that, so they have to make up violations I’ve never committed. But I’m not taking it lying down. I’ve vowed to sue Twitter if they permanently suspend me, and I meant it,” the post said.

  Libs of TikTok is run by former real estate worker Chaya Raichick. The post goes on to point out that a lawsuit against Twitter will be “extremely expensive” and that litigation could drag on for months and years.

  To support Libs of TikTok’s fight against Twitter, a legal fund has been established whereby donors can send tax-deductible donations to cover legal fees and other expenses involved in the lawsuit.

  The Twitter page of Libs of TikTok (LOTT) is currently accessible publicly. However, the last post on the account was made on Sept. 25.

  On Sept. 27, Envisage Law, which is representing Libs of TikTok, sent a letter to Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter, asking that the platform reinstate their client’s account.

  “Many Americans are tired of listening to your company talk the talk of free expression while walking the walk of censorship,” the letter said.

  “If Twitter refuses to live up to its own words and aspirations and permanently bans our client’s account, LOTT will have no choice but to ask a court to order Twitter to live up its own statements.”

  Censoring Content

  In the letter to Twitter, Envisage points out that this is the “second wrongful suspension” of their client’s account. The law firm had written a similar letter to the company on Sept. 1, when LOTT was earlier suspended.

  In the letter of Sept. 27, Envisage affirmed that though their client’s reporting might be “offensive” to some Twitter users, this is not sufficient enough to cut LOTT from the platform. Similar to the last suspension, Twitter failed to specify which LOTT content is blamed for violating the platform’s “hateful conduct policy.”

  The law firm pointed out that Twitter has sent emails to LOTT on “numerous occasions” in the past, saying that the account’s posts did not violate its harmful conduct policy. The letter contained images of LOTT content that Twitter reviewed and concluded, and subsequently decided were not “subject to removal” under the company’s rules.

  LOTT’s most recent reporting is not “materially different” from any of its earlier posts. At the same time, Twitter’s speech code has not changed, the law firm noted.

  The letter cites a recent case, NetChoice LLC v. Paxton, in which the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas rejected the notion that “corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say.”

  “Twitter’s current censorship of LOTT violates Texas House Bill 20 and, if necessary, our client will not hesitate to seek injunctive relief under this statute if Twitter permanently suspends LOTT’s account,” the law firm warned.

  Texas House Bill 20 prohibits large social media platforms from censoring users in Texas based on their viewpoints, unless such viewpoints are considered illegal according to federal law or if it falls into exempted categories.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 22:55

• How Do Americans Spend Their Money, By Generation?
  How Do Americans Spend Their Money, By Generation?

  In 2021, the average American spent just over $60,000 a year. But where does all their money go? Unsurprisingly, spending habits vary wildly depending on age.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang details below, with the graphic by Preethi Lodha using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, how average Americans spend their money (and annual expenses) varies greatly across generations.

  

  <!–

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  A Generational Breakdown of Overall Spending

  Overall in 2021, Gen X (anyone born from 1965 to 1980) spent the most money of any U.S. generation, with an average annual expenditure of $83,357.

  

  Gen X has been nicknamed the “sandwich generation” because many members of this age group are financially supporting both their aging parents as well as children of their own.

  The second biggest spenders are Millennials with an average annual expenditure of $69,061. Just like Gen X, this generation’s top three spending categories are housing, healthcare, and personal insurance.

  On the opposite end of the spectrum, members of Generation Z are the lowest spenders with an average of $41,636. per year. Their spending habits are expected to ramp up, especially considering that in 2022 the oldest Gen Zers are just 25 and still early in their careers.

  Similarities Across Generations

  While spending habits vary depending on the age group, there are some categories that remain fairly consistent across the board.

  One of the most consistent spending categories is housing—it’s by the far the biggest expense for all age groups, accounting for more than 30% of total annual spending for every generation.

  

  Another spending category that’s surprisingly consistent across every generation is entertainment. All generations spent more than 4% of their total expenditures on entertainment, but none dedicated more than 5.6%.

  

  Gen Zers spent the least on entertainment, which could boil down to the types of entertainment this generation typically enjoys. For instance, a study found that 51% of respondents aged 13-19 watch videos on Instagram on a weekly basis, while only 15% watch cable TV.

  Differences Across Generations

  One category that varies the most between generations and relative needs is spending on healthcare.

  As the table below shows, the Silent Generation spent an average of $7,053 on healthcare, or 15.8% of their total average spend. Comparatively, Gen Z only spent $1,354 on average, or 3.3% of their total average spend.

  

  However, while the younger generations typically spend less on healthcare, they’re also less likely to be insured—so those who do get sick could be left with a hefty bill.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 22:30

• Stockman Slams Washington's Pointless War On Behalf Of A Fake Nation
  Stockman Slams Washington’s Pointless War On Behalf Of A Fake Nation

  Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

  The messages are coming in loud and clear today – from the crashing pound, to repudiation of establishment governments in Italy, Sweden and more to come, to Hungarian Prime Minister Orban’s call to end the Sanctions War and do so pronto.

  So let’s be clear: Washington’s dunderheaded intervention in the intramural spat between Russia and Ukraine and the accompanying global Sanctions War is the surely the stupidest, most destructive project to arise from the banks of the Potomac in modern times. And the architects of this perfidious folly—Biden, Blinkin, Sullivan, Nuland et. al.—cannot be condemned harshly enough.

  After all, this madness is being pursued in the name of abstract policy norms—the rule of law and sanctity of borders—that make Washington a laughing stock. More than any other nation on planet earth (and by a long-shot), it has serially and blatantly violated these standards scores of times in recent decades.

  Among other actions, Washington’s interventions in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia etc were not only pointless; they were also a self-evident violation of the very rule of law and sanctity of borders upon which Washington now beats its breasts ever more stridently.

  Moreover, by wallowing in this unhinged hypocrisy Washington has abandoned every semblance of commonsense as to why this conflict happened in the first place and why it is wholly irrelevant to the national security of the American homeland, or, for that matter, Europe, as well.

  The fundamental fact is, aside from the historically short interval of iron-fisted communist rule during the Soviet era, Ukraine had never been a nation-state within its post-1991 happenstance borders. In fact, for upwards of 275 years before 1918 much of its territories were borderlands, vassals and outright provinces of Czarist Russia; and before that constituents of the Polish-Lithuanian Empire and others.

  So we are not dealing with the invasion of a long-established, ethnically and linguistically coherent state by its aggressive neighbor, but with the left-over potpourri of separate tongues, territories. economies and histories that were smashed together by brutal communist rulers between 1918 and 1991.

  Accordingly, the fast-approaching dark, cold winter of stagflationary collapse in Europe is not being done in heroic defense of the grand principles proffered by Washington and NATO. To the contrary, it amounts to the pointless and grubby business of preserving a vile status quo ante that was confected on the lands north of the Black Sea, not by the ordinary course of historical evolution and nation-state accretion, but by the bloody-hands of Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev.

  In any event, the staggering economic costs for the everyday peoples of Europe in pursuit of such a threadbare and illegitimate purpose is starting to register among the long-suffering victims of Brussels’ elitist rulers. Hence the thunderbolts from the Italian elections this weekend and Viktor Orbán’s parallel appeal to the European Union to lift sanctions and thereby potentially reduce energy prices by half in one swell swoop.

  Nor is Orbán the only one calling for an end to sanctions, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotaki calling for a repeal of Russian sanctions as well. Other political leaders, such as Matteo Salvini, who leads the conservative League party and will be a major force in Italy’s new government, says that Europe needs a “rethink” on Russian sanctions due to the harmful economic effects.

  Likewise, the conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has also been pushing for an end to sanctions and an re-opening of the Nord Stream 1 & 2 gas pipelines due to soaring energy costs in Germany. AfD member of the Bundestag, Mariana Harder-Kühnel, for instance, recently echoed Orbán’s call.

  “The EU bureaucracy has turned the screw on the sanctions, and now we are paying the bill,” she said.

  In this context, the ructions since Friday in the FX market for the pound sterling speak more powerfully than anything else.

  The British pound briefly plunged to its lowest level ever early this week, touching $1.0349 during Asian trading hours, breaking through its previous record low of 1985. Moreover, today’s cliff-dive followed a tumble of 3% on Friday, after the new Truss government announced sweeping tax cuts and a massive energy bailout for businesses and individuals.

  Likewise, the price of U.K. government debt has fallen in tandem with the pound, with yields rising sharply again today. The 10-year government bond was yielding 4.11%, up 28 basis points from Friday and a staggering 342% from the 0.93% yield of just one year ago.

  

  For want of doubt, here is the path of pound sterling over the last twelve months. That’s a massive thumbs down by the FX markets if there ever was one.

  

  But the relevant point here is not all the Keynesian palaver about the “mistake” of lowering the 45% top income tax rate and removing other disincentives to work and investment that take UK marginal rates as high as 60%. These reductions in the crushing tax rates that Conservative and Labor government alike have erected atop the UK’s lavish Welfare State are long-overdue and will, in fact, stimulate compensatory economic activity.

  What’s actually going to destroy the remnants of the UK’s fiscal sustainability is Truss’ utterly foolish plan to freeze all energy prices for all citizens and businesses at a cost of upwards of $200 billion per year or 5% of GDP.  But that’s neocon insanity run amok.

  If London wants to relieve its consumers of onerous energy prices and utility bills it only need follow Orban’s advice and terminate its Sanctions War against Russian energy, food and other commodity exports. And it wouldn’t cost the Exchequer a dime.

  That is to say, the pound’s crash ought to be a general wake-up call to Europe and Washington, too. By declaring war on the productive and peaceful commerce with Russia that previously prevailed, Europe’s leaders—-especially the new government of United Kingdom—have sacrificed their own prosperity and the living standards of their citizens in behalf of a prodigiously corrupt, anti-democratic regime in Kiev that is dedicated to preserving intact nothing more noble than the dead hand of the Soviet Presidium.

  Or as our friend James Howard Kunstler rightly summarized:

  Let us agree that the place called Ukraine was never any of America’s business. For centuries we ignored it, through all the colorful cavalry charges to-and-fro of Turks and Tatars, the reign of the dashing Zaporozhian Cossacks, the cruel abuses of Stalin, then Hitler, and the dull, gray Khrushchev-to-Yeltsin years. But then, having destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and sundry other places all on a great hegemonic lark, the professional warmongers of our land and their catamites in Washington made Ukraine their next special project. They engineered the 2014 coup in Kiev that ousted the elected president, Mr. Yanyukovich, to set up a giant grifting parlor and international money-laundromat. The other strategic aim was to prepare Ukraine for NATO membership, which would have made it, in effect, a forward missile base right up against Russia’s border. Because, well, Russia, Russia, Russia!

  So we return to the question at hand: Every Ukrainian presidential election since 1991 has revealed a nation radically split between pro-Russian populations in the east and south and anti-Russian nationalists in the center and west. When the mailed fist of communist rule was removed, in fact, Ukraine became a territory yearning to be partitioned into more amenable jurisdictions of governance.

  For instance, here is the results of the 2010 election that put a pro-Russian politician in the president’s office and at length gave rise to Washington’s putsch during the Maiden uprising that soon drove the country into civil war.

  

  The above map barely does justice to the actual figures. In many of the yellow Tymoshenko-supporting areas the vote was 80% or higher in favor of the latter’s nationalist candidacy, while in much of the blue area the pro-Russian Yanukovych won be similar massive pluralities.

  Yet this wasn’t a one-time fluke of short-term electoral politics: It was actually the recrudescence of the manner in which the fake nation of Ukraine was put together during the last three centuries.

  Prior to the end of WWI, there was no Ukrainian state. Like the artificial and unsustainable polities of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, which were confected by self-serving politicians at Versailles (especially the domestic vote seeking Woodrow Wilson), Ukraine was a product of geopolitical engineering—in this case by the new rulers of the Soviet Union.

  Indeed, the historical provenance of “Ukraine” can be described in a nutshell. What was to become Ukraine joined Russia in 1654 when Bohdan Khmelnitsky, a Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, petitioned Russian czar Alexey to accept the Zaporozhian Host into Russia. That is to say, Imperial Russia spawned the latter day polity of Ukraine by annexing into its service the fearsome Cossack Warriors who inhabited its central region.

  The army and a small territory then under Hetman control was called “u kraine,” which means in Russian “at the edge”, a term that had originated in the twelfth century to describe lands on the border of Russia.

  During the next 250 years the expansionist Czars annexed more and more of the adjacent territory, designating the eastern and southern regions as “Novorussiya” (New Russia), which territories included Catherine the Great’s purchase of Crimea from the Ottomans in 1783.

  That is to say, at the time of America’s own independence the heart of today’s Ukraine was ruled by the long arm of Czarist autocracy.

  After the Bolshevik revolution, of course, the map changed radically. In 1919 Lenin created the socialist state of Ukraine on part of the territory of the former Russian Empire. Ukraine officially became the Ukrainian People’s Republic with the capital of Kharkov in 1922 (moved to Kiev in 1934).

  Accordingly, the new communist state swallowed up Novorussiya per the eastern and southern portions of the green area in the map below, including Donetsk, and Lugansk regions, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions bordering the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea that are the sites of today’s Russia-sponsored succession referendums.

  Then in 1939, as a result of the infamous Nazi-Soviet Pact, Stalin annexed the eastern territories of Poland, as designated by the yellow areas of the map. Thus, the historic territory of Galicia and the Polish city of Lvov were incorporated into Ukraine by the joint decree of Stalin and Hitler.

  In June of 1940, Stalin next annexed Northern Bukovina (brown area) from Romania. And then at the Yalta conference in 1945, upon Stalin’s insistence to Churchill and Roosevelt, the Hungarian Carpathian Ruthenia was incorporated into the Soviet Union and added to Ukraine.

  Taken together, these Stalinist seizures are now known as Western Ukraine, the people’s of which understandably do not cotton to things Russian. At the same time, the 85% Russian-speaking population inhabiting the purple area (Crimea) was gifted to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1954 for the very reason of extending his own accession to the communist dictatorship.

  Nevertheless, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited these communist-confected borders within which there were upwards of 40 millions Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Tartars and countless lesser nationalities—all trapped in a newly declared country in which they didn’t especially wish to reside.

  

  Indeed, the reason that the hapless state of “Ukraine” needs relief in partition, not a war to preserve the handiwork if Czars and Commissars, was well summarized by Alexander G. Markovsky in the American Thinker:

  Today’s Ukrainian civil war is thus greatly exacerbated by the fact that unlike pluralistic societies such as the USA, Canada, Switzerland, and Russia, which are tolerant of different cultures, religions, and languages, Ukraine is not.  Unsurprisingly, devotion to pluralism proved not to be her forte. Even though the Kiev regime had no historical roots in the real estate it inhabited, it imposed Ukrainian rules and the Ukrainian language on non-Ukrainian people after declaring independence.

  As a result, pro-Russian sentiments – ranging from the recognition of the official status of the Russian language to outright secession – have always been prevalent in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Western Ukraine has always gravitated toward its Polish, Romanian, and Hungarian roots. Emphatically anti-Russian, Poland may not miss this strategic opportunity to re-acquire its land and avenge the humiliation inflicted by the Yalta Conference.

  The West’s insistence on maintaining the status quo of the Ukrainian borders established by Lenin, Stalin and Hitler exposes the disconnect between strategic doctrine and moral principles. 

  Indeed, Poles make no secret of their ambitions. Polish President Andrzej Duda, recently declared, “For decades, and maybe, God forbid, for centuries, there will be no more borders between our countries – Poland and Ukraine. There will be no such border!”

  Romania is not far behind, especially in light of many inhabitants of former Northern Bukovina already carrying Romanian passports.

  The territory of Ukraine is a mosaic of other people’s lands. If we want to stop this insane war and ensure peace in Europe, instead of calling Russia’s sponsored referendum in Eastern Ukraine a sham, we should conduct an honest referendum in all the disputed territories under the auspices of the UN and let the people decide what government they want.

  Needless to say, partition of the fake state of Ukraine is not remotely on Washington’s mind. After all, it would remove the latest neocon reason for spreading the blessings of Forever Wars to the fairest parts of the planet.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 22:05

• Exxon CEO Pushes Back On Biden's Plan To Limit Fuel Exports
  Exxon CEO Pushes Back On Biden’s Plan To Limit Fuel Exports

  First it was Chevon’s CEO reaching out to warn President Biden about the administration’s action again oil companies. Now, it’s Exxon warning the President about limiting fuel exports.

  Exxon is “pushing back” against the idea of reducing U.S. fuel exports, telling President Biden’s Energy Department this week that such actions would lead to continued volatility in oil prices globally, and at the pump domestically, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal. Exxon said that “the oil industry should not slow fuel shipments in favor of putting more in storage tanks”, the Journal report says. 

  Exxon argued that cutting exports would lead to a glut in the Gulf Coast which would then, in turn, prompt output cuts. 

  The concerns were laid out in a letter this week signed by Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods. Woods wrote: “Continuing current Gulf Coast exports is essential to efficiently rebalance markets—particularly with diverted Russian supplies. Reducing global supply by limiting U.S. exports to build region-specific inventory will only aggravate the global supply shortfall.” 

  Biden’s Energy Department responded by pointing out parts of the country that have oil and gas levels near five year lows heading into hurricane season. A spokesperson said: “The administration has impressed upon the oil and gas industry that it must do more to ensure fair prices and adequate supply for all Americans, while meeting the needs of our allies.”  

  

  Woods argued that the East Coast had 59.3 million barrels of total gasoline and ethanol in storage, 1% lower than usual for the time of year. He also noted that demand for gasoline though June was about 9% lower than the three year average prior to Covid. He noted that pipelines that carry the fuel from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast are full and that there aren’t enough ships to move U.S. made fuel to the Northeast. 

  “Free market incentives remain the most efficient way for the industry to address these problems,” Woods said. 

  The pushback follows a letter by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in August, where she urged oil companies to slow exports in order to refill stocks in the East Coast. 

  She wrote: “The most effective way to resolve this issue without having to deploy emergency actions is for industry to prioritize building inventories during this critical window. The data clearly show there has not been sufficient progress in building inventories ahead of peak hurricane season.”

  She also took the step of threatening to limit exports if oil companies didn’t follow suit, stating that the Biden administration would consider “additional federal requirements or emergency measures.”

  In September, after discussing the idea with industry executives, she said the Biden administration was not “currently weighing any restrictions”, the Journal report noted. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 21:40

• Durham Prosecutes FBI Informants, While Protecting Their Handlers: Sperry
  Durham Prosecutes FBI Informants, While Protecting Their Handlers: Sperry

  Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClear Investigations,

  Since being named special counsel in October 2020, John Durham has investigated or indicted several unscrupulous anti-Trump informants. But he has spared the FBI agents who handled them, raising suspicions he’s letting investigators off the hook in his waning investigation of misconduct in the Russiagate probe.

  

  In recent court filings, Durham has portrayed the G-men as naive recipients of bad information, tricked into opening improper investigations targeting Donald Trump and obtaining invalid warrants to spy on one of his advisers.

  But as the cases against the informants have gone to trial, defense lawyers have revealed evidence that cuts against that narrative. FBI investigators look less like guileless victims and more like willing partners in the fraudulent schemes Durham has brought to light.

  Notwithstanding his reputation as a tough, intrepid prosecutor, Durham has made excuses for the misconduct of FBI agents, providing them a ready-made defense against any possible future prosecution, according to legal experts. 

  “Durham was supposed to clean up the FBI cesspool, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to be doing that,” said Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, a Washington watchdog group. “He started with a bang and is ending with a whimper.”

  In the latest example, critics point to a flurry of pretrial motions in Durham’s case against former FBI informant Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the false claims regarding Trump and Russia advanced by the opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign known as the Steele dossier.

  Next month, Danchenko faces charges he lied to FBI investigators multiple times about the sourcing of the information in the dossier, which the bureau used to secure wiretap warrants to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser. Relying on Danchenko’s reporting, the FBI claimed that the adviser, Carter Page, was a Russian agent at the center of “a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Trump and the Kremlin to steal the 2016 presidential election.

  

  “The defendant was providing them with false information” as part of “a concerted effort to deceive the FBI,” Durham alleged in a recent filing with the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., where the trial is scheduled to be held Oct. 11.

  Had agents known Danchenko made up the allegations, Durham asserted, they might have asked more questions about the dossier and not relied on it to swear out the ultra-invasive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to electronically monitor Page, a U.S. citizen who was never charged with a crime.

  But Danchenko’s legal team points out that he turned over an email to the FBI during a January 2017 meeting with agents and analysts that indicated a key dossier subsource may have been fictionalized. Stuart Sears, one of Danchenko’s attorneys, argued earlier this month in a motion to dismiss the charges that investigators “essentially ignored” any concerns they may have had about Danchenko’s sourcing, because they continued to renew the FISA warrants based upon it. Therefore, he argued, any lies his client allegedly told them were inconsequential, making them un-prosecutable under federal statutes requiring such false statements to have a “material” impact on a federal proceeding.

  While Durham did not dispute the FBI’s apparent complicity in the fraud, he waved it aside as immaterial to the case at hand. “The fact that the FBI apparently did not identify or address these inconsistencies is of no moment,” he said in his filing.

  At the same time, Durham acknowledged agents allowed the fabrications to contaminate their wiretap warrants – noting they were “an important part of the FISA applications targeting Carter Page.” But he stopped short of blaming the FBI, even for incompetence. According to Durham, the nation’s premiere law enforcement agency was misled by a serial liar and con man.

  “He’s painting it as though the FBI was duped when the FBI was more than willing to take the initiative and go after Trump,” Kamenar said, adding that though Danchenko may have been a liar, he was a useful liar to FBI officials and others in the Justice Department who were pursuing Trump.

  The special prosecutor’s indifference to the FBI’s role in the scandal is more remarkable in light of what Danchenko admitted in his January 2017 interviews with the FBI. He told investigators that much of what he reported to Steele was “word-of-mouth and hearsay,” while some was cooked up from “conversation that [he] had with friends over beers,” according to a declassified FBI summary of the interviews, which took place over three days. He confessed the most salacious allegations were made in “jest.”

  Still, the FBI continued to use Danchenko’s claims of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Russia and Trump to convince the FISA court to allow investigators to continue to surveil Page, whom the FBI accused of masterminding the conspiracy based on Danchenko’s bogus rumors. Agents even swore in FISA court documents reviewed by RealClearInvestigations that Danchenko was “truthful and cooperative.”

  

  The combination of Danchenko reporting a “conspiracy” and the FBI vouching for his credibility persuaded the powerful FISA court to continue to authorize wiretapping Page as a suspected Russian agent for almost a year. In addition to collecting his emails and text messages in 2017, agents were able to sweep up all his prior communications with Trump officials from 2016.

  If the FBI were skeptical of Danchenko, it didn’t show it. The next month, the bureau put him on its payroll as a confidential human source, or CHS, making him part of the bureau’s untouchable “sources and methods” sanctum and thereby protecting him and any documents referencing him from congressional and other outside scrutiny. It made him a paid informant in spite of knowing Danchenko was a potential Russian spy threat who could be feeding federal agents disinformation. The FBI had previously opened a counterespionage probe of Danchenko from 2009 to 2011, and as his lawyers pointed out in a recent court filing, agents who were part of the case probing Trump/Russia ties, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, “were well aware of the prior counterintelligence investigation” when they were supposedly conned by their informant.

  “It stretches credibility to suggest that anything else would have caused the FBI to be more suspicious of Mr. Danchenko’s statements and his potential role in spreading disinformation than the very fact that he was previously investigated for possibly engaging in espionage on behalf of Russia,” Sears said. “Armed with that knowledge, however, the FBI nevertheless persisted” in using him as a source – while never informing the FISA court of the prior investigation.

  The FBI didn’t terminate Danchenko until October 2020, the month after the Senate declassified documents revealing the FBI had investigated him as a Russian agent. It also happened to be the same month Durham was appointed special counsel.

  On Oct. 19, 2020, then-Attorney General Bill Barr tapped Durham “to investigate whether any federal official, employee, or any other person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III.” 

  So far, Durham has focused on the “any other person” part of his mandate. Federal officials and employees appear to be getting a pass.

  

  Though Durham prosecuted former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith in August 2020, when he was acting as a U.S. attorney, he did not initiate the case. Rather, it was referred to him by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who first exposed how Clinesmith had doctored exculpatory evidence in the Page warrant process. Even though Clinesmith admitted forging a CIA email to make it look like Page never helped the agency monitor Russia, when in fact he did and clearly wasn’t acting as a Russian agent, Durham failed to put him behind bars. Clinesmith was sentenced to 12 months’ probation and 400 hours of community service, which as RCI first reported, the registered Democrat satisfied by researching and editing articles for his favorite liberal weekly newspaper in Washington. 

  Kamenar said the Clinesmith case was a “bad omen” for how Durham would handle dirty FBI agents. He pointed out that the prosecutor could have charged Clinesmith with the more serious crime of altering a CIA document, but instead negotiated a deal letting him plead to the lesser offense of lying to a government agency, which Kamenar called “a garden variety process crime.” And “now he’s got his law license back.”

  Clinesmith worked closely on the case with FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten, who was singled out by Horowitz in a 2019 report for cutting a number of corners in the dossier verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into the FISA affidavits and mislead the court.

  Auten met with Danchenko at the bureau’s Washington field office and helped debrief him about the dossier in January 2017. And he wrote the official FBI summary of those meetings, which noted Danchenko “contradicted” himself several times. Auten learned firsthand that the information Danchenko passed to Steele was nothing more than bar gossip, and that his “network of subsources” was really just a circle of drinking buddies. Also at those meetings, the analyst received an Aug. 24, 2016, email revealing that Danchenko never actually communicated with Sergei Millian, the Belarusian-born American businessman whom he had identified as his main source of Trump/Russia connections – the all-important, albeit apocryphal, “Source E” and “Source D” of the dossier. It turns out Danchenko attributed the critical “conspiracy of cooperation” allegation the FBI cited as probable cause for all four FISA warrants to this made-up source, meaning the cornerstone evidence of suspected Trump-Russia espionage was also made up.

  What’s more, Auten learned that though Danchenko was born in Russia, he was not based there and had no access to Kremlin insiders. On the contrary, he confirmed that Danchenko had been living in Washington and had previously worked for the Brookings Institution, a Democratic Party think tank whose president at the time was tied to Clinton.

  Yet Auten and his Crossfire team led the FISA court to believe Danchenko was “Russian-based” – and therefore presumably more credible. They used this same description in all four FISA affidavits, including the two renewals that followed the January 2017 meetings with Danchenko.

  Internal FBI emails from two months later revealed that Auten knew that using the term “Russian-based” was deceptive. While tasked with helping review Crossfire documents requested by Congress, including FISA applications, he worried about the description and whether it should be corrected. He discussed the matter with Clinesmith. But the falsehood reappeared in subsequent FISA applications.

  It was also in January 2017 that Danchenko revealed to Auten and his FBI handlers that one of his subsources was his childhood friend Olga Galkina, whom he said supplied him the rumor that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen traveled to Prague during the campaign to hatch a plot with Kremlin officials to hack Clinton campaign emails. 

  

  The FBI already knew from intelligence reports that Cohen had not, as the dossier claimed, traveled to Prague to conspire in the alleged Russian hacking of Democrats, or for any other reason.

  On Jan. 12, 2017, Auten and his Crossfire teammates received a CIA report that warned the Cohen rumor was likely part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The agency had discovered no such Prague meeting took place after querying foreign intelligence services, shooting a major hole in the dossier. The CIA report should have led the Crossfire team to treat any allegations sourced to Galkina with caution. But on the same day, the FBI got its FISA wiretap on Page renewed based on another groundless claim by Galkina – this one alleging the Trump aide secretly met with top Kremlin officials in Moscow to discuss removing U.S. sanctions. The falsehood showed up in two more FISA applications, which alleged “Russia’s efforts to influence U.S. policy were likely being coordinated between the RIS [Russian Intelligence Services] and Page, and possibly others.”

  Galkina also had a relationship with Charles Dolan, a Clinton adviser who figures prominently in the Danchenko case Durham is prosecuting.

  It turns out Dolan was one of the sources for the infamous “pee-tape” allegation about the Kremlin supposedly having blackmail evidence of Trump consorting with prostitutes at the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow, which has been debunked as another dossier hoax. But according to Durham, Danchenko tried to conceal Dolan’s role in the dossier from the FBI. The special prosecutor argued that the deception deprived FBI agents and analysts information that would have helped them evaluate “the credibility, reliability and veracity” of the dossier. He said if they had known Dolan was a source, they might have, among other things, sought emails Dolan and Danchenko exchanged exposing their Ritz-Carlton hoax. 

  “Had the defendant truthfully told the FBI that Dolan played a role in providing certain information for the Steele reports the FBI might well have interviewed and/or collected such emails from Dolan,” Durham speculated.

  In addition, the prosecutor said, investigators might have learned of Dolan’s “involvement in Democratic politics” and “potential bias as a source for the Steele reports.” Except that they already knew about Dolan and his politics – as well as his involvement in the dossier. It’s also likely they already had his emails.

  In another interview with Danchenko about his dossier sources, which took place June 15, 2017, FBI agents asked Danchenko if he knew Dolan and whether he was “contributing” to the Steele reports. Though Danchenko acknowledged he knew Dolan, he denied he was a source. Agents didn’t ask any follow-up questions. (They also never sought to charge him with making false statements to federal agents.)

  How did the FBI know to ask about Dolan? Because he was well-known to the bureau’s Russia counterintelligence agents as a businessman who frequently traveled to Moscow and met with Kremlin insiders. But more importantly, his friend Galkina was under FISA surveillance as a suspected Russian spy at the time, according to declassified records. The FBI was collecting not only Galkina’s emails, but also those of Dolan and Danchenko, all of whom regularly communicated in 2016 – which suggests that at the time the FBI asked Danchenko about Dolan, it had access to those emails and was reviewing them.

  This may explain why, as defense lawyer Sears noted, “the FBI never asked Mr. Danchenko about emails or any other written communications with Dolan” – and why it never interviewed Dolan.

  While Durham acknowledged that the FBI knew about Dolan’s troubling ties at the time and neglected to dig deeper, he said he’s not bothered by the oversight. “The fact that the FBI was aware that Dolan maintained some of these relationships and failed to interview Dolan is of no moment,” he maintained dismissively in a court filing. All that matters, he suggested, is that the FBI was lied to.

  One of those emails was particularly alarming. In an Aug. 19, 2016, email to Dolan, Danchenko made it clear he was compiling dirt on Trump and his advisers and sought any rumor, no matter how baseless and scurrilous. He solicited Dolan, specifically, for “any thought, rumor, allegation” on former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

  Such emails called into question the veracity of the whole dossier and further tainted the credibility of Danchenko’s “network of subsources.” But on June 29, 2017 – two weeks after the FBI asked about Dolan – the FBI renewed the FISA wiretap on Trump adviser Page based on, once again, the dubious dossier.

  From its wiretapping of Galkina, moreover, Auten and others at the FBI who sorted through such FISA collections would have seen communications showing her strong support for Hillary Clinton, and how Galkina was expecting political favors in exchange for spreading dirt on Trump. In an August 2016 email to a friend, Galkina expressed hopes that Dolan would help her score a State Department job if Clinton won election.

  It was a major red flag. But like all the others, the FBI blew right past it. Agents continued to vouch for Danchenko as “truthful” and his subsources as reliable, and continued to cite Galkina’s fabrications in FISA renewals.

  Under FISA rules, the FBI had a duty to “immediately inform” the secret court of any misstatements or omissions, along with any “necessary corrections” of material facts sworn in affidavits for warrants. But the FBI failed to correct the record, even after it became obvious it had told the court falsehoods and hid exculpatory evidence. In August 2017, agents finally got around to interviewing Galkina, who confessed the dossier allegations attributed to her were “exaggerated,” according to the Horowitz report. 

  Scammed by the Alfa Bank Scam?

  Last year, Durham also painted the FBI as a victim of the 2016 political machinations of two other anti-Trump informants – Michael Sussmann and Rodney Joffe, who conveyed to investigators false rumors about Trump allegedly setting up a secret hotline with the Kremlin through Russia-based Alfa Bank.

  

  Durham charged Sussmann, a Washington lawyer who represented the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, with lying to the FBI’s top lawyer James Baker when he told him he was coming in with the tip – outlined in white papers and thumb drives – all on his own and not on behalf of Democrats and Clinton, whom he was billing for the Trump-Alfa “confidential project.”

  “Sussmann’s false statement misled the FBI general counsel and other FBI personnel concerning the political nature of his work and deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to access and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis, including the identities and motivations of Sussmann’s clients,” Durham maintained in the indictment.

  But evidence emerged at the trial of Sussmann, who was acquitted, that bureau officials already knew the “political nature” of the tip and where the data came from, but withheld the information from field agents so they would continue investigating Trump through the election.

  For example, in a Sept. 22, 2016, email describing the “special project,” an FBI official in Washington stated that “Counsel Baker provided [Supervisory Special Agent] Joe Pientka with 2 thumb drives and identified they were given to him by the DNC.”

  “Everybody at the FBI actually thought the data came from a political party,” Sussmann lawyer Sean Berkowitz argued, according to the trial transcript. “The (case) file is littered with references to the DNC.”

  But Durham kept offering explanations for why FBI brass bit on the politically tainted tip, opening a full field investigation based on it. 

  “Had Sussmann truthfully disclosed that he was representing specific clients [the Clinton campaign], it might have prompted the FBI general counsel to ask Sussmann for the identity of such clients, which, in turn, might have prompted further questions,” Durham argued.

  

  “In addition, absent Sussmann’s false statement, the FBI might have taken additional or more incremental steps before opening an investigation,” he added. “The FBI also might have allocated its resources differently, or more efficiently, and uncovered more complete information about the reliability and provenance of the purported data at issue.”

  Headquarters, however, did know the identity of the clients. Problem was, they blinded agents in Chicago, where a cyber unit was assigned to the case, to the fact that the source for the information was Sussmann and Joffe – a federal cyber-security contractor who was angling for a job in a Clinton administration. (A longtime FBI informant, Joffe was terminated last year after he was exposed as the ringleader of the Alfa Bank scam.)

  “You were not allowed to speak to either the source of the information, the author of the white paper, or the person who provided the source of the information and the data?” Berkowitz asked Chicago-based FBI agent Curtis Heide during the trial, according to transcripts.

  “Correct,” Heide replied.

  Another Chicago investigator was led to believe the tip came into the bureau as a referral from the “U.S. Department of Justice.”

  

  Still, field agents were able to debunk it within two weeks.

  The FBI was not fooled by the hoax, yet nonetheless went along with it for the next four months. The case wasn’t formally closed until Jan. 18, 2017, just two days before Trump was inaugurated. But then it was soon reopened after Clinton operatives again approached the FBI – as well as the CIA – with supposedly new evidence, which also proved false.

  “Comey and crew kept the hoax alive,” former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck said, referring to then-FBI Director James Comey. They welcomed any predication that allowed them to open investigations on Trump, he added.

  Pientka testified that Comey was “fired up” about the tip, despite the fact nothing had been corroborated. Comey even held senior-level meetings on the Alfa investigation in his 7th floor office. (Pientka, who led the “close-hold” investigation from headquarters, also helped supervise the Crossfire Hurricane probe.)

  Ironically, no one knew better that Sussmann was a Democratic operative with an agenda than Baker – the official Durham claimed was the direct victim of the scam.

  Baker, a fellow Democrat, was a close friend of Sussmann, who had his own badge to get past security at the Hoover Building. Sussmann had Baker’s personal cell number and Baker cleared his busy schedule to meet with him within hours of Sussmann calling to discuss his tip. Baker was well aware that Sussmann was representing the DNC, because Sussmann entered the building numerous times during the 2016 campaign to talk with top FBI officials about the alleged DNC hack by Russia. In fact, Sussmann had just visited headquarters with a delegation from the DNC on Aug. 12, 2016 – several weeks before he approached Baker with the bogus Alfa tip. They were there to pressure the FBI into concluding Russian intelligence was behind the “hacking” of DNC emails.

  “I understood he had been affiliated with the Democratic Party, but that he had come representing himself,” Baker testified during the trial.

  Why didn’t he tell investigators about Sussmann? “I didn’t want to share his name because I didn’t want to color the investigation,” he said. “I didn’t want to color it with politics.”

  In his closing argument, Durham prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis told jurors the FBI’s conduct was “not relevant.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve seen that the FBI didn’t necessarily do everything right here. They missed opportunities. They made mistakes. They even kept information from themselves,” he said. “That is not relevant to your evaluation of the defendant’s lie.”

  Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton complained Durham and his team have been acting more like apologists for the FBI than potential prosecutors of the FBI.

  “The FBI leadership knew full well the Clinton gang was behind the Alfa Bank-Russia smears of Trump,” he said. “Durham tried to pretend (the) FBI was a victim (when) it was a co-conspirator.”

  Wauck agreed. “The FBI-as-victim narrative was a bit of a legal fiction that Durham deployed for the purposes of the trial,” he said. “The reality that emerged is that the FBI’s top management was complicit in the Russia hoax that Sussmann was purveying.”

  Folding Up His Tent

  Durham was first tasked with looking into the origins of the Russiagate probe in May 2019, before his formal appointment as special counsel in 2020. Trump and Republicans have expressed disappointment that after a total of more than three years of investigation, he has not prosecuted any top former FBI officials, including Comey and Andrew McCabe, who signed some of the FISA affidavits, or Peter Strzok, the biased leader of the Crossfire Hurricane probe who assured McCabe’s lawyer in an August 2016 text that “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president. None has received a target letter. In recent months, McCabe and Strzok have gone on CNN, where they work as paid contributors, and smugly bashed Durham for running a “partisan” investigation, while at the same time gloating he’s held the FBI up to be more of a victim than a culprit.

  “Comey and Strzok and McCabe have gotten a free ride out of all this,” Kamenar said.

  

  Also, Durham went easy on Baker, another top FBI official, even after he held back key evidence from the special prosecutor before the Sussmann trial, a blatant lack of cooperation that may have cost Durham a conviction in the case. Comey’s general counsel has received “favorable treatment,” Wauck observed.

  Baker, who reviewed and OK’d the FISA applications, never told Durham about a damning text message he received from Sussmann on his cellphone. Durham had already indicted Sussmann for lying to Baker, and he could not use Sussmann’s smoking-gun message – “I’m coming on my own – not on behalf of a client or company” – during the trial to convince jurors he was guilty of lying about representing the Clinton campaign. Legal analysts said it was slam-dunk evidence that would have sealed his case.

  Baker testified he didn’t turn over the text to Durham because no one asked for it. He proved a reluctant witness on the stand against his old pal Sussmann. 

  

  “I’m not out to get Michael and this is not my investigation. This is your investigation,” he told DeFilippis during questioning. DeFilippis has since stepped down to take a job in the private sector.

  (Demonstrating the incestuous nature of the Beltway, Baker also happens to be an old friend of Bill Barr, who hired Durham. Barr hired Baker as his deputy when he ran Verizon’s legal shop in 2008.)

  In another sign Durham has not lived up to his billing as an aggressive prosecutor, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested in recent Senate testimony that Durham’s team has not interviewed all of the Crossfire members still employed at the bureau. In lieu of face-to-face interviews, he said Durham’s investigators have reviewed transcripts of interviews of the agents previously conducted by the Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI’s in-house disciplinary arm.

  Recent published reports say Durham is in the process of closing up shop and completing a final report on his findings by the end of the year. Republicans have promised to seize on the report if they win control of the House in November and take back the gavel to key oversight committees on the Hill, along with subpoena power.

  

  Some former colleagues who have worked with Durham and are familiar with his inquiry blame COVID-19 for his relatively few prosecutions and lackluster record. They say pandemic-related shutdowns in 2020 and 2021 set back his investigation by limiting travel, interviews, and grand jury hearings. As a result, they say, the clock ran out on prosecuting a number of potential crimes. The last FISA warrant, which according to the court was illegally obtained, was approved June 29, 2017, which means the five-year federal statute of limitations for that crime expired months ago.

  Though Durham hinted in the Sussmann case about investigating a broader “conspiracy” or “joint venture,” there are few signs pointing to such a massive undertaking. Bringing a “conspiracy to defraud the government” charge, naming multiple defendants, would require Durham adding staff and office space and beefing up his budget by millions of dollars, the former colleagues said.

  According to expenditure statements, Durham continues to operate on a shoestring budget with a skeletal staff compared with his predecessor Mueller’s robust operation, which indicted 34 people. And one of the two grand juries Durham used to hear evidence has expired. It recently wrapped up work, apparently without handing down new indictments (though some could be under seal).

  “If Durham were building toward an overarching indictment alleging a corrupt conspiracy between the Clinton campaign and the FBI to deceive the court, he would not be charging people with lying to the FBI,” former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said.

  If there are any investigations still open after Durham retires, they could be handled by U.S. attorneys, the sources said. At least one of Durham’s prosecutors works as a trial lawyer in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.

  According to a court exhibit, Joffe “remains a subject” in the Sussmann-related investigation into alleged attempts by federal contractors to defraud the government with false claims about Trump and Russia. Joffe invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify after receiving a grand jury subpoena and has not cooperated with requests for documents. His lawyer did not return phone calls and emails.

  The Special Counsel’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.

  The FBI declined comment for this article, but issued a statement last year saying it “has cooperated fully with Special Counsel Durham’s review.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 21:15

• "Globalists Are Marching Us Relentlessly Toward Nuclear Armageddon," Warns Former Senator
  “Globalists Are Marching Us Relentlessly Toward Nuclear Armageddon,” Warns Former Senator

  Fears of nuclear war are increasing across the West as Russia mobilizes hundreds of thousands of troops and declares annexation of parts of Ukraine. Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine is applying for membership in NATO. These two developments could be the most significant escalation since the war’s start. 

  Today’s developments are a sobering reminder that nuclear war threats are mounting. Retired Virginia State Senator and retired Marine Col. Richard Black addressed members of the US Congress in an open letter on Tuesday about “globalists are marching us relentlessly toward this nuclear Armageddon.”

  Black pointed out:

  There would have been no war had we not overthrown the democratically-elected government of Ukraine by violently ousting President Yanukovych in 2014. We promoted war by flooding Ukraine with massive arms shipments afterwards.

  The former senator said, “the US could have achieved peace by simply pressing Ukraine to implement the 2014 Minsk Peace Agreements which it had signed, establishing a clear framework for settling outstanding issues peacefully. Ukraine promised to implement the Minsk agreements, but chose instead to make war on the Donbass for the next seven years.” 

  He said NATO could’ve sought peace but chose war instead. 

  NATO had ample opportunity for peace but deliberately chose war. The US realized that, with Russia’s back to the wall, it would have no choice to but to attack. In 2007, US Ambassador to Russia William Burns pointedly warned that movement toward absorbing Ukraine into NATO might well trigger war between Ukraine and Russia. Nonetheless, the Obama administration overthrew the Ukrainian president and flooded in weapons, knowing that doing so would trigger war.

  Black said billionaire elites who have an interest in the region are making “war profits even if it means gambling the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the globe.” 

  “Should we annihilate the world’s population to intervene in a border war where the US has no vital national interest?” the former senator asked. 

  Black called for an immediate end to this war by making Ukraine a neutral, non-aligned state, “just as we did during the Cold War with Austria in 1955.” 

  But it appears the former senator’s plea to avoid further conflict went unheard after Zelensky’s declared intent to apply for expedited NATO membership as President Putin proclaimed the annexation of 15% of Ukraine. 

  Based on Article 5, any acceptance of Ukraine into NATO would automatically trigger a Russia-West world war (WWIII). 

  In a speech Friday, Putin said the US created a “precedent” by using nuclear weapons against Japan during WW2. 

  Last week, Navy Admiral Charles A. Richard – currently serving as the US Strategic Command chief — warned that “possible direct armed conflict with a nuclear-capable peer” could be ahead. 

  Here’s the former senator’s open letter to lawmakers on Capitol Hill:

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 20:50

• Canada Has A Food Affordability Problem
  Canada Has A Food Affordability Problem

  Authored by Sylvain Charlebois via The Epoch Times,

  Did you know that there is a global food security index? The well-known magazine The Economist has just published its 11th edition.

  The Global Food Security Index comprises a set of indices from more than 120 different countries. Since 2012, the index has been based on four main pillars: food access, safety, sustainable development, and affordability.

  The approach is quite comprehensive and robust. Index indicators include nutritional standards, urban absorptive capacity, food consumption as a percentage of household expenditure, food loss and waste, protein quality, agricultural import tariffs, dietary diversification, agricultural infrastructure, volatility of agricultural production, public spending on agricultural resource and development, corruption, risks to political stability, and even the sufficiency of supply. In short, anything goes.

  

  Finland ranks first this year, followed by Ireland and Norway. Canada is well-positioned compared to other countries around the world since we are ranked seventh globally, the same as last year. Not bad. The United States is 13th.

  In terms of food access—which measures agricultural production, farm capacities, and the risk of supply disruption—Canada ranks sixth, which is not too surprising. Despite our recent episodes of empty shelves and stockouts, Canada can boast about its food abundance. We produce a lot and are part of a fluid North American economy focused on cross-border trade, which allows for better food access.

  Another pillar focuses on sustainable development, the environment, and climate adaptability. This pillar assesses a country’s exposure to the impacts of climate change, its sensitivity to risks related to natural resources, food waste management, and how the country adapts to these risks. In this regard, Canada is ranked 29th, far behind Norway and Finland, who are first and second in this category. Food waste remains Canada’s Achilles’ heel, as we waste more than just about anyone else on the planet.

  But with higher food prices, more than 40 percent of Canadians, according to a recent study, are wasting less than they were 12 months ago.

  When it comes to food safety and quality, Canada ranks first in the world. Canada is ahead of everyone, even Denmark and the United States, both renowned for their proactive approaches to food safety. Food safety in Canada is perhaps the facet most underappreciated by consumers.

  Despite a few momentary failures and periodic reminders, sanitation practices in the country are exemplary. Canada has consistently ranked well for years, except perhaps when traceability is measured. We have a long way to go, but the industry and public safety regulators are performing relatively well.

  But the area where Canada’s performance is of some concern is food affordability. This measure is dedicated to consumers’ ability to purchase food, their vulnerability to price shocks, and the presence of programs and policies to support consumers when shocks occur.

  Canada fell one spot again this year and sits at 25th in the world. Australia, Singapore, and Holland top the list for affordability. Given the resources and food access we have, Canada should do better. Since July 2021, food inflation has always exceeded general inflation in the country, and everything is already costing more these days. Higher food prices at the grocery store over the past year have been difficult for many of us to accept. Canada needs a food autonomy policy, a more robust food processing sector, and better logistics domestically.

  And with winter coming and our dollar visibly weakening against the U.S. dollar, we could see significant price jumps again, especially in the produce and non-perishables sections. As wages stagnate and food prices rise, it’s hard to predict when Canada will do better in terms of affordability. Specific fiscal measures such as tax reductions to help consumers would be more than timely.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 20:25

• Progressive 'De-Prosecutors' Disrupt Criminal Justice System, Experts Say
  Progressive ‘De-Prosecutors’ Disrupt Criminal Justice System, Experts Say

  Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times,

  A new breed of local prosecutors has taken District Attorney offices around the country by storm in a coordinated campaign that is tearing at the foundations of American justice system. The ideology that underpins their agenda is antagonistic to the traditional conception of criminal justice and, if taken to its logical conclusion, demands its destruction, several experts told The Epoch Times.

  

  Such DAs have been variously called “rogue prosecutors,” “de-prosecutors,” or “Soros prosecutors,” based on the fact that progressive billionaire George Soros has prolifically funded their campaigns and support structures. They started to enter the scene around 2014 and have quickly become a major power block, controlling at least 75 DA offices with jurisdiction over one in every five Americans, including half of the country’s 50 most populous cities, according to research by Sean Kennedy, a criminal justice expert at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, a liberty-oriented think tank.

  “They believe that the criminal justice system is excessively punitive and racially biased and that it is irredeemable,” he said.

  “And so they’re trying to undermine it from the inside.”

  The “rogue prosecutor movement” traces its roots back to the “prison abolition movement,” according to Zack Smith, former federal prosecutor who’s been writing extensively on the phenomenon as a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

  “There is actually a movement; it’s a Marxist movement that believes we should abolish prisons in the United States,” he said.

  “Many members of this movement … bought into the idea that our criminal justice system is systemically racist, that we have a problem with mass incarceration, we arrest too many people, incarcerate too many people. And so because of that, they want to lower prison population and they want to basically make many, many things that have traditionally been crimes either not be crimes or make the punishment for them very minor, like a speeding ticket, civil infraction.”

  Proponents of this idea, however, must have been aware that it would be very difficult to convince legislators to enshrine such a policy in law, Smith suspected.

  “What is very clever about what George Soros and others figured out is, rather than doing the hard work of getting the legislature to actually change the laws, decriminalize certain things, … they figured out they can elect District Attorneys to office,” he said.

  “And if the DA won’t prosecute crimes, they won’t seek sentencing enhancements. It doesn’t matter how many arrests the police make, the criminal won’t be held accountable.”

  The most common tactics of the DAs include establishing policies to not prosecute entire segments of crimes, such as theft under a certain threshold and non-violent offenses more broadly, as well as undercharge crimes to avoid mandatory minimum sentences. They also tend to avoid charges that would lead to “immigration consequences,” meaning serious charges that could trigger deportation of a criminal alien, according to Kennedy.

