- Climate Fear-Mongering Fail: Great Barrier Reef Sees Third Record Year Of Coral Growth
Climate Fear-Mongering Fail: Great Barrier Reef Sees Third Record Year Of Coral Growth
Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,
Massive increases in coral across the Australian Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have been reported for 2023-24 making it the third record year in a row of heavy growth. Across almost all parts of the 1,500 mile long reef, from the warmer northern waters to the cooler conditions in the south, coral is now at its highest level since detailed observations began. The inconvenient news has been ignored in mainstream media which, curiously, have focused on a non-story in Nature that claimed “climate change” poses an “existential threat” to the GBR.
“The science tells us that the GBR is in danger – and we should be guided by the science,” Professor Helen McGregor from the University of Wollongong told Victoria Gill of BBC News.
The existential threat is “now realised” reported the Guardian.
Travelling back from the reality inhabited by the Guardian, it can be reported that last year’s gains were eye-catchingly large. On the Northern GBR, hard coral cover leapt from 35.8% to 39.5%, in the central area it rose from 30.7% to 34%, while in the south it went from 34% to 39.1%. The report is the result of monitoring of hard coral cover reefs from August 2023 to June 2024 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The percentage of hard coral cover is a standard measurement of reef conditions used by scientists and is said to provide a simple and robust measure of reef health. Similar reports have been published by the AIMS over the last 38 years.
For the first two years of record coral growth, the narrative-driven mainstream media ignored the recovery story. But this year, the suspicious might contend, something had to be done to blunt the sensational news of the stonking rises. Help has come in the form of a paper just published in Nature which uses proxy temperature measurements and climate models to suggest temperatures around the vast reef area are the highest recorded in 400 years. This time period is the blink of an ecological eye-lid given that coral has been around for hundreds of millions of years during periods when temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide have been markedly different. Nevertheless, this is said to pose an existential threat despite it being known that sub-tropical corals thrive between 24°C-32°C, and in fact seem to grow faster in warmer waters.
Natural bleaching, when the coral expels algae and turns white, can occur with temporary local temperature changes, but evidence from many years of scientific observation suggests the corals often and quickly recover. Long term changes in water temperature – tiny compared to coral’s optimum conditions – pose no threat, but alarmists concentrate on the bleaching events to warn of possible ecological collapse. The Guardian noted a recent fifth mass bleaching in eight years across the reef, driven, it claimed, by “global heating”. So far, its readers are in the dark as to how this squares with the recent record growth.
A decade of mass bleaching, relentlessly catastrophised in the interests of Net Zero by activists in the media, academia and politics, does not appear to have done much harm to the recent growth in the Northern GBR.
Or the central area.
Or even in the south where the water temperatures are slightly cooler.
To read the latest AIMS report is to read the best possible spin on the story that the reef is heading for disaster. And, of course, it is all down to the unproven changes in climate that are said to be caused by human activity. It is claimed this will cause more frequent and long-lasting marine ‘heatwaves’, a product no doubt of a climate model. It is generally suggested that these heatwaves and mass bleaching were rare prior to the 1990s, although how anyone can know this is a mystery. Detailed GBR observations and temperature recordings barely stretch back a few decades.
As is often the case with publicly-funded operations, the political message is never far from the surface. Thus we learn that “enabling coral reefs to survive these stressful conditions requires a combination of a reduction in global greenhouse emissions to stabilise temperatures… and the development of interventions to help reefs adapt to and recover from the effects of climate change”. No doubt this last proposal requires large amounts of money from the taxpayer to cover the costs of such worthy work.
Not everyone goes along with the coral fear-mongering. The distinguished scientist Dr. Peter Ridd has studied the GBR for 40 years and notes that coral numbers have “exploded” in recent years. He says that all 3,000 reefs in the world’s largest system have excellent coral. “Not a single reef or even a single species of reef life has been lost since British settlement,” he reports. The impact of bleaching is “routinely exaggerated by the media and some scientific organisations”. In his view, the public is being deceived about the reef. “How this occurred is a serious issue for the reef-science community which has embraced emotion, ideology and raw self-interest to maintain funding,” he observes.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 23:25 - What Effect Will Voter ID Laws Have In The 2024 Election?