  “Victims are particularly ignored and disregarded by these offices,” he noted.

  Efforts of the DAs are sometimes amplified by state or local legislations that make it more difficult to put a criminal behind bars, such as by preventing judges from setting a bail.

  Fallout

  Implementation of the policies tends to coincide with increases in crime, though not necessarily across the board or right away. It appears it sometimes takes some time for criminals to learn the ropes of the new regime. Sooner or later, however, they start to take advantage of it, several experts have pointed out.

  “The message these individuals are receiving is that there’s not going to be any consequences for their actions. If they’re not going to be held on bail, if they’re not going to be prosecuted, then what’s the incentive for them not to keep repeating the same actions over and over and over again?” Smith said.

  The policies also tend to demoralize police, who may see their work as pointless if, upon arrest, the suspect is quickly back on the street.

  “Taking somebody to jail is a hassle because you have to get off your beat, get them in a car, take them down to booking, potentially spend hours filling out paperwork, all for what?” said Thomas Hogan, an adjunct fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and former federal prosecutor.

  Some departments have simply ceased to arrest people for the crimes they know won’t be prosecuted anyway, he said.

  There are exceptions, though.

  In New York City, crime has increased but arrests have gone up too. That’s because the NYPD deals with five different DAs, one for each borough, according to Hogan. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg falls into the Soros-backed ranks, but the other ones are not necessarily onboard with the de-incarceration agenda—or at least not to the same extent. Moreover, the NYPD is large and powerful enough that they “do their own thing,” Hogan said.

  “NYPD’s response was, ‘You make your decisions what you’re going to do after we arrest them, but we’re going to arrest them anyway,’” he said.

  To some extent, the influx of Soros-backed DAs has “caught pro-public safety organizations, individuals, and the public off guard,” Kennedy said.

  “These are very sleepy races. Prosecutor races are low-attention, low-spending, low-on-the-ballot affairs.”

  Soros, however, went in with duffle bags of money.

  “It’s just unprecedented the relative amount of money he gives,” Kennedy said.

  “Giving a million dollars to a local DA candidate, what has occurred here in Northern Virginia, and millions of dollars to Philadelphia and Chicago and New York and Los Angeles … that is unprecedented and almost unfathomable.”

  Over the past decade, Soros and groups he substantially funds dished out over $40 million in direct spending on DA campaigns, according to a June report by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF), a Virginia-based nonprofit, which Kennedy co-authored (pdf).

  Before any formidable opposition could mobilize, Soros-backed candidates were sweeping up elections left and right.

  “He caught people off guard because nobody expected anyone to do that,” Kennedy said.

  …

  Countering the progressive DAs is no easy task, according to Kennedy, who’s personally helping with one recall effort in Northern Virginia.

  “And a lot of the jurisdictions where these prosecutors won, they are very difficult to dislodge because they are liberals in big liberal cities where the Democratic primary is the only game in town and all you have to do is appeal to very liberal Democratic primary voters,” he said.

  “If you have a lot of money and strong ideology, convincing that narrow subset of voters that your policies are just or working, or [that you] just need more time or whatever, is very easy to do.”

  Indeed, a number of the Soros-backed DAs have easily sailed through reelections already, though they did so “before crime really got out of control,” Kennedy said.

  “We will see what happens in the next few years if crime stays elevated, especially in these jurisdictions, if the public gets sick and tired of it.”

  In recent years, though, there has been some successful resistance to the progressive DAs.

  In Suffolk County, Massachusetts, a more law-and-order-minded DA won against the Soros-backed candidate in the Democratic primary, de-facto guaranteeing her election.

  In Baltimore County, a “tough-on-crime” Democrat defeated a Soros-backed challenger, Kennedy said.

  In Little Rock, Arkansas, a Republican defeated the Soros-backed Democrat for the Pulaski County DA office.

  On the other hand, Soros-backed candidates won in Portland, Maine, and rebuffed a challenger in Burlington, Vermont, earlier this year.

  Still, Soros’s success rate has dropped significantly, according to Kennedy.

  “Finally, the tide is turning where these Soros prosecutors don’t just waltz into office every time they go on the ballot,” he said.

  “When there’s organized opposition—and a good candidate to be honest—to oppose the Soros prosecutor, then we’re seeing success.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 19:40

• 'Just Kidding': Biden Yanks Student Loan Forgiveness From 770,000 Borrowers
  ‘Just Kidding’: Biden Yanks Student Loan Forgiveness From 770,000 Borrowers

  In a jarring reversal, the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday quietly revised its online guidance on who qualifies for the $10,000 of student loan forgiveness that President Biden announced in August. In doing so, it pulled the rug out from under at least several hundred thousand people.  

  At issue: Borrowers who have Perkins loans and Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL). Those earlier-generation loans were guaranteed by the federal government but were issued and are managed by private lenders. The FFEL program ran from 1965 to 2010; Perkins loans ended in 2017. 

  People who have FFEL loans are older, have families, many obligations and are being crushed by this ongoing debt. Retirement? Gotta keep paying those student loans. New car? Appliances? Kids college? Nope. Nope.

  — as the crow flies🐉🌻 (@anandasara) September 30, 2022

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  Previously, the Department of Education’s online guidance said Perkins and FFEL loans could be consolidated into federal direct loans and then qualify for debt forgiveness.

  On Thursday, however, the Department of Education — without fanfare or a press conference — changed the rules by adding this content to its website: “As of Sept. 29, 2022, borrowers with federal student loans not held by ED cannot obtain one-time debt relief by consolidating those loans into Direct Loans.”

  This is no marginal change: An anonymous Biden administration official told Reuters it will affect 770,000 borrowers. That estimate relies on the fact that many of the 4 million total FFEL borrowers also have direct loans and can still qualify for consolidation.  

  “This is a gut punch, to say the least,” tweeted Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors. “This is one of the most harmful decisions I’ve seen come out of the Ed in a long time.”

  The @FAFSA just updated their website to say that ffel borrowers who didn’t consolidate before 9/29 aren’t eligible for debt relief. As recently as yesterday the site said they were working on a solution for these borrowers. This is a gut punch to say the least…

  — Betsy Mayotte (@betsy514) September 29, 2022

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  The Education department says it’s “assessing whether there are alternative pathways to provide relief to borrowers with federal student loans not held by ED.”  

  The harsh withdrawal of the debt forgiveness from nearly a million or more Americans came on the same day that Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina asked a federal judge to impose an immediate temporary restraining order on entire the debt forgiveness scheme. 

  The suit specifically attacks the forgiveness of FFEL loans, arguing that doing so deprives private lenders of assets and “the ongoing payments that those loans generate.” 

  In their lawsuit, the states also more broadly allege that Biden is overstepping his authority by using the 2003 HEROES Act to wipe away the debt. That legislation focused on aiding active duty military service members serving in the war on terror. 

  “It is inconceivable, when it passed the HEROES Act, that Congress thought it was authorizing anything like the Administration’s across-the-board debt cancellation, which will result in around half a trillion dollars or more in losses to the federal treasury,” the six state attorneys general wrote in their filing. 

  The estimated cost of the debt forgiveness scheme has already soared in just the first month after it was announced. The Congressional Budget Office says it will cost at least $400 billion over three decades, far above earlier estimates of $300 billion. 

  Biden’s loan forgiveness proclamation was in keeping with a 2020 campaign pledge, and the announcement was clearly timed to maximize its impact on the midterm election. However, after Thursday’s jolting move by the Biden administration, some 770,000 to 4 million borrowers may be feeling a little less confident in Democratic governance. 

  Nigga said that student debt relief was a Labor Day Sale only https://t.co/8Zr7jQOMmq

  — Roadkill Ricky (@tkm11218) September 29, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 19:30

• Libertarian Group Sues To Block Biden Student Loan Forgiveness
  Libertarian Group Sues To Block Biden Student Loan Forgiveness

  A California libertarian group has sued the Biden administration over its plan to cancel student debt, calling it an illegal overreach which will end up taxing some Americans whose debt is forgiven.

  

  “Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” said attorney Caleb Kruckenberg of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which filed the lawsuit – believed to be the first targeting Biden’s plan, AP reports. The Sacramento-based legal advocacy group filed the suit in Indiana, which is one of several states that plans to tax those whose debt is canceled by Biden’s plan.

  Kruckenberg says that it’s illegal for the executive branch to create such policy “by press release, and without statutory authority.”

  (Meanwhile, Biden is yanking student loan forgiveness for more than 750,000 borrowers who took federal government loans that were issued and managed by private lenders)

  The suit’s plaintiff is Frank Garrison, described as a public interest attorney who lives in Indiana and is employed by the libertarian group.

  Garrison is on track to get his student debt erased through a separate federal program for public servants. Although most borrowers will need to apply for Biden’s plan, Garrison and many others in that program will automatically get the relief because the Education Department has their income information on file. -AP

  Garrison, the plaintiff, says that Biden’s plan would automatically cancel up to $20,000 of his debt, which would trigger an “immediate tax liability” owed to the state of Indiana.

  “Mr. Garrison and millions of others similarly situated in the six relevant states will receive no additional benefit from the cancellation — just a one-time additional penalty,” read the suit.

  Other states which plan to debt forgiven debt under the Biden plan are; Arkansas, California, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina and Wisconsin, unless lawmakers act to change their current laws.

  When asked how people could opt out of the debt forgiveness, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who said ‘anyone can opt-out’ had no answers, after previously saying that roughly 8 million Americans would automatically receive the debt relief.

  “The bottom line is this — no one who does not want debt relief will have to get that debt relief,” she said.

  The White House has called the lawsuit “baseless,” suggesting that it’s nothing more than political opponents who “are trying anything they can to stop this program that will provide needed relief to working families.”

  Biden’s plan will cancel $10,000 in federal student debt for those making $125,000 per year or less, and $250,000 per household. Pell Grant recipients are set to receive an additional $10,000 benefit. 

  Conservative groups have called Biden’s plan legally questionable, and point out that the debt forgiveness unfairly cancels student debt at the expense of Americans who didn’t attend college – or paid off their loans.

  The Biden administration has repeatedly argued that the plan is on solid legal ground.

  In its legal justification for debt cancellation, the Biden administration invoked the HEROES Act of 2003, which aimed to provide help to members of the military. The law gives the administration “sweeping authority” to reduce or eliminate student debt during a national emergency, the Justice Department said in an August legal opinion.

  Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has said he has the legal authority to cancel debt for people who faced hardship during the pandemic. Cardona says Biden’s plan will ensure borrowers aren’t worse off after the pandemic than they were before. -AP

  “Nothing about loan cancellation is lawful or appropriate,” reads the lawsuit. “In an end-run around Congress, the administration threatens to enact a profound and transformational policy that will have untold economic impacts.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 19:20

• Opioids At Work: Hidden Scourge Sapping The Economy
  Opioids At Work: Hidden Scourge Sapping The Economy

  Authored by James Varney via RealClear Wire,

  Strung out on drugs half her life, Brandi Edwards, 29, said the longest she held a job before getting sober four years ago was “about two and a half months.”

  “I worked at an AT&T call center, a day-care center for a month, fast food places, but I had to take drugs to get out of bed in the morning and when I did show up, I wasn’t productive,” the West Virginia mother of three told RealClearInvestigations. “The first paycheck came along and I was out of there.”

  

  In jail for the ninth time on drug-related charges, and separated from her children, Edwards had an awakening in “looking hard at what I’d lost.” Now clean for four years after rehab, she is married and back in her children’s lives with a home in Princeton, W. Va., and a steady job.

  But such success stories are too infrequent to offset the massive cost of the opioid epidemic to the American workforce. Only a couple of people in her former addict circle have returned to productive life, she says, while most are dead or incarcerated.

  That toll on labor, haunting America’s working present and future probably for years — if not decades — to come, is largely invisible and underreported because it is difficult to measure, according to physicians, counselors, economists, workers and public officials. But its staying power is suggested by other lasting national challenges, including the porous southern border — a major conduit for smuggled, Chinese-made fentanyl — and economic and social traumas set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic.

  In addition to untold years of productivity lost from fatal overdoses, the nation’s labor participation rate has shrunk steadily since 2000. Precise correlation is elusive, but any graph of that decline would stand in sharp contrast to the rise of opioid addiction in the U.S. And while it is difficult to calculate just how much drug use has caused absenteeism, tardiness and stretches of disability, the connection is strong, as Brandi Edwards’ experience suggests.

  “We’ve been writing about this for years but it doesn’t seem to get a lot of traction,” said Dr. Gary Franklin, a research professor at the University of Washington who served as the medical director of the state’s Department of Labor and Industries. “People have not realized how much opioids contribute to disability and lost productivity, and I don’t know if anyone has been able to put a number on that.” 

  Headline figures on lives lost in the opioid epidemic have been fairly clear for years. In 2021, more than 107,000 people died from drug overdoses, a nearly 15% increase from the year before and more than double the grim tally recorded in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control. All told, overdose deaths are seven times higher than they were in 1999.

  Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which law enforcement has tracked from labs in China along trafficking routes through Mexico on the southern border, are now driving the overdose epidemic. The CDC attributed 69,000 overdose deaths to synthetic opioids in 2020, 82% of the nation’s total that year. Heroin overdoses, meanwhile, went up 7% in 2020 to 13,000, according to CDC figures.

  That means synthetic opioids and heroin dwarf cocaine and methamphetamines, although totals for both of those have been rising for a decade and often cause overdose deaths in combination with opioids. The National Institutes of Health shows fewer than 5,000 people killed by cocaine alone and fewer than 10,000 by what it dubs “psychostimulants,” which includes methamphetamines, in 2020. 

  Less precisely, economists since at least 2017 have pegged at over $1 trillion the epidemic’s annual dollar cost in terms of deaths, law enforcement and “lost productivity.” 

  But the amount attributable to deaths – $550 billion of the $1 trillion – is largely conjecture because it is derived from actuarial estimates for lost years; for example, the decades cut from what would have been a normal working life for someone who fatally overdoses at age 45.

  Then there is the less lethal side of the equation — one that workers and employers grapple with daily. Roughly 8% of workplace fatalities in 2020 – 388 of 4,786 – were attributed to “unintentional overdose from nonmedical use of drugs,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the agency said it is unclear “how many of these deaths involved opioids specifically.” 

  A post on a neighborhood social media platform asking about opioids’ dire impact in the workforce unleashes a barrage of firsthand horror stories. Homeowners speak of an inability to hire handymen, painters, landscape workers and the like.

  “If I’m lucky enough to have an employee that can pass a [urine analysis] the chances of them doing so after the first check is slim,” wrote a tree surgeon in suburban New Orleans. “Tree men get a terrible rap. People think we are all crazy, wild, no fear having, hard working dopeheads.”

  But he acknowledged some truth to the stories of workplace abuse of prescription opioids, mentioning laborers’ common habit of relying on increasingly higher-milligram dosages of pain pills like Percocet.

  Workers “didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘Hmmm, great day to go down a road that will cost me it all,’ ” he wrote. “Then it’s inevitable. We get hurt. Usually pretty badly. So we start out getting a few .5 [mg] maybe 7.5. Later, as our careers go so does the pain, so do the amounts needed to consume to keep it at bay.”

  A National Safety Council study reported that more than 75% of U.S. employers have been affected by employees’ prescription drug use, according to congressional testimony, and the National Institutes of Health estimates some 3 million Americans, including workers, are addicted to opioids. 

  Edwards managed to break her addiction and return to the workforce with the help of Jobs & Hope, a statewide West Virginia placement initiative launched in 2019 that claims more than 1,500 success stories. But with a budget of $3.1 million it cannot handle all of the 200-250 addicts referred to it each month, said Deb Harris, the group’s lead transition agent. 

  Businesses have been largely receptive to such programs, but the state is still trying to regain its footing from the “flood of pills” that hit it early in the 21st century, according to Dr. Matthew Christiansen, director of West Virginia’s Office of Drug Control in the Department of Health and Human Services.

  “We don’t keep a running tally at the state level, but the numbers have probably stayed pretty consistent or maybe gotten a little bit worse because of an increase in overdose deaths due to fentanyl,” Christiansen said.

  The Centers for Disease Control does keep a tally, although it hasn’t publicly updated the grim numbers on its “opioid dashboard” since 2017. The figures from that year show that the biggest economic hit has come in the Appalachian states around the Ohio Valley and in New England, two regions where opioids and synthetics have torn a hole through the workforce.

  For example, West Virginia, long considered ground zero in the opioid epidemic, had the biggest annual per capita loss due to opioids at $7,247, according to the CDC figures that include overdose deaths. That tops Ohio, where the per capita cost in 2017 was $6,226, and New Hampshire at $5,953. Ohio saw the highest overall economic cost, at $72.58 billion, followed by Massachusetts at $36.91 billion, according to the CDC. 

  Fixing opioid disorder costs is complicated by the fact much of it is now driven by black-market synthetic drugs like fentanyl and thus can no longer be tracked through prescriptions. Nor is substance abuse a topic that workers – or many employers – are comfortable quantifying. All those involved in coping with the epidemic, however, peg the cost as staggering.

  “It’s difficult to measure these things but it’s likely a substantial part of the labor decline,” said Michael Betz, an economist at The Ohio State University who researches opioid disorder issues. “You’re piecing together different pieces of evidence, but when you look at the decline in labor participation rates and opioid disorder figures, they match up pretty similarly.”

  Franklin’s team did calculate the odds opioids influenced the disability bills Washington state taxpayers foot each year for roughly 100,000 workers, a relatively uncomplicated tally since Washington is one of four states with a centralized government system and not a private workers’ compensation insurance market.

  “We found that two prescriptions of opioids for more than 7 days in the first six weeks after an injury doubled the risk of a worker being on disability one year later,” he said.

  Answers to broader questions on opioids’ baleful economic impact, however, are scarce.

  “Productivity losses due to anything is an extremely complex analysis and is not routinely tracked,” Franklin said.

  To date, the nation’s prime age labor workforce has not recovered to where it was at the beginning of 2020 and is now the lowest it has been in 45 years. The hit has been especially pronounced among older adults, according to the Government Accountability Office.

  Between 2015 and 2019, adults 50 years old or older “were an estimated 22 percent less likely to be in the labor force (either employed or actively seeking work),” a GAO report found. In addition, people in that age group “were an estimated 40 percent less likely to be employed; and employed older workers who misused opioids were twice as likely to have experienced periods of unemployment.” 

  Once again, however, pinpointing the precise connection between opioids and lost productivity remained elusive, as “the data did not allow GAO to determine causality.”

  Middle-aged white men have long comprised the single biggest group of annual overdose deaths, but between 2015 and 2020 the rate among black men skyrocketed to 54.1 per 100,000, topping white men’s 44.2 per 100,000, according to the Pew Research Center. 

  “Local economic conditions play some part in all this but they aren’t the key role; the main driver is the increase in supply,” Betz said.

  That leads some experts on the topic to conclude that opioids’ catastrophic hit to the United States’ workforce has been misconstrued. For a time, as deaths rose early on, particularly among middle-aged white men, and labor participation rates began their decline, the phrase “deaths of despair” took hold among some researchers.

  Under this theory, the opioid epidemic fed on declining economic prospects, particularly for middle-aged white men facing unemployment or shrinking incomes.

  But the “deaths of despair” theory reverses cause and effect, according to some physicians and people dealing with the fallout from opioids, including their more deadly synthetic cousin fentanyl.

  “We’ve debunked that,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a faculty member at Brandeis University whose practice has specialized in opioid addiction. “Rather than economic conditions leading to overdose deaths it’s really the other way around – it’s not the economy driving them to death, it’s the opioid crisis affecting the economy.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 19:00

• "Full-Fledged Ice Age": Semiconductor Companies Slash Output On Supply Glut
  “Full-Fledged Ice Age”: Semiconductor Companies Slash Output On Supply Glut

  Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, provided more insight into the worsening slowdown for semiconductors and the bust in global PC markets. 

  Korea Economic Daily reported Samsung “lowered its semiconductor sales forecast for the second half of the year by more than 30%.” The newspaper attributed slumping semiconductors demand “as the economy froze due to central bank rate hikes caused by global inflation.” 

  The paper warned: “As the semiconductor industry has entered a full-fledged ice age, there are many forecasts in the industry that the recession will continue until the first half of next year when semiconductor inventories are eliminated.” 

  Earlier this week, Samsung’s Device Solutions division said they “lowered our sales guidance for the second half of this year (the company’s internal forecast) by 32% from our April forecast.”

  None of this should be a surprise as we recently outlined PC Demand Suffers’ Steepest Decline In Years’ As Chip Shortage Turns To Glut. 

  “Both DRAM and NAND flash suppliers and customers are holding too many semiconductor inventories,” an official told Korea Economic Daily. 

  Another top semiconductor company, Japan’s Kioxia Holdings Corp, announced it would slash wafer production starts by 30% next month, according to Bloomberg.

  “The deep cuts stem from weakening demand for computers and smartphones, and the wider semiconductor industry is likely to follow the trend.

  “Hard times are ahead for the industry, except for a few,” said Kazunori Ito, an analyst with Morningstar. 

  These souring developments in the global semiconductor market come as the largest US manufacturer of memory chips, Micron, reported revenue that missed (despite a slight beat on EPS and margins), but it was the forecast that again was a total disaster. 

  Micron offered one of the most significant recession warnings so far from a large corporation: “results were impacted by rapidly weakening consumer demand and significant customer inventory adjustments across all end markets.” It added that due to the sharp decline in near-term demand, it expects “supply growth to be above demand growth in calendar 2022.”

  “Yes, we have a challenging market environment, but we’re responding rapidly with actions … fiscal 2023 is, of course, an unprecedented environment, but the long-term drivers are intact,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in an interview. 

  But it’s just not memory chips. We pointed prices of graphics processing units (GPUs) have plunged to their lowest levels ever in China, and chip deflation was already washing ashore in the US. 

  The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) has fallen 40% since peaking in late 2021, and the weekly 200-day moving average is being tested. 

  

  Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported Apple ditched plans to increase iPhone production due to a lack of demand. Weeks ago, FedEx warned that the global economy is “going into a worldwide recession.”

  If both the semi-industry and top shippers are warning about economic turmoil ahead, then it’s probably time to start preparing for a possible recession in 2023. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continues to hike into a slowdown aggressively — this is a recipe for an epic policy error. 

  On the bright side, now, or at least in the months ahead, it might make sense to build a computer as it seems components, such as memory chips, GPUs, and CPUs, could be heavily discounted. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 18:40

• Stagflation Is "Just The Beginning" For America's Economic Crisis: Peter Navarro
  Stagflation Is “Just The Beginning” For America’s Economic Crisis: Peter Navarro

  Authored by Tom Ozimek and Joshua Philipp via The Epoch Times,

  Economist Peter Navarro, erstwhile adviser to former President Donald Trump, told Epoch TV’s “Crossroads” program in a recent interview that the current stagflationary downturn stalking the U.S. economy is “just the beginning” of America’s economic woes, and that Trump is the one who’s best poised to pull the country out of a dire slump.

  

  Navarro said in the interview that he believes the United States has fallen prey to the destructive force of stagflation—a toxic combination of high inflation and sluggish growth.

  “That’s what we’ve got now because of the fecklessness of Joe Biden, the Congress, the Federal Reserve, and this administration,” he said.

  There’s been fierce debate about what led to prices accelerating at their fastest pace in decades, eroding purchasing power, and squeezing American households.

  Some, including many members of the Biden administration, have mostly blamed supply-side constraints and external shocks like the war in Ukraine. Others, including many Republicans, have pointed the finger at unprecedented levels of fiscal and monetary spending.

  The inflationary wave that has swelled into a persistent cost-of-living crisis for many Americans was driven mostly by a stimulus-fueled demand surge, although supply-side bottlenecks made the problem worse, a team of economists concluded in a recent study.

  Soaring inflation, which Fed officials have admitted is far more persistent than they initially believed, has come alongside deteriorating economic conditions. The U.S. economy contracted for two consecutive quarters this year, according to updated figures released by the government on Sept. 29, which meets the rule-of-thumb definition for a recession.

  ‘This Is Just the Beginning’

  Navarro argued in the interview that the United States is already experiencing stagflation—and that it’s going to get worse.

  “This is just beginning. This economic crisis is just beginning, and it’s going to be as bad or worse and as long as it was during the 1970s,” Navarro said.

  The dreaded toxic brew of high unemployment and high inflation plagued the U.S. economy for over a decade in the 1970s. America’s unemployment rate doubled to 9 percent between 1973 and 1975, while inflation peaked at around 14 percent in annual terms.

  Inflation didn’t fall substantially until the early 1980s, and only after the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates to around 19 percent, leading to two back-to-back recessions in 1980 and 1981–82.

  In the interview, Navarro offered a lookback on the Trump administration’s economic policies and credited them with low unemployment and low inflation.

  “What we did was structural in nature, designed to increase the real wages of American workers, the productivity of American workers, the prosperity of the middle class,” Navarro said.

  “And we did that beautifully through structural elements, not just the traditional Republican tax cuts and lower regulatory burdens, but by securing the southern border, which prevents a flood of uneducated, low-income workers coming in,” he said.

  Navarro added that Trump’s policies on re-shoring manufacturing and bringing supply chains back to the United States helped boost wages for blue-collar Americans.

  The economist further argued that bringing back Trump-era policies is key to pulling the country out of stagflation.

  “I think the only one who fully understands how to get out of that is Donald Trump,” Navarro said. “I don’t see anybody else in the Republican Party who has that kind of sophistication.”

  His take on the trajectory of the U.S. economy dovetails with remarks made by other economists, who see darkening clouds on the horizon.

  ‘Stagflationary Debt Crisis’

  Economist Nouriel Roubini, for example, who’s been dubbed “Dr. Doom” for his pessimistic, yet accurate, prediction of a financial market meltdown in 2007–08, told Bloomberg in a recent interview that he expects “a real hard landing” for the U.S. economy.

  Roubini also said he continues to believe that it’s “delusional” for analysts to expect a short and shallow recession, arguing instead that it will be long and severe.

  In an op-ed for Project Syndicate, he also warned of a looming “stagflationary debt crisis” with “some of the worst elements of both the 1970s and the 2008 crash” as public debt levels have become unsustainable and most of the fiscal ammunition already used.

  “Things will get much worse before they get better,” he predicted in the op-ed, adding that he believes the economic downturn will come alongside financial market turmoil.

  Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller said at a recent investor summit in New York City that he’s worried that the economic downturn affecting United States could be worse than an “average garden variety” recession.

  At the same time, investor pessimism has hit levels not seen since the financial crisis of 2008–09.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 18:20

• Apple VP Of Procurement Fired After Joke About Fondling Breasts Goes Viral On TikTok
  Apple VP Of Procurement Fired After Joke About Fondling Breasts Goes Viral On TikTok

  Apple’s Vice President of Procurement, Tony Blevins, is out at the company after making a “crude comment about his profession” in a TikTok video that was published on September 5.

  Blevins joked that he fondles “big-breasted women” for a living in the video, Bloomberg reported this week. He had been approached by TikTok and Instagram creator Daniel Mac to participate in a series where owners of expensive cars are asked about what they do for a living. 

  He was stopped when parking his Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, a car worth “hundreds of thousands of dollars”, the report says.

  When asked about what he does for a living, he responded: “I have rich cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women, but I take weekends and major holidays off.” He also joked that he had a “hell of a dental plan”.

  As Bloomberg noted, the line is an homage to the 1981 movie Arthur, where the main character describes his career by saying: “I race cars, play tennis and fondle women, but I have weekends off and I am my own boss.”

  

  The video was taken at a car show in Pebble Beach and it garnered more than 40,000 likes on Instagram and 1.3 million views on TikTok. 

  Blevins’ actual job is striking deals between suppliers and partners for Apple. Recently, he helped navigate deals for the company with Globalstar, Qualcomm and Intel, the report notes. He is in charge of “driving down the costs” of the critical supplies Apple uses for its products. 

  The company conducted an internal investigation into his remarks and removed his team – including about 6 people who reported directly to him and several hundred others under them – from his command. 

  He had been at Apple for 22 years prior to being let go. He was part of a group of about 100 VPs at the company, and just one of about 30 executives, that report directly to either CEO Tim Cook or COO Jeff Williams. Williams ultimately made the call to let Blevins go, the report says, and he will oversee Blevins’ team for the time being.

  In a statement, Blevins said: “I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by my mistaken attempt at humor.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 18:02

• Memory Holed, Part II: The "Rigged" Election
  Memory Holed, Part II: The “Rigged” Election

  Authored by Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea via TK News,

  Matt Orfalea’s follow-up video his “The Russians Hacked the Election” piece rescues for posterity another key piece of history likely to be suppressed: the fact that both Democrats and Republicans raised doubts about the legitimacy of the election process. This took place not only after 2016, but both before and after the 2020 vote.

  These campaigns were two sides of the same coin. Trump raised doubts about the reliability of mail-in votes, and admonished supporters ahead of time that a Trump loss should be understood as a fix. Meanwhile, Democrats and media figures — as well as a seemingly endless succession of named and unnamed intelligence sources — argued Russians were bent on corrupting the vote. Hillary Clinton went so far as to say Joe Biden shouldn’t concede “under any circumstances.”

  It was not just a Republican-versus-Democrat issue. Both before and during the 2020 Democratic primaries, voters were also told repeatedly that Vladimir Putin preferred Bernie Sanders and was planning to interfere on his behalf. Even GQ did a story: “Why Does Putin Love Bernie?”

  

  Sanders undermined his own campaign by giving these accusations weight, while Trump was criticized for pushing back against them. This video offers a crucial takeaway for anyone looking back to decipher what happened in 2020: both parties, and crucially our own intelligence authorities, worked hard to undermine election results in advance. And, they’re still doing it.

  Subscribe to TK News

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 17:40

• US Hits Chinese Firms With New Sanctions Over Iranian Oil
  US Hits Chinese Firms With New Sanctions Over Iranian Oil

  The US has slapped new sanctions on Chinese firms related to Iran’s petrochemical and petroleum trade, after years of reports of Chinese tankers engaged in sanctions-busting activity, and at a moment that a finalized restored JCPOA nuclear deal has all but collapsed.

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced punitive measures Thursday against two China-based companies, Zhonggu Storage and Transportation Co Ltd and WS Shipping Co Ltd, which stand accused of sanctions evasion.

  

  The former has been identified as overseeing a commercial crude oil storage facility for Iranian products, and the latter operated a vessel which was caught ‘illegally’ transporting Iranian oil and fuel products.

  These companies were said to be involved in the “sale of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petrochemicals and petroleum products to end users in South and East Asia.”

  And further according to the US Treasury readout, the actions target “Iranian brokers and several front companies in the UAE, Hong Kong, and India that have facilitated financial transfers and shipping of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products.”

  “These entities have played a critical role in concealing the origin of the Iranian shipments and enabling two sanctioned Iranian brokers, Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (Triliance) and Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co. (PGPICC), to transfer funds and ship Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals to buyers in Asia.”

  While Iran has been subjected to crippling oil-export sanctions for the last several years, it hasn’t stopped China, whose imports of Iranian oil have only increased by the month.

  Much of the buying comes from independent Chinese refiners (otherwise known as “teapots”), who, traders said have embraced Iran’s cheaper crude as Brent prices soared globally amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and energy sanctions against Russia.

  The official position of China’s foreign ministry has long been that normal business dealings between China and Iran should be respected. “China urges the US to lift the illegitimate unilateral sanctions as soon as possible,” the ministry has long repeated in various statements.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 17:20

• Watch: Yet Another Democrat Witness Claims Biological Men Can Have Pregnancies
  Watch: Yet Another Democrat Witness Claims Biological Men Can Have Pregnancies

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  For the umpteenth time, a witness called to testify by Democrats during hearings on abortion laws claimed that biological men are capable of getting pregnant and giving birth.

  

  They’re the party of science!

  During a House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday, Planned Parenthood’s Medical Director for Primary and Trans Care (yep that’s a thing) made the claim.

  GOP rep Andrew Clyde asked Dr. Bhavik Kumar “So can biological men become pregnant and give birth?” to which Kumar replied “Men can have pregnancies, especially trans men.”

  Clyde followed up, “So, are you saying that a biological female who identifies as a man and therefore becomes pregnant is, quote, a man? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Kumar responded, “These questions about who can become pregnant are really missing the point, and I’m here to talk about what’s happening in Texas.”

  “This is me asking a question and you answering,” Clyde interjected, adding “I’m asking the question, sir, not you.”

  “Right, and I’m answering the question,” Kumar replied, further stating “Somebody with a uterus may have the capability of becoming pregnant whether they’re a woman or a man, that doesn’t make a difference.”

  “Ok, we’re done,” an exasperated Clyde responded adding “This isn’t complicated. Let me tell you: if a person has a uterus and is born female, they are a woman. That is not a man, and the vast majority of the world considers that to be a woman, because there are biological differences between men and women.”

  “I Can’t believe it’s necessary to say this, but men cannot get pregnant and cannot give birth regardless of how they identify themselves,” Clyde asserted, adding “Why in the world would Democrats bring in a person whose title is director of trans care for an abortion hearing when only biological women can become pregnant?”

  Clyde then re-read Kumar’s opening statement, in which the Planned Parenthood Director described abortion restrictions as “inherently racist, inherently classist and fundamentally part of the white supremacy agenda.”

  Clyde then noted that the organization Kumar works for was founded by Margaret Sanger.

  “Margaret Sanger’s entire focus was to decimate communities of color through abortion to eliminate their future generations,” Clyde urged.

  “How many abortions have you performed in your lifetime?” the rep then asked Kumar, to which the doctor replied “Likely thousands.”

  Clyde shot back, “So as doctor yourself, do you believe you have terminated enough babies to justify Margaret Sanger’s beliefs and your continuance of her legacy? This is unconscionable, this is inexcusable, I’m thankful this is now criminal and I look forward to the day when life is again respected across our entire nation.”

  Watch:

  Elsewhere during the hearing, Kumar suggested that natural disasters warrant unimpeded abortions:

  Kumar did admit, however, that Abortion bans “do not outlaw care for ectopic pregnancies”.

  Kumar made the comments while being questioned by Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who scoffed at Republicans who don’t believe men can get pregnant.

  “The same folks who … told us that COVID’s just a flu, that climate change isn’t real, that January 6 was nothing but a tourist visit … are now trying to tell us that transgender people are not real,” AOC proclaimed.

  “And I would say that their claim is probably just as legitimate as all their others, which is to say not very much at all,” she further stated.

  Rep. @AOC (D-NY): “The same folks who tell us … that COVID’s just a flu, that climate change isn’t real, that January 6th was just nothing but a tourist visit, are now trying to tell us that transgender people aren’t real.” pic.twitter.com/NQbdK5ltGT

  — The Recount (@therecount) September 29, 2022

  Democrats keep presenting a rogues gallery of agitated and clearly mentally unstable people as ‘witnesses’ during these hearings, all of whom have claimed that men can give birth, a notion that almost one quarter of Democratic voters believe to be true, according to recent research.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 17:00

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• Escobar: Giorgia (Meloni) On Our Mind
  Escobar: Giorgia (Meloni) On Our Mind

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  Grab the Negronis and the Aperol Spritz; it’s show time…

  

  It’s tempting to interpret the Italian electoral results this past Sunday as voters merrily hurling a bowl of lush papardelle with wild boar ragu over the collective bland faces of the toxic unelected Euro-oligarchy sitting in Brussels.

  Well, it’s complicated.

  Italy’s electoral system is all about coalitions. The center-right Meloni-Berlusconi-Salvini troika is bound to amass a substantial majority in both the Parliament’s Lower House and the Senate. Giorgia Meloni leads Fratelli d’Italia (“Brothers of Italy”). The notorious Silvio “Bunga Bunga” Berlusconi leads Forza Italia. And Matteo Salvini leads La Lega.

  The established cliché across Italy’s cafes is that Giorgia becoming Prime Minister was a shoo-in: after all she’s “blonde, blue eyes, petite, sprightly and endearing”. And an expert communicator to boot. Quite the opposite of Goldman Sachs partner and former uber-ECB enforcer Mario Draghi, who looks like one of those bloodied emperors of Rome’s decadence. During his Prime Ministerial reign, he was widely derided – apart from woke/finance circles – as the leader of “Draghistan”.

  On the financial front that otherworldly entity, the Goddess of the Market, the post-truth equivalent of the Delphi Oracle, bets that PM Giorgia will insist on the same old strategy: debt-funded fiscal stimulus, which will turn into a blowout in Italian debt (already huge, at 150% of GDP). All that plus a further collapse of the euro.

  So the big question now is who’s going to be Italy’s new Finance Minister. Giorgia’s party has no one with the requisite competence for it. So the preferred candidate shall be “approved” by the usual suspects as a sort of enforcer of “Draghistan lite”. Draghi, by the way, already said he’s “ready to collaborate”.

  Marvels of gastronomy apart, life in the EU’s third largest economy is a drag. Long-term growth prospects are like a mirage in the Sahara. Italy is extremely vulnerable when it comes to the financial markets. So a bond market a-go-go selloff in the horizon is practically a given.

  In case of a – nearly inevitable – financial catfight cage match between Team Giorgia and Christine “look at my new Hermes scarf” Lagarde at the ECB, the European Central Bank will “forget” to buy Italian bonds and then, Auguri! Welcome to a new round of EU sovereign debt crisis.

  On the campaign trail, sprightly Giorgia incessantly pledged to keep the massive debt under control. That was coupled with the requisite message to placate the woke crypto-“Left” and its neoliberal banking owners: we support NATO and sending weapons to Ukraine. In fact everyone – from Giorgia to Salvini – supports the weaponizing, having signed a letter during the previous legislature, in effect until the end of 2022.

  Deconstructing a “semi-fascist”

  The Atlanticist woke/neoliberal sphere, predictably, is fuming with the advent of “post-fascist” Italy: oh, these people always voting the wrong way… The discombobulated think tank crowd is pointing to the latest in a cycle of populist waves in Italy; they don’t even know what “populist” means. But they can’t be too hysterical because Giorgia, after all, is a product of the Aspen Institute.

  Giorgia is a complex case. She is essentially a trans-Atlanticist. She abhors the EU but loves NATO. In fact, she would love to undermine Brussels from the inside, while making sure the EU does not cut off those crucial flow of funds to Rome.

  So she does confound primitive, crypto-“Left” American “experts”, who blame her at best for “semi-fascism” – and thus more dangerous than Marine Le Pen or Viktor Orban. Then she gets immediate redemption because at least vocally she proclaims to be anti-Russia and anti-China.

  But then again, the temptation to burn her at the stake is too great: after all she’s appreciated by Steve Bannon, who proclaimed four years ago that “you put a reasonable face on right-wing populism, you get elected.” And she keeps terrible company: Berlusconi is dismissed by the woke/neoliberal Americans as a “Putin buddy” and Salvini as a “firebrand nationalist”.

  It’s imperative to imbibe a strong dose of reality to form a clear picture of Giorgia. So let’s turn to a fine Turin intellectual and author, Claudio Gallo, now benefitting from being far away from the toxic fog of Italian mainstream media, mostly a fiefdom of the dreaded Agnelli/Elkann family.

  Here are Gallo’s key takeaways.

  On Giorgia’s popular appeal: Her support “among working people is a fact. We can see that in every survey. However, this is not a new tendency, and it started in the time of Berlusconi. At this moment, the working class began to vote for right-wing parties. But I believe this is not an Italian-only trend. If you look at France most of the representatives of the traditional working class vote for Le Pen, not the socialist parties. It is a European trend.”

  On the “Draghi agenda”: “You can figure out the kind of governments we just had as a European Troika with one man only – Mario Draghi. They have proposed the most brutal economic reforms inspired by Brussels, such as extreme flexibility and fiscal austerity. These are policies that affect mainly the middle classes and poor people (…) The Draghi government decreased welfare spending by 4 billion euros next year and another 2 billion in two years. It means 6 billion less will be available for healthcare in two years. There were cuts also in the school system. Polls show that more than 50% of Italians did not support Draghi and his program. Draghi comes from the most powerful part of society, the banking sector. In the leading Italian media, it is impossible to find any critics of this agenda.”

  On a possible Berlusconi power play: “He has quite a huge audience. He is accredited with roughly 8% of the vote. After all these years and all his judicial difficulties, it is still a lot (…) A few months after the election, we can imagine a situation in which Meloni is forced to resign because she cannot cope with the harsh winter (cost of living out of control, social unrest). It will be the time of a Grosse Koalizion to save the country, and Berlusconi, with his strong stance on NATO and Europe, is ready to play his cards. Berlusconi would be the key to a new coalition. He is always ready to get any compromise done.”

  On “firebrand” Salvini: “He is the leader of a very divided party. He used to have a populist agenda, but at the top of his party you can also find some technocratic figures like Giancarlo Giorgetti, a staunch defender of the interests of the North Italian Confindustria. Salvini is losing consensus within his electoral base, and Meloni stole his votes along with Movimento Cinque Stelle. His party is divided between old politicians that dreamed of some federation to strengthen the autonomy of the Northern regions and others more inspired by Marine Le Pen’s right. It’s a volatile mixture.”

  On Giorgia under pressure: “The pressure of the economic issues, inflation, price of gas and so on, will make Meloni, a very tough politician but not an expert statesman, probably resign. In Italy, there is a political stalemate; like everywhere in the West, democracy doesn’t work correctly. All parties are pretty much the same, with some cosmetic differences; everyone can still make a coalition with anybody else, without any regard to principles or values.”

  “The more things change…”: “The man behind the foreign policy of Fratelli d’Italia is an ex-ambassador in US and Israel, Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata. I cannot see how his opinion differs from Draghi’s. The same neoliberal and Atlantistic background, the same technocratic resume. Meloni is simply capitalizing that she didn’t participate in the last government, even if she doesn’t offer any alternative. Meloni repeats that nothing will change; we will send money and arms [to Ukraine]. She sends a lot of signals to NATO and the EU that they can count on her when it comes to foreign policy. I think she is sincere: she is surrounded by the people who will make it real. It is very different from the situation a couple of years ago when Meloni published a book in which she said we need to have a good relationship with Putin and build a new European order. Now she has completely changed her position. She wants to be seen as a trustworthy future premier. But the polls say that 40-50% of Italians don’t like to send weapons to Ukraine, and support every diplomatic measure to end the war. The cost of living crisis will strengthen this position among the people. When you cannot warm your house, everything changes.”

  The real cage match

  No one ever lost money betting on the EU oligarchy always behaving like a bunch of self-entitled, stubborn, unelected pricks. They never learn anything. And they always blame everyone except themselves.

  Giorgia, following her instincts, has a decent shot at burying them even deeper. She is more calculating and less impulsive than Salvini. She won’t go for a euro exit and much less an Italexit. She won’t interfere with her Finance Minister – who will have to deal with the ECB.

  But she remains a “semi-fascist”, so Brussels will want her scalp – in the form of cutting off Italy’s budget appropriations. These Eurocrats would never dare doing it against Germany or France.

  And that brings to the political set up of the – supremely undemocratic – European Council.

  Giorgia’s party is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists bloc, along with only two other members, the PMs of Poland and Czech Republic.

  The Socialists & Democrats bloc has seven members. And so does Renew Europe (the former “liberals”): that includes the president of the European Council, the supremely mediocre Charles Michel.

  The center-right European People’s Party has six members. That includes Ursula “My Grand Dad was a Nazi” von der Leyen, the sadomaso dominatrix in charge of the European Commission.

  The prime catfight cage match to watch in fact is Giorgia versus dominatrix Ursula. Once again, Mediterranean swagger against the Teutonic techno-barbarians. The more Brussels harassment of Giorgia, the more she will counter-attack, with full support of her post-truth Roman legions: Italian voters. Grab the Negronis and the Aperol Spritz; it’s show time.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/30/2022 – 02:00

• Federal Bureau Of Intimidation: The Government’s War On Political Freedom
  Federal Bureau Of Intimidation: The Government’s War On Political Freedom

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  

  “In so many of the little places of everyday life in which life is lived out, somehow democracy doesn’t exist. And one of the creeping hands of totalitarianism running through the democracy is the Federal Bureau of Investigation… Because why does the FBI do all this? To scare the hell out of people… They work for the establishment and the corporations and the politicos to keep things as they are. And they want to frighten and chill the people who are trying to change things.”—Howard Zinn, historian

  Discredit, disrupt, and destroy.

  That is how the government plans to get rid of activists and dissidents who stand in its way.

  This has always been the modus operandi of the FBI (more aptly referred to as the Federal Bureau of Intimidation): muzzle anti-government sentiment, harass activists, and terrorize Americans into compliance.

  Indeed, the FBI has a long history of persecuting, prosecuting and generally harassing activists, politicians, and cultural figures.

  Back in the 1950s and ‘60s, the FBI’s targets were civil rights activists, those suspected of having Communist ties, and anti-war activists. In more recent decades, the FBI has expanded its reach to target so-called domestic extremists, environmental activists, and those who oppose the police state.

  Back in 2019, President Trump promised to give the FBI “whatever they need” to investigate and disrupt hate crimes and domestic terrorism, without any apparent thought for the Constitution’s prohibitions on such overreach.

  That misguided pledge sheds a curious light on the FBI’s latest nationwide spree of SWAT team raids, surveillance, disinformation campaigns, fear-mongering, paranoia, and strong-arm tactics.

  For instance, just before dawn on Jan. 25, 2019, the FBI sent 29 heavily armed agents in 17 vehicles to carry out a SWAT-style raid on the Florida home of Roger Stone, one of President Trump’s longtime supporters. Stone, charged with a political crime, was taken away in handcuffs.

  In March 2021, under the pretext of carrying out an inventory of U.S. Private Vaults, FBI agents raided 1400 safe deposit boxes in Beverly Hills, seizing “more than $86 million in cash as well as gold, jewelry, and other valuables from property owners who were suspected of no crimes.”

  In April 2021, FBI agents raided Rudy Giuliani’s home and office, seizing 18 electronic devices. More than a year later, Giuliani has yet to be charged with any crimes.

  In June 2022, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official under the Trump Administration, was led out of his home in pajamas while federal law enforcement officials raided his home.

  In the summer of 2022, FBI agents wearing tactical gear including body armor, helmets and camouflage uniforms and carrying rifles raided multiple homes throughout Little Rock, Ark., including a judge’s home.

  In August 2022, more than a dozen FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago, the winter home of Donald Trump.

  And in September 2022, 25 to 30 armed FBI agents raided the home of an anti-abortion activist, pointing guns at the family and terrorizing the man’s wife and seven children.

  Politics aside, the message is clear: this is how the government will deal with anyone who challenges its authority.

  You’re next.

  Unfortunately, while these overreaching, heavy-handed lessons in how to rule by force have become standard operating procedure for a government that communicates with its citizenry primarily through the language of brutality, intimidation and fear, none of this is new.

  The government has been playing these mind games for a long time.

  As Betty Medsger, an investigative reporter for The Washington Post, noted in 1971, the FBI was engaged in practices that had never been reported, probably were unconstitutional, and were counter to the public’s understanding of the agency’s purpose.

  The objective: target anti-government dissenters for wide-scale harassment, widespread surveillance and intimidation in order to enhance their paranoia and make them think there was an “FBI agent behind every mailbox.”

  Medsger, the recipient of stolen government files that provided a glimpse into the workings of the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency, would later learn that between 1956 and 1971, the FBI conducted an intensive domestic intelligence program, termed COINTELPRO, intended to neutralize domestic political dissidents.

  The explicit objective, according to one FBI memo: “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” perceived threats to the government’s power.

  As Congressman Steve Cohen explains, “COINTELPRO was set up to surveil and disrupt groups and movements that the FBI found threatening… many groups, including anti-war, student, and environmental activists, and the New Left were harassed, infiltrated, falsely accused of criminal activity      .”

  Sound familiar? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  Those targeted by the FBI under COINTELPRO for its intimidation, surveillance and smear campaigns included: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, the Black Panther Party, Billie Holiday, Emma Goldman, Aretha Franklin, Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Felix Frankfurter, John Lennon, and hundreds more.

  Among those most closely watched by the FBI was King, a man labeled by the FBI as “the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.” All told, the FBI collected 17,000 pages of materials on King.

  With wiretaps and electronic bugs planted in his home and office, King was kept under constant surveillance by the FBI with the aim of “neutralizing” him. He even received blackmail letters written by FBI agents suggesting that he either commit suicide or the details of his private life would be revealed to the public. The FBI kept up its pursuit of King until he was felled by a hollow-point bullet to the head in 1968.

  John Lennon, a vocal peace protester and anti-war activist, was another high-profile example of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority.

  Lennon was singled out for daring to speak truth to power about the government’s warmongering, his phone calls monitored and data files illegally collected on his activities and associations.

  For a while, at least, Lennon became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government.

  Years after Lennon’s assassination, it would be revealed that the FBI had collected 281 pages of files on him, including song lyrics.

  J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI at the time, directed the agency to spy on the musician. There were also various written orders calling on government agents to frame Lennon for a drug bust. “The FBI’s files on Lennon … read like the writings of a paranoid goody-two-shoes,” observed reporter Jonathan Curiel.

  As the New York Times notes, “Critics of today’s domestic surveillance object largely on privacy grounds. They have focused far less on how easily government surveillance can become an instrument for the people in power to try to hold on to power. ‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon’ … is the story not only of one man being harassed, but of a democracy being undermined.”

  Indeed, all of the many complaints we have about government today—surveillance, militarism, corruption, harassment, SWAT team raids, political persecution, spying, overcriminalization, etc.—were present in Lennon’s day and formed the basis of his call for social justice, peace and a populist revolution. As Adam Cohen of the New York Times points out, “The F.B.I.’s surveillance of Lennon is a reminder of how easily domestic spying can become unmoored from any legitimate law enforcement purpose. What is more surprising, and ultimately more unsettling, is the degree to which the surveillance turns out to have been intertwined with electoral politics.”

  The Church Committee, the Senate task force charged with investigating COINTELPRO abuses in 1975, echoed these concerns about the government’s abuses:

  “Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power.”

  The report continued:

  “Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory and vicious tactics have been employed—including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials.”

  Fifty years later, we’re still having this same debate about the perils of government overreach.

  For too long now, the American people have allowed their personal prejudices and politics to cloud their judgment and render them incapable of seeing that the treatment being doled out by the government’s lethal enforcers has remained consistent, no matter the threat.

  The lesson to be learned is this: whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out now, rest assured, these same practices can and will be used against you when the government decides to set its sights on you.

  All of the excessive, abusive tactics employed by the government and its henchmen today will eventually be meted out on the general populace.

  At that point, when you find yourself in the government’s crosshairs, it will not matter whether your skin is black or yellow or brown or white; it will not matter whether you’re an immigrant or a citizen; it will not matter whether you’re rich or poor; it will not matter whether you’re Republican or Democrat; and it certainly won’t matter who you voted for in the last presidential election.

  At that point—when you find yourself subjected to dehumanizing, demoralizing, thuggish behavior by government bureaucrats who are hyped up on the power of their badges and empowered to detain, search, interrogate, threaten and generally harass anyone they see fit—remember you were warned.

  Frankly, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are long past the point where we should be merely alarmed.

  These are no longer experiments on our freedoms.

  These are acts of aggression by a government that is no friend to freedom.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 23:40

• Fauci Net Worth Soared 66% During Pandemic
  Fauci Net Worth Soared 66% During Pandemic

  The net worth of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s household soared a whopping 66% over the course of the pandemic, according to new financial disclosures obtained by OpenTheBooks.com. Fauci reported a Jan 1, 2019 net worth of $7,523,634. By Jan 1, 2022, it had grown to $12,677,513.  

  

  As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci was paid a 2021 salary of $456,028, making him the highest-paid employee in the entire federal government. His wife, Christine Grady, is chief bio-ethicist for the National Institutes of Health, does very well too, raking in a $238,970 salary last year.

  Fauci is famously paid more than the president, and his wife collects more than the vice president. However, those hefty federal salaries aren’t the only driver of the Fauci household’s pandemic-era enrichment.

  In 2021, Fauci was awarded the Tel Aviv University-affiliated Dan David Prize, which came with a $1 million check. The prize committee said Fauci “has been widely praised for his courage in speaking truth to power” during the Covid-19 pandemic.

  The committee was apparently oblivious that Fauci was the power and routinely spoke falsehoods about everything from the usefulness of masking to herd immunity, the efficacy of vaccines, and NIH funding of gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute. 

  As is customary, Fauci donated some of his prize money back to be awarded as student scholarships, but still pocketed $901,400, according to the financial statements reviewed by OpenTheBooks.com. 

  Though it’s chump change compared to the Dan David Prize, Fauci also scored $12,500 from both the Elliot Richardson Prize in Public Service and the Abelson Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and got $5,198 when he was named Federal Employee of the Year at the 2020 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals ceremony.  

  Fauci even did some moonlighting as an editor for McGraw Hill, taking home $100,000 for his work in 2021. 

  There’s no indication Fauci made any “shrewd” investments a la Nancy and Paul Pelosi. According to the financial disclosures, Fauci’s portfolio comprises broad mutual funds with no individual stocks: 

  “These funds were held in a mix of trust, retirement, and college education accounts. Fauci has an IRA worth $706,219 (up $67,700); a defined benefit brokerage account totaling $2,551,210 (up $147,688); and a revocable trust worth $7,014,197 (up $1,718,299). His wife’s revocable trust is worth $2,269,225 (up $306,406) and an IRA totaling $136,662 (up $16,385),” reports OpenTheBooks.com. 

  OpenTheBooks.com has filed four federal lawsuits against NIH to pry loose additional details not only about Fauci but also about royalties received by other NIH employees.  

  Though Fauci has announced he’ll retire by the end of the year, the wheelbarrows full of taxpayer money will keep on rolling his way. When you’re the highest-paid employee in federal government history and you’ve been on the federal payroll for more than 55 years, that’ll make for an astounding pension of some $375,000 a year. 

  It’s emblematic of the whole miserable Covid-19 spectacle: Bureaucrats wallow in government money while ordinary people suffer the ever-mushrooming destruction caused by public health’s catastrophic lockdown and mandate regime.  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 23:20

• Orange Juice Prices Could "Increase Substantially" As Hurricane Pummels Florida's Top Citrus Grow Region
  Orange Juice Prices Could “Increase Substantially” As Hurricane Pummels Florida’s Top Citrus Grow Region

  Hurricane Tropical Storm Ian could soon drive up orange juice prices at the supermarket as the powerful storm tears through the central-southwest part of the state where large citrus groves reside.

  Donald Keeney, a meteorologist at Maxar Technologies Inc., told Bloomberg that 90% of the state’s citrus crop is in Ian’s path, including three top-producing counties. 

  “There’s not a thing in the world you can do to protect crops. 

  “All the areas are going to have impact. It could be the the final straw for some Florida growers,” said Raymond Royce, executive director at Highlands County Citrus Growers Association in Sebring, Florida. 

  November orange juice futures contracts are trading as high as $1.90 per pound Thursday morning and have risen 7% since Monday. $2 per pound appears to be a multi-decade resistance level. 

  

  On Monday, we pointed out OJ prices were set to rise due to the tropical threat with storm path projections for Tampa. But landfall was about two hours south near Fort Myers, suggesting more widespread damage to citrus crops. 

  “The only problem is that as much as the crop could be blown off the trees, the high prices and tighter supply will also shrink demand,” said Judy Ganes of J Ganes Consulting. 

  To get an idea of where the storm made landfall and top producing citrus counties in the state, the US Department of Agriculture’s map is an eye opener of the severe damage that could’ve hit citrus groves (there are still no official crop damage reports but assessments should be underway). 

  

  Notice the many citrus producers in south-central Florida – Polk, Hardee, Highlands, DeSoto Counties – and that is where #HurricaneIan is going next. With the damage, you can expect citrus prices to increase substantially. pic.twitter.com/jZ8h8jmK5x

  — Craig Ceecee (@CC_StormWatch) September 28, 2022

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

  The University of Florida estimated that 375,000 acres of citrus could be impacted.

  Our thoughts go out to all Floridians who have experienced catastrophic impacts from #HurricaneIan. As noted by the University of Florida, 375k acres of citrus, 200k acres of veggies and 70k acres housing livestock were in Ian’s path. https://t.co/JOZdvRrQhW

  — Missouri Farm Bureau (@MOFarmBureau) September 29, 2022

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

  Combine the storm’s potentially devastating blow to an industry already suffering from citrus greening, and Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio laid out to CNN about the disaster ahead:

  “The citrus industry in Florida is already teetering on the brink because of citrus greening.

  “They lose this year’s crop and a bunch of trees, you can’t just restart that.” 

   Readers may recall, earlier this year, we said Florida’s Citrus Crop To Be Smallest Since WW2, Squeezes OJ Prices Higher, noting that dwindling supply was pushing up orange juice prices at the supermarket. 

  

  With that being said, crop damage reports could likely surface in the coming days or weeks and may push prices higher on increased supply woes. The $2 per pound mark will be in focus. 

  Did we mention Florida is one of the top-producing citrus states? 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 22:40

• Escobar: Nord Stream Sabotage Propels 'Disaster Capitalism' To New, Toxic Level
  Escobar: Nord Stream Sabotage Propels ‘Disaster Capitalism’ To New, Toxic Level

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  The sabotage of the Nord Stream (NS) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) pipelines in the Baltic Sea has ominously propelled ‘Disaster Capitalism’ to a whole new, toxic level.

  

  This episode of Hybrid Industrial/Commercial War, in the form of a terror attack against energy infrastructure in international waters signals the absolute collapse of international law, drowned by a “our way or the highway”, “rules-based”, order.

  The attack on both pipelines consisted of multiple explosive charges detonated in separate branches close to the Danish island of Bornholm, but in international waters.

  That was a sophisticated operation, carried out in stealth in the shallow depth of the Danish straits. That would in principle rule out submarines (ships entering the Baltic are limited to a draught of 15 meters). As for prospective “invisible” vessels, these could only loiter around with permission from Copenhagen – as the waters around Borholm are crammed with sensors, reflecting fear of incursion by Russian submarines.

  Swedish seismologists registered two underwater explosions on Monday – one of them estimated at 100 kg of TNT. Yet as much as 700 kg may have been used to blow up three separate pipeline nodes. Such amount could not have possibly been delivered in just one trip by underwater drones currently available in neighboring nations.

  The pressure on the pipelines dropped exponentially. The pipes are now filled with seawater.

  The pipes on both NS and NS2 can be repaired, of course, but hardly before the arrival of General Winter. The question is whether Gazprom – already focused on several hefty Eurasian customers –  would bother, especially considering that Gazprom vessels could be exposed to a possible NATO naval attack in the Baltic.

  German officials are already spinning that NS and NS2 can “potentially” be out of commission “forever”. The EU economy and EU citizens badly needed that gas supply. Yet the EUrocracy in Brussels – which rules over nation-states – would not follow, because they have been dictated themselves by the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder. A case can be made that this Euro-oligarchy should one day be tried for treason.

  As it stands, a strategic irreversibility is already self-evident; the population of several EU nations will pay a tremendous price and suffer serious consequences derived from this attack, short, medium and long term.

  Cui bono? 

  Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson admitted that was “a matter of sabotage”. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen admitted “it was not an accident”. Berlin agrees with the Scandinavians.

  Now compare it with former Polish Defense Minister (2005-2007) Radek Sikorski, a Russophobe married to rabid US “analyst” Anne Applebaum, who merrily tweeted “Thank you, USA”.

  It gets curiouser and curiouser when we know that simultaneously to the sabotage the Baltic Pipe from Norway to Poland was partially opened, a “new gas supply corridor” servicing “the Danish and Polish markets”: actually a minor affair, considering months ago their sponsors were in trouble finding gas, and now it will be even harder, with much higher costs.

  NS2 had already been attacked – in the open – all along its construction. Back in February, Polish ships actively tried to prevent the Fortuna pipe-laying vessel from finishing NS2. The pipes were being laid south of – you guessed it – Bornholm.

  NATO for its part has been very active on the underwater drones department. The Americans have access to long distance Norwegian underwater drones which can be modified with other designs. Alternatively, professional navy clearance divers could have been employed in the sabotage – even as tidal currents around Bornholm are a serious matter.

  The Big Picture reveals the collective West in absolute panic, with Atlanticist “elites” willing to resort to anything – outrageous lies, assassinations, terrorism, sabotage, all out financial war, support to neo-Nazis – to prevent their descent into a geopolitical and geoeconomic abyss.

  Disabling NS and NS2 represents the definitive closure of any possibility of a German-Russia deal on gas supplies, with the added benefit of relegating Germany to the lowly status of absolute US vassal.

  So that brings us to the key question of which Western intel apparatus designed the sabotage. Prime candidates are of course CIA and MI6 – with Poland set up as the fall guy and Denmark playing a very dodgy part: it’s impossible that Copenhagen was not at least “briefed” on the intel.

  Prescient as ever, as early as in April 2021 Russians were asking questions about the military security of Nord Stream.

  The crucial vector is that we may be facing the case of a EU/NATO member involved in an act of sabotage against the number one EU/NATO economy. That’s a casus belli. Outside of the appalling mediocrity and cowardice of the current administration in Berlin, it’s clear that the BND – German intel – as well as the German Navy and informed industrialists sooner or later will do the math.

  This was far from an isolated attack. On September 22 there was an attempt against Turkish Stream by Kiev saboteurs. The day before, naval drones with English language IDs were found in Crimea, suspected of being part of the plot. Add to it US helicopters overflying the future sabotage nodes weeks ago; a UK “research” vessel loitering in Danish waters since mid-September; and NATO tweeting about the testing of “new unmanned systems at sea” on the same day of the sabotage.

  Show me the (gas) money

  The Danish Minister of Defense met urgently with NATO’s Secretary General this Wednesday. After all the explosions happened very close to Denmark’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). That may be qualified as crude kabuki at best; exactly on the same day, the European Commission (EC), NATO’s de facto political office, advanced its trademark obsession: more sanctions against Russia, including the certified-to-fail cap on oil prices.

  Meanwhile, EU energy giants are bound to lose big time with the sabotage.

  The roll call includes the German Wintershall Dea AG and PEG/ E.ON; the Dutch N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie; and the French ENGIE. Then there are those which financed NS2: Wintershall Dea again as well as Uniper; Austrian OMV; ENGIE again; and British-Dutch Shell. Wintershall Dea and ENGIE are both co-owners and creditors. Their fuming shareholders will want serious answers from a serious investigation.

  It gets worse: there are no holds barred anymore on the Pipeline Terror front. Russia will be on red alert not only for Turk Stream but also Power of Siberia. Same for the Chinese and their maze of pipelines arriving in Xinjiang.

  Whatever the methodology and the actors who were in the loop, this is payback – in advance – for the inevitable collective West defeat in Ukraine. And a crude warning to the Global South that they will do it again. Yet action always breeds reaction: from now on, “funny things” could also happen to US/UK pipelines in international waters.

  The EU oligarchy is reaching an advanced process of disintegration at lightning speed. Their window of opportunity to at least attempt a role as a strategically autonomous geopolitical actor is now closed.

  These EUROcrats now face a serious predicament. Once it’s clear who are the perpetrators of the sabotage in the Baltic, and once they understand all the life-changing socio-economic consequences for pan-EU citizens, the kabuki will have to stop. Including the already running, uber-ridiculous subplot that Russia blew up its own pipeline when Gazprom could simply have turned off the valves for good.

  And once again, it gets worse: Gazprom is threatening to sue the Ukrainian energy company Naftofgaz for unpaid bills. That would lead to the end of Russian gas transiting Ukraine towards the EU.

  As if all of that was not serious enough, Germany is contractually obligated to purchase at least 40 billion cubic meters of Russian gas a year until 2030.

  Just say no? They can’t: Gazprom is legally entitled to get paid even without shipping gas. That’s the spirit of a long-term contract. And it’s already happening: because of sanctions, Berlin does not get all the gas it needs but still needs to pay.

  All the devils are here

  Now it’s painfully clear the imperial velvet gloves are off when it comes to the vassals. EU independence: verboten. Cooperation with China: verboten. Independent trade connectivity with Asia: verboten. The only place for the EU is to be economically subjugated to the US: a tawdry remix of 1945-1955. With a perverse neoliberal twist: we will own your industrial capacity, and you will have nothing.

  The sabotage of NS and NS2 is inbuilt in the imperial wet dream of breaking up the Eurasian land mass into a thousand pieces to prevent a trans-Eurasia consolidation between Germany (representing the EU), Russia and China: $50 trillion in GDP, based on purchasing power parity (PPP) compared to the US’s $20 trillion.

  We must go back to Mackinder: control of the Eurasian land mass constitutes control of the world. American elites and their Trojan Horses across Europe will do whatever it takes not to give up their control.

  “American elites” in this context encompass the deranged, Straussian neo-con-infested “intel community” and the Big Energy, Big Pharma and Big Finance that pays them and who profits not only from the Deep State’s Forever War approach but also wants to make a killing out of the Davos-concocted Great Reset.

  The Raging Twenties started with a murder – of Gen Soleimani. Blowing up pipelines is part of the sequel. There will be a highway to hell all the way to 2030. Yet to borrow from Shakespeare, hell is definitely empty, and all the (Atlanticist) devils are here.

  *  *  *

  Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties. He’s been politically canceled from Facebook and Twitter. Follow him on Telegram.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 22:20

• Aussie Court Finds 60 Minutes Defamed Peter Schiff Seven Times In "Exposé" That Led Up To Bank Shut Down
  Aussie Court Finds 60 Minutes Defamed Peter Schiff Seven Times In “Exposé” That Led Up To Bank Shut Down

  We wrote back in August that well known Austrian economist Peter Schiff had settled with Puerto Rican banking regulators, who had suspended operations at the bank after alleging that it had failed to meet capitalization requirements. 

  There was also an investigation into whether or not Schiff’s bank helped people launder money or evade taxes, which came after baseless accusations were leveled at Schiff, culminating in a “gotcha”-type exposé that ran on Australian Nine Network’s “60 Minutes”.

  Now, an Australian Court has found that the “gotcha” moment that may have put the entire ball into motion, disrupting Schiff’s business and personal life for years, actually “conveyed seven defamatory imputations” about Schiff and his bank.

  

  Schiff wrote in a press release this week that “the Federal Court of Australia, in a detailed 48 page decision dated September 23 (NSD 1086 of 2021), found that Australia’s Nine Network, producer of “60 Minutes/Australia,” reporter Nicholas McKenzie, and producers Charlotte Grieve and Joel Tozer had published and conveyed seven imputations which are defamatory about financial expert and banker Peter Schiff and his Puerto-Rico-based Euro Pacific Bank in its October 18, 2020 TV broadcast.”

  “Specifically, the judge found that these defendants defamed Schiff and his bank in seven specific defamatory imputations, such as ‘permitting his bank, Euro Pacific, to be used as a vehicle for around one hundred Australian customers to commit tax evasion,’ and that Schiff, himself, ‘committed tax fraud’,” the release says. 

  As a result, Schiff is now calling for the U.S. Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service to suspend IRS Criminal Enforcement Chief, James Lee, for his use of similar false innuendo during a press conference that took place in Summer 2022 in Puerto Rico. 

  “No criminal charge was ever brought against Schiff or anyone connected to the bank,” the release says. 

  Recall, the 60 Minutes hit piece was laboriously broken down and explained almost immediately, in depth, by Schiff for over an hour and a half, on his own YouTube channel in the days after it aired.

  “Why would anyone want to shut down a bank flush with cash, no debts, no loans, with a highly-qualified buyer committed to injecting millions in capital well in excess of regulatory requirements, ready to buy the entire bank at a fair market price. Then put the bank into receivership, needlessly tying up customer deposits for months, then sell off all the bank’s assets to the same buyer at a fire-sale price?” Schiff asked in the press release.

  “The 60 Minutes hit piece created an unfair cloud over me that led to the bank being shut down.”

  “The investigation found nothing. The bank didn’t help people launder money or evade taxes. So why is it getting shut down?” Schiff asked earlier this year. 

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 22:00

• This Thanksgiving, Supplies Of Turkey, Eggs, & Butter Will Be Extremely Tight In The US
  This Thanksgiving, Supplies Of Turkey, Eggs, & Butter Will Be Extremely Tight In The US

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  If you love to cook, this upcoming Thanksgiving may be a real challenge for you.  Thanks to a resurgence of the bird flu, supplies of turkey are getting tighter and tighter.  Sadly, the same thing is true for eggs.  And as you will see below, reduced milk production is sending the price of butter into the stratosphere.  Thanks to soaring prices, a traditional Thanksgiving dinner will be out of reach for millions of American families this year, and that is extremely unfortunate.  Of course all of this is happening in the context of a horrific global food crisis that is getting worse with each passing day.  Yes, things are bad now, but they will be significantly worse this time next year.

  

  The bird flu pandemic that has killed tens of millions of our chickens and turkeys was supposed to go away during the hot summer months, but that didn’t happen.  And now that the weather is starting to get colder again, there has been a resurgence of the bird flu and this is “devastating egg and turkey operations in the heartland of the country”…

  Turkeys are selling for record high prices ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday as a resurgence of bird flu wipes out supplies across the US.

  Avian influenza is devastating egg and turkey operations in the heartland of the country. If just one bird gets it, the entire flock is culled in order to stop the spread. Millions of hens and turkeys have been killed in recent weeks. As a result, prices for turkey hens are nearly 30% higher than a year ago and 80% above pre-pandemic costs. Just as concerning are inventories of whole turkeys, which are the lowest going into the US winter holiday season since 2006. That means there will be little relief from inflation for Thanksgiving dinner.

  In the months ahead, we could see tens of millions more chickens and turkeys get wiped out.

  Egg prices have already tripled in 2022 and the price of turkey meat is up 60 percent.  Unfortunately, this is likely just the beginning…

  Turkey hens are $1.82 a pound this week, according to Urner Barry, compared to $1.42 last year and $1.01 before the pandemic. Meanwhile, wholesale egg prices are at $3.62 a dozen as of Wednesday, the highest ever, up from a previous record of $3.45 a dozen set earlier this year, said John Brunnquell, chief executive officer of Egg Innovations, one of the biggest US producers of free-range eggs. Consumers have seen prices for eggs at grocery stores triple this year, while turkey meat rose a record-setting 60%, according to a Cobank report.

  Meanwhile, supplies of butter are steadily getting tighter as well…

  Lower milk production on U.S. dairy farms and labor shortages for processing plants have weighed on butter output for months, leaving the amount of butter in U.S. cold storage facilities at the end of July the lowest since 2017, according to the Agriculture Department.

  Tight supplies have sent butter prices soaring at U.S. supermarkets, surpassing most other foods in the past year. U.S. grocery prices in August rose 13.5% during the past 12 months, the largest annual increase since 1979, according to the Labor Department. Butter outstripped those gains, rising 24.6% over the same period.

  The trends that are driving up the price of butter aren’t going away any time soon, and so we are being warned to brace ourselves for “elevated” prices for the foreseeable future…

  The forces at work in butter highlight the challenge of curtailing inflation. Economic pressures fueling high prices for livestock feed, labor shortages and other factors could persist, keeping prices for the kitchen staple elevated longer term.

  To me, slathering a piece of warm bread with a huge chunk of butter is one of the best things about Thanksgiving.

  And most of us will continue to buy butter no matter how high it goes.

  But the truth is that rapidly rising food prices are forcing vast numbers of Americans to adjust their shopping habits.  Here is one example…

  For Carol Ehrman, cooking is a joyful experience.

  “I love to cook, it’s my favorite thing to do,” she said. She especially likes to cook Indian and Thai food, but stocking the spices and ingredients she needs for those dishes is no longer feasible. “When every ingredient has gone up, that adds up on the total bill,” she said.

  “What used to cost us $250 to $300 … is now $400.” Ehrman, 60, and her husband, 65, rely on his social security income, and the increase was stretching their budget. “We just couldn’t do that.”

  The global food crisis is starting to hit home for many ordinary Americans, and we need to understand that this crisis is still only in the very early chapters.

  David Beasley is the head of the UN World Food Program, and he is actually using the word “hell” to describe what is potentially coming in 2023…

  “It’s a perfect storm on top of a perfect storm,” Beasley said. “And with the fertilizer crisis we’re facing right now, with droughts, we’re facing a food pricing problem in 2022. This created havoc around the world.”

  “If we don’t get on top of this quickly — and I don’t mean next year, I mean this year — you will have a food availability problem in 2023,” he said. “And that’s gonna be hell.”

  The World Food Program keeps sounding the alarm, but very few of us in the western world seem to be taking those warnings very seriously.

  People are literally dropping dead from starvation in some areas of the globe right now, and a new report that the WFP just released says that there are 19 “hotspots” where we could see a “huge loss of life” between October and January…

  World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are out with a new report outlining countries that “are either already starving or on the brink of disaster.”

  WFP and FAO found 19 hunger hotspots worldwide, with most countries in Africa, the Middle East, and even some in Central America. They call for urgent humanitarian action between October 2022 and January 2023 to avoid “huge loss of life.”

  Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, and Haiti are labeled “hotspots of highest concern,” facing catastrophic hunger levels.

  The sort of famines that we were warned about are already starting to happen right in front of our eyes, but most people simply will not care as long as they are not going hungry themselves.

  What those people do not realize is that this global food crisis is going to continue to spread.

  As supplies of food get tighter and tighter, prices will continue to soar and shortages will become more common.

  We truly are in unprecedented territory, and the pain that is ahead will greatly shock all of the lemmings that just kept assuming that everything would work out just fine somehow.

  *  *  *

  It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 21:40

• "As Soon As Possible": US Preparing To Wean Itself Off Russian Nuclear Fuel
  “As Soon As Possible”: US Preparing To Wean Itself Off Russian Nuclear Fuel

  Russia’s dominance in the global nuclear fuel market presents another massive challenge for Washington, especially the liberal hawks in the Biden administration, who are trying to wean Western countries off Russian energy supplies.

  Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said President Biden is redoubling efforts to break the US reliance on Russian nuclear fuel, indicating domestic uranium-enrichment capacity could be increased with upcoming key legislation. 

  “We are going to get Congressional support in a bipartisan way for us to make our own fuel cycle supply chain independent, certainly of Russia,” Granholm said in an interview at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Bloomberg quoted. 

  “We’ve got to make this happen for our own independence and national security,” she continued. 

  Bringing on new capacity could take years. For instance, uranium extracted from mines to refine into fuel for nuclear reactors takes three to five years. 

  Russia controls about two-fifths of the global enrichment services market and supplies almost a quarter of the fuel for the US’ 93 operational nuclear reactors. This is another chokepoint the US is trying to avoid.  

  

  Earlier this year, Washington banned imports of Russian fossil fuel products, though uranium wasn’t part of the sanctions. 

  “We should not be sending any money to Russia for any American energy or for any other reason,” Granholm said in May.

  The Biden administration is working toward expanding a uranium supply chain to wean itself off Russian supplies though top congressional Democrats recently balked at Biden’s $1.5 billion request in an upcoming budget bill to support domestic uranium enrichment programs. 

  “We need to signal that the US is committed to its own fuel supply as well as the conversion and enrichment components of the supply chain. 

  “This investment in our own supply chain is a critical piece of that,” Granholm said in Vienna. 

  The American nuclear industry could soon see a resurgence since the Three Mile Island facility accident in 1979 sent it into a tailspin for decades if Granholm and the Biden administration can get funding. 

  She said the government would support the demand side rather than taking direct ownership stakes in facilities. 

  “We would be using the market to make sure this capability gets out,” she added. “We would contract with facilities. The goal is to be independent as soon as possible.”

  Several nuclear fuel supply chain companies, including Honeywell International Inc., General Atomics, and Centrus Energy Corp., could benefit from atomic independence from Russia. 

  Readers may recall we have outlined Nuclear Power Is Staging A Remarkable Comeback and Why Nuclear Energy Is More Relevant Than Ever. 

  Remember we outlined in 2020: Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 21:20

• "We Don't Have Due Process": Book Reveals Decision To Abandon Historical Precedent To Impeach Trump
  “We Don’t Have Due Process”: Book Reveals Decision To Abandon Historical Precedent To Impeach Trump

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is today’s column in Fox.com on the new disclosures in a new book on the Trump impeachment. The authors allege that House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and his staff raised virtually the same procedural objections that I made in my history about the House abandoning both historical precedent and due process guarantees. The book directly contradicts public statements made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff.

  

  Here is the column:

  “They’re going to argue we don’t have due process for Trump. Why make that argument real?” Those words from House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.,  stand out in the shocking disclosures in the recently released book, “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump,” Politico Playbook co-author Rachael Bade and Washington Post reporter Karoun Demirjian recount how House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff and Speaker Nancy Pelosi overrode objections from Nadler that the lack of witness testimony was a denial of due process for then President Donald Trump. He put it plainly and correctly: “It’s unfair, and it’s unprecedented, and it’s unconstitutional.”

  It was a strikingly familiar objection.  I testified at the first Trump impeachment before Nadler and criticized the lack of any factual witnesses or Judiciary Committee hearings supporting the articles of impeachment. The book details a position of the House Judiciary that is strikingly similar to my own testimony.

  The book, however, has not brought a sense of vindication as much as frustration. Nadler publicly toed the line with Pelosi to support a process that he reportedly viewed as abusive and “unconstitutional” even as some of us were set upon by a legion of irate liberal pundits. Worse yet, the book indicates that the bar on witnesses was not compelled by the schedule as claimed by Pelosi and Schiff, but raw politics.  It was, I wrote, a decision to follow the rule of Franz Kafka’s character that “my guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.”

  On the second impeachment, they went one better. They jettisoned any witnesses (including legal experts) in what I called a “snap impeachment.”

  During the impeachments, I suggested that the reason was not any limitation of time but tactical advantage. In both rushed impeachments, Pelosi then held back the articles of impeachment before sending them to the Senate – destroying even the pretense of exigency as the reason for abandoning due process.

  The book appears to confirm the Katkaesque logic. It states that neither Pelosi nor Schiff wanted to risk a witness or member going off script by allowing true due process. When Nadler raised historical and constitutional objections, Schiff reported barked back that he needed to what “his tone” and complained “you’re putting us in a box.”  

  That box is an effort to guarantee fairness and Nadler reportedly and correctly observed that “if we’re going to impeach, we need to show the country that we gave the president ample opportunity to defend himself.”

  In my testimony in the only hearing held by the Judiciary Committee in the two impeachments, I objected that “this is wrong. It is not wrong because President Trump is right…No, it is wrong because this is not how an American president should be impeached.”

  I relied primarily on the Nixon and Clinton cases to show how far the House was far outside any historical navigational beacons. It turns out Nadler and his staff reached the same conclusion and cautioned Schiff and Pelosi to “Stick close to the Nixon and Clinton cases.” They refused.

  Dan Goldman, Schiff’s lead counsel and the Democratic nominee to represent New York’s 10th District in the House, scoffed and mocked Nadler: “Jerry Nadler? With him, everything is negotiable.” When Nadler’s team argued for an approach (as I did) “more like Nixon,” Schiff’s team reportedly dismissed due process and said, “F— Donald Trump.”

  People can disagree on the merits of the impeachments, but both impeachments were an abusive use of the Article I authority in the denial of any substantive hearings before the Judiciary Committee. While it was constitutional in the sense that there is no required process, it was wrong from both a historical and procedural perspective.  Of course, the public was not allowed to either hear from witnesses or know that even Democrats like the Judiciary Chair objected on these same grounds.

  Indeed, when the House elected to pursue the January 6th investigation, they followed the same playbook with Schiff as a member.  Traditionally, each party is allowed to pick its own members on such committees. However, Pelosi rejected two of the Republican members and the rest of the party (except outgoing Reps. Lynne Cheney and Adam Kinzinger) boycotted the hearings. The result was the same one-sided production without a hint of fairness or balance in exploring possible defenses or counterarguments.

  What is most sad about this account is that for a critical moment Nadler rose to the occasion. He defended not just the historical authority of his committee but the constitutional norm, even for a president despised by Democrats. That twilight moment of clarity was soon lost. The book recounts how Nadler made an “effort to get back into Pelosi’s good graces.”

  When I testified, there was not a hint of concern or dissent.

  Nadler and the Democrats scoffed at the notion that the impeachment departed from core historical precedent or legal protections.

  They had, as Nadler predicted, made the due process arguments “real,” but no one cared. To paraphrase Goodman’s reported observation, in Washington, “everything is negotiable.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 21:00

• DOJ Seeks Another Delay In Turning Over Documents From Mar-a-Lago To Trump
  DOJ Seeks Another Delay In Turning Over Documents From Mar-a-Lago To Trump

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

  U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers are seeking another delay in allowing lawyers for former President Donald Trump to peruse documents seized in August from Trump’s Florida estate.

  

  The DOJ was supposed to provide electronic copies of the documents to Trump attorneys and U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master in the case, no later than Sept. 26. But the government sought and received a delay of four days for the production.

  DOJ lawyers said that the delay was warranted because of issues contracting a vendor to scan and store the materials.

  Those issues have not been resolved, DOJ lawyers said in a new filing entered late Sept. 27.

  None of the five vendors proposed by the government “were willing to be engaged by Plaintiff,” the lawyers said, citing attorneys for Trump.

  To try to avoid further delay, the government is moving to contract directly with a vendor, instead of having Trump’s team do so.

  “Based on its prior experience and discussions today with the vendors, the government is highly confident at least one vendor will respond” and agree to perform the work, according to the DOJ.

  Seven-Day Delay

  But because vendors still need to respond to the government’s work request, the government says it doesn’t know when the vendor will have the materials ready for Trump’s lawyers.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 20:20

• Rare Bright Spot? Russia Mulling Face-To-Face Nuclear Arms Treaty Talks With US
  Rare Bright Spot? Russia Mulling Face-To-Face Nuclear Arms Treaty Talks With US

  Russia says it is mulling a face-to-face meeting with US officials in order to discuss the New START nuclear arms treaty (Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms). Amid heightened nuclear tensions related to the Ukraine war, in a rare moment of potential good news, given the prior collapse of several US-Russia Cold War era treaties which were meant to avoid confrontation between nuclear armed superpowers.

  “Within the framework of the [advisory] commission, a remote discussion continues on what organizational and technical problems need to be addressed. Some of them have been removed, while others have made significant progress,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a Thursday press briefing.

  But she cited that “a number of significant difficulties remain: the implementation of the treaty’s essentially routine measures is complicated by the unconstructive anti-Russian actions of the United States and its partners,” according to state media.

  

  “They continue to introduce new sanctions prohibitions, impede the normal interaction of the parties. We will seek to resolve all problematic issues in the context of the implementation of the Treaty on an equal basis, taking into account our national interests,” Zakharova said of the US administration.

  In March 2021 the two sides renewed New START for a period of five years, and it will expire in February 2026 if it’s not continued – an increasing possibility given US-Russia relations have deteriorated so fast they are near complete breaking point.

  The treaty is intended to limit and reduce nuclear arms on either side, setting a limit of no more than 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 missiles. START I began in 1991, with New START signed under the Obama and Medvedev administrations in 2010 as a successor agreement.

  Compliance inspections are part of the deal, but that’s precisely a current issue of contention, given that last month Russia informed the US that it was temporarily suspending American inspections of its nuclear weapons sites under the 2010 treaty.

  “On August 8, 2022, the Russian Federation officially informed the United States via diplomatic channels that our country is temporarily exempting its facilities from inspection activities under the New START Treaty,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in August, adding it also covers “facilities that can be used for demonstrations under the treaty.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 20:00

• Minnesota Counties Sued For Duplicate Voter Registrations
  Minnesota Counties Sued For Duplicate Voter Registrations

  Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  An election-integrity group is filing a new legal complaint each day this week regarding a different Minnesota county for officials’ failure to remove duplicate voter registrations from county voter rolls.

  “Federal law requires that duplicate registrations are eliminated from the voter roll,” said J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF). Adams is a former civil rights attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice.

  “It is troubling that we are seeing duplicate registrants remain on the voter roll in Minnesota counties. Each duplicate registration allows for a person to vote more than once. Removing these duplicate registrations will make Minnesota’s elections more secure.”

  

  PILF describes itself as “the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity.” The nonprofit organization “exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity, and fight against lawlessness in American elections.”

  Under the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), states are required to implement a computerized statewide voter registration list that is accurate and eliminates duplicate registrations.

  PILF is now using state implementation provisions in HAVA that have “pretty much never been used for 20 years,” Adams told The Epoch Times in an interview.

  Minnesota, Wisconsin, and a handful of states were exempted from the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor-Voter law because it allowed people to register to vote with relative ease at motor vehicle agencies and government offices. NVRA requires states to make a reasonable effort to remove ineligible individuals’ names from voter rolls.

  It has been difficult to get Minnesota to clean up its voter rolls because the state couldn’t be forced to do it under NVRA, Adams said.

  But then legal counsel discovered that HAVA contained a provision allowing states to pass rules about how to implement that law. Some states didn’t do anything about it, but Minnesota solved the problem with a state law that allowed lawsuits to be filed over failure to comply with HAVA, Adams said.

  “So that’s what we’re doing. We’ve found all kinds of duplicate registrations, a convicted sex offender, who seems to have voted twice in 2020, according to the records,” Adams said.

  “Nothing has happened in Minnesota for so many decades, because nobody thought there was a tool to do it. And we found a broom. And we’re doing it,” Adams said.

  On Sept. 27, PILF filed a complaint regarding Dakota County with the Minnesota secretary of state’s office.

  According to the group, government records show there are 73 people on Dakota County’s voter roll that appear to have two voter registration numbers, despite having the same year of birth and address.

  On Sept. 26, PILF filed a complaint regarding Nicollet County.

  Government records indicate that there are four people on the county’s voter roll that have two voter registration numbers, despite having the same year of birth and address.

  “One of these apparent duplicate registrants, Damian Kingbird, voted twice in the 2020 election, though only the Minnesota police can determine if an election crime did occur,” PILF said in a summary.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 19:40

• The Crash Just Won't Stop But Today Something Changed
  The Crash Just Won’t Stop But Today Something Changed

  After yesterday’s euphoric, BOE-inspired, short-squeezed meltup, today was supposed to be a continuation rally courtesy of one of the most oversold markets in history.

  

  It didn’t quite work out that way, and stocks opened into an absolute rout, with the NYSE TICK indicator not turning positive until almost one hour into trading after one of the biggest negative ticks of 2022.

  

  As a result, those who expected yesterday’s BOE “temporary QE” pivot would be enough to push stocks higher for at least a few more days – here even some of the biggest pessimists expected this bear market rally to last for 2-3 days at least – were promptly disappointed as stocks tumbled all day, dropping almost to new 2022 lows…

  

  …. in a broad, and high-volume selloff which dragged every sector lower.

  

  The selling which for all intents and purposes pushed stocks to 2022 lows (and the lowest since Nov 2020), meant that spoos are now down 7 of the past 8 days, with today’s drop more than wiping out all of yesterday’s gains.

  

  But unlike recent selloffs which were mostly catalyzed by surging yields, or a soaring dollar, today we have seen neither, as both 10Y TSY yields (as 30Y gilts have gone nowhere)…

  

  … and the Bloomberg dollar index slumped all day in what would otherwise have been a huge relief for risk assets.

  

  One possible reason for the continued USD weakness: after a modest attempt to rebound, Nov Fed hike odds slumped again, and after pricing in nearly 90% odds of a 75bps in Nov, the odds are back to just 63% and dropping.

  

  But while oil did indeed enjoy the slide in the dollar, avoiding an even bigger rout thanks to a Reuters report that OPEC+ would cut output by 500K-1MMb/d next week…

  

  … the same can not be said for US stocks obviously, as instead of macro traders today were focused on the micro, with Apple tumbling for a second day in a row, and one of its biggest slides in the past year…

  

  … this time following a rare downgrade from BofA.

  

  The continued implosion in AAPL and other tech names has pushed Goldman’s most-shorted tech index to March 2020 levels, and is about to take out that particular support, bringing the index back to Dec 2018 levels.

  

  Additionally, the absolute disintegration in used car retailer, Karmax, which lost a quarter of its market cap today following catastrophic earnings and a dire assessment of the industry, certainly did not help the apocalyptic investor sentiment.

  

  In any case, whatever prompted today’s sell off – and as Goldman explained there is much more selling to come – one thing is certain: stocks can keep crashing 10% every day in perpetuity and thanks to Zeno’s paradox, they still won’t hit bottom.

  

  Bonus Chart: How long before Credit Suisse is Debtor in Possession Suisse

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 19:33

• Elizabeth Warren Turns Attention From Crumbling Economy To Pending Vacuum Cleaner Company Acquisition
  Elizabeth Warren Turns Attention From Crumbling Economy To Pending Vacuum Cleaner Company Acquisition

  While the Federal Reserve is in the midst of nuking the U.S. economy and stock market and as inflation runs rampant, destroying quality of life for middle income and lower income households, Senator Elizabeth Warren has turned her focus away from berating Jerome Powell to…vacuum cleaners. 

  Having apparently solved all of the nation’s other financial woes already, Warren has now directed her attention to a relatively small pending acquisition by Amazon, of Roomba vacuum cleaner company, iRobot. 

  Warren and a group of lawmakers has publicly asked the FTC this week to reject Amazon’s plans to buy the vacuum maker for $1.7 billion, according to Reuters. The FTC was already in the midst of an antitrust review of the deal, as of earlier this month. 

  

  The letter to the FTC reads: “Given Amazon’s record of infringing on consumers’ privacy, and their ongoing history of anticompetitive mergers to increase their monopoly power, the FTC should use its authority to oppose the Amazon – iRobot transaction.”

  “Rather than compete in a fair marketplace on its own merits, Amazon is following a familiar anticompetitive playbook: leveraging its massive market share and access to capital to buy or suppress popular products,” it continues. 

  The Senator later told Axios: “I have serious concerns about the Amazon-iRobot deal — dominant companies like Amazon shouldn’t be allowed to just buy their way out of competing. The FTC should oppose this proposed merger to protect competition, lower consumer prices, and rein in Amazon’s well-documented anticompetitive activities.”

  Yeah, because Amazon is primarily a vacuum cleaner company…

  You can read Warren’s full letter to the FTC here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 19:20

• What Happens When A Fact-Checker Doesn't Get The Facts Right?
  What Happens When A Fact-Checker Doesn’t Get The Facts Right?

  Authored by Chandler Lasch via RealClear Wire,

  Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams recently came under fire for a false claim about embryonic development. Glenn Kessler, fact-checker at the Washington Post, chimed in with his own analysis. But instead of setting the record straight, he tweeted another inaccurate remark.

  

  In a clip posted to Twitter by RNC Research on Sept. 21, Abrams criticized anti-abortion legislation in Georgia that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, when embryonic heartbeats can typically be detected. But Abrams took issue with this framing. “There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks,” she said. “It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”

  The next day, in response to RNC Research on Twitter, Kessler sided with Abrams. “FWIW [for what it’s worth], ‘fetal heartbeat’ is a misnomer,” he wrote. “The ultrasound picks up electrical activity generated by an embryo. The so-called ‘heartbeat’ sound you hear is created by the ultrasound. Not until 10 weeks can the opening and closing of cardiac valves be detected by a Doppler machine.”

  Cardiologists were quick to correct the fact-checker, pointing out that this is not how ultrasound works. “I was today years old when I discovered that an ultrasound can pick up electrical activity,” Anish Koka, a cardiologist and writer, tweeted sarcastically.

  “This is scientifically and medically incorrect. 100%,” wrote Pradheep J. Shanker. “Ultrasound can’t detect electrical activity. Who told you otherwise?”

  As evidence for his claim, Kessler cited an NPR article from September 2021. The article quoted OB-GYN Jennifer Kerns, who said the term “fetal heartbeat” was “pretty misleading.” “What we’re really detecting is a grouping of cells that are initiating some electrical activity,” she said. “In no way is this detecting a functional cardiovascular system or a functional heart.”

  But Shanker criticized this piece when it was published, pointing out that ultrasound “measures MOTION, not electrical activity. In fact, ultrasound doesn’t measure electricity at all. It is literally detecting motion … motion of the soft tissue (in this case, the wall of the cardiac chamber).” He added, “measuring electrical activity in a fetal heart is VERY DIFFICULT.”

  Further, Abrams’ statement that “there is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks” is false. An article in The Journal of Prenatal Medicine explained, “Cardiovascular development in a human embryo occurs between 3 and 6 weeks after ovulation. … At the end of the 4th week of gestation, the heartbeats of the embryo begin.” Because pregnancy is measured from the last week of a woman’s period, rather than from conception, the fourth week of gestation is close to the sixth week of pregnancy.

  Until recently, even Planned Parenthood conceded that in the second month of pregnancy, “a very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop” during weeks 5-6 of pregnancy. Their website now references “cardiac activity” during “the earliest stage of the heart developing.”

  Abrams’ claim that a heartbeat detected at six weeks of pregnancy is nonexistent and “a manufactured sound” is false, as is Kessler’s claim that ultrasound detects electrical activity, not the motion of a heart.  For two years, Abrams has urged Americans to “follow the science,” while Kessler has insisted that at his newspaper, “we deal in facts.” Both are laudable goals – and equally applicable to the speaker, as well as their audiences.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 19:00

• Mackenzie Scott Files For Divorce From Former Science Teacher
  Mackenzie Scott Files For Divorce From Former Science Teacher

  MacKenzie Scott – formerly known as MacKenzie Bezos – and her husband, Dan Jewett, have called their marriage quits less than two years after the couple announced intentions to give away “their” fortune together.

  Scott filed for the divorce from Jewett, who is a former science teacher, in the King County Superior Court in Washington state earlier this week, according to The New York Times / Yahoo Finance. 

  As the report notes, in just four years’ time, Scott divorced her former husband, Jeff Bezos, gave away $12 billion to various non-profits and then married Jewett, who was an instructor at the school where her kids attended. 

  Jewett has not contested the divorce, Yahoo reported. The couple’s division of property – of which Scott likely is responsible for 99.9% of – has been laid out in a separate contract, which had been agreed to by the couple and is not public. 

  The couple’s high profile relationship in the media was helped along by their collective promise to donate Scott’s enormous fortune to good causes. However, in recent times, non-profits who generally received gifts from the couple were thanking Scott alone, the report says. 

  

  “I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know — and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others,” Jewett had written publicly two years ago. 

  One acquaintance of Jewett said of him after he married Scott: “He’s earnest, not very edgy. He’s the perfect person to end up with this money to give away — no sense of greed at all.”

  The report notes that Scott has apparently been trying to scrub her connection to Jewett off the internet, as well:

  In the past week his name vanished from her philanthropic endeavors. On the site for the Giving Pledge, where billionaires promise to give away half of their wealth before they die, his letter no longer appeared with hers. Without fanfare, his name was recently edited out of a Medium post Scott had written last year about their gifts.

  Scott, a novelist, also deleted Jewett from her author bio on Amazon, the online retailer that is the source of her vast wealth.

  Scott’s fortune was once estimated to be as much as $62 billion, but due to the decline in the market, it is now estimated at about $27.8 billion. Scott has made very few public statements about her giving and often declines interview requests. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 18:40

• Al Gore & John Kerry Aim To Hijack The World Bank For Climate Agenda
  Al Gore & John Kerry Aim To Hijack The World Bank For Climate Agenda

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  Let’s discuss the goals of the World Bank and climate activists aim to change those goals…

  

  Al Gore and John Kerry image from Tweet below.

  World Bank Goals   

  The World Bank has two ambitious goals neither of which is climate change.

  1. End extreme poverty within a generation

  2. Boost shared prosperity

  Goal number one will not happen, even within several generations. Goal number two is ambiguous enough that it might.

  Neither of those goals has anything to do with climate change but Al Gore and John Kerry want to change that. 

  Al Gore and John Kerry want to hijack the World Bank to socialize the risks of public and private climate lending. https://t.co/OckrAZnVDj via @WSJ

  — Jason Riley (@jasonrileywsj) September 26, 2022

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

  At a New York Times sponsored event last week, Gore and Kerry accused World Bank President David Malpass of being a climate denier. The climate lobbyists in the press then piled accusing Malpass for  refusing “to acknowledge that the burning of fossil fuels is rapidly warming the planet.”

  But climate science is not part of Malpass’ expertise, not should it be given World Bank goals. Let’s pick up from there with comments by the WSJ.

  Gore-Kerry Political Hit Job

  Please consider A Gore-Kerry Political Hit Job.

  Bloomberg and Axios, both advocates for the Gore-Kerry agenda in their reporting, teased that the Biden Administration is looking into the issue and that Mr. Malpass’s job could be in jeopardy. Axios even hinted that Mr. Gore might then get the World Bank job.

  Mr. Malpass said he isn’t resigning and made clear he thinks greenhouse gases are contributing to climate change. He has no cause to step down, having managed the bank in a commendable fashion since he took the job in 2019. 

  The World Bank’s main job is to alleviate poverty. This requires energy, which today is still most efficiently and affordably provided by fossil fuels. Yet Mr. Kerry recently cautioned African leaders against investing in long-term natural gas production, as if they have an alternative if they want to develop.

  This is an indulgence in a place like California, which is affluent enough to pay twice what its neighboring states do for energy. But it amounts to condemning countries in Africa and much of the developing world to more decades of poverty.

  Mr. Kerry may even be consigning poor countries to needless hunger from rising prices and perhaps a global shortage of natural gas for fertilizer. Climate monomania is easier to preach with a sea-side view from a bluff in Martha’s Vineyard than it is from a village with unreliable electricity in the Congo.

  Climate Hypocrites

  Meanwhile, Kerry and Gore travel the globe in carbon-spewing private jets or government aircraft.

  Gore has been wrongly preaching climate doom for decades. They hold doom conferences to foster unrealistic emissions targets. 

  The irony, as noted by the Journal, is U.S. carbon emissions reductions in recent decades are almost entirely the result of the expansion of natural gas production that the climate lobby wants to shut down.

  Exploring the Massive Clean Energy Boondoggle of Burning Trees as Carbon Neutral

  In case you missed, it please see Exploring the Massive Clean Energy Boondoggle of Burning Trees as Carbon Neutral

  To the shock of everyone with any semblance of common sense, we are clearcutting forests and burning the trees based on the idea the process is carbon neutral.

  Also, Let’s Review 50 Years of Dire Climate Forecasts and What Actually Happened

  Many of the predictions are outrageously funny.

  *  *  *

  Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 18:20

• "Historic Levels Of Fraud": US Watchdog Estimates $45.6 Billion Bilked From Pandemic Unemployment Program
  “Historic Levels Of Fraud”: US Watchdog Estimates $45.6 Billion Bilked From Pandemic Unemployment Program

  A federal watchdog has found that $45.6 billion may have been scammed out of the nation’s unemployment program during the pandemic, as fraudsters used a variety of methods to commit fraud – including using the Social Security numbers of dead people, hard-to-trace emails, and the identities of prisoners who were ineligible for aid.

  

  According to the Washington Post, a Thursday report by the inspector general for the Labor Department reveals that the program – which helped some 57 million families in the first five months of the crisis – became an easy target for criminals.

  To siphon away funds, scammers allegedly filed billions of dollars in unemployment claims in multiple states simultaneously and relied on suspicious, hard-to-trace emails. In some cases, they used more than 205,000 Social Security numbers that belonged to dead people. Other suspected criminals obtained benefits using the identities of prisoners who were ineligible for aid.

  But officials at the watchdog office warned their accounting still may be incomplete: They said they were not able to access more updated federal prisoner data from the Justice Department, and acknowledged that they only focused their report on “high risk” areas for fraud. The two factors raised the prospect that they could uncover billions of dollars in additional theft in the months to come. -WaPo

  At least 1,000 individuals have been charged with unemployment fraud and related crimes, according to a Thursday announcement. DOJ director of covid-related enforcement, Kevin Chambers, described the situation as “unprecedented fraud,” while the IG’s office says it’s opened roughly 190,000 related investigative matters since the beginning of the pandemic.

  The new report highlights challenges faced by government watchdogs and regulators, two years after what became roughly $5 trillion in (inflationary) pandemic aid was printed in response to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

  Last week, federal prosecutors  charged 47 individuals from the Minnesota Somali community for allegedly bilking $250 million in Covid-19 federal funds meant for a child nutrition program, in what the DOJ described as the largest single fraud case related to pandemic aid to date.

  

  Meanwhile, federal investigators are looking into roughly $1 trillion in loans an grants designed to help small businesses.

  “Hundreds of billions in pandemic funds attracted fraudsters seeking to exploit the UI program — resulting in historic levels of fraud and other improper payments,” said Labor Department inspector general, Larry Turner.

  Turner’s office found that between March and October 2020, there were roughly $16 billion in potential fraud in key high-risk areas.

  One lawmaker actually who’s actually pursuing the fraud is Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. Wyden praised the “strong effort to identify criminals,” but stressed the need to overhaul the jobless benefits system.

  “I’ve long said we need a national set of technology and security standards for state systems to better prevent this kind of fraud, and we’re going to keep working to get our reforms passed,” he added.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 18:00

• Trump Wins Ruling In Rape Accuser Carroll’s Defamation Lawsuit
  Trump Wins Ruling In Rape Accuser Carroll’s Defamation Lawsuit

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

  A federal appeals court in Manhattan handed former President Donald Trump a procedural victory Tuesday in a defamation lawsuit, after famed columnist E. Jean Carroll claimed that Trump had raped her in the 1990s.

  

  In a two-to-one decision on Sept. 27, the panel on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court erred when it ruled that Carroll could sue Trump for defamatory statements during his presidency, given that a federal law, known as the Westfall Act, shields government employees from liability in work-related incidents.

  Carroll, 78, sued Trump in 2019, claiming the Republican sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s in a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. Because the alleged attack happened decades ago, Carroll was originally barred from suing over sexual battery, pushing her to sue for defamation over allegedly disparaging comments Trump made about the rape allegation.

  Trump denied her allegation at the time and accused her of using false claims as a way to promote her book. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened,” the-then president told The Hill in an interview at the White House in June 2019.

  The D.C. Court of Appeals is now asked to weigh in on whether Trump was acting within the scope of his presidential duties when he denied raping Carroll and dismissed her during the interview. If Trump was, he would be entitled to immunity from the lawsuit, according to the ruling by the 2nd Circuit judges. And while the U.S. government can be sued over some wrongdoing by its employees, it is immune from defamation lawsuits, which would mean Carroll’s suit would fail.

  In a majority opinion written by Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi on Tuesday, two members of the 2nd Circuit’s three-judge panel declined to further address the defamation action while the matter was “of extreme public importance.”

  “We do not pass judgment or express any view as to whether Trump’s public statements were indeed defamatory or whether the sexual assault allegations had, in fact, occurred,” the judges said.

  

  Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba, meanwhile, welcomed the decision, saying it “will protect the ability of all future presidents to effectively govern without hindrance.”

  “We are confident that the D.C. Court of Appeals will find that our client was acting within the scope of his employment when properly repudiating Ms. Carroll’s allegations,” she said in a statement.

  Former Attorney General William Barr and current Attorney General Merrick Garland defended the Department of Justice’s decision to back Trump as a defendant in the ongoing defamation case.

  Dissent

  In an opinion written by Judge Denny Chin, the third judge who dissented, he said that the law protecting federal employees from liability does not apply to Trump. He said it was only to protect low-level, rank-and-file government employees rather than the president.

  And he said at least some of the former president’s statements were not part of his official duties.

  “Trump was not acting in the scope of his employment when he made comments about Carroll and her accusations because he was not serving any purpose of the federal government,” wrote the judge, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

  “In the context of an accusation of rape, the comment ‘she’s not my type’ surely is not something one would expect the President of the United States to say in the course of his duties. Carroll’s allegations plausibly paint a picture of a man pursuing a personal vendetta against an accuser, not the United States’ ‘chief constitutional officer’ engaging in ‘supervisory and policy responsibilities of utmost discretion and sensitivity,’” Chin added.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 17:40

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• Lithuania Urges Russian Anti-War Protesters To Overthrow Putin
  Lithuania Urges Russian Anti-War Protesters To Overthrow Putin

  It was perhaps only a matter of time before European leaders attempted to leverage ongoing anti-war protests in Ukraine to call for regime change. Emboldened Baltic NATO countries have been at the forefront of increasing rhetoric and measures punishing Russians.

  And now Lithuania’s foreign minister is openly calling for Russians to tap into collective anger over last week’s partial mobilization order and overthrow President Vladimir Putin. “Lithuanians overthrew the Soviet regime, Ukrainians overthrew (former Ukrainian President Viktor) Yanukovych, Iranian women have risen up against the brutality of the Iranian regime and Russians can overthrow Putin,” FM Gabrielius Landsbergis tweeted.

  

  “Let’s not underestimate the power of freedom,” he followed with, but at the same time emphasized his country would not be letting fleeing Russians in, nor will they receive asylum.

  Days prior Landsbergis had said, “Lithuania will not be granting asylum to those who are simply running from responsibility. Russians should stay and fight. Against Putin.”

  The past week has witnessed large protests in various Russian cities, but especially in outlying ethnic minority districts, in response to the call-up of some 300,000 reservists. There have been conflicting reports of Russian men getting conscripted to go join the fight in Ukraine as well, but Kremlin officials have denied that draft notices are going out.

  Meanwhile The Associated Press has estimated that over the past days some 194,000 Russians have fled on fears of being called up for military service in the Ukraine conflict. Border crossings, including into Mongolian and central Asian nations, have been reportedly jammed by long traffic lines. 

  Lithuania will not be granting asylum to those who are simply running from responsibility. Russians should stay and fight. Against Putin.

  — Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹 (@GLandsbergis) September 23, 2022

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

  The Georgian border has been especially busy, with satellite images showing lines of cars that surpass 10 miles through winding mountain roads.

  This week, for the first time the White House issued a statement which seemed to encourage Russians to apply for asylum with the US. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday, “We believe that regardless of their nationality, they may apply for asylum in the United States and have their claim educated on a case by case basis.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 02:45

• Conservative AfD Now Strongest Party In Eastern Germany, Rises To 15% Nationally
  Conservative AfD Now Strongest Party In Eastern Germany, Rises To 15% Nationally

  Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

  Could conservatives also one day score a breakthrough in German politics? The Alternative for Germany party — which has faced extreme political pressure, including threats to ban the party entirely — is seeing a surge in support, particularly in what was once formerly East Germany. According to polling firm Insa, it is now the strongest political party in that entire region of the country, which is home to over 16 million people.

  

  If there were federal elections next Sunday, AfD would reach 27 percent in the eastern federal states, while CDU would follow with one point less. SPD and the Greens would only get 15 and 14 percent, respectively.

  Since FDP only achieved 7 percent, only 36 percent would vote for the traffic-light parties there. The Left party would come in at 8 percent.

  However, AfD is also trending higher in western Germany where AfD now averages 12 percent. CDU holds the lead at 28 percent, while the Greens (21), and SPD (19) are also in front of AfD. FDP (8) and Left (5) trail behind. In Lower Saxony, where elections will be held on Oct. 8, AfD reaches 9 percent, according to Infratest dimap, one of its lowest results for AfD of any German state.

  A total of 15 percent of Germans would vote for AfD, with the party’s support rising a point compared to just a week ago. The conservative party is now just three points behind the Social Democrats (SPD), led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which now stands at 18 percent.

  AfD has experienced a steady positive trend in polling over the last months, with the party serving as a vocal critic of the left-wing government’s sanctions policy against Russia. The party has also called for an opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany; however, such a policy is likely no longer possible for the foreseeable future following a suspected sabotage attack on the pipeline that will keep it offline for some time.

  Specific cultural and economic factors have led AfD to be far more popular in the east of Germany than in the west. East Germans remain more skeptical of mass immigration and cultural trends from the West, but also tend to sympathize more with Russia. However, one of the greatest concerns in this region of Germany, which is driving popular support of AfD, is the current economic crisis, with inflation hitting east Germans far harder than those in the west of Germany due to the already lower incomes and poverty rates seen in the east.

  The major parties in Germany have long said they would never form a coalition with AfD. However, the same cordon sanitaire applied to the Sweden Democrats (SD) in Sweden. And yet, after scoring over 20 percent of the vote earlier this month, SD has entered a power-sharing agreement that many in Swedish politics never thought would be possible.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/29/2022 – 02:00

• Unpacking The Ukraine 'Game Change'; Is A Major Conflict Inevitable?
  Unpacking The Ukraine ‘Game Change’; Is A Major Conflict Inevitable?

  Authored by Alastair Crooke,

  Any political solution – however theoretical, at this point – would involve Moscow sitting with the collective West. Kiev had become a bystander.

  

  Russia is preparing for an escalation in this war. She is augmenting her forces to the minimum level that could deal with a major NATO offensive. This decision was not precipitated by a significant attrition in the existing force. The facts are clear: The militias of Donetsk and Luhansk represent the majority of the Russian allied forces fighting in the Donbas. The militias have been reinforced by contract soldiers from the Wagner Group and Chechen fighters however, rather than by regular Russian forces.

  But this is about to change. The number of Russian regulars fighting in Ukraine will rise dramatically. However, the referenda in the Ukrainian oblasts come first; and those will be followed by the Government of Russia and the Duma accepting the results and approving the annexation of these territories. After that is concluded and the territories assimilated into Russia, any attack on the new Russian territories would be treated as an act of war against Russia. As former Indian diplomat, MK Bhadrakumar, notes, “The accession of Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye creates a new political reality and Russia’s partial mobilisation on parallel track is intended to provide the military underpinning for it”.

  Clearly, we – the world – are at a pivotal moment.

  ‘Collective Russia’ has concluded that the former low-intensity war is no longer viable:

  Unimaginable flows of western $ billions; too many NATO fingers in the Ukraine pie; too wide a ‘Ho Chi Minh Trail’ of ever more long-range and advanced weaponry; and too many ‘delusions’ that Kiev can still somehow win – effectively have undercut any ‘off-ramp solution’ and portend inexorable escalation.

  Well, ‘Collective Russia’ has decided to ‘get ahead of the curve’, and to bring the affairs of Ukraine to the crunch. It is a risk; that is why we have reached an inflection point. The $64 thousand dollar question is, what will be the studied reaction of western political leaders to Putin’s speech? The next weeks will be crucial.

  The point here is that western leaders ‘claim’ that Putin is just bluffing – as he is losing. Western hype is ‘shooting the moon’: “Putin is panicked; Russian markets are falling; young men are fleeing conscription”. Yes, well the Moex Russia index closed higher on Thursday; the rouble has remained steady; and the big queues are at the recruitment offices, rather than airline offices.

  Just to be clear: The limited mobilization Putin announced only applies to those who serve in Russia’s reserves and who have seen prior military service. It is unlikely to hobble the economy.

  The Russian pre-planned, tactical withdrawal from Kharkov – though militarily sound in logic, given the troop numbers required to defend a 1,000 km border – has generated throughout the West a fantasy of panic in Moscow and of Russian forces fleeing Kharkov before an advancing Ukrainian offensive.

  The danger to such fantasies is that leaders begin to believe their own propaganda. How could western Intelligence reporting become so divorced from reality? One reason undoubtedly is the explicit decision to craft ‘cherry-picked’ intelligence to serve as deliberately ‘leaked’ anti-Russian propaganda. And where would be the best quarry for such propaganda material? Kiev. It seems that largely, intelligence services come to accept and circulate what Kiev says, without cross-checking for accuracy.

  Yes, it is hard to believe (but not without precedent). Politicians naturally love what seems to bolster their narratives. Contrarian assessments are met with scowls.

  Therefore, western leaders are doubling down on promises to continue sending money and advanced weaponry to Ukraine that will be used to attack – among others – Russian civilians. A new co-ordinated narrative from the West is that whereas on the Russian side, one man can end the war; on the other, for Ukraine to stop the war would mean ‘no Ukraine’.

  Neocons, such as Robert Kagan, naturally have put their own spin on the official psyops, by pushing the line that Putin is bluffing. Kagan wrote in Foreign Affairs:

  “Russia may possess a fearful nuclear arsenal, but the risk of Moscow using it is not higher now than it would have been in 2008 or 2014, if the West had intervened then. And it [the nuclear risk] has always been extraordinarily small: Putin was never going to obtain his objectives by destroying himself and his country, along with much of the rest of the world.”

  In short, don’t worry about going to war with Russia, Putin won’t use ‘the bomb’. Really?

  Again, to be plain, Putin said in his speech on 21 September:

  “They [Western leaders] have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail … [I refer] to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia”.

  “I would like to remind … in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country, and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff”.

  These Neocons advocating ‘hard deterrence’ rotate in and out of power, parked in places like the Council on Foreign Relations or Brookings or the AEI, before being called back into government. They have been as welcome in the Obama or Biden White House, as the Bush White House. The Cold War, for them, never ended, and the world remains binary – ‘us and them, good and evil’.

  Of course, the Pentagon does not buy the Kagan meme. They well know what nuclear war implies. Yet, the EU and U.S. political élites have chosen to place all their chips on the roulette wheel landing on ‘Ukraine’:

  Ukraine’s symbolic expression now serves multiple ends: Principally, as distraction from domestic failures – ‘Saving Ukraine’ offers an (albeit false) narrative to explain the energy crisis, the spiking inflation and businesses shutting down. It is icon too, to the framework of the ‘enemy within’ (the Putin whisperers). And it serves to justify the control regime currently being cooked-up in Brussels. It is, in short, politically highly useful. Even perhaps, existentially essential.

  Russia thus has taken the first step towards a real war footing. The west will be well advised to acknowledge and understand how this situation came about, rather than to pretend to its public that Russia is on the verge of collapse – which it is not.

  How did ‘collective Russia’ arrive at this point? How do the pieces fit together?

  The first piece to this jigsaw is Syria: Moscow intervened there with a tiny commitment – some 25 Sukhoi fighters and no more than 5,000 men. There, as with Ukraine, the operation was one of giving support to frontline forces. In Ukraine, through aiding the Donbas militia to defend themselves – and in Syria, through offering the Syrian army air-support, intelligence and mediation outreach to those with whom Damascus was not talking.

  The other key piece to understanding Russia’s Syria ‘posture’ was that Moscow could rely for the cutting-edge ground-fighting on two highly skilled, and motivated fighting auxiliaries, in addition to the mainstream Syrian army: i.e. Hizbullah and the IRGC.

  Taken together, this Russian intervention – limited to a supporting role only – nevertheless yielded political results. Turkey mediated; and the Astana Accord resulted. Notwithstanding that Astana has not been a great success – but its framework lives on.

  The point here is that Moscow’s deployment in Syria ultimately was politically oriented towards a political solution.

  Fast-forward to Ukraine: The militias of Donetsk and Luhansk represent the majority of the Russian-allied forces doing the fighting in the Donbas. The militias are reinforced by contract soldiers from the Wagner Group and Chechens fighters. This explains why Russian losses of 5,800 KIA, during the SMO are ‘small’. Russian forces were rarely on the frontlines of this war. (In Syria they were not on the frontlines at all.)

  So, the Syria blueprint effectively was lifted aloft, and fitted down over Ukraine. What does this tell us? It suggests that originally Team Putin was angulated towards a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, just as in Syria. And it almost happened. Turkey again mediated, with peace talks occurring in Istanbul in late March, with promising results showing.

  In one respect however, events here did not follow the Syria pattern. Boris Johnson immediately scuttled the settlement initiative, warning Zelensky that he must not ‘normalise’ with Putin; and if he did reach some accord, it would not be recognised by the West.

  After this episode, the SMO nonetheless continued in its highly restricted format (with no signs of any political solution on the horizon). It persisted, too, despite growing evidence that taking down the defences that NATO had spent eight years erecting in Donbas likely were beyond the militia capabilities. In short, the SMO was demonstrating its limitations: what worked in Syria, was not working in Ukraine.

  More forces plainly were required. Could this be done by tweaking the SMO (which imposed legal constraints on Russian regular forces serving in Ukraine), or was a complete re-set required? What resulted was the limited mobilisation and referenda outcome.

  Plainly, however the decision to assimilate Ukrainian territory would foreclose on a likely political settlement, but this latter possibility was falling away anyway as the West fell for its fantasies of a Ukrainian complete victory, and as NATO escalated.

  The ‘war’ was becoming less and less about Ukraine, and more and more NATO’s war on Russia.

  Any political solution – however theoretical, at this point – would involve Moscow sitting with the collective West. Kiev had become a bystander.

  Well, this was the point at which other geo-politics thrust itself into the equation: Russia, under sanctions, must pursue a strategy of building-out a protected ‘strategic depth’ that trades in own currencies (outside the dollar hegemony). MacKinder called this sphere the ‘World Island’ – a land-based mass, well distanced from the naval Great Powers.

  Russia needs the support of BRICS and the SCO as partners both in creating this ‘trading strategic depth’, and for the multi-polar world order project. Some of its leaders though – particularly China and India – mindful of the SCO’s 2001 founding charter – naturally could have difficulty in lending public support to Russia’s Ukraine plans.

  Yes, China and India are sensitive to interventions in other states, and Team Putin has worked hard, continually briefing its allies on Ukraine, so that they could understand the full background to the conflict. The summit at Samarkand was the final ‘piece’ – the personal briefing of what was to come in respect to Ukraine that needed to fall into place.

  How will the West react? With a public display of ‘fury’ for sure; yet despite the hype, some fundamental realities will have to be addressed: Does Ukraine, with its severely abraded forces, have the wherewithal to continue this war after the loss of so many men? Is Europe even able to mobilise towards a larger NATO war against Russia? Do the U.S. and Europe retain a sufficient inventory of munitions, after so much has already been passed into the hands of Kiev?

  The next crucial weeks will provide answers.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 23:40

• Record Number Of New York Residents Changing Driver's Licenses To Florida
  Record Number Of New York Residents Changing Driver’s Licenses To Florida

  An analysis of official data reveals that a record number of New York residents changed their driver’s licenses to Florida last month.

  

  According to the New York Post, a total of 5,838 New Yorkers made the switch in August – the second-highest number for a single month in recorded history – and which makes for a year-to-date figure of 41,885 New Yorkers who have abandoned their northern licenses after moving south – a pace which points to a new annual record.

  “First it was the billionaires. Then it was the rich following behind them. Now you have the middle class,” said Renowned fashion designer Alvin Valley, who moved his primary residence to Palm Beach during the pandemic, adding that the influx of residents has been ‘staggering.’

  

  “A lot of families just began to feel like New York was becoming unlivable,” Valley continued. “Especially for younger couples with kids in their 30s and 40s. They don’t want to get on the subway. It’s a safety issue, it’s a schools issue.”

  A retired NYPD lieutenant who moved with his family to Jacksonville last year told The Post that New Yorkers still have a buffet of reasons to bid farewell.

  John Macari blamed COVID-19 mandates, rising crime and unappealing schools for the continued departures.

  He argued that vaccine mandates for public-sector employees left thousands of working-class New Yorkers disillusioned with city government and eyeing the exits.

  “Couple that with the rise in crime and zero competence from our elected officials and a lot of people just don’t see a future in New York City for themselves,” Macari said.

  The Brooklyn native, who runs a Jacksonville livery service staffed by retired NYPD cops and hosts a podcast featuring ex-officers, said he talks to friends every day who want out. -NY Post

  Last month, New York Mayor Eric Adams tried to stem the flow – deploying digital billboards throughout Florida to try and convince ex-New Yorkers to return to the Big Apple.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 23:20

• Is China Using COVID Policy To Prep For War?
  Is China Using COVID Policy To Prep For War?

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  Last week I had the immense pleasure of interviewing my good buddy George Gammon from Rebel Capitalist.

  George is one of my favorite economic commentators and has been a friend of mine, and my podcast, for years. He is focused on Austrian economics, skepticism about the global elite and Central Banking, and trying to help preserve wealth in the out-of-control world of Central Banks we exist in. 

  In our recent interview, we discussed:

  • What inflation numbers will look like at the end of the year, and why George thinks CPI numbers will hit a lull

  • George’s favorite indicator for measuring whether we’re in a recession and whether or not the Fed is going to reverse course “within weeks”

  • Black swan events George is watching that could hurt the markets, other than rising rates

  • China’s Covid policy and what alternate reasoning there may be for it, other than Covid

  • China and Russia posturing up together

  • Energy shortages and food shortages

  • Whether we are truly on the fringe of a massive earthquake geopolitically and economically

  • The dollar going up and what it means

  • Covid policy in the U.S. and getting ahead of the “narrative” when new uncomfortable situations take hold domestically

  First we talked about where George thought inflation was heading. Surprisingly, he said lower – before moving higher.

  “I rarely make predictions, but I did make one prediction: inflation would go down slightly as measured by CPI in Q3 or Q4,” George told me. “Most likely it probably goes back up [after falling to 6% or 7%].”

  “I saw the things that created the inflation in the first place, now the question is how they do that. I don’t know if the supply chains will get better anytime soon,” he continued. “But they did stop the stimmy checks.”

  From there we moved on to talk about his favorite indicator for recessions and how Austrian economists are often ignored – and sometimes even ridiculed – in the mainstream media. 

  “That’s usually the indicator that you’re currently in a recession. Though I think we’re already in one as a result of two negative quarters of GDP growth,” he says, talking about his favorite metric.

  We talked about how the current state of the global economy and geopolitics may have us on the precipice of things changing meaningfully, relatively permanently:

  

  We also talked about the tensions between China, Taiwan and the United States.

  “As far as black swans, I’m looking at the issue of China and Taiwan. What Nancy Pelosi did was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen a politician do,” George says.

  “If you look at it through the lens of the Chinese, you can see historically why they are doing it,” George says. “I can’t imagine that Pelosi or Biden would do something for the long-term benefit of the Untied States, they’re just doing whatever is politically expedient.”

  George also thinks China is using Covid policy to prepare the country for war, something I started a discussion on earlier this month: “China’s policy on Covid is another head scratcher. The only conclusion I can come to is they’re trying to prepare their society for using far fewer resources in the future because they know there’s a good probability they will go to war with the United States.”

  “Looking at China’s history, it would make sense that that’s an edge they think they have: they have benevolent dictator so they can make long-term decisions, central thinking and a plan for the whole country, their ability to just have patience.”

  “They look at the U.S. and say ‘its just collapsing internally’,” George argues.

  “Another black swan is the dollar going up,” George says. “This creates a massive amount of economic pressure on countries outside the U.S. In a global economy, there’s a lot of systemic risk. I don’t know what the number is – 120, 130, 140 – but at some point, its going the be the United States’ problem. It’s going up because of all of this uncertainty and interest rates. The bond market is saying the Fed will raise for another 6 months or a year. So we’ve got another year of the dollar going up?”

  “You have this combined with all these powder keg situations geopolitically,” George says.

  “I think we’ll wind up in a Plaza Accord 2.0. I think the black swan could be that they miscalculate,” he says.

  Finally we discuss some of my recent findings on Covid, including a new preprint study talking about how boosters aren’t ethically justifiable in younger adults and a recent thread by Dr. Richard Ebright, PhD, from Rutgers, explaining why he thinks the Covid “lab leak” theory holds water:

  George was one of the first people to speak out about Covid measures, even before we knew about the virus. 

  “It was actually on your podcast, you asked me point blank what we should do [about Covid breaking out]. It was a difficult question to answer – we didn’t have any information at the time other than we knew it was spreading quickly. I said that ‘I don’t know how bad it’s going to get, but we have to let people make their own decisions. If people want to go outside, let them go outside. We have to give people as much information as possible but then let them make their own decisions’,” George recalled. 

  ---

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  You can listen to the full interview here:

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 23:00

• Nationwide Rents Drop For First Time In Two Years
  Nationwide Rents Drop For First Time In Two Years

  The latest real-time rent data from the property research firm CoStar Group shows apartment rents in the US are fading from record highs for the first time in almost two years, according to WSJ. 

  CoStar said national US rents in August fell .1% from July. It was the first monthly drop since December 2020 — a sign rents may have finally peaked. 

  Two other property research firms, Rent.com and Realtor.com, recorded slight monthly rent declines last month. 

  Monthly rent declines are still minuscule compared with the 23% increase since August 2020, according to Realtor.com. 

  Orphe Divounguy, an economist at Zillow Group, said there’s no guarantee that rents peaked because soaring mortgage rates have unleashed an affordability crisis where households are being priced out of owning and forced to rent. 

  

  Meanwhile, CoStar forecasts more rental market cooling this fall and winter. They say September rents are expected to decline for the second consecutive month. Some analysts expect rents to continuing decreasing on a monthly basis through the end of this year — that would be a drastic change from the same period in 2021 when rents soared. 

  We outlined first in Some Good News: Rents Have Finally Peaked As Rental Market Enters “Widespread Cooldown” and then Some More Good Inflation News: Owner-Equivalent Rents Are About To Peak that rental hyperinflation peaked earlier this year and would continue to slow through the end of the year. 

  WSJ noted seasonality, new apartment construction, and unaffordable rents are some factors cooling rental markets. 

  Further hints about the rental market were heard from one of the largest owners of multifamily units in the US, Starwood Capital Group, whose CEO, Barry Sternlicht, told CNBC:

  “The pace of rent increases, we’re seeing it go down month-to-month.”

  Last week, we noted that Manhattan’s red hot rental market finally plateaued after six months of “record number of records” as median rent in the borough peaked in July at $4,150 and slid in August to $4,100. 

  Perhaps what’s happening in NYC is a sign US rental market slowdown could gain momentum in the months ahead. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 22:40

• Are We Falling As Rome Did?
  Are We Falling As Rome Did?

  Authored by Julie Ponese via The Epoch Times,

  3, 2, 1… Timber! A Philosopher’s Take on the Collapse of Our Civilization

  The clock seems to be ticking.

  Growing disparities in wealth, a housing and gas crisis, transhumanism galloping over the horizon, heroized incivility, and the constant threat of viruses, the “cures” for which may be worse than the diseases. Global politics feels eerily apocalyptic these days and, in our own little worlds, many of us are so lost, so unmoored from the comforts of our pre-pandemic lives, that we don’t know which end is up or what the future will hold. Investigative journalist Trish Wood recently wrote that we are living the fall of Rome (though it’s being pushed on us as a virtue).

  

  I wonder, are we falling as Rome did? Is it possible that our civilization is on the verge of collapse? Not imminent collapse, perhaps, but are we taking the initial steps that civilizations before ours took before their eventual downfalls? Will we suffer the fates of the Indus, the Vikings, the Mayans, and the failed dynasties of China?

  As a philosopher, I need first to understand what we mean by “civilization” and what it would mean for that thing to collapse.

  This is a significant conceptual hurdle. “Civilization” (from the Latin civitas, meaning a body of people) was first used by anthropologists to refer to a “society made up of cities” (Mycenae’s Pylos, Thebes, and Sparta, for example). Ancient civilizations were typically non-nomadic settlements with concentrated complexes of persons who divided labor. They had monumental architecture, hierarchical class structures, and significant technological and cultural developments.

  But just what is our civilization? There isn’t a tidy line between it and the next in the way the Mayans’ and the Greeks’ coexistence was defined by the ocean between them. Is the concept of Western civilization—rooted in the culture that emerged from the Mediterranean basin over 2,000 years ago—still meaningful, or has globalization made any distinction between contemporary civilizations meaningless? “I am a citizen of the world,” wrote Diogenes in the fourth century B.C. But of course, his world wasn’t quite as vast as our own.

  Now for the second issue: civilization collapse. Anthropologists typically define it as a rapid and enduring loss of population, socio-economic complexity, and identity.

  Will we suffer a mass loss of population or socio-economic complexity? Perhaps. But that isn’t what concerns me. What I really worry about is our loss of identity. I worry that we’ve lost the plot, as they say, and that with all our focus on the ability of science to save us, we’ve lost our ideals, our spirit, our reasons for being. I worry we are suffering what Betty Friedan called “a slow death of the mind and spirit.” I worry that our nihilism, our façadism, our progressivism are incurring a debt that we may not be able to pay.

  As the eminent anthropologist Sir John Glubb wrote (pdf), “The life-expectation of a great nation, it appears, commences with a violent, and usually unforeseen, outburst of energy, and ends in a lowering of moral standards, cynicism, pessimism and frivolity.”

  Think of a civilization as the top step on a staircase, with each stair below having fallen away. Western civilization today is built largely on the foundational ideals of ancient Greece and Rome that endure long after their physical structures and governments disappeared. But they endure because we find them meaningful. They endure through literature and art and conversation and ritual. They endure in how we marry, how we write about one another, and how we care for our sick and aging.

  One lesson history tries to teach us is that civilizations are complex systems—of technology, economics, foreign relations, immunology, and civility—and complex systems regularly give way to failure. The collapse of our civilization is almost certainly inevitable; the only questions are when, why, and what will replace us.

  But this brings me to another point. Early in its usage, anthropologists started using “civilization” as a normative term, distinguishing “civilized society” from those who are tribal or barbaric. Civilizations are sophisticated, noble, and morally good; other societies are uncivilized, backward, and unvirtuous.

  But the old distinction between civilization and barbarism has taken on a new form in the 21st century. It is from within our own “civilized” culture that emerges an inversion of the concepts of civility and brutishness. It is our leaders, our journalists, and our professionals who ignore the standards of rational discourse, who institutionalize hatred and incite division. Today, it is the elites who are the true barbarians among us.

  Taking a cue from Walt Whitman, who thought his own 19th century America was waning, “We had best look our times and lands searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease.”

  If our civilization collapses, it won’t be because of an outside attack, like Bedouin charging in from the desert. It will be because of those among us who, like parasites, destroy us from within. Our civilization may collapse and it could be due to any number of factors—war, the economy, natural disasters—but the silent killer, the one that may get us in the end, is our own moral catastrophe.

  The ultimate problem, therefore, is not interpersonal; it’s inner-personal. If our civilization is collapsing, it’s because something in each of us is collapsing. And we need to rebuild ourselves first, brick by brick, if we are to have a chance of rebuilding ourselves together.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 22:20

• NFT Trading Volumes Have Collapsed 97% Since January Peak
  NFT Trading Volumes Have Collapsed 97% Since January Peak

  Trading volumes for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) has tumbled 97% since January, when the blockchain-bound digital art and collectibles market went from $17 billion to just $466 million in September, according to Bloomberg, citing data from Dune Analytics.

  

  The dropoff in NFT interest is part of a wider, $2 trillion wipeout in crypto – which has come a long way from $69 million art auctions and Lamborghinis with crypto-themed license plates.

  

  pic.twitter.com/sllc4i6jap

  — NFT Bros Taking Ls (@FungersTakingLs) September 26, 2022

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

  As ArtNet‘s Dorian Batycka wondered on Tuesday, will digital art collectors stay away?

  

  From SNL to Snoop Dogg, NFTs quickly took popular culture by storm. Athletes and celebrities aped-in; some shilled and rug-pulled their fans. Others made genuine contributions to the space, like when Grammy award-winning producer Timbaland made NFTs of stems to his beats—buyers were given the rights to remix and profit from them.

  Now, most of that initial hype has collapsed, thanks in part to the cantankerous crypto market. Pieces once bought for millions now barely muster a couple hundred thousand at auction. The auction platforms are not doing much better: OpenSea, the largest of them all, laid off 20 percent of its staff in July 2022. Sales volume is significantly down. An extremely muted sale earlier this year of generative art (digital art made with autonomous software) at Phillips showed that collectors are no longer as keen.

  As the NFT art market faces a recalibration, what will become of the market for digital and physical art—the so-called “phygital”? -ArtNet

  That said, NFT projects continue making headway – such as Yuga Labs, which last month announced a partnership with Tiffany’s & Co. for 250 custom-made cryptopunk jeweled pendants which sold quickly for $50,000 each.

  

  So, while things in crypto land certainly appear tumultuous at the moment, one has to wonder if the NFT space is due for a massive reflation once the fed restarts QE and digital currencies hit astronomical prices again.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 22:00

• The Golden Road To Samarkand
  The Golden Road To Samarkand

  Authored by Tamir Tehari via The Gatestone Institute,

  But what is it for? This is the question that the media in Russia, China, Iran and half a dozen countries were posing all last week in the wake of a summit in Samarkand that brought their leaders together as members or aspiring members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

  The Russian media, echoing President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the summit, say the SCO is designed to end “the unipolar world “by creating a “multipolar system”.

  

  The Chinese media offer a different version.

  The SCO is meant to offer a new political system for the whole world as an alternative to the Western democratic model.

  To the Islamic media in Tehran, celebrating the Islamic Republic’s admission to the club after 11 years of supplication, the SCO is an extension of the “Resistance Front” created to contain and defeat the American “Great Satan.”

  A closer look, however, might show that the SCO is form without a clear content, an empty frame which different artists could project different fantasies.

  The SCO was created in 1996 as the Shanghai Five bringing together China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan together for two purposes:

  1. Delineating China’s borders with Russia and the three ex-Soviet republics.

  2. Fighting “Islamic terrorism” which affected China in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), Russia in Chechnya, and Tajikistan in Kulyab and Kyrgyzstan in the Fergana Valley.

  A quarter of a century later, neither of those goals has been achieved.

  Russia’s long border with China, which includes vast stretches of Chinese territory annexed by the Soviet Union in two border wars in the 1960s, remains undesignated. China has also failed to persuade Tajikistan to cede a chunk of land needed to widen the corridor Beijing has with Pakistan. (Beijing is now trying to ‘buy’ the Wakhan Corridor from Afghanistan for the same purpose.) Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan also have failed to demarcate their borders. (The two neighbors fought a border war on the eve of the Samarkand summit.) At the same time, China has long maintained a claim on large chunks of Kazakhstan, which Russia annexed under the tsars.

  Uzbekistan, another former Soviet republic, joined the group in 1997 to get help against terrorism led by the Islamic Liberation Party. But it, too, has complex irredentist problems with Tajikistan. In fact in ethnic and cultural terms, Samarkand, where the summit was held, is the largest Tajik city in the world. In exchange, the Kulyab area in Tajikistan has an Uzbek majority.

  The SCO’s identity as a club of queer fellows has been further emphasized by the admission of a host of new members all of whom have territorial disputes with each other. India has fought two border wars with China, losing large chunks of territory in Ladakh and Kashmir. It has also had four wars with its Pakistani neighbor, losing a chunk of land in Ran-e-Kuch but succeeding in splitting Pakistan by creating Bangladesh.

  To make the club even more queer, other nations with troubles of their own are lined up for membership. These include Azerbaijan and Armenia, currently at war against one another; Nepal, torn between India and China; Sri Lanka, where the very word Chinese provokes intense hatred; Turkey, which is fighting Russian surrogates in Libya and Syria; Belarus, which has become an extension of Putinistan; and Mongolia. which cannot swallow the Chinese occupation of Inner Mongolia. Perhaps the only would-be member of the club without such impediments is Cambodia.

  Casting himself as the leader of a new “pole”, Putin has also spoken about inviting four Arab countries plus the Maldives to join the club.

  Some Western commentators have dubbed the SCO “a new power bloc”. That may be jumping the gun a bit. SCO members are more dependent on trade with the European Union, the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia than with each other.

  In 2020, exchanges within the SCO orbit accounted for less than 15 percent of their total foreign trade.

  To be sure, that could change because offering huge discounts, Russia, currently the largest producer of oil and gas in the world, is making a big entry into the two largest markets for energy, China and India. But that is happening at the expense of Iran and Iraq, which are also losing their Turkish market to Russia.

  In any case, this new trend could create a neo-colonial relationship in which Russia exports raw material to China and imports manufactured goods and business services.

  But even then the alliance of which Putin dreams won’t be easy to shape because of deep cultural divides. Moscow has not forgotten the 1967 attack on its embassy in Beijing and over a decade of anti-Russian propaganda that followed. The fact that China’s President Xi Jinping refused to endorse Russia’s invasion of Ukraine punctured the balloon that Putin had hoped to float.

  Putin had been careful not to mention Ukraine in Samarkand, in the hope that he could later claim to have received “full support” in private meetings with the leaders present.

  That ploy failed when the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook a finger at Putin, saying “This war must end! This is no time for war!” Putin was forced to say he understood Modi’s “concerns”, and deceitfully promising to work for ending the war.

  (An hour later, however, he told Russian TV that he didn’t care how long the war might last!)

  It would be good news if the SCO succeeds in persuading its members to resolve their territorial disputes and bury their hatchets. Sadly, however, the various members of this strange club seem to be motivated by different, often contradictory and seldom the best, motives.

  The Samarkand club represents some 40 percent of the world’s population and over 20 percent of the global GDP, not to mention four of the 9 nations with nuclear arsenals. Yet, it seems unlikely to become an anchor of stability in Eurasia; its members are more interested in petty schemes than grand ideas of peace and cooperation.

  Their rhetoric reminds one of a character in James Elroy Flecker’s 19th century play “The Golden Road to Samarkand”, Ishak, a notorious black-marketeer, who tries to soft-soap the city’s gate-keepers into admitting his caravan with these lines:

  “We travel not for trafficking alone;
  By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
  For lust of knowing what should not be known,
  We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 21:40

• Politico Co-Founder Says Constitution Must Be Rewritten To Stop Donald Trump
  Politico Co-Founder Says Constitution Must Be Rewritten To Stop Donald Trump

  Politico’s new owner may lean right, but the rag’s founding editor, John F. Harris, said in a Thursday column that the Constitution must be rewritten to stop former President Donald Trump – who he calls a “constitutional menace” who exploited the Constitution’s “defects” in order to win the 2016 US election.

  

  “Correcting or circumventing what progressives reasonably perceive as the infirmities of the Constitution, in fact, seems likely to be the preeminent liberal objective of the next generation. Progress on issues ranging from climate change to ensuring that technology giants act in the public interest will hinge on creating a new constitutional consensus. Trying to place more sympathetic justices on the Supreme Court is not likely to be a fully adequate remedy,” Harris wrote, adding “There are more fundamental challenges embedded in the document itself — in particular the outsized power it gives to states, at a time when the most urgent problems and most credible remedies are national in character.”

  

  Harris mocked conservatives’ ‘solemn reverence’ for the Constitution, suggesting that it’s ” become a way of signaling right-mindedness across the political spectrum, even among Trump supporters whose actions plainly undermine constitutional order. In much of this rhetoric, the Constitution is elevated from a secular document to a sacred one, infused with mystical dimensions,” he wrote.

  Then he shreds the founding document.

  “Another answer, however, is: Who cares what [the Founders] thought then? The Constitution was written at a time when states were indeed foundational — a central part of people’s identity and way of life. This has not been true for nearly a century, as both national government and national identity have become stronger,” Harris continued, before listing several amendments that he says could already gain “majority support” for the nation – including “altering or abolishing the Electoral College, term limits for the Court, creating some check on abuse of the pardon authority,” and rewriting “the infuriatingly murky language of the Second Amendment.”

  Harris worked for the Washington Post for two decades, covering the Clinton White House between 1995 and 2001. In 2007 he co-founded Politico with former partner Jim VandHei, who went on to co-found Axios.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 21:20

• US Home Heating Costs Set To Surge 17%, Says Energy Group
  US Home Heating Costs Set To Surge 17%, Says Energy Group

  Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

  Winter is coming, and experts are predicting that it will be an expensive one for American households nationwide.

  

  The average U.S. household heating bill is expected to increase by 17.2 percent this winter compared to last year, according to a forecast by the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA).

  Families had already faced higher than average electric bills last winter due to inflation and this year provides no improvement.

  NEADA assists state agencies under the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, (LIHEAP) in distributing federal assistance to help low-income families pay their utility bills.

  The energy association expects that the average winter heating bill will increase from $1,025 to $1,202.

  Heating prices have risen over the past two years to more than 35 percent, the highest rate increase in more than 10 years, according to NEADA data.

  Lower-Income Households Will Struggle

  The total cost of heating would increase from $127.9 billion to an estimated $149.9 billion, with lower-income households facing the brunt of the burden.

  “The rise in home energy costs this winter will put millions of lower-income families [at] risk of falling behind on their energy bills and having no choice but to make difficult decisions between paying for food, medicine and rent,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of NEADA.

  “As a result, NEADA sent a letter last week to the Congressional Leadership asking for a supplemental increase in LIHEAP of $5 billion to cover the higher cost of home heating and cooling as a result of [an] increased number of summer heat waves,” Wolfe added.

  

  A man walks by power lines in Mountain View, Calif., on Aug. 17, 2022. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

  Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest short-term energy outlook, American household electric bills are expected to increase 7.5 percent from last year.

  Energy Prices Surge Worldwide

  Global energy prices have been rising since the second half of 2021, as economies around the world recovered from the shock of the pandemic, leading to higher demand.

  However, European and American green energy policies, combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, have caused oil and natural gas prices to spike worldwide.

  The war in Ukraine had disrupted supplies of natural gas from Russia to Europe, which relies on natural gas to power industry and heat and cool civilian homes.

  Meanwhile, hot summers in the United States and the European Union had driven up electricity demand, causing energy prices to surge.

  Increases in Cost of Natural Gas

  While the United States is less dependent on natural gas for its energy needs, it still fuels about 37 percent of domestic electricity production, according to the EIA’s 2022 figures.

  Natural gas costs are projected to increase 24 percent to $709, according to the NEADA.

  Heating oil costs will jump an estimated 54 percent to $1,876.

  Propane bills are forecast to rise by 15.2 to $1,828 this winter.

  Winter heating costs for households using electricity will face a 6.9 percent jump to $1,328.

  Those who use natural gas for heating will face a 34.3 percent increase to $952.

  

  Flared natural gas is burned off at Apache Corporation’s operations at the Deadwood natural gas plant in the Permian Basin, Garden City, Texas on Feb. 5, 2015. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

  About 20 percent of American households reported missing or making a late payment on their utility bills in August, according to Bank of America (BofA).

  Families with an income of $50,000 or less are the ones struggling the most with the higher energy costs.

  BofA reported that Dallas and Houston had some of the highest utility bill hikes this summer, rising 23 percent from the same period last year.

  The NEADA released similar findings last month that found that more than 20 million families were behind on their utility bills and owed a total of about $16 billion.

  Regional utility companies like National Grid and Con Edison, have already signalled their intent to raise prices.

  US Regional Utilities Plan to Raise Power Bills

  Con Edison, one of the largest utility companies in the nation, provides energy for over 10 million people living in the New York City metropolitan area.

  The power company said that utility bill increases are being driven mainly by “increases in the market cost of natural gas, which is volatile and also influences electric market costs,”  and that other local electric and gas companies across the North East “are facing similar circumstances.”

  “Con Edison is urging customers to take actions now that can help them manage costs this winter as market prices for electricity and natural gas are expected to be substantially higher,” said the utility in a recent statement.

  

  A Con Edison power plant stands in a Brooklyn neighborhood across from Manhattan in New York City in a file photo. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

  The company explained that it “buys natural gas and electricity on the wholesale markets and uses a variety of strategies to stabilize pricing for customers.”

  The average monthly natural gas bill in the NYC area will grow 32 percent, from $348 a year ago to $460.

  Electricity costs will jump between 22 and 27 percent for residents from November 2022 through March 2023.

  Con Ed explained that supply costs account for the majority of the price increases, which rose about $90, while delivery charges hit $22.

  “Natural gas prices are up 33% from just one year ago. As Americans prepare to reach home heating season, this could be disastrous for working families and seniors on fixed incomes,” said Rep. Claudia Tenney, (R-NY) in a statement.

  “The U.S. needs an all-of-the-above energy strategy that will drive down costs for consumers,” said Tenney.

  National Grid of Massachusetts, announced last week that it would increase electricity rates by 64 percent from November through May 2023.

  The average monthly bill for residents in that state will increase from $179 to $293, while hiking home heating and natural gas rates by at least 22 percent during that period.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 21:00

• South Korean Spy Agency Says Nuclear Test By North Is Weeks Away
  South Korean Spy Agency Says Nuclear Test By North Is Weeks Away

  South Korean intelligence has produced a new assessment saying it believes the north is preparing to conduct a nuclear weapons test within weeks. Lawmakers were briefed this week over the imminent threat that such a rare test is likely.

  “North Korea has completed preparations for a nuclear test and a possible window for carrying it out could be between Oct. 16 and Nov. 7, South Korean lawmakers briefed by its spy agency said on Wednesday,” Reuters writes, based on the public comments of legislators privy to the briefing.

  

  If so, it would mark the seventh ever known nuclear test by North Korea, which hasn’t held one in five years, since 2017. All tests spanning back to 2006 were conduced in underground tunnels.

  According to more from the South Korean intelligence assessment, per Reuters, “The timing of the test could be determined by events like the party congress in China, North Korea’s main ally, and the midterm elections in the United States, its chief rival, they said.”

  “Also it would depend on whether Pyongyang can bring an outbreak of COVID-19 under control, they said,” the report continues. One South Korean lawmaker, Youn Kun-young, said further of the probable nuke test just around the corner: 

  “The NIS said they cannot calculate the probability but assumed that North Korea would make a comprehensive decision based on international relations and its COVID situation.”

  Meanwhile US Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to soon arrive in Seoul for an official visit, after attending the state funeral for assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe in Japan. Just on the eve of Harris’ trip, the north fired off two short-range ballistic missiles toward eastern waters.

  The Wednesday launch is the latest in an uptick of missile tests which have come with semi-regular frequency coupled with increased threats from Pyongyang this year, also as a US aircraft carrier is off South Korea’ coast, participating in joint war games.

  BREAKING: North Korea has fired two short-range ballistic missiles from the capital Pyongyang off its eastern coast, ahead of @VP @KamalaHarris visit. pic.twitter.com/jzc8GbvNIu

  — BNN North Korea (@BNNNorthKorea) September 28, 2022

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

  “Our military has strengthened surveillance and vigilance and is maintaining airtight readiness posture while closely cooperating with the United States,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement on Wednesday.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 20:40

• The SEC's Reckless Crusade To Crush The Cryptocurrency Market
  The SEC’s Reckless Crusade To Crush The Cryptocurrency Market

  Authored by Gerard Scimeca via RealClearMarkets.com,

  The laws of physics dictate that nature abhors a vacuum, an interesting phenomena considering how many federal regulatory agencies simply love one. Harkening back to the New Deal, it has become accepted that wherever a gap may exist in the regulation of human activity, a federal agency will soon appear, mobilizing its vast and frequently questionable powers to fill the space.

  Whether it is the Department of Energy deciding to pull the plug on a popular type of light bulb, or the Environmental Protection Agency dictating the allowable volume of water in toilets, our vast administrative state lurks behind every corner, poised to assert itself within every nook, crevice, and cranny that presents an opportunity for regulatory interference. Last year federal agencies created over 74,000 pages of new rules and regulations to fill the perceived vacuums in our lives, and we are currently on track this year to surpass that tree-crushing total.

  

  As frustrating — and costly – as never-ending meddling from Washington bureaucrats can be, light bulbs and plumbing are small potatoes compared to the mayhem that erupts when an agency jumps the median to rewrite the entire rulebook for an industry to which it is, at best, a casual acquaintance. Just over a year ago our organization sounded the sirens on a lawsuit by the “stone-age” bureaucracy of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against an American crypto company, Ripple Labs. In that time an overwhelming consensus has emerged among crypto industry leaders, analysts, and legal scholars that the SEC’s lawsuit is not only absurd, but extremely dangerous.

  Imagine the reaction to a referee throwing a penalty flag on the field for a play that happened 30 minutes ago. There would certainly be a healthy mix of incredulity and outrage, and the strong view the official is irrationally and arbitrarily ruining the game. The SEC lawsuit against Ripple is just as irrational and arbitrary, but the stakes involve billions of dollars held by innocent users of the digital currency XRP as well as the larger issue of federal agency overreach, and their power to capriciously extend their tentacles into places where they do not belong. The outcome of the case will further have a substantial impact on America’s position within the exponentially growing digital currency markets.

  In December 2020, the SEC retroactively declared XRP to be an unregistered security and all its trades for the previous seven years to have been illegal, even on the secondary markets. The regulator accused Ripple, which built its business on the use case of XRP as a bridge currency, of selling securities despite the fact that billions of XRP tokens have circulated among hundreds of thousands of other users since 2013 with no connection to the company. Gensler has now upped the ante, saying the SEC, not the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), should call the shots on all digital assets. With even greater hubris, Gensler insists to the court that the SEC is under no obligation to set clear, defining, and transparent rules to provide guidance for traders and holders of digital assets, essentially claiming decisions can be made by the agency at their whim on a case-by-case basis, an absolutely ludicrous position.

  The recklessness of the SEC’s case against Ripple is simply astounding, not to mention unjust and void of due process. Prior to its lawsuit the SEC gave nearly a decade of confusing and contradictory public signals on XRP to consumers and investors while billions of tokens traded on secondary markets. The SEC gave even more unclear guidance to Ripple in private, according to the evidence filed in the case.

  The Ripple case has exposed our nation’s complete lack of legal and statutory clarity in the regulation of not just XRP, but all crypto. This is precisely where Congress must step in and assert its authority to create a clear regulatory framework for digital assets. This month Gensler was grilled by the Senate Banking Committee for his lax and inconsistent treatment of crypto, with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) accusing Gensler of “not sharing with us” the criteria the SEC is using to regulate crypto. Gensler gives vague answers on why Bitcoin is a commodity while the SEC considers XRP a security, even though both are overwhelmingly used in commercial transactions, not held as investments. In a new lawsuit against a market influencer, Gensler hints at total jurisdiction over all Ethereum network transactions anywhere in the world.

  In October of last year, the judge in the case granted amici status to what is now more than 73,000 XRP token holders who were immediately harmed by the SEC’s allegation that all XRP tokens are investment contracts in Ripple. Their lawyer, John Deaton, says the vast majority of them had no knowledge or connection to Ripple when the SEC’s action wiped out the value of their holdings. Deaton calls the SEC’s legal theory in the case “dangerous” and a threat to every digital asset holder and consumer. The SEC is so out of control, and going so far past its authority, that consumers have turned on the regulator who is supposed to be protecting them.

  The outcome of the SEC case against Ripple is critical in not just establishing a fair and just baseline for the protection of crypto investors, but as a test case in setting boundaries to stop overreach by federal agencies seeking to advance their power at the expense of efficiency. Crypto is popular and growing precisely because of its efficiency, flexibility, and vast utility in financial markets, benefits that can easily be quashed through intrusive and heavy-handed regulation. The ultimate arbiter of these issues is Congress, who must act, and soon, to help establish a clear framework to regulate crypto, and to limit the SEC’s power to occupy spaces where it simply does not belong.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 20:20

• Hurricane Ian To Unleash Up To $70 Billion In Losses, Insurance Market Devastation And Even Bigger Spike In Inflation
  Hurricane Ian To Unleash Up To $70 Billion In Losses, Insurance Market Devastation And Even Bigger Spike In Inflation

  Just three weeks ago we observed how the 2022 Hurricane season had neared its halfway point without any hurricanes making landfall on the coast of the United States.

  

  All that is about to change and with a bang: As the powerful Hurricane Ian bears down on Florida which is rapidly evacuating ahead of landfall, it threatens to further destabilize a homeowners-insurance market already teetering on the edge of disaster.

  The storm is expected to make landfall along the southwest Florida coast late Wednesday or early Thursday, and could send seawater coursing through the streets of Tampa.

  

  While Ian’s strength and trajectory are subject to change in the coming days, one early estimate pegs potential damage and economic losses in the Tampa Bay region at $50 billion to $70 billion, according Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research.

  That price tag, according to Bloomberg citing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, would make Ian among the costliest storms in US history, as the top end of that range would rank Ian as the sixth-costliest US hurricane. Difficulties in getting needed material and supplies to victims due to snagged supply chains are likely to raise costs even further.

  Some insurers will likely not survive: Ian is arriving in the wake of six insolvencies among insurers that write homeowner policies in the state. According to Bloomberg, the largest insurers largely pulled back from the market after taking a beating from natural disasters, and the smaller firms still active there have struggled to endure losses.

  “It’s kind of the worst timing for the storm, especially if it hits Tampa Bay,” Logan McFaddin, vice president of state government relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said in an interview.

  Flood damages aren’t typically covered in home policies. Instead, they fall under policies managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

  “If this is a major flood event, that could leave many homeowners vulnerable,” said Mark Friedlander, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute. “If there were major windstorm losses, other companies could be pushed in the direction of potential insolvency as well.”

  State-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. accounts for slightly more than 10% of the Florida homeowners insurance market by premiums written. The market share is somewhat higher in some of the counties surrounding Tampa, according to Michael Peltier, a spokesman for Citizens. The insurer has been forced to take on more market share as other firms fold or cease writing policies due to rampant litigation and scams lawmakers have struggled to subdue.

  Progressive has said it doesn’t want renew about 60,000 policies in the state, citing efforts to “limit growth in the coastal and hail-prone” areas while focusing on regions less prone to catastrophe losses. Florida has passed legislation that would make those exits harder; meanwhile, the company is charging more for insurance, particularly for homes with older roofs.

  As part of its preparations for the storm, Citizens is setting up catastrophe-response teams and getting ready to deploy vehicles equipped to assess damage and assist customers who lose internet access.

  “It’s no secret that the private market has been facing some challenging times here in Florida,” Peltier said. “Having a hurricane come ashore certainly doesn’t help.”

  And then there are those insurers who will survive, only to make the US inflation problem even worse: the massive losses will likely lead insurance companies to join sovereigns such as Japan in selling some of their Treasury holdings to raise money to pay claims, which in turn will help spur inflation. This takes place amid an already strapped supply chain and high inflation. The storm appears likely to intensify food inflation as Ian takes direct aim on crucial orange-growing and fertilizer-manufacturing zones.

  In short: a perfect storm in the worst possible time.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 20:00

• Janet Yellen Is Disturbingly Serious About Tax Hikes
  Janet Yellen Is Disturbingly Serious About Tax Hikes

  Authored by Bruce Thompson via RealClearMarkets.com,

  Treasury Secretary Yellen has been out on the campaign trail, calling for higher taxes on individuals and US companies. The Secretary thinks the government needs to collect more taxes, even though her own Department just reported that federal tax collections are at record high levels.

  

  According to the Treasury Department’s monthly budget report, total federal tax receipts in the first eleven months of fiscal 2022  totaled $4.4 trillion, an increase of $823 billion, or 23%, over the same period last year. Total federal taxes are on track to reach nearly $5 trillion, an incredible 45% increase in the last two years. Taxes as a percent of GDP will reach 19.6%, the second-highest level since World War II.

  Treasury also reported that corporate tax receipts are projected to reach $404 billion, the highest level ever, and nearly twice as much as the amount collected in 2020.  Corporate taxes as a percent of GDP are now 1.7%, equal to the modern average (2000-2016) and higher than the 40-year average (1980-2020).

  Even with taxes soaring, the Treasury Secretary wants to increase the US corporate tax rate to the highest rate in the developed world. Under her plan, the combined average federal-state tax rate would be 32.8%, 40% higher than the average OECD rate of 23.4%, putting US companies at a significant competitive disadvantage against their leading competitors.

  The new U.S. tax rate would also be much higher than China’s top rate of 25%.

  Numerous studies have shown that raising the corporate tax rate would be harmful to economic growth, resulting in higher prices, lower wages, and fewer jobs.

  Washington does not need more tax revenue to spend. Higher taxes are the last thing we need with inflation soaring and the economy slowing.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 19:40

• Meta Disrupts Chinese Social Media Campaign To Stoke Division Ahead Of U.S. Mid-Term Elections
  Meta Disrupts Chinese Social Media Campaign To Stoke Division Ahead Of U.S. Mid-Term Elections

  Meta has said it disrupted a Chinese operation to try and influence the coming U.S. midterm elections.

  The company said it dismantled the campaign, which “targeted users in the United States with political content in an apparent effort to polarize voters”, according to reporting by The Epoch Times. 

  The report says that China maintained fake accounts across both Facebook and Instagram – and also Twitter. The influence campaign began in November 2021 but didn’t gain any engagement, the report says. 

  The discovery “suggests a shift toward more direct interference in U.S. domestic politics from China”, the report reads. 

  Meta global threat intelligence lead Ben Nimmo commented: “The Chinese operations we’ve taken down before talked primarily about America to the world, primarily in South Asia, not to Americans about themselves. Essentially the message was ‘America bad, China good.” 

  

  The operation targeted both the left and the right in the U.S., and ultimately sought to sow division on hotbutton issues like abortion and the war in Ukraine. 

  One cluster of accounts posted memes that accused President Biden of corruption, while others posted critiques of the Republican Party for its stance on similar issues. 

  Politicians like Marco Rubio, Rick Scott and Ted Cruz were targeted personally, as was Florida governor Ron DeSantis. 

  All told, the operation wasn’t extremely sophisticated, the report says. In addition to failing to garner much engagement, some accounts posted in Chinese, while others used photographs of men on accounts with womens’ names. 

  Meta has said it doesn’t have enough evidence to say who, exactly in China, was behind the campaign. 

  You can read Meta’s full report, called “Taking down coordinated inauthentic behavior from Russia and China”, here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 19:20

• Charting A Course To Self-Reliance
  Charting A Course To Self-Reliance

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  Self-reliance in the 21st century is uniquely challenging because we’ve become overly dependent on globalization and financialization.

  

  As things unravel, the one surefire strategy is to chart a course for greater self-reliance. Improving self-reliance has no downside, only upside, and everyone can increase their self-reliance incrementally in small ways.

  Self-reliance isn’t the same as self-sufficiency. Even Thoreau on Walden Pond used manufactured tools and supplies sourced from afar. The basic idea of self-reliance is to reduce our dependency on long, fragile supply chains and the hamster-wheel landfill Economy of planned obsolescence and waste is growth consumption, and increase what we can do for ourselves and those we care about.

  Self-reliance isn’t going it alone, it’s assembling trusted personal networks as a producer as well as a consumer, as a means of reducing the number of links in your personal supply chain and increasing local sources of life’s essentials.

  Self-reliance increases as we acquire skills and capital in all its forms. Self-reliance isn’t the same as money; what’s truly valuable can’t be bought: trust, reciprocity, integrity. Those are the foundations of self-reliance.

  Self-reliance in the 21st century is uniquely challenging because we’ve become overly dependent on globalization and financialization–not just on traditional supply chains and finance, but a near-total dependence on hyper-globalized supply chains and hyper-financialized credit-asset bubbles that are inherently unstable and unsustainable.

  There’s no downside to becoming more self-reliant and enormous upside. If the Landfill Economy continues chewing through the planet’s dwindling resources, it doesn’t diminish the value of being able to do more for ourselves and those we care about.

  But if long, fragile supply chains break and hyper-financialization blows a gasket and sinks, the self-reliant will have a much easier time than those with minimal self-reliance. We’re only powerless if we cede all power over our lives to others. Self-reliance is all about taking control of our own lives rather than relying on unsustainable global supply chains and centralized authorities to provide us with essentials.

  I address all this in my new book Self-Reliance in the 21st Century (96 pages). I’m offering it to my readers at a 20% discount for the Kindle edition ($7.95) and 15% discount for the print edition ($17).

  You can read the first chapter for free (PDF). In later chapters, I cover the mindset of self-reliance and the nuts and bolts of self-reliance.

  I wrote this book not as someone on the peak looking down but as someone on the trail looking up. Self-reliance is a work in progress, not a destination. I’m constantly improving my self-reliance, too, and have a long way to go. I wrote this book to offer a few pointers on charting your own course to greater self-reliance.

  *  *  *

  My new book is now available at a 20% discount ($7.95 ebook) 15% discount ($17 print) this week: Self-Reliance in the 21st Century.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 19:00

• Philadelphia PD Seeks To Identify 100 Juveniles In "Riot" At Wawa Convenience Store Last Weekend
  Philadelphia PD Seeks To Identify 100 Juveniles In “Riot” At Wawa Convenience Store Last Weekend

  It’s just another day in Democrat-run Philadelphia. Police are attempting to identify 100 juveniles who stormed and ransacked a Wawa in Philadelphia over the weekend. 

  On Sunday, at around 8:15pm, a Wawa convenience store on Philadelphia’s Roosevelt Boulevard was overrun by juveniles who caused more than $10,000 in damages and vandalized the property. 

  Surveillance video shows the juveniles “screaming, throwing merchandise and breaking things in the store”, Philly Voice reported. Police believe that some of the juveniles were coming from the roller skating rink located next door.

  

  Video of the incident shows teenagers “rushing into the store, looting items, throwing things and knocking displays over before rushing outside.” Some teens jumped on parked cars before leaving the scene. 

  Now police are looking to try and identify all of the individuals involved in the looting. 

  Capt. Jason Ryan said on Monday: “It does fit in with the past 10 years with the various kinds of flash mobs, car meets, and other spontaneous disorder. The charges can include riot, criminal mischief, vandalism, theft, riot being a felony. If everyone’s seen the video, it certainly falls into the parameters of what we can call a riot.” 

  A spokesperson for Wawa commented: “We are working closely with law enforcement to support their efforts to bring all of these perpetrators to justice as soon as possible. We remain committed to protecting our associates and customers and ensuring a safe, welcoming environment for each customer, in every Wawa store. Nothing is more important to us.” 

  Here is video of the juveniles at the scene, with Philadelphia Police showing the faces of many of the participants:

  Of course, we’re sure that once Philadelphia PD does finally identify some of the participants, Philadelphia’s far left DA will figure out a way to help them dodge as many consequences as possible.

  Because we all know that it’s the perpetrators that were really the victims here, being unfairly accused of rioting when they were simply looking to stop in and grab bread for their families…

  Philadelphia woman: “You can’t even walk to the store” without “running or losing your life.”

  “It’s crazy! Philly is crazy!” pic.twitter.com/SuxdSfRPR9

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 28, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 18:40

• Iran Oil Workers Threaten To Strike If Government Doesn't End Crackdown
  Iran Oil Workers Threaten To Strike If Government Doesn’t End Crackdown

  Submitted by OilPrice.com

  Iranian oil industry contract workers have warned the government to end its crackdown on protesters or they will strike, a move that could cripple a key sector of the economy.

  “We support the people’s struggles against organized and everyday violence against women and against the poverty and hell that dominates the society,” the Organizing Council of Oil Contract Workers said on September 26.

  

  Iran has been roiled by unrest that has spread to more than 80 cities and towns, including in the northwest, where 22-year-old Mahsa Amini lived before eyewitnesses and family said she was beaten — and later died — after being seized by the morality police in Tehran on September 13.

  Labor protests in Iran also have been on the rise in recent months in response to declining living standards and state support as crippling Western sanctions wrack the economy.

  The outrage over Amini’s death also has reignited decades-old resentment at the treatment of women by Iran’s religious leadership, including laws forcing women to wear Islamic scarves to cover their heads in public.

  The Iran Human Rights Organization said on September 27 that at least 76 people have been killed in anti-government protests across Iran.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 18:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• New Zealand Calls It Quits On Aiding Ukraine's Military
  New Zealand Calls It Quits On Aiding Ukraine’s Military

  At a moment Washington continues what’s essentially an endless arms and financial aid pipeline to Ukraine, and as some defense officials express concerns over the Pentagon’s own dwindling stockpiles, one country says it’s giving up on arming Kyiv.

  New Zealand, which is one of the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing partners which includes the US, now says it can no longer keep up with supplying what Ukraine is asking for without depleting its stockpiles.

  “The New Zealand government has expanded sanctions on key Russians, but cannot provide further military assistance as it has nothing Ukraine wants,” The Canberra Times reports Tuesday.

  

  Defense Minister Peeni Henare said his country stands “ready to provide further lethal aid if Ukraine’s needs matched its stockpiles.”

  The top defense official then confirmed it is currently the case that the military cannot keep up:

  Asked on Tuesday whether New Zealand had considered further military support, Mr Henare said the requests didn’t match “on our current assessment and according to the requests in the donor meetings I’ve been on”.

  “On those donor calls, they’ve come asking and it’s for HIMARS, land-to-air defence systems and also land-to-sea defence systems,” he said.

  So far, New Zealand’s contribution has been meager – given also it’s a tiny Pacific island nation – compared to European countries, and has been focused on defensive equipment such as body armor.

  “If they were things we were to procure, they would take years but that hasn’t stopped us providing military aid,” PM Jacinda Ardern commented this week on the logistical challenges in procuring and then shipping weapons abroad.

  A look at historic New Zealand military expenditures over the last half-century…

  

  But as a major non-NATO ally of the United States and major intelligence-sharing partner, New Zealand is without doubt assisting the US mission in support of Ukrainian forces in this arena. It is also vowing more sanctions, and has typically signed off on whatever fresh US and EU anti-Russia sanctions are rolled out.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/28/2022 – 02:00

• Watch: French PM Declares EU Will Be 'Vigilant' Against 'Threat' Of Democratically Elected Italian Leader
  Watch: French PM Declares EU Will Be ‘Vigilant’ Against ‘Threat’ Of Democratically Elected Italian Leader

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  

  Following the stunning election of conservative candidate Georgia Meloni to the office of Prime Minister in Italy, Meloni’s French counterpart has declared that the EU will be ‘vigilant’ against any ‘threat to human rights’ posed by the democratically elected leader.

  France’s Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, stated during an interview that the EU intends to scrutinise the actions of the Italy’s first woman PM.

  “In Europe, we have a set of values ​​and, of course, we will be mindful that these values ​​are respected by everyone when it comes to human rights and the right to abortion,” Borne proclaimed.

  💬 “On sera attentifs à ce que les valeurs sur les droits de l’Homme et notamment le respect du droit à l’avortement soient respectés”

  Élisabeth Borne (@Elisabeth_Borne) réagit à la victoire de l’extrême droite en Italie ⤵ pic.twitter.com/4cDy6CjjoG

  — BFMTV (@BFMTV) September 26, 2022

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

  Meloni, a Catholic, has previously promised that there will be no crack down on abortion in Italy, but has expressed a desire to see more alternatives offered to women.

  The comments of the French PM come after European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen threatened to punish Italy for electing a right-wing coalition government.

  Von der Leyen stated that “we have tools” if Italy is not “willing to work with us”:

  The thinly veiled threat was blasted by Matteo Salvini, head of Lega (The League), the party expected to form a coalition with Meloni’s government.

  “These are disgusting words, the threatening tone is unacceptable,” Salvini urged, adding “Our parliamentary group will present a motion of censure,” and emphasising that the Italian people control what happens in their country, not “the Brussels bureaucrats”.

  Following the victory of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, hysterical media coverage ensued, with numerous publications warning of the “return of fascism in Italy.”

  Those concerns were rubbished by, of all people, former leftist Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who called them “fake news.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 23:30

• Syria Demands Compensation For Oil Losses In UN Speech
  Syria Demands Compensation For Oil Losses In UN Speech

  In a rare plea before the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Syria’s top diplomat demanded compensation for oil and gas stolen by the United States, as well as its monumental energy losses over the course of the 11-year long war.

  “The war against Syria, ultimately, was an attempt by the West to maintain control over the world,” Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the assembly on Monday, demanding further that the continuing US military occupation in the oil and gas rich northeast “should end immediately, without conditions.”

  

  He informed UN leaders that “direct and indirect” oil and gas sector losses over the course of the conflict have reached $107 billion, stressing further that Damascus is demanding compensation.

  “Fighting terrorism does not happen through an illegitimate international coalition that violates Syria’s sovereignty and destroys towns and villages,” Mekdad asserted. He said that any ‘counterterror’ campaign or foreign presence on sovereign Syrian soil must be done in direct coordination with President Bashar al-Assad. 

  While during the Trump administration years the hundreds of American troops stationed in eastern parts of Syria were there to “secure the oil” – as Trump had often repeated, the Biden administration has chosen to stress a continued counter-terrorism mission. And yet, US forces and their Kurdish SDF proxies continue to occupy the largest and most important oil and gas fields in the region. 

  Russia too has long called for the immediate exit of American forces, and has of late appeared to step up its air campaign against anti-government jihadist elements in Idlib, which has put Turkey on edge. Pro-Iranian militias have reportedly launched sporadic attacks on US bases, meanwhile.

  Ironically, just last week in President Joe Biden’s address to the UNGA, he declared “you cannot seize another country’s territory by force. The only country doing that is Russia.”

  The US is occupying 1/3 of Syria, so invoking the UN charter is awkward. But White House speechwriters are crafty; they got around it by getting Biden to say that countries cannot take “territory *of their neighbors* by force.”

  Syria isn’t a US “neighbor”, so we’re good! https://t.co/WQ9SaW69iW

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) September 21, 2022

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  Many pundits were then quick to point out the obvious: that Biden denounced Russia’s occupation of eastern Ukraine all the while being completely oblivious to the years-long American occupation of Syria. Or alternately, Washington is certainly fully aware and believes itself to be the only country in the world with the “right” or “mandate” to seize any foreign soil that it wants to.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 23:00

• Pennsylvania Pro-Life Advocate to Appear In Federal Court Following Dawn SWAT Raid
  Pennsylvania Pro-Life Advocate to Appear In Federal Court Following Dawn SWAT Raid

  Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  A pro-life advocate and father of seven will appear in federal court in Philadelphia on Sept. 27 to face charges that he violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) outside a Pennsylvania abortion clinic nearly a year ago.

  Mark Houck, a Catholic pro-life speaker and author from Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, is accused of twice physically assaulting a patient escort at a Planned Parenthood clinic during an altercation in October 2021.

  On Sept. 23, a heavily armed Justice Department SWAT team arrested the 48-year-old Houck at his home at gunpoint, placing him in handcuffs while his terrified wife and children looked on.

  Houck became the latest target of President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice solely to “intimidate people of faith and pro-life Americans,” said Peter Breen, an attorney at the Thomas Moore Society, a national non-profit law firm representing Houck in the case.

  

  “Mark Houck is innocent of these lawless charges, and we intend to prove that in court,” Breen said in a Sept. 26 statement.

  About 20 heavily armed FBI agents stormed Houck’s home at daybreak on Sept. 23, pointing guns at his head and then arresting him in front of his wife Ryan-Marie and their young children.

  He faces two counts of physically assaulting the patient escort.

  In June, Thomas Moore Society attorneys notified the DOJ that the FACE Act does not cover one-on-one altercations like the one involving Houck, which they claimed was initiated by an abortion supporter harassing Houck’s son.

  The attorneys also advised that Houck would appear in court voluntarily to face any charges against him.

  “Rather than accepting Mark Houck’s offer to appear voluntarily, the Biden Department of Justice chose to make an unnecessary show of potentially deadly force, sending 20 heavily armed federal agents to the Houck residence at dawn this past Friday,” Breen said in the statement.

  “In threatening form, after nearly breaking down the family’s front door, at least five agents pointed guns at Mark’s head and arrested him in front of his wife and seven young children, who were terrified that their husband and father would be shot dead before their eyes.”

  Donations continued to pour in for the Houck family via the Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo, which totaled $137,000 as of Sept. 25.

  Mark Houck faces up to 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000 if convicted.

  In June 2019, Thomas Moore Society attorneys won a similar case in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, establishing that a one-off altercation cannot form the basis for a FACE Act complaint.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 22:30

• Futures Tumble After Report Apple Backs Off Plans To Increase iPhone Production Due To Lack Of Demand
  Futures Tumble After Report Apple Backs Off Plans To Increase iPhone Production Due To Lack Of Demand

  So much can change in just 8 days: back on Sept 19, citing “Apple analyst” Ming-Chi Kuo, 9to5mac reported that Apple was “cranking up iPhone 14 Pro production to address higher demand.”

  Well, maybe not, because moments ago, citing people familiar with the matter, late on Tuesday Bloomberg reported that contrary to expectations for a production boost, Apple is instead “backing off plans to increase production of its new iPhones this year after an anticipated surge in demand failed to materialize.

  According to the report, the phone maker which hasn’t come up with a refreshingly new model in about 4 years but merely adds more megapixels and a slightly faster chip and presents it as “new”, told suppliers “to pull back from efforts to increase assembly of the iPhone 14 product family by as many as 6 million units in the second half of this year.” Instead, Apple will aim to produce 90 million handsets for the period, around the same level as the prior year and in line with Apple’s original forecast this summer.

  In fairness, it’s not like outside analysts had any idea Tim Cook was about to pull a swticheroo: Apple had upgraded its sales projections in the weeks leading up to the iPhone 14 release and some of its suppliers had started making preparations for a 7% boost in orders. But just two weeks after the unveil of the new phone, Apple realized that this anticipated demand boost wasn’t coming.

  And yes, while demand for higher-priced iPhone 14 Pro models may indeed be stronger than for the entry-level versions – after all the baseline model offers absolutely nothing new – at least until the market plunges another 20% and even those rich on paper have to cancel their orders, even so the overall supply will not change although in hopes of salvaging at least margins if not overall revenue, some suppliers are shifting production capacity from lower-priced iPhones to premium models… which incidentally is hardly as it was reported by MacRumors about a week ago.

  Needless to say, the success – and failure – of the company’s leading device has implications for wide swathes of the tech industry, with suppliers including Taiwan Semiconductor and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. depending on sales of iPhones and related devices as key revenue drivers.

  All this is happening as China, the world’s biggest smartphone market, is in an economic slump that’s hit its domestic mobile device makers and also affected the iPhone’s sales. Purchases of the iPhone 14 series over its first three days of availability in China were 11% down on its predecessor the previous year, according to a Jefferies note on Monday.

  And then there is the global recession: as Bloomberg notes, global demand for personal electronics has also been suppressed by soaring inflation, recession fears and disruption from the war in Ukraine. As a result, the smartphone market is expected to shrink by 6.5% this year to 1.27 billion units, according to data from market tracker IDC.

  “The supply constraints pulling down on the market since last year have eased and the industry has shifted to a demand-constrained market,” said Nabila Popal, research director at IDC. “High inventory in channels and low demand with no signs of immediate recovery has OEMs panicking and cutting their orders drastically for 2022.”

  The news that there is just not enough demand for the trinkets and beads of the world’s largest company promptly hammered futures, which not only gave up all overnight gains, but promptly tumbled back to session – and fresh 2022 – lows.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 22:11

• 30-Year US Mortgage Rises Above 7% For The First Time Since 2000; Fastest Surge In History
  30-Year US Mortgage Rises Above 7% For The First Time Since 2000; Fastest Surge In History

  Less than two weeks ago we cited Freddie Mac according to which the average 30 year US mortgage just rose above 6% for the first time since 2008, with real-estate brokerage Redfin commemorating the move by saying that “This Is The Sharpest Turn In The Housing Market Since The 2008 Crash.” Well, just a few days later, Jeff Gundlach was so kind to point out this evening…

  That was quick. The National Average 30 Year Mortgage Rate posted at 7.08% today.

  — Jeffrey Gundlach (@TruthGundlach) September 28, 2022

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  …that  the national average 30 year mortgage rate just soared above 7.0%, hitting 7.08% and the highest since December 11, 2000.

  

  This was the fastest 1% increase in mortgage rates in history; and the fact that it took place inside of a month is even more remarkable.

  

  There is nothing we can add here that isn’t self-explanatory, and that we haven’t said already, like for example the fastest ever collapse in YoY Case-Shiller prices, as well as the first sequential drop in 112 years…

  

  … not to mention that the typical home now sells for less than the asking price…

  

  … but what is perhaps most remarkable is that according to the Altanta Fed, as of a few weeks ago, the median American household would needed to spend 44.5% of their income to afford payments on a median-priced home in the US, the highest percentage on record with data going back to 2006.

  

  Well, as of today, that number is just over 50%. That’s right: more than half of the average US household’s income goes to paying housing payments, nearly double what this number was just two years ago.

  That such a move can’t end in anything but tears is obvious to everyone… but the Fed, which still thinks it can somehow avoid the most destructive of hard landings.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 21:41

• Oil Prices Are About To Reverse Course
  Oil Prices Are About To Reverse Course

  By Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

  

  “That would be the road to hell for America,” JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon said last week, referring to a suggestion that all big banks divest from the oil and gas industry. In the same week, Aramco’s chief executive warned that years of underinvestment in new oil production are beginning to bear fruit, which is an undersupplied market.

  Despite these statements that suggested oil prices should move higher, oil fell for much of the week. Yet it wasn’t dragged down by fundamentals. Oil prices are down because many traders and investors are bracing for a recession.

  The bad news is that even in a recession, oil prices can go higher, and this is exactly what some of those banks that kept JP Morgan company at last week’s Congress hearing expected.

  Actually, JP Morgan was one of the bullish forecasters. Last week, the banking major’s analysts wrote in a note that they expected Brent crude to rebound to $101 in the fourth quarter. The analysts cited tighter supply as the reason for their forecast.

  Goldman Sachs is even more bullish. Three weeks ago, the bank’s analysts said Brent could hit $125 next year despite the oil price cap touted by the G7 as a tool both for keeping the market supplied with Russian oil and for lowering prices. They remain bullish to date.

  Morgan Stanley is a little more modest in its price expectations, seeking Brent crude at $95 per barrel in the last quarter of the year. It’s worth noting that this is a downward revision of the bank’s price outlook for the fourth quarter, which happened two weeks ago, prompted by growing recession fears.

  UBS also revised down its price expectations earlier this month, again citing recession concerns as well as the continued flow of Russian oil to Asian importers. That downward revision, however, brought Brent to $110, with analysts noting it could rise to $125 by the end of the third quarter of 2023.

  The reasons that the Swiss bank gave for the expected rebound are as interesting as they are worrying. According to UBS, oil prices wouldn’t rebound because of a recovering global economy. They would rebound because of the greater demand for oil products for electricity generation and because of tighter overall markets as the U.S. ends its SPR oil sale program.

  During the current quarter, oil prices have slumped by 20 percent, Bloomberg noted in a report on bank forecasts about its price. The reason, once again, had nothing to do with supply and demand dynamics. It had a lot to do with central bank policies and specifically the Fed’s aggressive move to rein in inflation by a quick succession of rate hikes that have pushed the dollar a lot higher, making commodities priced in the currency more expensive.

  On the fundamental front, the G7 is pushing ahead with the oil price cap, even though Russia said that it would simply not sell oil to a country enforcing a price cap. The EU, for its part, is currently discussing yet another package of sanctions against Moscow following the news that four eastern Ukrainian regions would be holding referendums to join the Russian Federation.

  Meanwhile, OPEC+ keeps falling well short of its production targets, and this will likely continue. In addition, some analysts expect the cartel to implement more production cuts, further squeezing global supply.

  In the U.S., inventories in the strategic petroleum reserve are at the lowest in decades, and this has worried some. Others, like Robert Rapier, have pointed out that the SPR is not as vital for the country’s supply as it used to be decades ago when the U.S. was heavily dependent on oil imports.

  What the above suggests is what Aramco’s Nasser warned about last week. The oil market is not in balance, and supply is getting tighter because there is little in the way of new supply to make up for natural depletion, which has been accompanied by other factors such as political instability and U.S. sanctions on large producers.

  At the same time, with the EU tightening the sanction screws on Russia, chances are that gas prices will remain elevated, which will result in what UBS noted as one factor for higher oil prices: greater demand for fuels to use in the generation of electricity instead of even costlier natural gas.

  “The consequence of global inventory drawdowns is that once demand picks up, the upshot in prices will happen all over again,” Morgan Stanley global oil strategist Martijn Rats told Bloomberg. “For now, demand has taken a step back, but the supply picture hasn’t changed that much; the supply ceiling is not that far away at all. As soon as demand picks up, we will have the same price pressures in the market again.”

  In a nutshell, this is the ultimate reason why oil prices will likely soon be on their way back up. Supply growth is stalling while demand is about to pick up. And depending on how strongly it picks up, we could see a lot higher oil prices next year.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 21:00

• US Tells Snowden Return Home To "Face Justice" Or Risk Conscription In Russian Army
  US Tells Snowden Return Home To “Face Justice” Or Risk Conscription In Russian Army

  Upon learning of Monday’s decree signed by Vladimir Putin to grant Russian citizenship to ex-NSA employee Edward Snowden after having been given asylum since he arrived there in 2013, the US administration called on Snowden to return to American soil to “face justice”.

  “Mr. Snowden should return to the United States where he should face justice as any other American citizen would,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday.

  

  But Price followed with a claim that’s being disputed by Snowden’s legal defense team. “Perhaps the only thing that has changed, is that as a result of his Russian citizenship, apparently now he may well be conscripted to fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine,” he said.

  In response, Snowden’s lawyer was quoted in Russia’s Sputnik as saying since Snowden never served in the Russian army, he will not be impacted by the ‘partial mobilization’ – which applies to reservists, though there have been conflicting reports of instances of draft notices being sent out to Russian young men:

  “He did not serve in the Russian army, therefore, according to our current legislation, he does not fall into this category of citizens, which is now called up. You know that now they are calling up reservists who have served and have the appropriate specialty. And then he will act according to the law, as everything is provided for in Russian legislation,” Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s laywer in Russia, said.

  The decree enacted on Monday stated as follows:

  “In accordance with paragraph ‘a’ of Article 89 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, I decide: to accept the following persons in the citizenship of the Russian Federation: Edward Joseph Snowden, born June 21, 1983, in the United States of America.”

  After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our SONS.

  After two years of waiting and nearly ten years of exile, a little stability will make a difference for my family. I pray for privacy for them—and for us all. https://t.co/24NUK21TAo pic.twitter.com/qLfp47uzZ4

  — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 26, 2022

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  In a statement posted to Twitter, Snowden said he had applied for and obtained dual citizenship on fears that he could be separated from his son without Russian citizenship.

  Snowden remains America’s most visible whistleblower, after a career in US intelligence, including as a contractor for the NSA and CIA, he exposed pervasive US government domestic surveillance, which critics say is a severe violation of individual Americans’ rights as guaranteed under the Constitution.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 20:40

• Air Force Academy Defends Telling Cadets To Replace 'Mom And Dad' With 'Gender-Neutral Language'
  Air Force Academy Defends Telling Cadets To Replace ‘Mom And Dad’ With ‘Gender-Neutral Language’

  Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  The U.S. Air Force Academy has defended its teaching cadets to avoid “gender-specific terms” such as “mom” or “dad,” saying that “inclusive language” is important to its mission of training leaders capable of winning wars.

  The Colorado Springs-based military school recently met with criticism over a slide that instructs cadets to replace gender-specific terms with gender-neutral ones. For example, “partner” is considered a better alternative to “boyfriend” or “girlfriend.” Terms like “parents,” “caregivers,” and “guardians” are preferable to “mom” or “dad.”

  To be “inclusive,” cadets should also avoid saying that they are “colorblind” or that they “don’t see color” or “we’re all just people,” according to the slide.

  A screenshot of the slide, which is part of a training titled “Diversity and Inclusion: What it is, why we care, and what we can do,” was shared with Fox News by Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), an Afghan War veteran and vocal critic of “wokeness” in the U.S. military.

  “It’s been a tradition in the military to get letters from Mom and Dad or your boyfriend and girlfriend for as long as there’s been a military,” Waltz told Fox News. “Now we’re instructing every cadet entering the Air Force to not say ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ to not say ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ and this kind of drive towards gender neutrality.”

  “I think the Air Force should be worried about the ‘macroaggressions’ against America that are happening all over the world,” he added in a mocking reference to “microagression,” a term leftists use for behaviors they see as unintentional or indirect discrimination against members of a marginalized group.

  Academy’s Response

  In response to criticism, the Academy said the language of the slide was taken out of context and “misrepresented.”

  “The Air Force Academy does not prohibit the use of ‘Mom and Dad’ or other gender-specific terms,” the Academy said in a statement. “The slide in question was not intended to stand alone.”

  The slide, according to the Academy, was intended to “demonstrate how respect for others should be used to build inclusive teams, producing more effective warfighting units.”

  “USAFA develops leaders of character that can lead diverse teams of Airmen and Guardians inclusively, to enhance innovation and win future conflict,” the Academy said. “It is the diversity of Airmen and Guardians coming from all corners of our nation who perform the Department of the Air Force’s hundreds of critical mission sets that make us the best, most innovative Air and Space Forces the world has ever known.”

  In another slide shared by Waltz, cadets are referred to the Academy’s “Diversity & Inclusion Reading Room” for additional “resources” on the topic. That room, according to a February 2021 news release, is a “safe space” intended to “broaden and deepen exploration of the issues involved in diversity, inclusion and justice.”

  “Mark Jensen, president of the Academy’s faculty senate and a philosophy professor, said the reading room is the result of teamwork between faculty members and the Academy’s ongoing Critical Conversation series that formed in the wake of George Floyd’s Death,” the Academy reported at that time.

  Communist Tactics

  Waltz, who is a ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, shared with Fox a particular concern that the program’s structure appears to create a “separate, parallel chain of command.”

  “To those of us who are a little bit older, it reminds us of what the Soviets used to do or what the Chinese do today, where they literally have political commissars inserted at every level end of the chain of command, but they have a separate reporting chain to ensure that the military is abiding by their ideology and their political doctrine,” Waltz said.

  “Not only do they have diversity and equity officers in the cadet chain of command, they wear a special insignia, which is exactly what the political commissars—they would wear an armband in both the Soviet army and now in the Chinese Communist military. I just think there are some really alarming parallels.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 20:20

• 29% Of Americans Now Drawing From Their Savings "More Than Usual", New Survey Shows
  29% Of Americans Now Drawing From Their Savings “More Than Usual”, New Survey Shows

  New data out last week in the latest Forbes Advisor-Ipsos Consumer Confidence Weekly Tracker had shed some light on just how much Americans have been dipping into their savings as economic conditions worsen in the country. 

  While the survey showed that economic sentiment amongst Americans is unchanged, it still sits at levels that are “significantly lower than it did to start the year”, the report says. 

  While some indices contained in the survey pertaining to investments, expectations and jobs remain relatively stable (expectations declined slightly), it’s of note that the survey showed “a significant increase in the number of Americans who are withdrawing from their savings more than usual and investing or saving money less than usual.”

  Overall confidence still remains 3.4 points below the pandemic average, the report showed.

  

  The expectations sub-index, mentioned above, is down 0.7 points from two weeks ago and sitting “below its pandemic and historical averages, as well as its pre-pandemic reading”. 

  

  The report also notes that “for the third time in four months, the amount that draw from their savings more than usual outnumbers those who do so less than usual.”

  “Americans who do report a change are exercising caution. Those who say they spend money, borrow money/use credit, invest/save money, and pay off their loans/credit more than usual are outnumbered by those who say they do these things less than usual,” the report says. 

  

  Additionally, there has been an increase in the number of people who said they are saving less than usual (up 8 points to 46%). The report indicates that there has been an “increase in the percentage of those saying they are now drawing from their savings more than usual” (up 8 points to 29%). This number marks its highest point since tracking the data started)

  The results were based on data from an Ipsos survey conducted September 19 – 20, 2022 with a sample of 942 adults aged 18-74 from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii who were interviewed online in English, the report said. 

  You can view the survey’s full results and examine the questions used to conduct the research at this link. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 20:00

• Arizona Woman Made $7.2 Million From Human Smuggling In 6 Months: Police
  Arizona Woman Made $7.2 Million From Human Smuggling In 6 Months: Police

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

  

  A 24-year-old Arizona woman was arrested and charged with crimes related to a human smuggling enterprise on Sept. 23, according to the El Mirage Police Department (EMPD).

  Over a six-month period at least, the woman, Tania Estudillo Hernandez, had allegedly held and/or processed 80 to 100 illegal aliens per month at a residence in El Mirage, the police department stated in a Facebook post.

  The illegal aliens were charged as much as $15,000 each in smuggling fees, police said. At $15,000 a person, for 80 people per month over six months, that’s a total of $7.2 million.

  Police said the department received a report of a person being held for ransom at the El Mirage address on the morning of Sept. 23.

  “The complainant stated in the residence there were multiple people kidnapped, including her husband,” the EMPD stated.

  Officers stopped a vehicle leaving the residence and discovered Hernandez transporting a Guatemalan national, the report stated.

  “EMPD learned that while conducting the traffic stop, two smugglers left the home with 10 Undocumented Immigrants,” the police department noted.

  During a subsequent search warrant executed on the home police seized a semi-auto rifle, two handguns (one of which was reported stolen out of Phoenix), and ammunition.

  “Ledgers documenting human smuggling, and other evidence of human smuggling was seized, to include evidence that Tania Estudillo Hernandez managed and directed smuggling operations,” the EMPD stated.

  

  Hernandez was booked into Maricopa County Jail on violations of kidnapping, money laundering, illegally conducting or participation in an illegal enterprise, and conspiracy, police said.

  El Mirage is located in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area and is less than 3 hours’ drive to the U.S.–Mexico border.

  The Tucson Border Patrol sector in Arizona leads the nation in known gotaways, which are illegal aliens that Border Patrol detects, but fails to capture. Border Patrol reported about 10,000 illegal alien gotaways in the Tucson sector per month during the last several months, according to provisional Customs and Border Protection numbers obtained by The Epoch Times.

  Border agents in Arizona have apprehended more than 514,000 illegal aliens in fiscal year 2022, which ends on Sept. 30.

  Often, Border Patrol agents are tied up processing large groups of illegal border crossers, which leaves miles of border unpatrolled.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 19:40

• Coast Guard Spots Chinese, Russian Warship Formation Off Alaska
  Coast Guard Spots Chinese, Russian Warship Formation Off Alaska

  The US military revealed Monday that earlier this month a US Coast Guard had ship embarked on a routine patrol in the Bering Sea and its crew was surprised to come across a Chinese PLA Navy guided missile cruiser.

  But more rare and unexpected was that the Coast Guard soon discovered the Chinese ship wasn’t alone as it sailed off Alaska’s coast, but was accompanied by two additional Chinese military ships and four Russian naval vessels, including a destroyer. The Chinese-Russian patrol group was described as being “in single formation”. 

  

  The Coast Guard in releasing a photo of the encounter stated, “The Coast Guard Cutter Kimball crew on a routine patrol in the Bering Sea encountered a People’s Republic of China Guided Missile Cruiser, Renhai CG 101, sailing approximately 75 nautical miles north of Kiska Island, Alaska, September 19, 2022.”

  According to more details by the Coast Guard and reported in the Associated Press: 

  The Honolulu-based Kimball, a 418-foot vessel, observed as the ships broke formation and dispersed. A C-130 Hercules provided air support for the Kimball from the Coast Guard station in Kodiak.

  “While the formation has operated in accordance with international rules and norms, we will meet presence with presence to ensure there are no disruptions to U.S. interests in the maritime environment around Alaska,” said 17th Coast Guard District commander Rear Adm. Nathan Moore.

  The reference to the “presence with presence” patrol strategy is a method of dissuading such enemy foreign vessels from coming near US waters by maintaining frequent naval and coast guard patrol activity.

  

  This latest incident follows something similar a year ago, when in September 2021 Chinese ships were spotted by Coast Guard observers 50 miles off the Aleutian Islands. The Chinese and Russian navies have also been ramping up coordinated activity in the Sea of Japan and near Japanese islands, which Tokyo has protested as an unwarranted intrusion.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 19:20

• EU Chief Calls Nord Stream Attack "Sabotage", Warns Of "Strongest Possible Response"
  EU Chief Calls Nord Stream Attack “Sabotage”, Warns Of “Strongest Possible Response”

  Update (1910ET): 

  European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen confirmed the Nord Stream pipeline system leaks were caused by “sabotage,” and warned of the “strongest possible response” should active European energy infrastructure be attacked. 

  Spoke to @Statsmin Frederiksen on the sabotage action #Nordstream.

  Paramount to now investigate the incidents, get full clarity on events & why.

  Any deliberate disruption of active European energy infrastructure is unacceptable & will lead to the strongest possible response.

  — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) September 27, 2022

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  Earlier, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described the three separate leaks on NS1 and NS2 as “deliberate acts,” adding: “It’s hard to imagine that it’s accidental.”

  On Monday, Swedish seismologists reported the detection of underwater explosions – shortly after which large patches of roiling gas could be seen on the surface in the same area.

  As rumors swirl over who is responsible for the incident, one message it sent was clear – vital systems are vulnerable to attack.

  “The most important message that somebody wants to send, is what one is capable of doing with an offline pipeline can also be done with active pipelines, or undersea cables, or other infrastructure,” said Julian Pawlak, a researcher at the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies, in a statement to the NY Times.

  In response, Denmark and Norway announced increased security around their energy infrastructure, and Norway, now Europe’s most important producer of gas and oil, called for “increased vigilance by all operators and vessel owners.” In a statement, Norway’s energy minister, Terje Aasland, cited “reports of increased drone activity” around its coast, and said that much of what he had learned of the Nord Stream incidents “indicates acts of sabotage.” -NY Times

  And while Poland’s former Defense Minister appeared to thank the United States for the attack (a perfectly good explanation for which we’re sure is will be offered), Poland’s PM, Mateusz Morawiecki, laid the blame on Russia for targeting the pipelines – suggesting that the attack was an attempt to escalate the Ukraine conflict.

  “We do not know the details of what happened yet, but we can clearly see that it is an act of sabotage,” said Morawiecki, adding “An act that probably marks the next stage in the escalation of this situation in Ukraine.”

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  * * * 

  Update (1445ET): 

  German magazine Spiegel said the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recently warned Berlin about the increasing signs of a possible planned attack on the Nord Stream pipeline system. 

  Spiegel reported, citing unnamed sources, that the CIA tipped off Berlin in the summer about possible attacks on NS1 and NS2. 

  CIA warned Germany weeks ago of coming attack on natural gas pipelines Nord Stream I & II (from Russia to Germany), reports Der Spiegel.

  Russia could have pulled off such an attack but “It is difficult to see whether Russia or Ukraine could have an interest in such an incident” pic.twitter.com/7jZWvYdhgI

  — Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) September 27, 2022

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  “From Ukraine’s point of view, the permanent interruption of gas supplies from Russia to Germany would be a possible interest in the room. On the contrary, there would be immense political disadvantages that could arise from an attack.” pic.twitter.com/qziRb1gFUF

  — Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) September 27, 2022

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  * * * 

  Update (1415 ET): 

  Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen told reporters Nord Stream pipeline system damage to NS1 and NS2 “are deliberate actions, not an accident.”  

  “It is now the clear assessment by authorities that these are deliberate actions. It was not an accident.

  “There is no information yet to indicate who may be behind this action, Frederiksen said, adding that authorities don’t see NS1 and NS2 damage as a military threat against Denmark. 

  Danish gov speaking live now on Nord Stream leaks.

  PM Mette Frederiksen “These are deliberate actions, not an accident.” pic.twitter.com/UMw4MOUgc9

  — Carl Fridh Kleberg (@FridhKleberg) September 27, 2022

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  * * * 

  Update (1215ET):

  CNN’s White House and national security reporter Natasha Bertrand said the Biden administration “is not going to speculate on the cause” of the Nord Stream pipeline system damage to NS1 and NS2. 

  “The US stands ready to support European partners’ efforts as they investigate,” Bertrand said. 

  Another CNN national security reporter, Kylie Atwood, tweeted that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it would be “in no one’s interest” if NS leaks were confirmed as the result of an attack or sabotage.

  Sec Blinken cites initial reports that the nord stream leaks may be the result of an attack or sabotage, which he says are not confirmed. But if they are confirmed he says such an attack is “in no one’s interest.”

  — Kylie Atwood (@kylieatwood) September 27, 2022

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  Remember what Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said earlier this year… 

  ⚠️January 27, 2022 VICTORIA NULAND: “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” pic.twitter.com/gYSaMd0yJc

  — AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZmilitary1) September 27, 2022

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  * * * 

  Update (1025ET):

  AFP News reported the US is ‘ready to provide support’ to Europe after the Nord Stream pipeline system leaks. 

  There was no further information on what type of support, but one can only imagine it would involve increased LNG cargo shipments to the EU.  

  There’s only one issue… 

  And then watch these floating hindenburgs encounter unexpected if catastrophic “events” as they sail to Europe https://t.co/aoMOWxWDry

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 26, 2022

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  * * * 

  Update (0932ET): 

  Swedish broadcaster SVT reported that the Swedish National Seismic Network detected two underwater explosions near the Nord Stream pipeline system on Monday. 

  “One of the explosions had a magnitude of 2.3, and was registered at as many as 30 measuring stations in southern Sweden,” SVT said. 

  Bjorn Lund, a professor in seismology and director of the Swedish National Seismic Network, said these two seismic events were explosions.  

  Here’s a map of the three leaks on the Nord Stream pipeline system. 

  

  All blasts seem to be just outside territorial waters (though within EEZ) – that has potential legal implications regarding interference with sovereignty

  Also interesting is whether sheer size of methane bubbles (1km diameter) moves it back inside Danish territory… https://t.co/a3l0q0bByk

  — David Sheppard (@OilSheppard) September 27, 2022

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  Bloomberg’s Javier Blas said the size of the “gas leak is huge.” 

  The size of the Nord Stream pipeline gas leak is huge.

  According to the Danish armed forces, it measures about 1 kilometer in diameter. The smaller circle in the center is approximately 200 meters wide https://t.co/7FJQNN5hNg

  — Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) September 27, 2022

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  So the question remains what (or who) caused the blasts? 

  Remember what President Biden said weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine:  

   “If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

  No biggie, just a major gas leak in Nordstream 2 and suspected ‘sabotage,’ it’s a real mystery what’s going on 🤔 https://t.co/azIM4DF58T

  — Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) September 27, 2022

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  * * * 

  Update (0920ET):

  Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbaldet quoted the Swedish Defense Force’s chief of operations, Michael Claesson, who said it’s not ruled out that there’s a connection to the gas leaks and Russia’s mobilization last week. 

  Claesson then told the paper that the incident was a “military matter.” 

  * * * 

  Update (0910ET): 

  Danish Defense Forces published the first images of the gas leaks from the Nord Stream pipeline system near the exclusive economic zone southeast of Bornholm island, according to the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbaldet. 

  The first images show a large surface area of gas bubbles in the Baltic Sea. 

  

  Here are more images of one of the leaks. 

  

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  Another leak was reported by the Danish Defense Forces to be 1 kilometer in diameter on the surface water. 

  UPDATE – The surface area of the largest Nord Stream gas leak shows a “disturbance” of well over 1 kilometer in diameter, according to the Danish armed forces. pic.twitter.com/u0r4cGjImo

  — Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 27, 2022

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  This is an absolutely massive leak. 

  

  A handful of EU officials suspect the pipelines were sabotaged.  

  * * * 

  Update (0842ET):

  Sweden’s government held a crisis management meeting with other public authorities over the damage to the Nord Stream pipeline system, Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbaldet said, citing comments from Foreign Minister Ann Linde. 

  Linde said Sweden may discuss the pipeline damage with Denmark later today.  

  Denmark is tightening security around all energy assets as some European officials speculate the NS pipeline system was sabotaged. 

  * * * 

  The plot thickens about what caused damage to three lines of the Nord Stream gas-pipeline system under the Baltic Sea to Europe as some European officials now suspect sabotage.

  Nord Stream AG, the operator of the NS pipeline system, published a statement Tuesday that read, “the destruction that happened within one day at three lines of the Nord Stream pipeline system is unprecedented … and impossible now to estimate the timeframe for restoring operations of the gas shipment infrastructure.” 

  On Monday, NS2 gas pipeline and two NS1 lines reported rapid pressure drops, with gas leaks reported by Swedish and Danish authorities in the Baltic Sea near the exclusive economic zone southeast of Bornholm island. 

  

  A more in-depth view of the incident area. 

  

  Pressure drops in the NS gas-pipeline system could be the biggest signal that flows via NS1 might not resume this winter. Germany and surrounding countries are investigating the incident. NS2 cannot impact flows to the EU because the controversial idled conduit was never operational after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz canceled it after Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year.

  Klaus Mueller, the president of the German energy network regulator, tweeted that the market situation remains “tense,” but Germany and the EU are no longer dependent on NS supplies. 

  Nord Stream AG issued an outage message that is active until Oct. 26, while the German economy ministry said it’s investigating the incident. 

  Dutch front-month gas, the European benchmark, was up nearly 10% at 190.50 euros per megawatt-hour on Tuesday morning. 

  

  The simultaneous pressure drop of the NS lines suggests some market participants may watch for any indication of sabotage. 

  Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said it was hard to imagine NS gas leaks were caused by a “coincidence.” 

  Frederiksen didn’t rule out sabotage, though she said it was too early to draw any conclusions, according to Reuters, quoting public broadcaster DR during a visit to Poland. 

  A German security official told Bloomberg that NS damage appears to be the result of “sabotage.”

  The evidence points to a violent act, rather than a technical issue, according to a German security official, who asked not to be identified because the matter is being probed. -Bloomberg 

  German daily newspaper Tagesspiegel reported that “the Nord Stream pipelines may have been damaged by targeted attacks and leaked as a result.”

  A source close to the government, quoted in the newspaper, said, “everything speaks against a coincidence.”

  “We cannot imagine a scenario that is not a targeted attack,” the source said.

  Die Welt, another German newspaper, reported the timing of the NS damage may suggest sabotage and was unlikely to be an accident. 

  Reporters asked Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov if the NS system’s pressure drop could be due to sabotage. He responded: “It is impossible to exclude any options.”

  There appears to be no immediate end to the gas leak from NS pipelines, according to the Danish national daily newspaper Berlingske, which quoted Danish Energy Authority. 

  DANISH ENERGY AUTHORITY: GAS LEAKS FROM NORD STREAM PIPELINES WILL CONTINUE FOR DAYS -NEWSPAPER BERLINGSKE

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 27, 2022

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  The energy authority said, “a lot of gas is coming out, so it is not a small crack, it’s a really big hole. Nord Stream leaks can be a deliberate act, but it can also be something else, it’s just extremely rare that something like this happens.”

  DANISH ENERGY AUTHORITY CHIEF: GAS BUBBLES FROM NORD STREAM 2 LEAK REACHING SURFACE OF THE OCEAN IN AREA MEASURING MORE THAN 100 METRES IN DIAMETER

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 27, 2022

  *Developing…  

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 19:10

• Beto Turns On Biden, Blames Prez For Latino Voters' Rightward Shift
  Beto Turns On Biden, Blames Prez For Latino Voters’ Rightward Shift

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

  

  Beto O’Rourke has blamed Joe Biden’s actions during the 2020 election as playing a part in Latino voters’ rightward political shift in recent years.

  “Candidate Biden didn’t spend a dime or a day in the Rio Grande Valley—or really anywhere in Texas, for that matter—once we got down in the homestretch of the general election,” O’Rourke said at the Texas Tribune Festival on Sept. 24.

  “You got to be locking eyeballs with the people that you want to fight for and serve and whose votes that you want to win.”

  The rightward shift of Hispanic and Latino voters made headlines in the 2020 election.

  Trump saw more support from Latino voters in 2020 than in 2016. According to Pew Research, Trump moved from 28 percent to 38 percent approval among Hispanic voters, a gain of 10 percent. Biden, meanwhile, earned 59 percent of the Hispanic voters, down from 62 percent Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received in her 2016 election.

  In South Texas, a historically Democratic stronghold, Hispanic votes shifted significantly. For example, Zapata County, where Clinton won by 33 percentage points in 2016, flipped to Trump in 2020.

  “Republicans showed up with a very strong, compelling economic message,” O’Rourke said Saturday when asked why the Hispanic voters in Texas shifted to GOP candidates.

  “From Trump, it was literally one syllable, one word,” O’Rourke continued. “It was ‘jobs,’ and he kind of offered a false choice: ‘I can either keep you holed up in your house during this pandemic, or I can open up all places of employment and prioritize the economy.’”

  “What did we have on our side? Nothing,” he added.

  The momentum Republicans gained among Hispanics appears to be sustained in Texas so far. In a June special election, conservative Republican Mayra Flores defeated Democrat Dan Sanchez by roughly eight percentage points. Flores became only the second Republican to ever win in a Rio Grande Valley congressional district and the first Mexican-born Republican ever elected to Congress from Texas.

  

  Upcoming Governor Race

  O’Rourke, who is facing off against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in the upcoming midterm election, said he would not repeat the same errors Democrats made two years ago.

  “I am making sure that we do not commit the same sin as some Democrats before me have committed, which is take voters of color—Black voters and Latino—for granted,” he said, adding that his Spanish language skills gave him a “competitive advantage.”

  Recent polls show the democratic candidate is falling behind Abbott, who is seeking a third term as governor. According to a poll released on Sept. 19 by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, Abbott had a lead of 9 percentage points over O’Rourke.

  But the 49-year-old shrugged off the survey results.

  “I take these polls with a grain of salt,” he said.

  John Haughey contributed to the report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 19:00

• Apple Sued After 67 Year Old Employee Claims Bonus Was Withheld Because Of His Age
  Apple Sued After 67 Year Old Employee Claims Bonus Was Withheld Because Of His Age

  Color us surprised to see a “woke” workplace like Apple being sued for discrimination, but that’s exactly what’s happening in one case where the popular iPhone manufacturer is being accused of age bias.

  Apple is being sued by an employee who claims he wasn’t awarded restricted stock like others in his position were because of his age.

  And the kicker? The suit claims that Apple admitted the employee didn’t get the stock because it was specifically “designed as an investment in the future” and that the employee’s supervisor made an “age based assumption” that the employee would be retiring soon. 

  

  The employee, 67 year old Donald Shruhan Jr., said he wasn’t awarded stock in 2019 despite getting an “excellent performance review”. According to Bloomberg, the suit also claims that “two other senior directors in his unit both received stock awards ‘commensurate with their performance,’ but ‘each was significantly younger’.”

  Shruhan, who is a senior manager on Apple’s global security team, says it was the first time in 11 years he didn’t get a bonus commensurate with his performance, Bloomberg reported. He claims he should have received a bonus between $800,000 and $850,000. 

  Shruhan tried to solve his issue by going through the company first, but after reaching an “impasse” with Apple human resources, he obtained a right-to-sue letter from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

  To this, we can only add: Tim Cook is 61 years old. When will he stop being awarded restricted stock units because of his age? 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 18:40

• Russia Confirms 'Sporadic' Contacts With US On Nuclear Weapons
  Russia Confirms ‘Sporadic’ Contacts With US On Nuclear Weapons

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the US and Russia have had “sporadic” contact over the issue of nuclear arms as tensions are soaring between the world’s largest nuclear-armed powers.

  “There are channels for dialogue at the proper level, but they are of a very sporadic nature. At least they allow for the exchange of some emergency messages about each other’s positions,” Peskov said.

  

  When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization last week, he warned that Russia could use nuclear weapons to protect its “territorial integrity.” The warning was significant since Russian territory is set to expand into Ukraine once referendums on joining Russia are completed in Russian-controlled areas.

  On Sunday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US warned Russia it would face “catastrophic consequences” if it used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

  Sullivan wouldn’t explain what that means but said the US “spelled out in detail” to Russia how it would respond. When asked if Russia had received such a message from the US, Peskov declined to comment.

  Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, there have been virtually no public high-level meetings between US and Russian officials. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in July, but the conversation was focused on a potential prisoner swap.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 18:20

• General: Unvaccinated National Guardsmen Activated For Hurricane Ian
  General: Unvaccinated National Guardsmen Activated For Hurricane Ian

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

  

  Ahead of Hurricane Ian’s predicted landfall in western Florida, the head of the Florida National Guard confirmed Monday that Guardsmen who are not vaccinated for COVID-19 will be activated in response to the storm.

  Florida National Guard Maj. Gen. James Eifert on Monday told reporters that the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate does not impact the state’s capacity to activate unvaccinated service members to deal with a natural disaster such as a hurricane.

  “The vaccine mandate does not impact our ability to bring people in on state active duty … we will be activating all of those people [who are unvaccinated],” he remarked.

  Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin mandated that all service members receive COVID-19 vaccination and that  National Guardsmen who refuse to get the shots must obtain a religious or medical exemption or face repercussions. Some Guard members could face a loss of wages and cannot train, while those who continue to refuse the vaccine can be potentially discharged, according to the Department of Defense.

  Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the Pentagon due to its mandate, while some lawmakers have questioned whether such orders are putting a damper on the U.S. armed forces’ recruitment efforts. And earlier this month, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned that several branches of the military are severely “struggling” to find recruits.

  Storm Path

  The National Hurricane Center (NHC) on Monday afternoon said Ian is a Category 2 system with 100 mph winds. The storm has strengthened since Monday morning when forecasters said it was a Category 1 storm with wind speeds hovering around 85 mph.

  Meanwhile, hurricane warnings have now been issued for the central western Florida coastline, including Tampa Bay, indicating the storm is going to impact the area in the next 24 to 36 hours. First, Ian is on track to hit western Cuba, according to the NHC. After impacting Cuba, the system is expected to strengthen into at least a Category 3 hurricane with 111 mph or greater wind speeds.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 18:00

• Tesla Shanghai Plant Running Under Maximum Capacity Despite Recent Production Upgrades
  Tesla Shanghai Plant Running Under Maximum Capacity Despite Recent Production Upgrades

  Despite yet another email leaking about how the company is expecting record deliveries for Q3, headlines are also breaking today suggesting that Tesla’s Shanghai plant – its main driver for sales in China an exports throughout Europe – is running under its maximum capacity.

  The plant will be running “at about 93% of capacity through the end of year,” Reuters reported this morning. The pace is despite the fact that the factory was recently upgraded to handle more production. 

  Production was recently upgraded to be able to handle 22,000 vehicles weekly, an increase of 30% from prior levels. One source told Reuters that the pace the factory was operating at was “lower than he had expected”. 

  The factory is capable of producing 14,000 Model Ys and 8,000 Model 3s per week. The company’s target is 20,500 units a week for the rest of the year, the sources told Reuters. 

  

  Recall, we reported two weeks ago that Tesla had delivered 76,965 vehicles in China for the month of August. 

  That number was up 172.8% from the month prior. Data from the China Passenger Car Association showed that the automaker sold 34,502 cars in China and exported 42,463 vehicles. 

  The numbers came even as battery maker CATL had to shut down part of its operations due to power restriction constraints during the month, Reuters reported. CATL’s Yibin plant supplies battery cells to Tesla Shanghai. 

  The stark difference in month-over-month numbers comes as China’s Shanghai plant was down for a planned upgrade for most of July. Recall, deliveries in China had crashed -64.2% heading into the month of August.

  Overall passenger car sales were up 28.4% in August, the CPCA noted. EV sales in China have been on the rebound since the government has reembraced subsidies and tax breaks, which it previously had planned on phasing out.  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 17:40

• "The Train Crash Scenario": California EV Mandates Will Further Stress An Already Exhausted Electric Grid
  “The Train Crash Scenario”: California EV Mandates Will Further Stress An Already Exhausted Electric Grid

  So apparently the idea of EVs providing a problem-free and pollution-free utopia where everybody lives in total harmony and there are no problems isn’t quite the reality of the situation.

  The reality in California, as the Wall Street Journal wrote about this week, is actually that EV charging is putting stress onto an aging grid and forcing the state to think about ways to generate more power. 

  The state’s plan to end gas powered vehicles by 2035 means that power needs in the state are going to increase. Meanwhile, as California’s grid has already been stressed this year, the state has been asking citizens to be mindful of when they charge their EVs – and even when they use their major appliances.

  Which, of course, begs the question: how the hell is the state going to go all electric within 12 years?

  First, it’ll need buy-in from its citizens over charging habits. Dan Bowermaster, senior program manager for electric transportation at EPRI, a nonprofit research group, told WSJ: “Are people going to top off every night? Are people going to wait every few days and then charge up all at once? There are a lot of questions about customer behavior.”

  Utilities and auto makers are already trying to offer incentives for owners to charge at certain times and using favorable methods, the report says. 

  

  The state is expected to have 5.4 million passenger EVs and 193,000 medium and heavy duty EVs by 2030, the state’s energy commission estimates. This charging will amount to 5% of the electric load at peak hours, compared to about 1% now. 

  Despite this, Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, is optimistic. She told the WSJ: “The reality is the grid is only stressed in a limited period, a few hours in the early evening on certain types of days. Most of the time it’s fine.” 

  Oh, okay. Problem solved.

  Well not quite. A study out of Stanford released last week showed that the grid could face problems late at night when cars are charged at home. Siobhan Powell, the study’s lead author, commented: “If everyone were doing that, it would cause really big problems.”

  At home charging draws about the same power as using 2.5 air conditioners, the report says. 

  John Moura, director of reliability assessment and performance analysis at the North American Electric Reliability Corp., added: “There’s some energy challenges in how we’re bringing on new resources to meet this new growth of electricity demand.” 

  “The disaster kind of comes from the rally cries from the public that utilities aren’t connecting their EVs fast enough. And now that bumps up against EV mandates. That’s the train-crash scenario.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/27/2022 – 17:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Remembering Hate Speech: Victor Davis Hanson
  Remembering Hate Speech: Victor Davis Hanson

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  It has been a canard of the Left that “words matter.” We are lectured that “hate speech” leads inevitably to street violence.

  

  So how ironic that the Left defames nearly half of America as dangerous “semi-fascist” extremists, white-raged and privileged, ultra MAGA, and guilty of all sorts of thought crimes from secession to civil insurrection? And what is the result?

  Does this constant demonization matter? And what are the bitter fruits of such labors? After all, what did Barack Obama long ago mean by “clingers” or once Hillary Clinton by “deplorables”  and “irredeemables”?

  What did Joe Biden imply by “dregs” and “chumps” and “semi-fascists”? Or what did the FBI lovebirds really mean by smelly Walmart goers and “hillbillies”? After a point, did not America get this monotonous message?

  And what does Joe Biden really mean when he recycles his academic advisors’ tired tropes of right-wing insurrectionists threatening the republic?

  MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. . . . MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards—backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love . . . They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country . . . MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.

  When the president fuels the now familiar old narrative by claiming that 75 million who voted for Donald Trump do not live in the “light of truth” but in the “shadow of lies,” and they do not follow “the rule of law,” some questions naturally arise.

  First, what evidence does the president adduce to prove that 75 million Morlocks in the shadows are liars and avoid the “light of truth” of the Eloi? By what criteria does he use to judge them “semi-fascists”?

  Is his proof the 120 days of violent looting, arson, violence, and death in the summer of 2020—virtually green-lighted by mayors, the media, and, yes, the current vice president? Who “fanned the flames of political violence” and were a “threat to the rule of law”?

  Does Biden mean half the country is not respecting the Constitution by its systematic attack on our long-standing constitutional precepts, from the Electoral College and the rights of states to set voting laws? Are the “semi-fascists” trying to pack the Supreme Court? End the filibuster? Bring in two states solely to elect four left-wing senators?

  Does the president mean the illegality of the often-rogue Washington-centric FBI, whose past director and legal counsel have lied to federal investigators and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court? Does he refer to himself who was enriched by the grifting efforts of his wayward son? Do semi-fascists brag that they got foreign state attorneys fired for looking into the shady dealings of their own family? Perhaps Biden was railing against scores of big-city state attorneys who systematically refuse to enforce the law, and so leave the innocent at the mercy of serially released criminal felons?

  Second, what are Americans in the Old Testament/eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth Prophet Biden’s eyes to do with those miscreants?

  What should America then do when half the country prefers to live in the “shadow of lies,” and rejects the “light of truth”?

  Sic the FBI on them to monitor their speech at school board meetings? Hire 87,000 IRS agents to continue the Obama-era policies of weaponizing the IRS? Bring Lois Lerner out of retirement?

  Put them in solitary confinement for “illegal parading”?

  Keep them out of their capital by stringing barbed wire and militarizing it with 30,000 federal troops?

  Draft the Democratic Party to work with the FBI in destroying a political candidate through false dossiers, paid informants, and concocted conspiracies?

  Leg-irons for former Trump officials?

  Performative FBI SWAT raids on their homes?

  Government workers colluding with private companies to censor free speech and expression?

  A new Ministry of Truth?

  Who then is destroying the rule of law? Joe Biden, who violated his oath of office and nullified the entire corpus of federal immigration law, in 1850s fashion, and allowed 3 million illegally to enter his country?

  Joe Biden, who by fiat illegally canceled an expected half-trillion dollars in student debt?

  Joe Biden, who recalibrated the FBI into a first-family retrieval service of lost computers and diaries of his wayward children?

  Or is the shadow-dweller who “does not respect the Constitution” none other than Hillary Clinton who hired two foreign nationals to compile dirt on her Republican opponents in hopes of warping an election, or the FBI who also hired both her paid fraudsters as FBI informants in efforts to aid the Clinton smear?

  Is urging a candidate never to concede if he lost the popular vote or boasting of joining #TheResistance to an elected president whom she pronounced “illegitimate” anti-Constitutionalism? Or maybe destroying subpoenaed emails or destroying court-ordered evidence?

  And who exactly are the merchants of racial hatred about whom we so often hear?

  Is it the same Joe Biden who claimed Barack Obama was the first black presidential candidate who could speak intelligently? The same Joe Biden who screamed to a group of accomplished black professionals that Mitt Romney would put “y’all back in chains”? The same Biden who bragged that his heroic Southern segregationist senatorial colleagues never called him “boy”?

  Or is it Joe the healer who called black media hosts “junkie” and “You ain’t black”?

  Perhaps it’s the unifier Biden who spun racist Corn-Pop stories about how he had faced down criminal black gang leaders? Or the ecumenical Biden who called a senior African American aide “my senior advisor and boy”? Who boasted that young black children used to love to feel the golden hairs on his tan legs?

  Or would Biden mean by racists none other than the current Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina, Krystle Matthews? She recently gushed that one must “treat white people like sh-t”?

  Or was it Kelisa Wing, the Pentagon’s “Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at the Department of Defense Education Activity”? She in the past complained, “I’m exhausted with these white folx in these [professional development] sessions,” and “I am exhausted by 99% of the white men in education and 95% of the white women. Where can I get a break from white nonsense for a while.”

  At one time, stereotyping millions as a toxic collective was the classic definition of racism.

  Is Wing a target of what Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley promised when they boasted of scouring the Pentagon ranks to root out racism and racial rage?

  Or maybe Biden was referring to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot?

  She barred reporters from one-on-one interviews on the basis of race with the putdown, “By now, you may have heard the news that on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of my inauguration as mayor of this great city, I will be exclusively providing one-on-one interviews with journalists of color.”

  When Joe Biden talks about the supposed violent, racist, MAGA dwellers in darkness, does he produce data for his allegations? Are his proverbial white-male insurrectionists committing violent crimes at five times their numbers in the general population?

  Do MAGA Midwesterners threaten Orthodox Jews in New York or Asians in San Francisco? What do statistics suggest about who is disproportionately committing these hate crimes that Biden would otherwise characterize as typical of those living in the shadows or in lies?

  Are the MAGA voters swarming the homes of Supreme Court Justices? Are they running them out of restaurants? Are they mobbing at the doors of the Court to threaten justices by name, and warning that liberal justices won’t “know what hit you” as they justifiably “reap the whirlwind”?

  Is Biden’s putatively dangerous Trump supporter out killing a teenager who, postmortem, is dubbed a political activist opponent; running down dozens at Christmas parades; threatening a U.S. senator and his wife as they exited the White House; or attempting to assassinate key members of Congress?

  At the University of Oregon are white MAGA denizens in the “shadows of lies” screaming “F—k the Mormons” during football games, or plastering the Stanford campus with anti-Semitic posters of “Ben B Gone” bug spray to gin up violence to stop the implied Jewish insect Ben Shapiro from speaking?

  We are reaching a critical juncture now in America.

  Writing off half the population as irredeemable and deplorable or semi-fascists is not a sustainable proposition. And we can see how it is not.

  Is the chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at the Department of Defense relieved or worried that the army will not have enough white raging males to die in the next optional war in the Middle East at twice their percentages in the population? The Army has only met 50 percent of its annual recruiting target.

  When Biden demonizes in now stereotypical fashion—and without data—an entire 75 million person demographic, when the popular culture has legitimized smearing these millions as dangerous “racists” fueled by “white rage,” and when the media manufactures a series of fake melodramas—from the Russian collusion hoax to the Russian disinformation use of his son’s laptop to the Jussie Smollett lie, the Covington kids slander, or the Duke lacrosse and volleyball mythologies—at some point is it any wonder that we are beginning to witness an epidemic of violence directed at the supposedly privileged, or the supposedly politically incorrect, whether targeting random solitary women for violent acts or purported conservatives or any demographic who are all apparently deserving such punishment due to their race or political beliefs?

  Joe Biden’s “Phantom of the Opera” rant will be memorialized as the most reckless and venomous presidential speech in recent history. Such vile rhetoric fuels even viler reactions—and eventually filters down to the street where criminals believe that shooting a congressman or mobbing a Supreme Court justice or killing a solitary jogger or a teen-aged “Republican” is some sort of reification of what they feel is now acceptable retribution.

  In sum, what we used to know as “hate speech” is now presidentially acceptable speech, and what has followed from it is no surprise.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 23:40

• "Murderapolis": Ground Zero For 'Defund The Police' Movement Now Suffering Horrendous Crime Wave
  “Murderapolis”: Ground Zero For ‘Defund The Police’ Movement Now Suffering Horrendous Crime Wave

  In the mid-1990s, the murder rate was so high in Minneapolis that it earned the nickname, “Murderapolis.”

  Now, more than two years after the Democrat stronghold turned into ground zero for the ‘defund the police’ movement after the murder of George Floyd, Murderopolis is back.

  

  In a kind of Newtonian response, the city became the epicenter of the culturally seismic “Defund the Police” movement. But that progressive local effort fizzled with a decisive referendum last November.

  Now, with its police department under investigation by the Department of Justice, the city of 425,000 is trying to find a way forward amid a period of heightened crime that began shortly after Floyd’s death. –CNN

  In 2020, murders jumped from 46 to nearly 80. In 2021, 93 people were killed in the city. This year, homicides are on track to surpass 2020.

  “The criminals were celebrating. They were getting rich” after police withdrew from violent neighborhoods in the wake of Floyd’s killing, said longtime resident, KG Wilson. “They were selling drugs openly.”

  Wilson’s 6-year-old granddaughter was killed in May of 2021 after getting caught in the crossfire of a shootout in north Minneapolis.

  

  Others are blaming the pandemic.

  “It unsettled settled trajectories,” said former federal prosecutor, Mark Osler, who now teaches at St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. “Kids who were going to school, who would have graduated but drifted off because there is no school — we’re seeing a lot of the violent crime is by juveniles.”

  After the left demonized cops following Floyd’s murder, the Minneapolis PD headcount dropped from 900 in early 2020 to around 560 in August – a loss of more than 1/3 of the force.

  The hate was so strong that a 2021 ballot measure which would have replaced the Minneapolis PD with a new “public health-oriented” Department of Public Safety, barely failed – with 56% of voters rejecting it (61% in north Minneapolis).

  

  Then, the city council got wise as crime skyrocketed – dealing a final blow to the “defund” movement with a vote to re-fund the police by reversing a cut they’d made the prior year. Mayor Jacob Frey, meanwhile, has proposed beefing up the police budget for the next two fiscal years.

  Feeling of lawlessness

  According to the report, some 60% of police calls for shots fired have come from the north side, despite it making up just 15% of the population. Young men are openly selling drugs in public during the day, such as a gas station on Broadway ave. dubbed the “murder station” due to all the fatal shootings.

  “You pull up to get gas — they try to sell you drugs,” said Paul Johnson, 56. “And not just three or four, but it’s a bulk of people.”

  Johnson’s friend, Brian Bogan, said he moved from north Minneapolis to relatively safer St. Paul, because he didn’t want his kids growing up in an area where you don’t know if “it’s fireworks or gunshots.”

  911 wait times have jumped

  After Floyd’s death average 911 response times from from 10 or 11 minutes in May of 2020, to 14 minutes later in the year – jumping in 2021 to more than 17 minutes in the north side’s fourth precinct, where they remain.

  Some nights are so busy that the dispatchers are directed to hold all non-priority-1 calls citywide; these would include reports of property damage, suspicious persons or theft. That happened during a frenetic five-hour stretch on the night of September 8, when officers responded to multiple shootings and calls for shots fired — many of them in north Minneapolis; one near the “murder station” — that left two dead and seven wounded. -CNN

  Things have gotten so bad that the Minneapolis PD has flatly refused to respond to certain crimes in a timely manner – such as thefts and stolen goods. According to the police, hostility towards officers has compelled them to take a slower approach in certain parts of town.

  

  Police officials have characterized the slower response times as an “expected byproduct of a depleted force that has witnessed an overwhelming wave of retirements, resignations and disability leaves” due to post-traumatic stress.

  “There’s really been a very fundamental challenge to our sense of purpose in law enforcement,” said interim Minneapolis Police Chief Amelia Huffman. “(Minneapolis) is the eye of the storm. So all of those challenges and the pressure is magnified, you know, a hundred fold — a thousand fold.”

   

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 23:20

• New Zealand Prime Minister Calls For A Global Censorship System
  New Zealand Prime Minister Calls For A Global Censorship System

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is the latest liberal leader to call for an international alliance to censor speech. Unsatisfied with the unprecedented corporate censorship of social media companies, leaders like Hillary Clinton have turned from private censorship to good old-fashioned state censorship. Speech regulation has become an article of faith on the left. Ardern used her speech this week to the United Nations General Assembly to call for censorship on a global scale.

  

  Ardern lashed out at “disinformation” and called for a global coalition to control speech. After nodding toward free speech, she proceeded to lay out a plan for its demise through government regulation:

  But what if that lie, told repeatedly, and across many platforms, prompts, inspires, or motivates others to take up arms. To threaten the security of others. To turn a blind eye to atrocities, or worse, to become complicit in them. What then?

  This is no longer a hypothetical. The weapons of war have changed, they are upon us and require the same level of action and activity that we put into the weapons of old.

  We recognized the threats that the old weapons created. We came together as communities to minimize these threats. We created international rules, norms and expectations. We never saw that as a threat to our individual liberties – rather, it was a preservation of them. The same must apply now as we take on these new challenges.

  Ardern noted how extremists use speech to spread lies without noting that non-extremists use the same free speech to counter such views.   To answer her question on “how do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists” is that you convince people using the same free speech.  Instead, Ardern appears to want to silence those who have doubts.

  While referring to a global censorship coalition as a “light-touch approach to disinformation,” Ardern revealed how sweeping such a system would likely be. She defended the need for such global censorship on having to combat those who question climate change and the need to stop “hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology.”

  “After all, how do you successfully end a war if people are led to believe the reason for its existence is not only legal but noble? How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists? How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld, when they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?”

  That is the same rationale used by authoritarian countries like China, Iran, and Russia to censor dissidents, minority groups, and political rivals.  What is “hateful” and “dangerous” is a fluid concept that government have historically used to silence critics or dissenters.

  Ardern is the smiling face of the new generation of censors. At least the old generation of censors like the Iranians do not pretend to support free speech and openly admit that they are crushing dissent. The point is that we need to be equally on guard when censorship is pushed from the left with the best of motivations and the worst of means.

  As the great civil libertarian Justice Louis Brandeis once said, “the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 23:00

• Fake Meat Sales Plummet On High Prices, Woke Messaging
  Fake Meat Sales Plummet On High Prices, Woke Messaging

  A few years ago, life was good for the fake meat industry. Beyond Meat had been given vast amounts of real estate in grocery stores, and had scored a deal with Burger King to sell “Impossible” Whoppers. McDonald’s rolled out a McPlant burger (which was quietly shelved last month). Snarky woke advertisements permeated the airwaves and interwebs as plant-based ‘meats’ were on the rise. In fact, Beyond Meat waas valued at over $10bn in 2019, more than Macy’s or Xerox – with the most bullish investors claiming that plant-based meat would make up 15% of all meat sales by 2030.

  

  Now, as Bloomberg reports, the fake meat industry is getting ground into hamburger – and that doesn’t include cannibalistic nose-biting execs, according to Deloitte Consulting, LLC.

  Sales of refrigerated meat alternatives at retailers are down 10.5% by volume for the 52-weeks ending September 4, 2022, according to data from Information Resources Inc., or IRI. While higher prices are the top reason for the slide, it’s not the only one, according to Jonna Parker, a fresh food specialist at the market research company. -Bloomberg

  “Proteins that were cheaper on a price-per-pound basis did fare better,” said Parker, who noted that semi-vegetarian shoppers who used to opt for the alternative product will now choose the less-expensive real thing. In short, people are less willing to pay a premium for fake meat, especially considering that ‘taste and health concerns’ are playing a role.

  According to Deloitte, the fake meat industry has a perception problem. Based on a July survey of 2,000 consumers, there’s been a decline in the belief that plant-based meat is actually healthier and environmentally sustainable vs. meat from animals.

  Despite the increasing alarm over climate change, the number of Americans who are vegetarian or vegan has remained relatively stable over the last 20 years. About 5% of Americans in 2018 said they are vegetarian, while 3% are vegan, according to a Gallup poll.

  Even when participants in a study conducted at Purdue University in Indiana were given information about the carbon footprint of meat production, participants were more likely to go with regular meat over a plant-based alternative.

  Bhagyashree Katare, an author of the study, said that participants may have been put off by the taste of plant-based meat and the fact that it is not necessarily a healthier alternative to regular meat. Many plant-based meat alternatives are comparable to their real meat counterparts in nutritional content. That it costs about the same as meat also diminishes its attractiveness to consumers. -The Guardian

  “If I’m spending money in a restaurant, and I’m a meat eater, why would I spend money on plant-based meat? I would rather eat an actual burger,” said Katare. “It’s a technology, and it takes a long time for people to trust the technology and adopt it. I think that’s where plant-based meat is. Maybe the technology will improve, and it will get better health-wise.”

  

  What’s more, the actual market may be much smaller than previously thought – which coincides with a ‘growing cultural resistance to its “woke” status’ – even among people who are trying in earnest to reduce their consumption of red meat.

  For example, when Cracker Barrel announced they were adding Impossible Foods’ sausage to its menu over the summer, it faced fierce opposition via social media.

  As The Guardian notes, the McDonald’s McPlant burger was shelved last month, as the push to get US meat eaters to switch to plant-based alternatives has proven a challenge.

  Multiple chains that partnered with the company, including McDonald’s, have quietly ended trial launches. In August, the company laid off 4% of its workforce after a slowdown in sales growth. Last week, its chief operating officer was reportedly arrested for biting another man on the nose during a road rage confrontation.

  It’s a dramatic reversal of fortune. Just two years ago, Beyond Meat, its competitor Impossible Foods and the plant-based meat industry at large seemed poised to start a food revolution. -Guardian

  “The bulls in the industry, I think, had a very wild, very optimistic estimate of how big the market could get,” said Mizuho Securities analyst John Baumgartner. “There was a lot of exuberance in this category. It was new, it was different, it was on trend.”

  

  “But the consumer environment is tough, and this stuff is not cheap,” he added.

  Year-to-date, Beyond Meat stock is down 77%, and is valued at less than $900 million.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 22:40

• The Dystopian Vision Of The Health-Information Police
  The Dystopian Vision Of The Health-Information Police

  Authored by Laura Powell via The Brownstone Institute,

  When Assemblymember Evan Low, the principal author of California Assembly Bill 2098, told the California Senate Committee that his bill was “really straightforward, very straightforward,” many of us in the gallery failed to restrain ourselves from expressing our incredulity. 

  

  He delivered this statement at the conclusion of a hearing that had lasted over an hour, during which it seemed no two Senators on the committee had the same idea of how the law would operate. Assemblymember Low had struggled to respond to questions from the committee and had often resorted to simply reading the text of the bill. That June 26 hearing presented the only time any legislators questioned the bill during its entire passage through the legislative process.

  Assembly Bill 2098 would empower the Medical Board of California to go after the licenses of physicians who disseminate “misinformation” or “disinformation” regarding Covid-19. The bill in its latest iteration defines misinformation as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.” The inscrutability of this definition lies at the core of the bill’s opponents concerns. 

  No clear scientific consensus exists with respect to this novel virus, and even if it did, it may be proven incorrect later. Without clear guidance regarding what would constitute “misinformation,” physicians can only guess if they risk losing their licenses for expressing their good-faith disagreements with positions of public health officials. Even if in practice, the Medical Board only applied the law to speech that the First Amendment does not protect, the law’s vagueness would render it unconstitutional, because it would tend to cause doctors to censor themselves.

  The million-dollar question remains unanswered: Who would be targeted by Assembly Bill 2098? On one hand, the California Medical Association, the bill’s sponsor, cites the example of doctors who call “into question public health efforts such as masking” as creating the need for this bill. Likewise, the taxpayer-funded lobbying group County Health Executives Association of California decries “a small minority of medical professionals” who have led some Californians to “reject public health measures such as masking and physical distancing.” 

  The analysis of the bill from the Senate committee, in discussing the need for this bill, cited the example of the state of Florida refusing to take action against the license of Florida Surgeon General for, among other things, “question[ing] the value of face masks in preventing the spread of the pandemic.” The idea that the effectiveness of masks in preventing the spread of Covid is part of the “contemporary scientific consensus” confirms physicians’ fears that they would risk discipline for questioning any edict from public health on Covid.

  On the other hand, when critics of Assembly Bill 2098 argue that questioning the effectiveness of masks falls well within the bounds of legitimate difference of opinions, proponents poo-poo their concerns about the law being applied in an overly broad way and insist that the law would only be used against truly “bad doctors.” But imbuing bureaucrats with power while trusting they will not exercise it would be incredibly foolish. 

  Some, such as Assemblymember Low, bill co-author Assemblymember Akilah Weber, and a representative of the California Medical Association, imply that this bill would only apply in cases of intentional harm. There is nothing in the letter of the law that limits the bill’s reach to situations where someone was harmed or where the information was disseminated knowing it was false. (Intentionally misleading would fall under the definition of “disinformation” as opposed to “misinformation.” An earlier draft of the bill mentioned harm to a patient as a factor for the Medical Board to consider.) 

  Members of the Medical Board of California itself have expressed confusion about how the law would be applied and withheld its support initially. MBC President Kristina Lawson, an attorney who has been a driving force behind this bill, claims to have clarity about how it would be applied but apparently is only willing to discuss the matter in private. 

  While most proponents say as little as possible regarding Assembly Bill 2098’s implications, one group is more vocal and less guarded in its statements. Two self-described “frontline” California doctors, Nick Sawyer and Taylor Nichols, formed No License for Disinformation (NLFD) in September 2021. 

  As its name suggests, the organization’s purpose is to promote policies that use the threat of medical license revocation to discourage doctors from spreading information it believes to be false. Sawyer has twice testified before legislative committees in favor of Assembly Bill 2098. NLFD’s prolific tweets and other public statements paint a dystopian picture that reflects opponents’ worst fears of the type of authoritarian regime proponents wish to impose. 

  NLFD pushes the idea that there is, as Sawyer described it his testimony before the Assembly committee on April 19, a “well-coordinated and well-funded network of doctors” who promote “anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, sow distrust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal government, and ultimately the Covid-19 vaccines.” 

  At the outset, note the irony that NLFD frequently criticizes “conspiracy theorists” while promoting its own conspiracy theories. And NLFD not only wants to silence those who undermine faith in public health measures, but anyone who “sows distrust” in the government. Let that sink in.

  NLFD’s tweets elaborate on its conspiracy theories, which are, like most conspiracy theories, built on weak evidence that magnify tenuous connections. A recent tweet shared a long thread posted by one of its founders that purports to uncover a web of right-wing “disinformation” purveyors funded by oil money. It implicates, among others, anyone associated with the Great Barrington Declaration or Brownstone Institute and specifically names UCSF professor and doctor Vinay Prasad, journalist and author David Zweig, and Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Stefan Baral as part of this cabal. 

  An August 13, 2022 tweet promotes a Substack article, written by NLFD “Research Consultant” Allison Neitzel, which calls America’s Frontline Physicians, Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, and The Unity Project the “Big 4” responsible for a “physician-led attack on public health.” NLFD has often identified these four as its primary targets, sometimes adding the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons and Urgency of Normal to its hit list. NLFD asserts, without any basis, that these groups work together. 

  Some of NLFD’s targets, such as the Urgency of Normal’s leadership, are mainstream physicians. NLFD dismisses them as ranging from “formerly well respected immunologists to outright frauds.” It links to a long thread from one of its founders that accuses Urgency of Normal of being part of a right-wing operation to promote an “anti-mask narrative.” 

  It complains that CNN gave Dr. Jeanne Noble, Associate Professor at UCSF, a platform. It retweeted a tweet calling for Dr. Lucy McBride to be reported to the medical board for opposing mask mandates in schools and responded with a link directing the public on how to do so.

  It dismissed every doctor who participated in a roundtable hosted by Florida Governor DeSantis, which included Dr. Tracy Høeg, as “Covid deniers” and “disinformation doctors” and warned that no one should accept medical advice from any of them.

  These attacks contradict any claim that NLFD claims only wants to silence doctors who peddle dangerously false medical advice rather than those who have good-faith disagreements with official Covid policy.

  The inclusion of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration—Sunetra Gupta, Martin Kulldorff, and Jay Bhattacharya—at the top of NLFD’s hit list is puzzling. Not only does the declaration espouse a conventional viewpoint, none of the Great Barrington Declaration’s authors is a practicing physician and therefore law like Assembly Bill 2098 would not affect them. 

  NLFD has called out the Great Barrington Declaration around a dozen times and frequently targets Stanford professor Bhattacharya in particular (he earned a medical degree but does not practice medicine or hold a medical license). NLFD doesn’t just accuse Bhattacharya of being wrong, it accuses him of intentionally lying, calling him a “disinformation doctor” and a “prominent purveyor of Covid-19 disinformation,” accusing him of telling lies that have killed people (along with Vinay Prasad), and insinuating he should be reported for perjury. In addition to its direct attacks, NLFD has retweeted dozens of criticisms of Bhattacharya and seemed to delight in a journalist getting Twitter to temporarily suspend his account for a minor oversight.

  NLFD’s messaging has an unquestionably partisan slant, despite claiming to be nonpartisan. It has posted dozens of tweets critical of the Republican Party. Some of these criticisms do not clearly relate to the organization’s mission of combating misinformation. 

  For example, this August 8, 2022 thread attacks Republican lawmakers for opposing a drug pricing control provision in a bill. The same day, another tweet alleges that the GOP Doctors Caucus is allied with “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli. They attempt to tie this issue in with their mission by asserting that Republicans in general are “affiliated with licensed physicians” spreading Covid misinformation. 

  In another recent example, NLFD posted a clip from 2017 accusing Rand Paul of being in cahoots with Putin. It had previously suggested that Paul should be reported to the medical board for reasons it doesn’t identify. NLFD has even branched out to opine on political issues totally unrelated to the practice of medicine, encouraging the public to report “harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school board members or staff to the FBI.

  NLFD has numerous posts elaborating on its idea of a right-wing, Republican-led conspiracy to spread disinformation. It uses the phrase “disinformation pipeline” to describe an alleged process by which Republicans in state legislatures deliberately harm public health by “institutionalizing disinformation” through, for example, passing laws that shield doctors from discipline for controversial Covid treatments. It claims that the overall Republican agenda is to “create fear/animosity/victimhood amongst supporters, whipping up anti-science/anti-government sentiment making them more likely to take up arms against the government.” It has asserted that “[a]ll COVID disinformation doctors are inextricably tied to Trump.” 

  Many of NLFD’s conspiracy theories are quite dark and disturbing. It recently retweeted a thread from its own Nick Sawyer, which argues that the United States is currently in the midst of a civil war, which goes unrecognized because it is an information war. Another recent tweet exhorts: “This is an information war, a battle for the truth, and [every] American is a soldier. Get up to speed and start fighting for evidence based reality. No one is going to do this for us.” 

  NLFD’s primary weapon in this imagined information war is censorship, but it also advocates for criminal prosecution for expressing the wrong ideas. It frequently encourages its followers to report physicians to their medical boards, even if they have no relationship with them. It also frequently calls on Twitter to deplatform accounts it feels say things that are untrue. But it goes even further, tagging the FBI and posting a link to the FBI tip line, asking its followers to report people for alleged misinformation. 

  It tags the United States Department of Justice’s Criminal Division in its tweets. It calls its targets a “threat to national security.” NLFD erroneously claims that under current California law, a physician can be criminally prosecuted for any untrue statement. NLFD wants to go far beyond having medical boards discipline licensed physicians—they want to see their enemies in jail.

  Against this backdrop of NLFD’s other public statements, it’s hard to imagine how Sawyer managed to sound sincere when he told the Senate committee:

  “This bill is not supposed to cause problems with physicians’ free speech around academic discussion. This bill will allow the medical board to discipline doctors who say things like the vaccines cause AIDS or that the vaccines are killing more patients than Covid, using manipulated data or that the vaccines are implanting microchips so the government can track you. I’m all for academic debate—in fact, we wouldn’t be where we are today without robust academic debate, but that’s not what this is about.”

  Make no mistake—Assembly Bill 2098 is not just about protecting patient safety. That is why one member of the Medical Board of California warned that the bill would be counterproductive to the Board’s mission.

  Assembly Bill 2098 was not the brainchild of Assemblymember Low or any other California lawmakers. It’s part of an effort to enact similar policies around the country, sparked in large part by a declaration from the Federation of State Medical Boards in July 2021. 

  California is often described as a bellwether: “As California goes, so goes the nation.” That saying rings especially true with respect to Assembly Bill 2098, given that this is a test case for a national movement and that Governor Gavin Newsom has obvious presidential aspirations. 

  The bill will become law on January 1 unless the governor vetoes by September 30, and even then, the Democrats who voted for the bill have sufficient numbers to override a veto. Then we will discover whether our high courts still uphold the principle of free speech or whether they will allow themselves to be co-opted by the soldiers fighting to be the arbiters of Truth.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 22:20

• Ukraine Confirms Receipt Of Longer-Range Missiles It's Long Sought From US
  Ukraine Confirms Receipt Of Longer-Range Missiles It’s Long Sought From US

  Despite this past week which has seen US officials echo growing concerns over Moscow’s ratcheting nuclear rhetoric – which Ukraine too has said it is taking seriously – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is now boasting his country has received a new, advanced US missile system. 

  He confirmed in a fresh interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) has been long sought after by Kyiv, but previously in the war repeatedly denied:

  Zelensky thanked the U.S. for the system as well as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems it’s received, but added that his troops “absolutely need the United States to show leadership and give Ukraine” additional air defense systems it has requested.

  

  Ukraine began urgently asking for transfer of the NASAMS by early summer, but the Biden administration as reluctant to provide missile systems with longer range, concerned they would be used to strike inside Russian territory and thus drag Washington and Moscow into direct cofronation.

   According to a CNN report in June, “Ukrainian officials have asked for the missile defense system, known as a NASAMS system, given the weapons can hit targets more than 100 miles away, though the Ukrainian forces will likely need to be trained on the systems, a source said.”

  But that’s apparently no longer enough of a concern to halt these longer range systems, despite the Kremlin repeatedly warning that attacks on its territory with foreign weapons are a severe red line.

  According to The Hill: 

  The Biden administration approved the shipment of six of the missile systems late last month as part of a nearly $3 billion lethal aid package to bolster Kyiv as it battles the Kremlin invasion.  

  The NASAMS are considered “medium-range” systems, but are considered an improvement over prior missiles sent to Ukraine, which typically had a max range of 30 to 50 miles. The NASAMS are capable of defending against aircraft, cruise missiles, as well as drones and were designed by the US and Norway.

  But Zelensky in the CBS interview didn’t waist time asking for more, as has been typical, saying that amid his forces achieving success in the ongoing eastern counteroffensive they urgently need more tanks, artillery, and more missiles.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 22:00

• Nikola Recalls All The Electric Trucks It Has Built So Far
  Nikola Recalls All The Electric Trucks It Has Built So Far

  By Alan Adler of FreightWaves

  Nikola Corp. is recalling all 93 battery-electric Nikola Tre Class 8 trucks it has built to date because improper installation of the shoulder anchorage assembly of the seat belts could reduce protection in a crash.

  

  Nikola imports cabs from Italy, where they are built by manufacturing partner Iveco, which is responsible for the defect.

  The electric truck maker began regular production at a new plant in Coolidge, Arizona, in March. It reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Sept. 14 that it has no warranty or customer claims for the issue.

  The assembly as designed and installed could become detached under the weight of a passenger. The seat belt anchor assembly design does not allow full thread engagement for the anchor bolt. It may cause cross threading, a condition in which a fastening screw does not engage correctly with a nut.

  Discovered during predelivery inspection

  During a predelivery inspection at a dealership on July 18, a Nikola employee discovered the shoulder anchorage on the passenger side seat belt was disconnected from the B-pillar adjuster. Nikola told Iveco, which said the final torque on the passenger seat belt shoulder anchorage was not installed to specification.  

  Nikola will replace the components of the seat belt anchor assembly and the adjuster on all vehicles for free. The replacement component is narrower than the original, allowing the assembly to completely thread.

  Customer and dealer letters about the defect will be mailed between Oct. 1 and Nov. 1.

  The NHTSA recall number is 22V689.

  Milton trial resumes Wednesday

  Separately, the federal fraud trial for Nikola founder Trevor Milton resumes Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Dour market conditions, and possibly attention from the trial, dragged Nikola’s stock price 24.02% lower last week to close at $3.89 a share, just above its 52-week low of $3.82.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 21:40

• Oil Prices Set To Spike Again Due To Struggling Global Supply Chain
  Oil Prices Set To Spike Again Due To Struggling Global Supply Chain

  A short respite from rising oil and gasoline prices is about to end as 2022 comes to a close.  The reasons are numerous, but almost all of them relate directly to the supply chain.  Mainstream estimates suggest a return to $100 per barrel for the Brent which would inflate gasoline prices back to around $5 per gallon on average in the US.  These projections are likely conservative.

  It should be noted that it’s unusual for the mainstream financial media or mainstream analysts to suggest the idea of a renewed energy price spike.  With mid-term elections closing in, higher gas prices would put a damper on any chances democrats might have in maintaining a political majority.  Stagflationary pressures already top the list of public concerns in the US, far above social issues and geopolitical conflicts.  Higher energy costs would be more than unwelcome going into winter.

  This is the reason why Joe Biden has been so exuberant about releasing oil supplies from the US strategic reserves for the past several months.  Biden’s plan unleashed 1 million barrels per day into the supply chain and  is set to end in October.  The reserves are now depleted to the lowest levels since 1984, with gas prices STILL nearly double what they were when Biden entered the White House. It is essentially market manipulation at the expense of US strategic readiness and for the express purpose of political gain.

  That said, Biden’s ability to continue pouring oil onto the markets to keep gas prices down is dwindling, and even if he is able to continue the strategy past October, a red sweep in November would bring challenges and a freeze on reserves anyway.

  Another factor is the failing attempts at a nuclear deal with Iran and the lifting of sanctions by the west.  The free flow of Iranian oil will not be happening anytime soon, leaving western access to a major oil pool off the table.

  The next issue is the ever changing situation in the Ukraine war.  Russia is already receiving the brunt of the blame for global inflation, but this is clearly nonsense when we take into account the fact that inflation hit 40 year highs months before Russian invaded Ukraine and gas prices were rising well in advance of the conflict.  

  The accusation may become true in certain respects, though, as Russia cuts natural gas supplies to Europe and the EU flails around this winter looking for replacement energy sources.  Europe’s desperate search for oil, coal and gas will siphon supplies away from the global markets leaving all other countries with less.  The obvious result will be much higher prices for everyone.

  

  There is also the issue of the stronger US dollar.  As the petro-currency, most oil around the world has been purchased in dollars which allows Americans to enjoy lower prices.  However, sanctions and economic tensions between east and west have led to a rising trend of bilateral trade agreements cutting out the dollar as the reserve currency.  Furthermore, the strong dollar has also led to turmoil in FX markets and in foreign currencies like the Japanese Yen, which may lead to increased dumping of US Treasury holdings by international creditors.  We could soon be facing a coordinated effort by central banks to crush the dollar even as the Federal Reserve seeks to strengthen the Greenback through interest rate hikes.

  Barring a sudden crisis event such as an expansion of the war in Ukraine or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, oil prices are still set to rise as supply chain issues multiply.  

  The Department if Energy plans to replenish strategic reserves by purchasing oil stocks into the future at prices set today.  The argument is that this will increase domestic oil production.  The problem is that this discounts inflation in production costs for shale oil drillers.  Set prices would only work as long as drillers can continue to make a reasonable profit.  If they can’t, they will simply shut down.  By extension, the plan also assumes that drillers will be able to produce excess beyond market demand to sell to the government.  

  If the government gets a first purchase arrangement, then drillers will not be able to supply as much oil to regular consumers and prices will continue to spike.  If the government does not get a first purchase contract, then any excess will probably be snapped up by European buyers.  Either way, general consumers will not enjoy any benefits of increased drilling if it occurs, and Biden’s fraudulent green energy agenda will only restrict oil producers even more.  All in all, every observable factor suggests high oil and gas prices in the near term.   

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 21:20

• Export Slowdown Could Bring More Bad News For Yuan
  Export Slowdown Could Bring More Bad News For Yuan

  By George Lei, Bloomberg markets live reporter and analyst

  Chinese exports are poised to slow further in the remainder of 2022, with various high-frequency datasets pointing to cooling global demand. Exports, a key growth engine that has lifted the Chinese economy since the pandemic, are sputtering. That could bring more bad news for the yuan.

  South Korean data in September through the 20th suggest exports to China fell 14% year-over-year versus a 1% decline in exports to the US. This may be an ominous sign that global demand for consumer goods made in China — to which Korea provides inputs earlier in the supply chain — is softening, Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics, wrote on Monday. Hong Kong’s exports also sank 14.3% in August, the most since the pandemic first began in early 2020.

  

  Plunging freight rates also point to cooling exports: A 40-foot container from Shanghai to Los Angeles fetched $3,779 last week, below $4,000 for the first time since September 2020 and half what it was three months ago, Bloomberg reported. More declines are expected in the coming weeks, according to Drewry Supply Chain Advisors.

  The news couldn’t come at a worse time, with the offshore Chinese yuan now trading at the weakest since May 2020 — just a stone’s throw away from its record low — and economists rushing to cut China’s 2023 economic-growth forecasts. Dollar-yuan may need to go a lot higher to boost China’s exports meaningfully; the Chinese currency has advanced versus most of Beijing’s trade partners, outside of the US and Hong Kong, for much of 2022.

  

  Chinese exporters already are holding foreign currencies more tightly. The conversion ratio — which measures the share of export revenues converted into yuan — fell from 57% in the first eight months of 2021 to 36% this year through August, according to Macquarie economists Larry Hu and Yuxiao Zhang. If that ratio holds steady, an extra $118 billion could have been sold by exporters into yuan, Macquarie estimates.

  Falling Chinese export volumes and expectations of a weaker yuan will only make exporters more reluctant to sell their dollars. The yuan’s downtrend isn’t likely to reverse unless that negative feedback loop is broken.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 21:15

• Liz Cheney Says Will Campaign For Democrats, Leave Republican Party If Trump Is 2024 Nominee
  Liz Cheney Says Will Campaign For Democrats, Leave Republican Party If Trump Is 2024 Nominee

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

  Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said on Saturday that she will not remain a Republican if former President Donald Trump is the GOP presidential nominee in the 2024 elections, and that she would also be willing to campaign for Democrats to stop GOP nominee Kari Lake from being elected in the Arizona gubernatorial race.

  

  Cheney, who has been called a “Republican in name only” by others in her party and lost the Republican primary to Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman in August, made the comments at The Texas Tribune festival in Austin.

  “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Kari Lake is not elected,” Cheney said.

  Former television anchor Lake, who is endorsed by Trump, won the Republican nomination in the Arizona primary election in August. Lake has been vocal in contending fraud in the 2020 election and has pledged to improve election security if she wins the gubernatorial race.

  When asked by Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith whether doing everything she can to ensure Lake is not elected included campaigning for Democrats, Cheney simply stated: “Yes.”

  Cheney, who has become one of the most vocal voices in the Republican Party against former President Donald Trump, later added that she would not remain a Republican if he were to gain the party’s nomination in 2024.

  “I’m going to make sure Donald Trump, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee. And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican,” Cheney said.

  Cheney also mentioned Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has said he will campaign for Lake.

  “He’s demonstrated that he’s somebody who has not bought into the toxin of Donald Trump—but he campaigned recently for Kari Lake, who’s an election denier, who is dangerous,” Cheney said.

  …

  Cheney announced in August that she’s considering running for president in 2024 but has not yet made a decision on the potential run.

  “That’s a decision that I’m going to make in the coming months,” she said on Aug. 17 in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, despite having just lost in the Republican primary for the seat she now holds.

  Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump. She is also one of two Republican members sitting on the Democrat-led House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

  …

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 21:00

• NYC Office Space Glut Made Worse By Remote Work As Older Towers Face High Vacancy
  NYC Office Space Glut Made Worse By Remote Work As Older Towers Face High Vacancy

  Is New York City’s central business district finally recovering after Covid-19? The simple answer is no. Although residential rents in Manhattan were inflated to record highs, the rise of remote work quelled any recovery for the office space market in the borough. 

  Bloomberg reported blocks of decades-old office buildings sitting partially empty are becoming a multibillion-dollar problem for building owners. 

  

  Even though Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and other Wall Street firms have pushed for a return to the office after the Labor Day holiday, NYC’s office-occupancy trends are still below half, according to card-swipe data provided by Kastle Systems. 

  

  Office vacancy rates have skyrocketed in NYC and other major cities worldwide, though it appears the US will have a slower office-market recovery — this is likely due to persisting remote working trends. 

  

  Columbia University and New York University released a report that found remote work trends could force companies to reduce office space. They said lower tenant demand could result in a 28%, or $456 billion loss in the value of offices across the US. About 10% of that comes from NYC. 

  Partially empty office towers are leading to slower economic recovery in NYC. Many buildings with high vacancy rates were constructed between 1950-80 and had no meaningful upgrades. 

  The area is clustered with buildings from the 1950s to 1980s, many of which haven’t been meaningfully upgraded in decades. The few that have been renovated struggle to compete with counterparts in tonier addresses on Park, Fifth and Madison avenues and new mega-developments on Manhattan’s far west side.

  The Third Avenue buildings have become “leave-behind space” rather than the types of offices that attract world-class tenants, said Nick Farmakis, vice chairman at Savills. — Bloomberg

  The picture remains cloudy for NYC because converting office space buildings to residential is challenging and expensive. Manhattan has had some conversions, but owners and developers are met with many challenges of zoning and architectural restrictions. 

  “The problem with Midtown is a lot of buildings need air and lights that the city requires, and you don’t always get that,” said Ran Eliasaf, founder and managing partner of investment firm Northwind Group, which is exploring residential conversions in the city. “Not every Class B building is an ideal target for conversion.”

  Older buildings are also being left behind as businesses desire newer ones or relocate out of the city. This leaves NYC with a rising number of older office buildings with high vacancy rates and has begun to impact how much property taxes the city brings in. 

  New York, like other cities, relies heavily on property taxes to fund schools, police and firefighters, as well as other services. Property taxes are the biggest source of revenue for the city, delivering about $1 out of every $3 taken in. And offices account for about a fifth of that.

  Before the pandemic, the levies had climbed by about 6% a year on average, driven by rising property values. That helped finance new programs and services, as well as keep up with rising labor costs, said Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan budget watchdog and research firm.

  Manhattan’s major office districts were no exception, generating steadily more revenue. But, in the fiscal year that ended June 30, the first to take into account the impact the pandemic had on real estate, tax levies from those areas declined by 11% to $5.24 billion.

  The biggest drop was in a part of Midtown East north of Grand Central that the city’s Department of Finance calls “Plaza,” which contains some of the Third Avenue properties.

  

  — Bloomberg 

  The takeaway is that NYC has too many old office buildings that are no longer appealing to companies because of various factors due to remote working and the desire for new shiny new towers with top-of-the-line amenities. 

  Remember, we’ve pointed out There’s An Amazing Glut Of Office Space In Every Major Metro Area and Office Space Market Faces “Economic Downturn” Due To Perfect Storm Of Factors. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 20:40

• California To Ban Natural Gas Heaters By 2030
  California To Ban Natural Gas Heaters By 2030

  Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

  California has made yet another step on its way to complete reliance on renewable energy by banning the use of gas-powered water heaters and furnaces from 2030.

  

  The proposal to ban these products was approved unilaterally by the California Air Resources Board yesterday, Bloomberg reports.

  “We’re really hopeful that this is the beginning of a domino effect and other states will follow California’s lead,” said Leah Louis-Prescott, an associate at RMI, a clean energy non-profit.

  The ban does not cover gas stoves for now but many cities in California are seeking to discourage the use of gas stoves and a switch to electric-only appliances.

  Now, with the gas furnace ban, Californians will have to familiarize themselves with heat pumps: all-electric heating appliances that are gaining popularity in Europe as an alternative to traditional heating methods.

  Touted as the way forward in heating technology, heat pumps are praised for efficiency and emission footprint but they do have constraints such as temperature and they add to electricity consumption, which could strain a grid designed for a certain—lower—level of consumption.

  Earlier this month California moved to ban the sales of internal-combustion engine cars from 2035. While climate activists have welcomed the news, there are some issues, such as the fact that EVs in California, which is the biggest EV market in the States, only make up 15 percent of new car sales, per figures from the California New Car Dealers’ Association.

  Going from 15 percent to 100 percent in 11 years would be challenging for a car industry that is already struggling to find enough raw materials for the millions of EVs companies have committed to manufacture.

  Meanwhile, California continues to get some 40 percent of its power from fossil fuels. This needs to change if the state is to hit its own target of a zero-emission grid by 2045.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 20:20

• Just 1.5% Of Eligible People Have Gotten Updated COVID Booster
  Just 1.5% Of Eligible People Have Gotten Updated COVID Booster

  Only 1.5% of those eligible to receive the new Covid booster jab – which was tested on just 8 mice, not humans, before the FDA approved it – have taken the updated shot, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  

  Approximately 4.4 million people have taken the tweaked booster shot from Pfizer and Moderna after they were rolled out three weeks ago around Labor Day weekend. The bivalent shots were designed to target both the original Covid-19 strain, and the currently circulating Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, NBC News reports.

  “I would expect a much higher proportion of Americans to have gotten the booster by this point,” said Yale Medicine infectious diseases specialist, Dr. Scott Robers, who said the relatively low uptake was “demoralizing.”

  “The fact that this booster came out days before Biden said the pandemic is over is a huge mixed message,” said Roberts, who added that a lack of public awareness surrounding the shots – or the ‘prevailing narrative that the pandemic is ending’ might have hindered the rollout. “Now it’s going to be that much harder to convince those at risk who are on the fence to get a booster.”

  As of Tuesday, the US had shipped over 25 million boosters to tens of thousands of sites.

  Approximately 80% of the US population has received at least one shot of the primary Covid vaccine, and almost 68% are considered ‘fully vaccinated’ by the CDC – meaning they’ve received two doses of Pfizer or Moderna’s offering, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.

  experts are still gathering real-world data, since the shots were distributed without results from human trials. Laboratory studies found that the boosters generated strong antibody responses against BA.4 and BA.5, and human trial data showed that a similar vaccine yielded a strong antibody response against the initial omicron strain, BA.1.

  Authorization of the bivalent boosters for children ages 5 to 11 may be just weeks away, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said at an event this week with the Covid-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project. -NBC News

  Word of the slow uptake comes after Denmark recommended that only those over the age of 50, or who are at risk of developing severe Covid-19, receive the vaccine.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 20:00

• NYC Council Eyes Buying Back Used Needles From Drug Addicts
  NYC Council Eyes Buying Back Used Needles From Drug Addicts

  Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,

  The New York City Council is considering a proposal to establish a buy-back program in hopes of stemming the spike in overdose deaths and discarded used drug needles on the streets.

  

  Introduction 609, sponsored by East Harlem Councilwoman Diana Ayala, would establish a pilot program that offers up to 20 cents for each needle, syringe, or sharp used at the city’s two legal injection sites, with a cap of $10 per individual per day.

  The program would only be open to active drug users who come to an overdose prevention center (OPC), use the clean needle provided there for drug injection, and dispose of it at the site, according to the proposal. New York City currently has two OPCs, one in Washington Heights and the other in East Harlem. Both sites were opened in November 2021 as part of former mayor Bill de Blasio’s initiative to reduce overdoses.

  If implemented, the program would last for a year. The city’s public health department at that point would recommend whether or not to continue the program or whether to expand it to cover needles and syringes that have been used somewhere other than an OPC.

  “The intent of the bill is to get those folks that are using on our streets and open spaces to bring back the dirty needle (possibly to OPC site) as opposed to discarding them improperly,” Ayala, a Democrat, wrote in a Twitter thread. Others called the proposal “misguided” and an invitation to drug addicts to the city.

  Queens Councilwoman Joann Ariola, a Republican, argued that taxpayers money shouldn’t be spent on paying people to use drugs.

  “It’s not going to benefit the person who is the drug addict who is using the needles,” Ariola told New York Post.

  “It could be harmful to the person who is collecting these needles. And who’s paying the [twenty] cents per needle? Where is that money coming from? I think the taxpayers are paying for enough!”

  The creation of New York City’s OPCs came after Gov. Kathy Hochul in October 2021 signed a law to decriminalize the possession and sale of hypodermic needles and syringes across the state. As a result, the city’s police officers were directed to stop arresting people who possess, sell, or even share needles that are commonly used by addicts to inject drugs such as heroin.

  According to the bill that became law, decriminalizing the possession and sale of needles will encourage more people to come to places like the OPCs, which provide clean needles and naloxone to reverse overdoses.

  Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican who represents parts of South Brooklyn and Staten Island, opposed de Blasio’s plan to open what she described as “heroin injection centers.” In November 2021, she sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling on the Department of Justice to take action to enforce federal anti-drug law.

  “Opening taxpayer-funded heroin shooting galleries is not a proper solution. These centers not only encourage drug use but they will further deteriorate our quality of life,” she said.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 19:40

• FBI Misled Judge, Then Seized $86 Million In Cash From Beverly Hills Safe-Deposit Boxes
  FBI Misled Judge, Then Seized $86 Million In Cash From Beverly Hills Safe-Deposit Boxes

  The FBI ‘drilled and pried’ their way into 1,400 safe-deposit boxes at a private vault company in Beverly Hills after misleading a judge about their plan to permanently confiscate everything inside every box containing at least $5,000 in cash or goods, a senior FBI agent recently testified.

  

  They rummaged through personal belongings of a jazz saxophone player, an interior designer, a retired doctor, a flooring contractor, two Century City lawyers and hundreds of others.

  Agents took photos and videos of pay stubs, password lists, credit cards, a prenuptial agreement, immigration and vaccination records, bank statements, heirlooms and a will, court records show. In one box, agents found cremated human remains. –LA Times

  The FBI and US attorney’s office in Los Angeles justified the 5-day dragnet forfeiture at the US Private Vaults store by assuming that hundreds of anonymous box holders were storing assets somehow tied to unknown crimes.

  At the end of the operation, agents had recovered more than $86 million in cash, and a ‘bonanza’ of gold, silver, rare coins, jewelry and other items of value.

  Now, around 700 box holders who aren’t implicated in any crimes liken the raid to police barging into a building’s 700 apartments and taking every tenant’s possessions when the only evidence of wrongdoing is against the landlord.

  The plaintiffs in the class-action suit have asked U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner to declare the raid unconstitutional. If he grants the request, it could force the FBI to return millions of dollars to box holders whose assets it has tried to confiscate.

  It could also spoil an unknown number of criminal investigations by blocking prosecutors from using any evidence or information acquired in the raid, including guns and drugs. -LA Times

  “The government did not know what was in those boxes, who owned them, or what, if anything, those people had done,” said their lawyer, Robert Frommer. “That’s why the warrant application did not even attempt to argue there was probable cause to seize and forfeit box renters’ property.”

  After the raid, the FBI posted a notice in the store window where customers could claim their property. Those who came forward had their bank records, state tax returns, DMV files and criminal histories investigated, agents testified.

  

  Since the raid, the US attorney’s office has attempted to block public disclosure of court papers which revealed the government’s deception – however a judge rejected their request to keep them under seal.

  The FBI is trash. It is both a domestic terrorist organization and a criminal cartel, and it should no longer be allowed to exist in what used to be a free country with laws. https://t.co/KaV0L6X3Xh

  — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 26, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThe origins of the raid date back to 2015, when local detectives and federal agents spotted drug suspects walking in and out of US Private Vaults, located in an upscale strip mall. Customers, who could rent boxes anonymously, entered the store’s vault using a biometric eye scan according to a LA County sheriff’s deputy.

  

  By 2019, the feds and local law enforcement were able to search more than a dozen boxes, from which around $5 million was seized from five drug dealers, a bookie and a debit card thief. Then, the FBI began investigating the business itself – charging them with conspiracy to sell drugs and launder money, using a precious-metals store next door to help drug dealers launder cash by converting it to gold and silver, which was then stashed in their anonymous boxes. The company pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to launder drug money in an ongoing investigation.

  Both the FBI and US attorney’s office have denied misleading the judge or ignoring his conditions – claiming that they had no obligation to tell him about their plan for indiscriminate confiscations based on the blanket assumption that every customer was hiding assets tied to potential crimes.

  According to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller, the warrants were lawfully executed “based on allegations of widespread criminal wrongdoing,” adding “At no time was a magistrate misled as to the probable cause used to obtain the warrants.”

  How the FBI worked the system

  FBI agent Lynne Zellhart, a former Sacramento attorney, made sweeping allegations of criminal wrongdoing by box holders – arguing that it would be “irrational” for anyone not breaking the law to store assets at US Private Vaults, when a bank could better safeguard them.

  “Only those who wish to hide their wealth from the DEA, IRS, or creditors would” rent a box anonymously at US Private Vaults, she wrote.

  But the FBI’s evidence against customers was thin.

  Agents had seen some of them pull up to the store in vehicles with Nevada, Ohio and Illinois license plates, Zellhart wrote.

  “Based on my training and experience in money laundering investigations, Chicago, Illinois is a hub of both drug trafficking and money laundering,” she said. “I believe these patrons were using their USPV box to store drug proceeds.” She cited no facts to back up the suspicion. -LA Times

  In fact, Zellhart only mentioned nine box holders who she said were “linked” or “associated” with law enforcement investigations – and again provided no facts specifying criminal conduct.

  To provide cover for the fact that innocent box holders might be swept up, she admitted that US Private Vaults tried “to attract a non-criminal clientele as well, so as not to be too obvious a haven for criminals.”

  At her deposition, Zellhart was asked, “Was it your opinion that most of the people who rented safe-deposit boxes were criminals in some way?” to which she replied “I was expecting a lot of criminals,” adding “I don’t know about most.”

  The FBI assured US Magistrate Judge Steve Kim that the FBI would respect customers’ rights based on the affidavit’s 84th and 85th pages, written by assistant US attorney Andrew Brown, who underlined the government’s lack of evidence to justify any criminal search of the customers’ property.

  “The warrants authorize the seizure of the nests of the boxes themselves, not their contents,” Brown’s section of the affidavit read. “By seizing the nests of safety deposit boxes themselves, the government will necessarily end up with custody of what is inside those boxes initially.”

  The affidavit told Kim that agents would “follow their written inventory policies” and “attempt to notify the lawful owners of the property stored in the boxes how to claim their property.”

  Under FBI policy, it said, inspection of each box would “extend no further than necessary to determine ownership.” But agents’ inspection of the boxes went substantially further — just as the government planned, according to FBI records filed in court.

  By the time Kim got the warrant request, the FBI had been preparing an enormous forfeiture operation for at least six months, according to Jessie Murray, the chief of the FBI’s asset forfeiture unit in Los Angeles. -LA Times

  Under US forfeiture laws, the government must have evidence that it was derived from criminal conduct or used to facilitate it.

  Judge Kim was explicit in limiting the scope of the raid, writing: “This warrant does not authorize a criminal search or seizure of the contents of the safety deposit boxes.” He then gave the FBI permission to take inventory of box contents to protect against accusations of theft, and then ordered agents to notify owners not implicated in crimes so that they could recover their property.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 19:20

• Psaki Admits Democrats Will Lose If Midterms Are A 'Referendum' On Biden
  Psaki Admits Democrats Will Lose If Midterms Are A ‘Referendum’ On Biden

  Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

  Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Sunday said the Democrats will lose if the November midterm elections are a “referendum” on President Joe Biden.

  “If it is a referendum on the president, they will lose. And they know that. They also know that crime is a huge vulnerability for Democrats, I would say one of the biggest vulnerabilities,” Psaki said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sept. 25.

  On the contrary, Psaki said that if the focus of the midterm elections is on the “most extreme” party, mentioning House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) by name, the Democrats will secure a victory in November.

  

  With a little more than 40 days to go before the November elections, Biden’s public approval rating remains low. According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, 39 percent of Americans approved of the president, while 57 percent disapproved.

  Additionally, 67 percent of the respondents said the United States was heading in the wrong direction, while 21 percent said the country was on the right track.

  Another recent Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll found that 50 percent of Americans thought Biden “should do more” on “blocking illegal immigrants” from entering the United States.

  Even Democrats are abandoning Biden as the party’s nominee for president in 2024. According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, just 35 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents prefer Biden for the 2024 nomination, while 56 percent say the party should pick someone else.

  Referendum

  Some Republicans have long billed the midterm elections as a referendum on Biden, most famously former President Donald Trump.

  “This election is a referendum on skyrocketing inflation, rampant crime, soaring murders, crushing gas prices, millions and millions of illegal aliens pouring across our border, race and gender indoctrination, converting our schools,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Sept. 3.

  Trump added, “And above all, this election is a referendum on the corruption and extremism of Joe Biden and the radical Democrat Party.”

  

  Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) speaks to The Epoch Times at CPAC 21 in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2021. (The Epoch Times)

  Also on Sunday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote on Twitter that “It’s not breaking news Democrats don’t want the midterm elections to be a referendum on Biden.”

  Earlier this month, Joe O’Dea, the GOP candidate for senator in Colorado, also said the November race is a referendum on the president.

  “This election is a referendum on the trillions in spending and debt by Joe Biden and Michael Bennet that’s caused this inflation crisis,” O’Dea wrote on Twitter, who is facing incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).

  Pennsylvania

  Psaki also said she has been following the senate race in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is facing Republican candidate Mehmet Oz, noting that Republicans have been spending money on ads portraying the Democrat candidate as soft on crime.

  “What’s been interesting to me is it’s always you follow the money, and where are people spending money,” Psaki said. “And in Pennsylvania, the Republicans have been spending millions of dollars on the air on crime ads against Fetterman because that’s where they see his vulnerability.”

  She added, “So, yes, the economy is hanging over everything. But you do have to look at state-by-state factors, and crime is a huge issue in the Pennsylvania race.”

  Oz and Fetterman are scheduled for a televised debate on Oct. 25. On Sunday, Oz took to Twitter to say he has a different approach to border management compared to his opponent.

  “John Fetterman would be a rubber stamp for Biden’s reckless border policies & make the crisis at our southern border even worse,” Oz wrote on Twitter. “Securing our border may not be Biden or Fetterman’s top priority, but I’ll do everything I can to address this issue.”

  Psaki left the White House in May and took a job at MSNBC as host for a new streaming program starting in 2023.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 19:00

• Meet The Fiercely Loyal "Guru" Behind Masayoshi Son At SoftBank
  Meet The Fiercely Loyal “Guru” Behind Masayoshi Son At SoftBank

  And so, all of a sudden, SoftBank – which has been suffering from a $23 billion loss at the hands of the global tech selloff – has a scapegoat advisor to Masayoshi Son.

  The fall guy “guru”, profiled in an FT piece out this weekend, is Yoshimitsu Goto, who is described as being “fiercely loyal” to Masayoshi Son. Masa hired Goto all the way back in 2000 after stating: “I like the look of his eyes. Let’s hire him.”

  Perhaps Goto isn’t just getting press now because of SoftBank’s recent troubles – instead, perhaps it is because three of Masa’s top executives have jumped ship over the last 18 months and Goto has been the exception.

  As FT notes, SoftBank has lost its chief operating officer Marcelo Claure and strategy chief Katsunori Sago. Rajeev Misra, head of SoftBank’s Vision Fund, all in short order in less than 2 years. 

  Goto, in the interim, has become “indispensable”, the report says. And that’s not because he continues to defend Masa as the company’s Vision Fund suffers from terrible performance. 

  Masa’s “guru” says that the plan with the Vision Fund is to “stay the course”: “I won’t be surprised [if Son changed his mind] but I don’t think that’s likely. Investment firm is this company’s ultimate style. The basis of Mr Son’s thinking is that change is the best growth strategy to avert risks.”

  The report describes Goto’s job as “to persuade investors to scrap what he describes as the misleading image of the deal-driven, debt-saddled group” as reckless. He has also been in charge of taking Masa’s “big picture” ideas and converting them into “comprehensible pitches” for lenders.

  

  That is to say, Masa’s ideas must first usually be incomprehensible. Color us not surprised.

  And Goto does supposedly stand up to the boss once in a while, the report says. He told FT: “When an executive in charge of the company’s financing and cash flow says no, that’s the end of the story so I know the weight of my words when I say no.”

  “I tell my team not to search for reasons why they can’t do it, but to think of ways that can be done if they were to try it. When it’s really impossible, there is no answer and that’s when I say we should not do this. Mr Son is rational so he gets it right away.”

  The one cardinal rule Goto has is not to do anything that would compromise the firm’s relationship with Mizuho, where he formerly worked as a banker. “It takes a long time to build a relationship of trust but when it crumbles, it happens with the blink of an eye. I have never broken my promise with the banks in the past 20 years,” he told FT. 

  Koji Fujiwara, senior adviser at Mizuho Financial Group, said: “The current relationship between Mizuho and SoftBank Group would have been unthinkable without Mr Goto. That’s how important he is.”

  Kiyoshi Miyake, the former deputy president of Mizuho Bank, concluded: “The ideas flow like water for Mr Son, and it was Mr Goto who said which of those can be done and which cannot be done.”

  And as such, we’re near certain he’ll receive his fair share of the blame should the picture worsen for SoftBank…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 18:40

• $1 Million Yale University Research Project To Combat Racist Video Game Hair
  $1 Million Yale University Research Project To Combat Racist Video Game Hair

  By Madison Rehbehn of Campus Reform

  Yale University’s Computer Science Department recently announced a $1 million donation given to them from the Bungie Foundation for a research project that fights against racist hair graphics in video games. 

  “It is widely assumed that the algorithms used to generate virtual humans are based in biological underpinnings that accurately reflect all races and ethnicities,” the announcement reads. “In reality, however, these algorithms are deeply biased and based on predominantly European features.”

  

  The project will be led by Theodore Kim, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Yale.

  According to Kim, the project will “serve as an example of how to identify the products of systemic racism in computer graphics and demonstrate how to take concrete steps to ameliorate their harm.” 

  Kim believes that this racial bias in video game hair stems from Computer Graphics Researchers that have “historically favored the simulation and rendering of straight hair, which is racially coded as European or Caucasian hair.”

  As stated on Kim’s admin page, “[h]e researches topics in physics-based animation, which include the simulation of fire, water, muscles, skin, and virtual humans.” 

  In 2015, Pew Research Center conducted a study on how various racial and ethnic groups feel about video games. Their article showed that “[r]oughly half (47%) of American adults say they are unsure of whether video games portray minority groups poorly. Interestingly, this is the most common response regardless of race or ethnicity.” 

  The Pew Research Center’s study continued by adding, “Blacks (13%) are more likely than whites (7%) to say most video games portray minority groups poorly.” However, “close to half of all blacks (47%) say they are uncertain if video games depict minorities in a bad light.” 

  Campus Reform reached out to Yale University, Professor Kim, and the Bungie Foundation for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 18:20

• Pressure Mysteriously Plunges in Nord Stream 1, 2
  Pressure Mysteriously Plunges in Nord Stream 1, 2

  Update: It’s not just NS2: according to Reuters, Nord Stream AG, the operator of the Nord Stream 1 undersea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, said Monday it was looking into causes of a drop in pressure in the pipeline.

  “Tonight, dispatchers from the Nord Stream 1 control centre recorded a pressure drop on both branches of the gas pipeline,” it said in a statement. “The reasons are being clarified.”

  * * *

  Reuters reported that the Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline experienced a sudden loss in pressure, and a leak was detected in Danish waters on Monday. 

  “A leak today occurred on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Danish area,” said Denmark’s energy agency.

  Danish authorities said the leak occurred in the exclusive economic zone southeast of Bornholm island. Danish Maritime Authority announced all vessels must avoid the area:

  “Mariners are advised not to navigate within a five nautical miles area of the mentioned position.” 

  

  Russian energy giant Gazprom, NS2’s operator, released a statement that said “marine authorities of Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Russia have been notified immediately” about the pressure drop, adding an “investigation is ongoing.” 

  “Overnight the Nord Stream 2 landfall dispatcher registered a rapid gas pressure drop on Line A of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline,” NS2’s operator said. 

  NS2 spokesman Ulrich Lissek told AFP a “large bubble field near Bornholm” was spotted. He noted, “pipeline was never in use, just prepared for technical operation, and therefore filled with gas.” 

  Lissek said pressure inside NS2 usually is about 105 bars. It is now only 7 bars on the German side… 

  A spokeswoman for the German economy ministry said there’s “no clarity” on what caused the NS2’s pressure drop: 

  “We are currently in contact with the authorities concerned in order to clarify the situation. We still have no clarity about the causes and the exact facts.” 

  European NatGas prices weren’t affected by the news because the pipeline, intended to double NatGas volumes to Europe under the Baltic Sea to Germany, was never operational after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz canceled it after Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year. 

  The Russian-owned pipeline, which was intended to double the volume of gas flowing from St. Petersburg under the Baltic Sea to Germany, had just been completed and was filled with 300 million cubic metres of gas when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz cancelled it shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine. —Reuters 

  Underwater pipeline leaks can be very dangerous. In July 2021, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), had an underwater pipeline rupture that sparked massive fireballs.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 18:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Russia Vows 'Full Protection' For Any Annexed Territory As Nuclear Threat Grows
  Russia Vows ‘Full Protection’ For Any Annexed Territory As Nuclear Threat Grows

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that regions of Ukraine where referendums are being held will be under the Kremlin’s “full protection” if they are annexed by Russia, raising the prospect of the use of nuclear weapons.

  

  Residents of four Russian-occupied areas in eastern and southern Ukraine continued voting for four days on whether to join Russia.

  “Following those referendums, Russia of course will respect the expression of the will of those people who for many long years have been suffering from the abuses of the neo-Nazi regime,” Lavrov told reporters this weekend after addressing the United Nations General Assembly. He was referring to the Kyiv government.

  When asked by a reporter if Russia would possibly use nuclear weapons to defend any annexed regions in Ukraine, Lavrov said that any Russian territory will be “under the full protection of the state.”

  “All of the laws, doctrines, concepts, and strategies of the Russian Federation apply to all of its territory,” he said while referring to Russia’s doctrine on using nukes.

  Several days ago, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a warning on social media that Russia is prepared to use nuclear weapons. That came after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech announcing he would mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops, while he also issued a veiled threat about using all weapons in Russia’s arsenal to defend its territorial integrity.

  

  Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting on Aug. 4, 2022. (Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via Reuters)

  While Putin’s comment was vague, Medvedev’s post on Telegram was more explicit. Medvedev currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council.

  “Russia has announced that not only mobilization capabilities but also any Russian weapons, including strategic nuclear weapons and weapons based on new principles, could be used for such protection,” he wrote, according to a translation.

  The referendums in four eastern Ukrainian regions, aimed at annexing territory Russia has taken by force since its invasion in February, were being staged for a third day on Sunday and the Russian parliament could move to formalize the annexation within days.

  By incorporating the four areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia into Russia, Moscow could portray attacks to retake them as an attack on Russia itself, a warning to Kyiv and its Western allies.

  Ukraine and its allies have dismissed the referendums as a sham designed to justify an escalation of the war and a mobilization drive by Moscow after recent battlefield losses.

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday his country would regain all the territory Russia had taken. “We will definitely liberate our entire country—from Kherson to the Luhansk region, from Crimea to the Donetsk region,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.

  Nuclear Threat

  It comes as Navy Admiral Charles A. Richard, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, acknowledged Russia’s recent warnings about using nuclear weapons.

  “We have not had to do that in over 30 years. The implications of that are profound,” he said during a panel discussion last week. “They’re profound for homeland defense. They’re profound for strategic deterrence as well as us achieving national objectives. And this is no longer theoretical,” he added.

  Richard added that it’s now possible that for the first time in decades, it’s possible the United States will have a “possible direct armed conflict with a nuclear-capable peer.”

  “Russia and China can escalate to any level of violence that they choose in any domain with any instrument of power worldwide,” Richard added.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/26/2022 – 02:00

• We Might Be Spared Nuclear War For Now But The Threat Of Home-Grown Tyranny Remains
  We Might Be Spared Nuclear War For Now But The Threat Of Home-Grown Tyranny Remains

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  As readers know, I am convinced that Putin’s toleration of insults and provocations has had the effect of encouraging more and worse provocations and not, as he intended, to downplay conflict.  As you also know, I am convinced that his “limited military operation” in Donbass designed to protect the Donbass Russians, formerly a part of Russia, from horrible abuse by Ukrainian forces and the neo-Nazi militias, was a mistake.  It is a mistake because the West characterized a limited operation as an “invasion of Ukraine,” and used its slow progress as evidence of Russian failure.  It is a mistake because the go-slow nature of the Russian offensive in order to minimize the impact on civilian lives and infrastructure gave the West plenty of time to convince itself to get more and more involved with diplomatic support, money, armaments and ammunition, training, and now with satellite  information for targeting the Russian forces.

  

  As I see it, Putin has been behaving as British Prime Minister Chamberlain is alleged to have behaved, thus encouraging more aggressive actions.  Wanting peace at all costs brings war.

  As it is no longer possible for the Kremlin to speak of  “our Western partners” or to deny that the West is at war with Russia, the Kremlin, trying to avoid a war that it knows would be nuclear, has reached my conclusion of eight years ago that if the areas in today’s artificial borders of Ukraine that require Russian protection were reincorporated into Russia, the conflict would have to cease or become direct Western military aggression against Russia.  As Biden says he has no stomach for a war with Russia and will not permit one, and as NATO is incapable of such war, the referendums that begin today in the liberated areas of Ukraine, which without question will succeed, promise to reduce the threat of Armageddon.  Although in my opinion the leadership everywhere in the Western world is Satanic and insane, I do not think the Western governing elites are ready to commit suicide by attacking Russian territory. The West can say it doesn’t recognize the rights of people to self-determination, but if Russia says it is Russian territory, it is.

  So that you understand, the referendums are Putin’s way of ending the conflict before it widens into nuclear war.  Putin’s rescue of the world from nuclear war will not be acknowledged by the Western presstitutes, Washington’s puppet EU and UK governments, or by the puppet who serves as NATO secretary general.  

  But what they think does not matter. Putin, belatedly, is doing his best to save us all from nuclear war.  Pray that he succeeds.

  Putin’s success in forestalling nuclear war does not mean peace for Russia. The breakup of the Soviet Union by Washington that turned Soviet provinces or republics into independent states, together with the freedom the West has had for 30 years in funding NGOs and building subversive networks in the former Soviet provinces, gives Washington the opportunity to foment wars on the Russian Federation’s borders, as is now brewing between two former Central Asian Soviet Republics, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan and  to foment coups such as the one in the recent attempt in Kazakhstan. The empire served a security purpose to which Russia will eventually have to return if the West continues to operate against Russia.

  We do not have Putin’s help with the other threats to Western Civilization that confronts us.  Internally the West is faced with an attack on itself by its own elites.  The West is everywhere discredited–in the universities, the public schools, the museums, the media, movies, the Democrat Party, the 1619 Project, Identity politics, Critical Race Theory taught in public schools to children, gender theory which teaches  that self-declaration, not biological fact, determines gender. Teaching children to be confused about their gender is an evil thing.

  This illustrates that in the Western World lies takes precedence over facts.  Facts are whatever the elites and their  minions say.  They have no basis in reality.  Those who emphasize reality are “domestic terrorists” because they dissent from the official narratives that cannot be supported by factual evidence.  Multiculturalism has turned the American nation into a tower of babel, and Identity Politics has destroyed unity. The Democrat Party has been radicalized and is firmly arraigned against white  Americans who are undergoing a process of deracination and dispossession.

  In my lifetime the US has been transformed from a nation into a tower of babel and from a relatively free society into a police state.  The transformation into a tower of babel was an intentional policy designed to drain power from the white population.  The police state has rapidly developed in the 21st century as a response to 9/11 which was orchestrated partly for that purpose.  With half or more of the white population’s legitimacy challenged by the White House, with Constitutional protections eroded, and with the criminal justice system weaponized against Trump and his supporters, the United States is being primed for civil war.

  In former times the US government acted to protect the people from monopolies with progressive measures, such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, today a dead letter law.  Beginning with the Clinton regime, monopolization, already present from the destruction of independent businesses by big box store chains, has grown dramatically.  Clinton signed off on the concentration of the media in a few hands. The large banks were given enormous power by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.  The unregulated digital revolution has produced a monopoly over digital communication which is used to censor and suppress free speech.  Big Pharma and the medical insurance companies are in the process of completing their control over medicine by forcing independent medical practices into large health care organizations where doctors are employees subject to Big Pharma protocols.  They achieved this by having medical insurance and Medicare pay a larger percentage of amounts billed to the large bureaucratic entities than to private practitioners. The financial difference forced doctors to sell or merge their practices into the larger entities and means the end of the Hippocratic Oath as we saw with Covid when doctors who are employees of hospitals and HMOs were prohibited from treating patients with HCQ and Ivermectin.

  Big Pharma’s power over medicine and legislators was demonstrated last month when the California legislature passed Big Pharma’s bill to punish doctors who saved lives by using HCQ and Ivermectin.  The bill defines “scientific consensus” as whatever Big Pharma influenced/controlled NIH, CDC, and FDA say it is.  Under the bill, doctors are guilty of “unprofessional conduct” and can lose their licenses for disseminating “misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”  https://www.globalresearch.ca/all-eyes-gov-newsom-california-looks-pass-nations-first-law-punish-doctors-covid-misinformation/5793420  In other words, doctors and medical scientists who disagreed with Big Pharma shill Fauci and saved lives are to be kicked out of medical practice.

  Big Pharma, with its grants to medical schools, its funding of medical research that serves its profits, its influence over medical journals and public health agencies and regulators such as NIH, CDC, and FDA, and its lobbying power with legislatures, has gained control over the practice of medicine.  

  Wherever you look in the Western world autonomy is disappearing.  People have less and less control over their lives and their children.  If they express thoughts contrary to official narratives they risk their jobs and financial security.  Today’s intrusions into the family were unthinkable a few decades ago. Digital money, which is in the works, will terminate all human autonomy.  If you annoy the government you will be cut off from your funds.  What you can spend money on will be controlled in the interest of profits for the favored and whatever cause or ideology is prevailing, such as health, a green world.  Digital money is not cash. You can’t keep a supply of purchasing power at home.  Governments can prevent the use of digital money from purchasing disfavored products.

  Once the media becomes a propaganda ministry, as the Western media is, it is easy to steal the people’s freedom.  An excuse can always be found or orchestrated–national security (9/11), medical emergency (Covid pandemic), Insurrection by MAGA Republicans.  By the time a trusting and gullible public catches on to a former deception they are in the middle of a new one.  As the erosion of freedom is gradual nothing is done about it.  As the young only know what they are born into, the growing restraints on freedom are normality to them.  The young don’t miss what they never experienced, and they do not know what has been lost.

  If Putin succeeds in stopping the march into nuclear war, we still face the challenge that we are being transitioned into a police state.  Putin is not going to come liberate us, so what is to be done?  How can we claim the high ground when we have been marginalized as racists and insurrectionists?  How can we organize when the FBI will descend upon us declaring us to be domestic extremists who are a threat to America?

  In Canada liberty is in its death throes.  In Germany and other parts of Europe historians cannot report  facts that expose the falsity of official narratives.  The outcome of the November congressional and 2024 presidential elections could leave us with a one-party state, which is the Democrats’ intent.  Knowing that they will be protected by the presstitutes, the Democrats can again steal the election or Biden can declare that a MAGA election plot has been uncovered and federalize the election.

  Russia, China, India, Iran, and other countries outside the Western world are moving forward with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that is creating a new center of power, while the West declines politically, economically, morally, and culturally as the confidence of people who formerly comprised nations continues to be destroyed by anti-white propaganda.

  If you want to comprehend the collapse of the West, compare, for example, Liz Truss and her UK government with the British government around the middle of the 19th century. James Grant in his biography of Walter Bagehot reports, for example, that Prime Minister Gladstone translated Horace and Homer, published substantial works on religion and Neapolitan politics, and addressed the Ionian assembly in classical Greek. Parliamentarian Robert Lowe was fluent in Sanskrit. Sir George Lewis was the author of Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients. The House of Lords had its own learned members. Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, Britain’s National Academy of Sciences.  Today we have presidents and prime ministers who can’t speak English.

  In the US merit has been redefined as racist, and educational standards have been so lowered that the large grocery store chains do not trust their checkout clerks to give change.  

  The Western world has sunk so deeply into depravity that today depravity is celebrated. Young school children are subjected to performances by drag queens paid for by property taxes.  Depravity now has its own flag and proud marchers.  Do we really want to go where we are being led?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 23:30

• NASA's DART Spacecraft To Crash Into Asteroid, Testing Earth's Planetary Defenses
  NASA’s DART Spacecraft To Crash Into Asteroid, Testing Earth’s Planetary Defenses

  NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will intentionally crash into an asteroid about double the height of the Empire State Building and 525 feet wide. It will be the world’s first kinetic impact technique using a spacecraft, testing planetary defenses against an asteroid. 

  

  On Monday, the 19-meter spacecraft will crash into Dimorphos to observe if a kinetic impact could alter the course of the asteroid. Impact with Dimorphs is expected around 1914 ET. 

  “After the final maneuver on Sept. 25, approximately 24 hours before impact, the navigation team will know the position of the target Dimorphos within 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] … DART will then autonomously guide itself to its collision with the asteroid moonlet,” NASA officials wrote in a statement. 

  

  Elena Adams, DART’s lead mission systems engineer at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, told Space.Com there’s a high probability DART will hit the asteroid, and the spacecraft’s cameras (called LICIACube), ejected a few weeks ago, will capture the impact.  

  At 1730 ET, NASA will start broadcasting a Live stream of the event. 

  “In the hours before impact, the screen will appear mostly black, with a single point of light. That point is the binary asteroid system Didymos, which is made up of a larger asteroid named Didymos and a smaller asteroid that orbits around it called Dimorphos,” NASA wrote in a video description. 

  Here’s the live stream of the historic test:

  NASA appears to be strengthening planetary defenses. China as well, who recently said they could save the planet from a potential asteroid strike with its Long March 5 rockets. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 23:00

• Biden Repeats False Claims About AR-15 Velocity In Support Of A Ban
  Biden Repeats False Claims About AR-15 Velocity In Support Of A Ban

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  We have previously discussed dubious constitutional and historical claims by President Joe Biden on gun bans. However, on Friday, he returned to a curious claim that he has made repeatedly: that “the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun.” Conservative and gun rights publications have repeatedly shot down that claim but it does not seem to have any impact. 

  As with Biden’s false claim that certain weapons were banned from private ownership at the ratification of the Second Amendment, the President continues to make the same false claim on velocity speed.

  

  A June 30 Field & Stream column on the “Five Fastest Rifle Cartridges”  listed the feet per second (fps) the five fastest rifle cartridges:

  1. .220 Swift — A 40-Grain .220 Swift round moves approximately 4,300 fps.

  2. .257 Weatherby Magnum — An 87-Grain .257 Weatherby Magnum round moves approximately 3,700+ fps.

  3. .30/378 Weatherby — An 165-Grain .30/378 Weatherby round moves approximately 3,400+ fps.

  4. .224 Clark — An 80-Grain .224 Clark round moves approximately 3,500+ fps.

  5. .22 Eargesplitten Loudenboomer — A 50-Grain .22 Eargesplitten Loudenboomer round moves approximately 4,600 fps.

  AR-15 rounds move at approximately 2,700 – 3,100 fps. Even handgun bullets can reportedly reach around 2,000 fps (though that is rare).

  Even the Washington Post has called Biden’s repeated velocity claim “bungled” and factually incorrect. An AR-15 round, at 100 yards, is only slightly faster than most hunting rifles.  However, when measured at the point of the departure from the barrel (as is commonly used on velocity), it is about twice the speed of a common hand gun. It is not the fastest (let alone five times faster) than other guns.

  Those false statements can be dismissed as just another gaffe or “Corn Pop” story, but they refer to the factual foundation for gun control under the Second Amendment. Since President Biden is suggesting that such facts are material to a ban, there is a need for accuracy in such details.

  The White House is ramping up the President’s call to ban “assault weapons” before the midterm elections.  The position remains unclear, including additional references to 9mm handguns are possibly next on the list for prohibitions.

  In support of the ban on AR-15s, Vice President Kamala Harris declared: “Do you know what an assault weapon is? It was designed for a specific purpose, to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war, with no place, no place in a civil society.”

  Courts likely would press the Biden administration on why it is seeking to ban this model when other higher-caliber weapons are sold. AR-15s can handle a variety of calibers. However, they are no more powerful than other semi-automatic rifles of the same caliber and actually have a lower caliber than some commonly sold weapons which use .30-06, .308 and .300 ammunition; many of these guns fire at the same — or near the same rate — as the AR-15. None of these weapons are classified as actual military “assault weapons,” and most civilians cannot own an automatic weapon.

  President Biden showed the same disconnect as Harris between the factual and the rhetorical basis for some gun-control measures. He condemned “high-caliber weapons” like 9mm handguns and said “a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.”

  Moreover, while other politicians like Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke have called for bans, there are obvious practical problems. With an estimated 393 million guns in the United States and an estimated 72 million gun owners; three out of ten Americans say they have guns. Indeed, gun ownership rose during the pandemic, particularly among minority households.

  These weapons are worth hundreds of dollars. Owners would not only challenge such a law but might demand compensation for their seized weapons. There are also over 15 million such weapons in the United States. The ATF is a relatively small agency to carry out such a massive confiscation program. Even in Texas, a state confiscation plan would require an unprecedented law enforcement effort.

  There are good-faith arguments for gun control, including arguments that the Second Amendment does not create an individual right to bear arms. We should continue to have that worthy debate but we should follow the rule of the late Sen. Patrick Moynihan that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 22:30

• Most Americans Believe Migrants Should Be Transported To Sanctuary Cities: Poll
  Most Americans Believe Migrants Should Be Transported To Sanctuary Cities: Poll

  A new Rasmussen / RMG Research poll has found that a majority of Americans believe illegal immigrants should be sent to sanctuary cities instead of forcing border states to shoulder the burden. The poll comes as a record 2 million migrants have been arrested in just 11 months.

  

  Last week, the governors of Texas and Florida sparked national outrage from the left after they transported illegal immigrants to Texas and Washington DC – both virtue-signaling ‘sanctuary cities’ that panicked over the influx of people they couldn’t actually take care of.

  According to the new poll, however, most Americans are supportive of sending migrants to such cities in the future – with 51% of registered voters saying ‘yes’ – while 29% said ‘no’ and 21% were unsure. Another 48% ‘strongly or somewhat approve of border state governors sending some illegal immigrants to places like New York, Chicago and Martha’s Vineyard,’ according to the Daily Caller, which noted that 38% ‘strongly or somewhat’ disapproved of the plan.

  Most respondents thought places like Martha’s Vineyard were being inconsistent: 63% said it was hypocritical for sanctuary cities to complain about migrants being sent there. The majority of likely voters (61%) thought it was fair to say that cartels had more control over the southern border than the U.S. government, and 60% thought the government’s failure to control the southern border was a bigger problem than border states sending migrants to places like Martha’s Vineyard. -Daily Caller

  CNN apparently believes that sending illegal migrants up to Martha’s Vineyard has the “same themes” as the Holocaust. pic.twitter.com/Q9PawzS85U

  — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 15, 2022

  “This polling confirms what all Americans know to be true: the open-borders policies of the Biden Administration are wildly unpopular,” said America First Legal vice president and general counsel Gene Hamilton in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. ” It also confirms that the American people desire immigration enforcement at our border that is at least as effective as what the elites in Martha’s Vineyard have — where illegal aliens are promptly deported within 24 hours of their arrival.”

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 22:00

• Culture War Erupts In Texas Town Over Drag Bingo Event Hosted By Christian Church
  Culture War Erupts In Texas Town Over Drag Bingo Event Hosted By Christian Church

  Authored by Darlene McCormack Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

  Outside a drag bingo event hosted by a pro-LGBT church in Texas, a microcosm of America’s culture war played out with liberals and conservatives screaming at each other across a boulevard on Saturday.

  

  About 300 Texas conservatives lined an entire block to protest the First Christian Church in Katy, which sponsored a sold-out family drag bingo event to raise money to benefit its “Transparent Closet.”

  The clothing boutique was for “trans and exploring teens, youth and young adults,” according to the church’s website. Its parking lot was full of cars as the family drag bingo event started around 5 p.m. The adults-only portion of the drag show was scheduled for 8:30 p.m.

  The conservative crowd dwarfed some 100 liberals who showed up to champion the church, which openly supports LGBT people. Protesters and counter-protesters alike were armed.

  Extremist groups from both sides of the political spectrum showed up, including far-left Antifa members dressed in black from head to toe carrying umbrellas, few members of neo-Nazi groups, and the Proud Boys, a pro-Western fraternal organization who were wearing Buc-ee’s masks.

  The Antifa and Proud Boys groups taunted each other as sheriff’s deputies donning helmets and riot gear straddled the boulevard to separate them.

  At one point, the factions clashed with an Antifa member hitting a Proud Boy over the head with a flag pole. Other Proud Boys ran to confront the Antifa members, launching a pepper spray attack.

  

  Proud Boys and Antifa face off at a drag bingo fundraiser at First Christian Church in Katy, Texas, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)

  Several Catholics praying the rosary downwind fled the area coughing.

  Christian songs played over loudspeakers as cars and trucks with American flags cruised the boulevard honking their support. People knelt in the grass to pray.

  On the liberal side of the road, the new Little Mermaid song blared in the background.

  Overhead, a helicopter circled the spectacle.

  Loriann Belin, from the Houston area County Citizens Defending Freedom group, showed up to fight the sexualization of children.

  “We need to stand for the protection of the most vulnerable among us—our children,” she said.

  “We don’t hate those people on the other side. God loves them. They’re just lost and need Jesus,” Belin added.

  Fabiana Pimentel, an immigrant mother with children enrolled in the Katy Independent School District, said she left Brazil 14 years ago and can’t believe what is happening in America.

  During the pandemic, she grew concerned about what her children were learning in the classroom and reading in school libraries.

  “I realized things are worse than I thought,” she said. “I’m against the sexualization of kids.”

  Richard Harmier of New Caney protested in hopes the Texas Legislature would take note and pass laws protecting minors from gender transitioning.

  “My granddaughter is 13 years old, and she wants to be a boy now,” Harmier said, adding she cut off all her hair and avoids her father because he isn’t on board with her desire to transition.

  “We’ve got to stop this,” he said. “You shouldn’t be free to indoctrinate children.”

  

  A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper stands in the middle of a boulevard to keep drag bingo protestors separated A man holding a rifle stood guard over LGBT supporters on Sept. 24, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)

  Across the boulevard, liberals dressed in rainbow T-shirts were just as passionate, chanting, “Fascists, go home!”

  A Katy woman on the liberal side said it was a shame people were protesting drag queens, so she came out to support the church.

  “To make sure the people attending tonight are safe,” said the woman, who declined to give her name.

  Another woman wearing a multicolored shirt watched the crowd from the liberal side. She was with a veteran group that was “for everybody’s rights,” including the LGTB community.

  Further down, a man with graying hair dressed in black said he was an anti-fascist who came to counter Kelly Neidert, pointing a finger toward a group of conservatives across the boulevard.

  

  Members of Antifa taunt protestors across the street Sept. 24, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)

  Neidert, wearing a red Trump hat, said Antifa follows her around Texas, harassing her because she hosted conservative events at the University of North Texas as a student.

  She is the founder of Protect Texas Kids and wanted to attend the protest also to draw attention to the sexualization of children.

  On Twitter, a post by the Screwston Anti-Fascist Committee labeled all the parent groups attending as “fascists” who intended to disrupt a drag bingo event. “Nazi groups such as the Aryan Freedom Network plan to attend,” the post said.

  The post included a flier targeting Kelly Neidert, urging members to “mask up and bring a buddy.”

  “Join us in the streets to defend the queer community against this threat!” the flier said.

  The drag bingo event at First Christian Church, part of the Disciples of Christ denomination, drew more controversy after the church quietly dropped one drag performer, Jaysen Kettl, who was once involved in a school shooting plot.

  Kettl goes by the stage name of Tisha Flowers and portrays himself as a Goth drag queen.

  In 2004, Kettl, 17 at the time, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit capital murder for his role in plotting a school shooting at Vidor High School. The plot was foiled before anything occurred.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 21:30

• Pound Flash Crashes 500 pips To Record Low Amid Global FX Carnage As Things Start Breaking
  Pound Flash Crashes 500 pips To Record Low Amid Global FX Carnage As Things Start Breaking

  Just as last week ended, with a relentless meltup in the exponentially rising US dollar, coupled with a collapse in cable, the yen, yuan, euro and so on, not to mention stocks and bonds, so the new week begins only this time the moves are even faster, even more brutal and even more acute, as we approach the breaking point.

  Case in point, after starting modestly higher, the meltup in the dollar accelerated, as the Bloomberg dollar index exploded to new all time highs…

  

  … facilitated by a yen whose plunge made a mockery of Thursday’s multi-billion BOJ intervention…

  

  … and is forcing Kuroda to sell even more tens of billions of US Treasurys, to cash into USDs which he will then sell for yen, in the process pushing up 10Y yields even higher, creating a toxic feedback loop of higher yields and an even higher dollar, sending yields higher and the dollar even higher.

  But the imminent conclusion of Japan’s MMT experiment notwithstanding, the real highlight of the session so far has been the total collapse in sterling, whose implosion after Friday’s mini budget has accelerated and moments ago cable flash crashed to a new all time low of 1.0350, below the previous record low set in early 1985, and just millimeters away from parity as every single stop was taking out to the downside. .

  

  And since there is nothing at all to contain the now exponential move in the USD, now that the entire world is facing one massive, $20 trillion short squeeze in USD-denominated debt…

  Every foreign company or state that has issued USD debt right now pic.twitter.com/ALE3X1nsez

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 26, 2022

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  … expect an emergency central bank meeting this week where panicking officials do everything they can to contain the dollar and to undo the tremendous damage the Powell Fed has unleashed on the world. Because in the end, it’s always the same.

  It’s always the same pic.twitter.com/I6cp1FgSWl

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 26, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 21:24

• Woman Has Epic Meltdown At Walmart – Uses 'Rape' As Excuse To Cut In Line
  Woman Has Epic Meltdown At Walmart – Uses ‘Rape’ As Excuse To Cut In Line

  If you needed any more confirmation that the political left is normalizing insanity within our society, just take a look at this recent epic meltdown by a woman who cut in line at a Walmart and was called out by the guy behind her.  Screaming like a mental patient is justified because she claims to have been “raped” (and of course, she is wearing a mask). Note that the Walmart employees try to placate her instead of doing what they should have done, which is kick her out of the building.  The constant hand-holding of mentally unstable and emotionally stunted people is slowly but surely bringing America down.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 21:00

• FBI Whistleblower Comes Forward, Alleges Many Agents "Don't Agree" With Bureau's Direction
  FBI Whistleblower Comes Forward, Alleges Many Agents “Don’t Agree” With Bureau’s Direction

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times

  An FBI whistleblower recently came forward and issued warnings about alleged politicization at the FBI, saying that the bureau is spying on law-abiding Americans and that many of its domestic counterterrorism cases are tantamount to “entrapment.”

  

  Kyle Seraphin, who has spent six years in the FBI, was suspended without pay and cannot seek another job without quitting or asking for permission. It’s not clear when he was suspended, but he said that he had run-ins with his managers about his refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine although he was granted a religious exemption.

  “The number of guys who say, ‘I don’t agree with what’s going on here, but I’ve got three years to retire,’ it’s heartbreaking,” he told podcast host Dan Bongino.

  In one instance, Seraphin said he was forced to blow the whistle last year when Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers that the Department of Justice was not targeting parents. He gave to a member of Congress an email that was circulated in the FBI, which said that Garland ordered the usage of the controversial PATRIOT Act to target parents with a tag, “EDUOFFICIALS.”

  At the time, in May 2022, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mike Johnson (R-Ind.) alleged that the investigations involved parents who were “upset about mask mandates and state elected officials who publicly voiced opposition to vaccine mandates,” accusing Garland of making false statements to Congress.

  “That’s when you become part of political hatchet jobs, and I didn’t sign up for that, and nobody I know signed up for that either,” Seraphin told Bongino. “That’s not what people want to get involved in.”

  In an interview with the Washington Times last week, he said the bureau’s investigations into domestic violent extremism, white nationalists, and right-wing extremists are mostly entrapment operations with questionable moral and ethical underpinnings.

  “My team was deployed to 20 or 25 different high profile, national terrorism organization or terrorism investigations between 2018 and 2021. And what I saw, as the most obvious statement, is that there are three things about counterterrorism investigations,” he said.

  Seraphin stated: “Number one, the demand for white supremacy vastly outstrips the supply of white supremacy.”

  “Number two,” he added, “the FBI‘s playbook when it comes to counterterrorism investigations is always and unequivocally morally equivalent to entrapment, even if there’s a legal definition that allows them to skirt that.”

  ‘Inaccurate’

  As for No. 3, Seraphin added to the Washington Times that the FBI doesn’t have an objective metric on how they prioritize cases.

  “There’s an entirely ridiculous internal process for determining every single national priority,” the whistleblower said.

  The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI for comment. A bureau spokesperson told the paper that his claims about entrapment lacked merit.

  “This comment is inaccurate and represents a clear misunderstanding of the policy and practice in FBI investigations,” the FBI said in a statement to the outlet.

  

  Attorney General Merrick Garland (L) and FBI Director Christopher Wray hold a press conference in Washington on Nov. 8, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

  In the Bongino interview, Seraphin suggested that more FBI employees will come forward in the future, according to him, due to the bureau’s now-partisan nature.

  At least 14 FBI whistleblowers have come forward in recent months to provide information about recent actions inside the bureau, said Jordan, on the FBI’s investigations into the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, parents at school board meetings, and Hunter Biden’s laptop.

  At one point during the interview, Seraphin also touched on the Aug. 8 raid targeting former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Trump has often said that the search was political in nature and meant to harm his 2024 chances.

  “You ask me to go raid President Obama’s house, you ask me to raid President Bush’s house, it’s not happening,” he continued. “It’s not happening. I’m sorry, it’s not happening. I’m not doing that. I’m going to be, probably pretty vocal. That’s probably going to be my last day.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 20:30

• Macro Pulse Early Warning: Need A Bigger Boat
  Macro Pulse Early Warning: Need A Bigger Boat

  By Marcel Kasumovich, head of research at One River Asset Management

  Macro Pulse Early Warning – Need a Bigger Boat

  Macro matters. For decades, financial markets were defined by long, passive trends. Brief periods of macro relevance punctuated by active policy intervention and a resumption of long-lived passive trends. In today’s unprecedented economic change, positive innovation cannot simply be managed with a long horizon and a portfolio dotted with tail risk hedges. Cycles are running shorter and hotter, raising the importance of calibrating risk to the macro cycle.  

  Digital asset markets don’t need a reminder. Prices have been joined at the hip with interest rate expectations. The correlation between the price of bitcoin and the peak expectation for US policy rates, captured by the June 2023 future, is a whopping 85% in the past year. It wasn’t “just the Fed.” The more aggressive normalization of policy – rate expectations are up more than 400 basis points in the past year – exposed speculative excesses across the digital ecosystem.  

  The current environment is begging for a macro tool to help with active macro risk management. So, we built the Macro Pulse. The Macro Pulse turns ISM survey of manufacturing business conditions into states of the economic cycle, ranging from growth boom to bust, built initially as proof-of-concept. Survey data is the right avenue for identifying these cycles – they are not revised and not beholden to past cycles, unlike official figures. Here, we illustrate portfolio analytics where asset allocation is conditioned on the state of the macro cycle.  

  We start by defining innocuous asset allocation in different macro states. The average asset allocation over the cycle is roughly 25% equities, 45% bonds, 20% commodities, and 10% foreign exchange, dating back to 1977. This is the weighted average of allocations that vary by macro state for a benchmark active portfolio, slanted towards equity and commodity assets in an economic boom and overallocated to bonds when growth is declining. Digital assets are added over a shorter period since 2011, with a constant 2.5% allocation to bitcoin at the expense of bonds. The portfolio simulations follow.  

  The performance of a 60-40, equity-bond passive portfolio and the portfolio based on active macro states are similar, on average. The average annualized return on a 60-40 portfolio is 9.1% compared to 9.3% on the active macro portfolio. But risk management is materially different. The volatility of the macro portfolio is substantially less at 7.8%, versus 9.7% (Figure 1). That’s where it gets interesting.

  

  Isolating periods of negative portfolio events illustrates the risk management value of conditioning asset allocation to the states of macro cycles. We turn the portfolios through four well-known high-risk periods: 2020 (Feb-Mar); 2008 (Jun-Nov); 2000-01 (Sep-Mar); and 1987 (Oct). The average drawdown for the 60-40 portfolio in those periods is 14.9%, with all four down by double-digits. The active macro portfolio averaged a 2.4% decline, with only 1987 a material loss of 10.4% (Figure 2). 

  

   But that’s not all! We can calibrate expected future shifts in the state of macro cycles. This improves risk management even further. When in an economic boom, we estimate a 57% chance of staying in that state for three months’ time, a 37% chance of moving to slower growth, and 6% odds of recession. Probabilities are calculated across all states and applied to the asset allocation. It makes a big difference. The most pessimistic asset allocation scores -27 on a +/-100 scale, much less than the -100 scored in recession (Figure 3). The probability approach shifts weight to growth assets in a recession as the odds of transitioning to an expansion increase. On the growth side, there is little distinction between a boom and a softer growth cycle – the odds of a continued expansion are equally high. 

  

  Periods of declining equity markets demonstrate the most striking risk management enhancement using Macro Pulse probability weights. The 60-40 portfolio has an annualized return of -23.9% in months with negative equity performance, an improvement from the 41.9% fall in equity portfolios. The active macro ​​​​​state-based portfolio shows a similar decline to the 60-40 portfolio. However, using transition probabilities to capture rising odds of different economic outcomes, the Macro Pulse portfolio yields a positive return. The message can be an early warning or an early opportunity signal. Either way, forward-looking probabilities matter. 

  Digital assets are additive to the process. To keep things simple, we include bitcoin with a fixed 2.5% monthly weight across all macro states, replacing bonds in the asset allocation. There is a strong belief that bitcoin just replicates equity beta in a portfolio. We evaluate this by examining periods when equity returns are negative. There is no doubt that drawdowns in digital assets are severe. But timing matters – they are also brief and decouple from traditional markets. Digital assets have been additive, leading to stronger returns, but with a higher volatility trade-off that calls for active management (Figure 4). 

  

  Economic activity is weak. Deflation in commodities, financial assets, and housing markets strongly suggests activity will weaken further. And it is when growth is falling from weak levels that the Macro Pulse calls for the most defensive portfolio positions. Once the recession hits, asset markets transition more quickly to growth opportunities. Active strategies are the best umbrella for the current macro climate – a feature shared by digital and traditional asset markets.  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 20:00

• As Few As Ten Congressional Districts May Decide The 2022 Midterm Elections
  As Few As Ten Congressional Districts May Decide The 2022 Midterm Elections

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  If Democrats manage to hold the House and pick up a single Senate seat, they will unleash a wave of very inflationary Progressive legislation.

  

  538 poll synopsis updated September 23, 2022

  Like Nate Silver or not, the above 538 House Forecast is a reasonable starting point for discussion. 

  Silver has the Republicans a slight favorite (68-32) favorite to win the House. That margin seems more than “slight” but use your own definition.

  Majority Math

  • There are 435 seats so 218 is a majority
  • The current house makeup is 221 to 214
  • A flip of 7 seats, my base forecast right now, would give the Republicans a 221-214 majority.

  Republicans have a bit of a cushion in this. For example, AZ-2 and VA-2 could easily easily flip Red negating CA-27 and PA-7. 

  Election What If?

  • If you give all 11 seats in the blue box to Republicans and all else stayed the same (it wouldn’t) Republicans would pick up 4 more seats for a net pickup of 11.  
  • If you give all 11 seats in the blue box to Democrats and all else stayed the same (it wouldn’t) Republicans would only flip a net of 3 seats giving Democrats a 218 to 217 majority of 1. 

  That latter scenario, or a similar outcome is unlikely, but it’s possible. One in four or five is not a major upset.

  10-12 Seats Are Crucial

  No one trusts these polls, but 10-12 tossup seats could easily determine this crucial midterm election. 

  Very few seats are actually in play in most elections. Only when there is a blowout do major shifts occur. Then midterm results return to the status quo sooner or later, and mostly sooner. 

  This setup is a result of extreme gerrymandering by both parties in the states they control. 

  And as a direct consequence, extreme candidates win nominations. 

  What Will Determine the Outcome?

  The vote will come down to turnout, policies, and mostly on winning over independents.

  Republicans need focus on issues the independents care about if they wish to improve their odds in the midterm elections.

  Here are those issues: Inflation, education, school boards, woke policies, massive tax hikes, and potential blue state pension bailouts. 

  Results in very a very red-state Kansas show abortion is mostly a losing message for Republicans. By a 59-41 percent margin Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment Tuesday that would have said there was no right to an abortion in the state.

  Democrats have picked up on this. 

  Republicans let Democrats turn the campaign into a focus on Trump and abortion not on inflation. Trump himself is not displeased with this.

  There is a lot riding on the outcome economically. I expect an inflationary inferno if Democrats hold the House because the most likely outcome is they pick up a Senate seat. 

  Progressives would be in full control, no longer needing Senator Joe Manchin’s vote.

  *  *  *

  Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 19:30

• Mob Of People Spontaneously Ransack Wawa Convenience Store In Philadelphia
  Mob Of People Spontaneously Ransack Wawa Convenience Store In Philadelphia

  A mob of people entered a Wawa convenience store on Roosevelt Boulevard in Philadelphia and broke out into a riot, seemingly without warning or reason.  There’s no comment yet from Philadelphia police on the cause of the rampage.  As the economic situation in the US continues to decline and prices continue to rise on most goods, expect to see more scenes like this one on a regular basis.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 18:00

• Meloni's Right-Wing Alliance Wins Clear Majority In Italian Elections
  Meloni’s Right-Wing Alliance Wins Clear Majority In Italian Elections

  First Sweden, now Italy.

  Europe’s unelected authoritarian ruler, Ursula von der Leyen, is not going to be happy: according to early exit polls out of Italy’s national election, the right-wing bloc of Giorgia Meloni – which the ultra-left wing press just can’t stop comparing to Mussolini – is set for a historic, if largely expected, victory and a clear majority (if, however, not a super-majority) which will propel Meloni to the top of the Italian government as the country’s next prime minister, ushering in a historic right-wing shift for a country that – like Sweden until two weeks ago – has traditionally been very left-wing.

  Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which won just 4% of the vote during the last national election in 2018, won the biggest share of the vote in Sunday’s parliamentary elections with around 22.5%-26.5% of the vote according to an exit poll released by Italian national broadcaster Rai. She is now set to become prime minister but would require approval from junior partners in her coalition to assume the role.

  Italy election exit poll: right-wing block (Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia + Lega + Forza Italia) on track for clear majority in both upper and lower houses of Italian parliament. https://t.co/3ha7oz6tgX

  — Jeremy Cliffe (@JeremyCliffe) September 25, 2022

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  According to an exit poll from Rai, Meloni’s alliance which includes Salvini’s League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia will win around 43% of the vote. The Center-Left alliance will have just 25.5%-29.5% of the vote, while the 5 Star movement has 13.5%-17.5% of the final vote.

  

  Italy’s electoral system, which strongly favors parties that run as part of a coalition, is expected to help the right to an ample majority in both houses of Parliament: with 228 votes in the Lower House and 115 seats in the Senate (according to SkyTG24), Meloni will have a majority as just 104 votes are required.

  As the WSJ notes, the Italian election is “the first big test of the European Union’s political cohesion as it confronts Russia’s attempt to redraw the continent’s post-Cold War order. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s restriction of natural-gas deliveries has sparked an energy-price crunch that, combined with other inflationary pressures, is expected to push much of Europe into a recession this winter.”

  Meloni replaces former Goldman Sachs partner and ECB technocrat and globalist, Mario Draghi, and will be the country’s first female prime minister.

  The likely right-wing government will face difficult decisions over how to protect Italian households and businesses from sky-high prices for natural gas and electricity. While Italy’s parlous public finances allow limited scope for fiscal largess, if the UK is any example – and it is – Italy will engage in a similar strategy of targeted and debt-funded fiscal stimulus which will lead to a blowout in Italian debt, a further plunge in the euro and much chaos everywhere.

  Italy’s massive debt of roughly 150% of GDP, combined with Italy’s weak long-term growth record, makes the country vulnerable to bond-market selloffs if investors lose confidence in the soundness of Rome’s fiscal policies, and dependent on the European Central Bank to keep its bond yields stable. ECB support has typically been conditional on Rome following cautious budget policies and enacting economic overhauls aimed at improving growth. In other words, the Berlusconi example of 2011 is still vivid – if Meloni’s policies displease the ECB, Christine Lagarde will simply refuse (or forget) to buy Italian bonds, sparking Europe’s next sovereign debt crisis at the worst possible moment.

  During the election campaign, Meloni tried to reassure voters and investors that she will keep Italy’s mammoth debt under control and won’t question the country’s foreign alliances or support for Ukraine. Expect all of that to change tomorrow.

  History is written! Despite Ursula von der Leyen’s unworthy and dirty threats, Italians vote en masse for the far right. Giorgia Meloni first female premier in the history of Italy. pic.twitter.com/azjKug2xVm

  — RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) September 25, 2022

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  Looking ahead, Europe’s crumbling and unelected oligarchy will be terribly vexed by the result…

  If the exit poll is right and Meloni becomes PM in Italy, what ‘tools’ will the awful @vonderleyen use?

  Thank god we have left. https://t.co/OEPeMLyAhA

  — Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) September 25, 2022

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  … as for markets, the spin will be that the lack of a super-majority is actually bullish for for the EUR and BTPs, while focus will quickly turn to coalition stability and who Italy’s next finmin will be.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 17:20

• Nancy Pelosi Booed At NYC Festival: 'Doesn't Bode Well For Dems Ahead Of Mid-Terms'
  Nancy Pelosi Booed At NYC Festival: ‘Doesn’t Bode Well For Dems Ahead Of Mid-Terms’

  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a surprise appearance at a Saturday night music festival in New York City, called the “Global Citizen music festival”. She was introduced on stage by Priyanka Chopra Jonas, wife of American singer and actor Nick Jonas, to speak about climate change and carbon pollution.

  But instead of the climactic “surprise” celebratory moment that organizers were hoping for, Pelosi’s presence triggered loud boos from the sizeable audience, as multiple videos from the event show…

  Pelosi got Booed at The Global Citizen Festival in NYC 😂

  pic.twitter.com/KfpwyO305b

  — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 25, 2022

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  “As speaker of the house, I am here to thank you for your dazzling advocacy, entrepreneurial thinking, and determination as global citizens,” she told the crowd, as quoted in NY Post.

  While some occasional cheers could be heard, by and large she was booed and heckled so fiercely throughout the remarks that at times she struggled to speak over the noise. The reaction of the likely largely young Democrat crowd doesn’t look good for Dems ahead of the mid-term elections in November: “Crowd’s reaction to Pelosi at music festival doesn’t bode well for Dems,” Fox observed on its homepage. 

  The Daily Mail has speculated the negative reaction likely stems from recognition of of the spectacle of yet another celebrity politician seen backstage with A-listers and who flies around in private jets lecturing young people about saving the planet:

  Nancy Pelosi, 82, is savagely booed during appearance at NYC’s Global Citizen music festival in Central Park – after schmoozing backstage with A-listers and drunk-driver husband Paul.

  Even NYC can’t stand her ! pic.twitter.com/a4Kxl4cOAk

  — MJ (@michaeljonny66) September 25, 2022

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  “It’s thanks to your help that the United States recently enacted historic climate legislation, which will be a game changer,” Pelosi said while being drowned out at time by chants and boos heard from different sectors of the venue. “It will slash carbon pollution by 40% by 2030, it will give a historic, an historic $370 billion to fight the climate crisis.”

  Footage which featured a broader view of the audience showed here struggling to speak for the noise…

  Here’s a clip of Nancy Pelosi being booed as she tries to push a climate change narrative at a music festival pic.twitter.com/619HSPQFYC

  — A Man Of Memes (@RickyDoggin) September 25, 2022

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  One person filming is heard questioning, “Why is everyone booing?”

  Surprise! Here’s Nancy…

  

  The Daily Mail notes further of the timing of her appearance, “Prior to her appearance on stage, many eyes were on the House Speaker as she met with celebrities in one of her first major public outings following Paul’s drunk driving conviction.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 17:00

• GOP Leader McCarthy Unveils 'Commitment To America' Plan
  GOP Leader McCarthy Unveils ‘Commitment To America’ Plan

  Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times,

  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sept. 23 unveiled Republicans’ “Commitment to America” plan, which includes a litany of policy promises on various issues.

  While the race for the Senate is generally considered slightly favorable for Democrats, in the House it’s widely expected that Republicans will be in control next year.

  If they do take the lower chamber, McCarthy is on track to become speaker of the House.

  

  ‘A Plan for a New Direction’

  McCarthy on Sept. 23 sat down with “Capitol Report” on NTD to discuss the plan, which he called “a plan for a new direction.”

  He said that the plan is about “the American public, not about the politicians in Washington.”

  “For last year and a half, we’ve gone across the nation listening to Americans,” he continued. “And they’re fearful. They wonder whether they can afford it—can they afford to fill up their gas, can they go to the grocery store again which now costs more?”

  Adding to these worries, McCarthy noted, is rapidly-rising inflation, which over the past year has broken record after record.

  “Now [Americans’] take-home pay is less,” he said. “They only get 11 months, they lost one month of their wages, because the Democrats have caused inflation. And so what we think you should do is actually have a plan for a new direction.”

  “That’s what the commitment to America is—a plan for a new direction where we’ll have an economy that’s strong, we take away this runaway spending [by] Democrats, we make America energy independent, so your price of gas goes lower, more money in your pocket, inflation gets slowed down.”

  

  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), speaks during the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony to honor the merchant mariners of World War II in Washington May 18, 2022. (Oliver Contreras/Getty Images)

  Stop ‘Runaway Spending,’ Address Inflation

  The key pillars of the plan re-articulate oft-repeated GOP criticisms of the current regime.

  One such position is a promise to stop Democrats’ “runaway spending.” Since they thinly took the majority of both chambers, Democrats have spent a staggering amount of money, and the cost of consumer essentials has risen by over eight percent on average.

  In March 2021, the party used the partisan reconciliation process to pass a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill dubbed the American Rescue Plan with no GOP support or input. Later, the majority party was joined by a handful of Republicans in each chamber to pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.

  At the same time, the party pushed for an even more expensive reconciliation, the Build Back Better Act. In its first draft, the 2,000-page bill would have cost $3.5 trillion. Later, in an effort to win the crucial support of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), that figure was dropped to $1.75 trillion, but this bill also failed when Manchin announced that he would not support the package at all.

  Most recently, the party again turned to the reconciliation process to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that carried over some key elements of Build Back Better and which will cost taxpayers over $700 billion.

  

  President Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act as Democrat lawmakers look on at the White House in Washington, on Aug. 16, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

  In total, these three bills alone come out to well over $3.8 trillion spent by the majority party over the course of only a few short years.

  Republicans have been highly critical of this pattern of spending, which they argue is the largest factor behind soaring inflation that has reduced the spending power of the dollar by almost 10 percent. McCarthy made just this point.

  “If you watch, how did inflation start, it wasn’t just Republicans warning the Democrats because remember, only Democrats voted for the American Rescue Plan,” McCarthy said.

  McCarthy also noted that the GOP position was influential among even many Democrat economists.

  “Larry Summers, a Democrat, [and] former Secretary of the Treasury warned them not to do it, you cause inflation,” McCarthy said. “Steve Rattner, an economic adviser to [President Barack Obama] calls it ‘the original sin of inflation.’”

  “We’ve got to stop that runaway spending,” the California Republican added.

  Restore US Energy Independence

  Republicans will also seek to restore American energy independence if they take the House, McCarthy said.

  Under President Donald Trump, the United States became energy independent for the first time in decades. But when he took office, President Joe Biden, citing the so-called “climate crisis,” significantly cut U.S. energy capacity by shuttering the long-debated Keystone XL Pipeline and by declaring a moratorium on new oil and natural gas leases on federal lands.

  At the time, critics warned that these policies would substantially raise gas prices. When the predicted price spikes came about, Biden pulled millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve rather than reversing his energy policies. Republicans joined by Joe Manchin unanimously opposed the move, calling on Biden to reverse his policies rather than pulling from U.S. reserves, which were intended to be used in case of global or financial crises.

  If they take the House, McCarthy said that Republicans will work to restore America’s energy sector.

  

  A person uses the keypad on a pump at a gas station in Arlington, Va., on July 29, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

  Beyond Democrats’ spending, McCarthy noted that the rising costs of energy have had a substantial impact in worsening inflation.

  “Another cause of inflation is the rise of energy costs,” he said. “So we’re going to make America energy independent, create more American jobs, but lower the price. The energy cost goes in every product and good.

  “We’re going to make a sound economy with sound money policies,” he added. “That’s a start to get us under control.”

  ‘A Nation That’s Safe’

  McCarthy also said that Republicans will work to reduce crime rates.

  Over the past two years, cities across the U.S. have begun to see higher and higher rates of violent crime, with many cities breaking past records for homicide rates.

  Republicans have blamed the situation in part on the “soft-on-crime” attitude of Democrats and liberals in the criminal justice system.

  Following the death of George Floyd in 2020, anti-police sentiments spiked among liberals, and in several major cities prosecutors and district attorneys have refused to enforce several laws.

  Speaking on this issue, McCarthy said, “We believe in a nation that’s safe.”

  “We watch the Democrats defund the police and crime rises—from Portland to Philadelphia, it’s the highest it’s been in 20 years,” he continued. “So we … will make sure we don’t defund the police. We’ll actually bring 200,000 more police officers, we put the accountability to these prosecutors and [district attorneys] to uphold the law fairly and equally.”

  

  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks with U.S. Capitol Police Officers after arriving on a bicycle to an event at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial as part of the “Back The Blue” bike ride in Washington, on May 12, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

  After largely evading the issue during most of the 117th Congress, Democrats on Sept. 22 finally tried to address rising crime rates with a series of policing bills that passed through the House along broadly party lines. The move, coming as it does only weeks out from a midterm election, raised eyebrows among observers after two years of largely anti-police sentiments among many Democrats.

  ‘A Future That’s Built on Freedom’

  McCarthy also vowed that Republicans will address ongoing controversies in public schools about parents’ rights.

  Schools in several major cities have faced scrutiny for the content being taught to children, which has included controversial topics like homosexuality, critical race theory, and graphic representations of nudity or sexual intercourse sometimes shown to children as young as primary school age. In turn, many parents in school districts across the United States have turned up to school board meetings to challenge the material being taught to their children.

  If Republicans take the House, McCarthy promised a long-touted “parents bill of rights,” which McCarthy said would ensure that “parents have a say in their children’s education.”

  The issue has increasingly become a rallying cry for Republicans.

  Republican Glenn Youngkin made the issue the central pillar of his 2021 gubernatorial race in Virginia, which he later won by margins far wider than observers had predicted.

  

  A local mother at a rally outside the Loudoun County Public Schools administration building in Ashburn, Va., on Sept. 13, 2022. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has also put focus on the issue, lobbying and successfully passing a bill that forbids schools from teaching young children about issues like sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Though critics dubbed the legislation the “don’t say gay” bill, polls on it have generally shown that most Americans support the move.

  The role of parents in determining what schools teach their children has largely become a mainstream issue only in the past year or two, and it remains to be seen whether the issue can rally new voters to the GOP’s banner in November.

  Investigations to ‘Hold the Government Accountable’

  McCarthy also vowed that Republicans would look into a series of controversial issues and decisions by the current administration through new probes and investigative panels.

  The current rules of the lower chamber give the speaker of the House substantially broad authority over the creation of new committees and probes, meaning that Republicans have largely been unable to use the full force of Congress to investigate things they find potentially concerning.

  Under Republicans, McCarthy said, the government is “going to be held accountable.”

  “We’re … going to look from the aspects of holding government accountable, as well as the DOJ going after parents,” McCarthy added, referencing a controversial decision from the Department of Justice to pursue parents attending school board meetings to protest their children’s curriculum.

  McCarthy also promised accountability from China through a probe into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, which is now widely recognized to have likely leaked from a biological research facility in Wuhan, China.

  “Why don’t we find out where the origin of COVID started,” he said.

  McCarthy said that he’d also create a select committee on China that would look at ways to have U.S. industries, that were shipped there, return to America.

  

  Workers inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei Province, on Feb. 23, 2017. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)

  Republicans have also suggested probes into Dr. Anthony Fauci’s ties to the Wuhan facility, the role of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in leaving the Capitol building unprepared on Jan. 6, and the recent raid by the FBI of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

  Undoing Democrats’ IRS Expansion

  McCarthy said that if they take the House, Republicans will also work to undo Democrats’ recent expansion of the IRS.

  Specifically, the expansion was included as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which sextupled the IRS’ current budget overnight.

  The IRS provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act were among its most controversial.

  The $80 billion allocated to the agency by the bill sextuples its budget, and Republican critics have warned that the bulked-up IRS could hire as many as 87,000 new agents. These agents, in turn, critics have said, will be let loose against middle-class Americans and small businesses, despite Democrats’ claims about the expansion that nobody making less than $400,000 per year will see their tax bill increase.

  Proponents of the bill suggest that, in addition to the new tax code changes, a bulkier IRS will bring in an additional $124 billion annually through enforcement efforts.

  The funding for the IRS will go toward “necessary expenses for tax enforcement activities … to determine and collect owed taxes, to provide legal and litigation support, to conduct criminal investigations (including investigative technology), to provide digital asset monitoring and compliance activities, to enforce criminal statutes related to violations of internal revenue laws and other financial crimes … and to provide other services.”

  

  The Internal Revenue Service headquarters building in Washington is seen in a file photo. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

  Preston Brashers, a senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times that contrary to Democrat claims, the IRS expansion will almost certainly mean more audits, and in turn more taxes, for middle-class families and small businesses.

  “On the very first day, [we’re going to] repeal 87,000 IRS agents,” McCarthy said.

  However, this promise may be impossible for McCarthy to keep, particularly if Democrats retain the Senate. Because the Inflation Reduction Act was passed using the filibuster-immune reconciliation process, Republicans theoretically could repeal the expansion of the IRS if they take both chambers of Congress. But even in this case, the measure would need the signature of President Biden, who’s likely to oppose any such move.

  Limitations

  Despite the broad range of promises and proposals discussed by McCarthy, Republicans will likely face many limitations on how much they can do, particularly if they only take the House.

  Currently, Republicans seem to be on track to reenter the House majority after four years in the minority, but the Senate is less certain. Though Senate races in several states remain nail-bitingly tight, observers currently peg the fight for the Senate as leaning heavily in Democrats’ favor.

  Right now, FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans a 71 in 100 chance of retaking the House after four years in the minority. But FiveThirtyEight also gives Republicans only a 29 in 100 chance of reclaiming the upper chamber.

  If these projections pan out, Senate Democrats would find their scope heavily limited by the Republican House, while the Republican House would find its scope severely limited by the Senate. If the race does end in a divided government, it is likely that McCarthy will face substantial hurdles to rolling out the policy proposals in the Commitment to America plan.

  On the other hand, House Republicans would have the benefit of Manchin’s swing vote, which could help them get some budget reconciliation legislation over the finish line in the Senate.

  Nevertheless, even in the best case for Republicans—control of both chambers of Congress—the White House will still be occupied by a Democrat, meaning that a fully Republican Congress’s most ambitious goals would be difficult or impossible to carry out.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 16:30

• Tehran Summons Western Ambassadors For "Meddling" As Protest Death Toll Climbs To Over 40
  Tehran Summons Western Ambassadors For “Meddling” As Protest Death Toll Climbs To Over 40

  Iran’s foreign ministry has blamed Western “meddling” for the outbreak and growth of raging protests inside the country, which have now reached a full week, and have left at least 35 dead, according to the government’s official death toll. From Friday to Saturday this figure had more than doubled, with Tehran officials initially citing 17 dead, and then revising it upwards. This includes five security officers, according to state media, which has painted the “anti-hijab” demonstrations as violent. By Saturday evening, state media counted 41 among the deceased.

  On Sunday Iran summoned the ambassadors of the UK and Norway to condemn their governments for allegedly fueling the unrest, as reported in The Hill: 

  The director-general of Western Europe within Iran’s foreign ministry called out Norway’s Parliament speaker for allegedly “prejudicing and unrealistic comments” about recent protests in Iran, according to Iran’s official news agency, IRNA.  

  The U.K. ambassador, meanwhile, was chastised for a London-based, Persian-language “hosting of the media” that Iran believes has produced “put provocation and invitation to turbulence and expansion of riots in Iran on top of their agenda,” according to a second report from IRNA. 

  

  The protests across dozens of cities began following the death in policy custody of 22-year old Mahsa Amini. She had been reportedly detained for improper attire, or failing to properly wear an Islamic head-covering, after which she turned up dead.

  Her supporters say she was beaten to death, while Iranian authorities have said she collapsed from a heart-related incident. The US has since sanctioned Iran’s notorious ‘morality police’ and the heads of multiple security agences.

  The UN has meanwhile condemned the harsh police crackdown, which a statement has said includes sending paramilitary forces and at times live ammunition interspersed with riot control measures. But it’s clear that in many instances the demonstrators are “fighting back”…

  نیروهاشون رو با اتوبوس میفرستن، بعد به دروغ میگن مردم به مسافر حمله کردن…
  دست ماشین پروپاگاندا رژیم و حامیانش خیلی وقته که رو شده حاجی، امید نبند به این نیرنگ ها! pic.twitter.com/YX4uQKoZgd

  — ⚔️👑 Prince of Persia 👑⚔️ (@Leo_Javaheri) September 25, 2022

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  International observers are now calling the protests unprecedented in size and ferocity, which began immediately following Amini’s funeral in her Iranian Kurdistan province hometown of Saqqez on Saturday.

  Since then countless women have publicly removed their headscarves in defiance, with many rallies becoming anti-regime demonstrations where chants calling for the removal of the Ayatollah and the hardline morality police are heard. 

  According to a Time magazine description of the images that sparked the mass protests:

  Hours after her detention, Amini was admitted to hospital “without any vital signs and brain-dead,” officials there reported. She was pronounced dead on Sept. 16. In the days between, the Iranian public saw a photo of a young girl in the prime of life attached to tubes—blood stains visible on her ear, which a doctor viewing the images called a possible sign of severe head trauma.

  Tonight in Valiasr Street, Tehran, women wave their hijbas as people chant “woman, life, liberty” on the ninth night of protests in Iran over the death of #MahsaAmini in morality police custody amid a near total internet shutdown by the state.#مهسا_امینیpic.twitter.com/xDV6Uf0VdE

  — Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) September 25, 2022

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  Iranian authorities have moved to curtail the spread of protests by restricting internet services across much of the country, as well as blocking various social media platforms.

  Washington is meanwhile encouraging the protests while condemning the crackdown, and has even moved to help Iranian demonstrators access the internet and external platforms. The US Treasury Department on Friday announced the easing of restrictions on tech companies’ access to Iran, in the hopes they could provide work-arounds to Tehran cutting communications and internet.

  WATCH: Innocent female bystander violently smashed to the ground by Iranian police.@elonmusk hookup #Starlink to #Iran. Keep citizen journalism alive where it’s needed the most.#IranProtests #Mahsa_Amini pic.twitter.com/UgDSHVwYmE

  — Saman Arbabi (@SamanArbabi) September 20, 2022

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  According to the latest developments, “SpaceX chief Elon Musk said he was activating his company’s Starlink internet service in Iran, which cut off web access to its more than 80 million citizens this week, after the U.S. Treasury Department eased sanctions to help support the free flow of information in the country.”

  The New York Times over the weekend is reporting that protests have now spread to some 80 cities.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 16:00

• Washington Post Columnist Calls For The End Of Impartiality And Balance In Journalism
  Washington Post Columnist Calls For The End Of Impartiality And Balance In Journalism

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  In an age of rage, Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin has long been a standout in her attacks on Republicans and conservatives: “We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again.” However, her recent column shows that she has made a clean break not only from Republicans but from reason. The writer (long cited by the Post as their “Republican columnist” for balance) has called for the media to abandon balance and impartiality. Rubin is demanding that the media just become overt advocates in refusing to report both sides in the myriad of political issues in this election.

  

  In her column, Rubin rejects the “need for false balance” because the coverage can suggest that Republicans are “rational.”

  “The Kabuki dance in which Trump, his defenders and his supporters are treated as rational (clever even!) is what comes from a media establishment that refuses to discard its need for false balance that it has developed over the course of decades.”

  That balance was once called “journalism” but Rubin now calls it facilitating “disinformation.” Balanced reporting is now dangerous and makes the media “a megaphone for disinformation, upholding the pretense that there are two political parties with equally valid takes on reality.”

  What is striking is how Rubin objects to the current coverage when many already object to a heavy bias in such reporting. Yet, Rubin believes the media must go further.

  Rubin’s attack on disinformation is ironic given her own past controversies in misrepresenting news, cases, and events. For full disclosure, I clashed with Rubin over her personally attacking me for a theory that I did not agree with in a column that I did not write. I also challenged her on an equally bizarre column where she wrote about my impeachment testimony and later column misrepresenting the holding in an appellate case involving Trump. That false account was never corrected by the Washington Post. It appears that misrepresenting the holding of a major case is not being a “a megaphone for disinformation.”

  Rubin, however, is not alone in this call to abandon the foundational principle of impartiality in journalism.

  We have been discussing the rise of advocacy journalism and the rejection of objectivity in journalism schools. Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.

  Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that the journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”  Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

  Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.” 

  Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism.

  Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.” Her 1619 Project has been challenged as deeply flawed and she has a long record as a journalist of intolerance, controversial positions on rioting, and fostering conspiracy theories. Hannah-Jones would later help lead the effort at the Times to get rid of an editor and apologize for publishing a column from Sen. Tom Cotten as inaccurate and inflammatory.

  These figures are killing journalism. Polls show trust in the media at an all-time low with less than 20 percent of citizens trusting television or print media. Yet, reporters and academics continue to destroy the core principles that sustain journalism and ultimately the role of a free press in our society. The result is to turn newspapers like the Post into echo chambers for the values of its reporters and a core of liberal readers.

  For the rest of the country (including roughly half that voted for Trump), figures like Rubin are saying that they should go elsewhere.  They are. Media outlets like CNN have faced sharp declines in viewership and are trying to break away from this advocacy model to restore ratings. (The move has been denounced by some in the media as potentially helping Republicans by fairly reporting their side of these controversies).  The movement toward advocacy journalism is likely to build in the coming years to remake the media in the image of figures like Hannah-Jones and Rubin.

  Viewers clearly tune in to Fox News and MSNBC for their strong editorial opinion and commentators. However, there has long been a line between reporters and commentators in how stories are presented. If journalists want to be advocates, they can shift to the side of commentary. That is clearly not sufficient for some like Rubin who do not want readers to be able to receive both sides of these controversies. Readers are to be shaped in their opinions like impressionable children. That was the message from the conference on disinformation led by media and Democratic figures like the recently fired CNN media host Brian Stelter.

  Even as a columnist, I prefer the approach of Theodore White that “when a reporter sits down at the typewriter, he’s nobody’s friend.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 15:30

• Pfizer CEO Has COVID For Second Time In Two Months
  Pfizer CEO Has COVID For Second Time In Two Months

  Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has tested positive for Covid-19 for the second time in two months.

  

  The 60-year-old contracted the disease in August, for which he took the company’s antiviral treatment, Paxlovid. He’s also received four doses of his company’s vaccine, which was developed with German partner BioNTech – but claims he hasn’t gotten the new Omicron-tweaked bivalent booster due to his August infection.

  “I’ve not had the new bivalent booster yet, as I was following CDC guidelines to wait three months since my previous COVID case which was back in mid-August,” he said, while claiming to be “symptom free.”

  I have tested positive for COVID. I’m feeling well & symptom free. I’ve not had the new bivalent booster yet, as I was following CDC guidelines to wait 3 months since my previous COVID case which was back in mid-August. While we’ve made great progress, the virus is still with us.

  — Albert Bourla (@AlbertBourla) September 24, 2022

  The new, so-called bivalent shot – which wasn’t tested on humans before its release –  is supposed to target the BA.5 and BA.4 Omicron subvariants, which make up roughly 86% of currently circulating variants in the United States.

  The FDA authorized Pfizer and Moderna’s updated booster shots in August, of which more than 25 million doses have been shipped.

  Bourla’s second infection in two months raised more than a few eyebrows.

  Any update to the mRNA shots being 100% effective as you said in April 2021? https://t.co/7zZ2VMlN31

  — BBG, Esq. (@bmetz131) September 25, 2022

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  You’ve had Covid more times than many unvaccinated people. Is it possible that maybe… *just maybe* the boosters are weakening your immune system? I am no doctor or anything – I’m just a lawyer with half a brain.

  — Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) September 24, 2022

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  Again? We already know it’s not safe and thanks for once again confirming it’s not effective. https://t.co/MWEyXxjHHa

  — Matt – #TrudeauMustGo (@KetoMattMan) September 24, 2022

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  Others, such as journalist Jordan Schachtel, suggested Bourla is bluffing to sell doses of the new booster.

  Expanded on this take here. Compliance is very low with the new booster shots, causing panic in Pfizer World. Bourla’s statement is a desperate ploy to move product https://t.co/2TR5EqRykT

  — Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) September 25, 2022

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  pic.twitter.com/l2iOOoQdEx

  — Russ James (@Russ2001James) September 24, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 15:00

• West Point Turns Over 40+ Pages Of Mostly Blacked Out CRT Emails
  West Point Turns Over 40+ Pages Of Mostly Blacked Out CRT Emails

  Authored by Matt Lamb via The College Fix,

  A year after request, West Point turns over mostly illegible documents

  

  The College Fix recently received more than 50 pages of emails from the United States Military Academy at West Point –15 months after a student reporter filed a public records request.

  Many of the pages were blacked out with the exception of several articles included in the communications or the initial greeting or ending. The redactions on the initial request were done by The Fix to protect the mailing address of former student reporter and current Fox News employee Ashley Carnahan, who filed it.

  The June 21, 2021 request asked for six months worth of emails to and from West Point Superintendent Darryl Williams for messages that contained the words “critical race,” “critical race theory,” “systemic racism” or “CRT.”

  Even the redacted emails reveal requests for assistance in June 2021 with processing what apparently was an overwhelming number of Freedom of Information Act requests for information on CRT at the U.S. Army officer school.

  West Point staff mobilized to respond to criticism from Congressman

  In April, May and June of that year, Congressman Mike Waltz raised concerns publicly about the use of CRT at West Point. He filed a request for information in April 2021, according to his office.

  An April 13, 2021 email had the subject line “Rep Waltz Talking Points_CSA.” CRT discussions continued to occur between Superintendent Williams and Army staff.

  “Sir, I hope you are having a great weekend! I apologize for emailing you on a Saturday and I want to state up front no need to respond,” a May 8, 2021 email stated. “I just thought you would appreciate some follow on to our discussion yesterday concerning Critical Race Theory. In particular [redacted] , and I have been talking at length on this topic and out of those conversations are a few worthy nuggets.”

  “USMA is requesting assistance with answering RFIs on Critical Race Theory. Request assistance [from] your SMEs to help formulate a nested response,” Lieutenant General Walter Piatt wrote in a June 16, 2021 email.

  “RFIs” presumably means “requests for information” while “SMEs” probably means “subject matter experts.”

  “Darryl: Let’s discuss soonest on the approach to answering the RFIs. This is important for our Academy to get this right. Mark,” an email about three hours later from someone named Mark Lewis stated.

  A number of the received emails were duplicative – sometimes public records requests will include an email on a thread each time it is fulfilled, meaning that an initial email could be included multiple times any time a subsequent response is added to the response.

  A separate public records request sent by Judicial Watch yielded over 600 pages of documents which showed the military academy pushed CRT in its trainings.

  West Point CRT FOIA respons… by The College Fix

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/25/2022 – 14:30