What Effect Will Voter ID Laws Have In The 2024 Election?
Since the last presidential election in the United States, four states have implemented strict photo ID laws at the polls, bringing the count of places with these types of laws to 10. Additionally, three more states have made their ID laws stricter and in one state, such a change was blocked by courts.
Around 29 million Americans of voting age live in states where voter ID laws were tightened, while the number of those living under strict photo ID requirements rose from fewer than 30 million to more than 50 million. Research by the University of Maryland shows that as of the fall of 2023, almost 50 million Americans or around 20 percent of adults citizens were estimated to not have a valid driver’s license or at least not one with their current name or address on it, among them 23 million Democrats, 15.7 million Republicans and 10.5 million Independents.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, combining these numbers means that around 10 million voting-age adults could be negatively affected by photo ID laws in November 2024.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Other research, however, shows that party mobilization and outreach have successfully compensated for these negative effects on voter turnout in the past.
Voter ID laws, specifically those strictly requiring photo ID, are a contentious topic.
While proponents say that bringing official and easy-to-verify identification on election day should be a no-brainer, the lack of a uniform national ID system in the U.S. means that some people do not have a photo ID. This most often affects poor and otherwise marginalized people as well as people of color, which has led to the topic of voter ID having become a partisan one in the country.
Most states that currently have strict photo ID law for voting are in the Southern United States or the Midwest. New laws were passed in the last four years in Nebraska, Arkansas, North Carolina and Ohio, while they have existed for longer in Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee, among other. A bigger group of states requests photo ID at the polls, but voters without it can use a workaround, for example signing a sworn affidavit or other document or have their signature matched by a clerk. Even states with strict photo ID laws mostly allow voting a provisional ballot and bringing in ID by a specific deadline as well as some exception in case voters have specific impairments, objections on religious grounds or others.
In Texas and South Carolina, this line between exception and workaround has been increasingly blurred, showing the tug-of-war that surrounds U.S. voter ID laws. Voters in both states who do not have photo ID can fill out a reasonable impediment declaration. While this sounds like voters will need to prove that they qualify for an exception, the cause can be any “obstacle you find reasonable”, the South Carolina Election Commission informs. In Texas, the situation is similar.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 23:00 - Fauci's "DNA Of Caring"
Fauci’s “DNA Of Caring”
Authored by Randall Block via The Brownstone Institute,
Dr. Anthony Fauci often claims a “DNA of caring” yet his actions reveal a stark contrast. Avoiding direct patient care, Dr. Fauci focused on populations—effecting a mindset aligned with abstract compassion for humanity that nonetheless neglects individual rights. His so-called ‘DNA of caring’ has most recently doubly stranded those subjected to it: first, by amplifying fear about Covid-19 while burying mitigating data; second, by pushing a vaccine in a draconian, methodical, and threatening manner, taking away liberty and jobs to an extreme never seen before in the history of mankind.
Additionally, by fast-tracking and strong-arming an mRNA vaccine-platform technology heretofore devoid of Phase II or III safety studies, Dr. Fauci prioritized hypothetical scientific advancement over actual current health, medical knowledge, and personal liberties—effectively double-crossing both the public’s trust and violating his own integrity: contradicting medically foundational principles he had spent his career enunciating—perhaps influenced by pharmaceutical interests.
Introduction: From Public Health to Panic: The Motivations Behind Dr. Fauci’s Pandemic Pivot
In early 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of NIAID, initially approached the coronavirus with standard public health strategies. By late February, Dr. Fauci had become the deciding influencer for the New York Times’ Donald McNeil’s decision to go “up to eleven,” announcing: “To Take On the Coronavirus, Go Medieval on It.” This article heightened panic in New York City, soon to be America’s pandemic landfall—and marked a shift from a century of public health’s more measured responses BACKWARDS to draconian measures. Remember: “lockdowns” emanate literally from 1970s prisons.
Several theories potentially explain this pivot. One suggests Fauci’s involvement with NIAID grants to the Wuhan lab pushed him to deflect accountability. Another points to political motivations, aiming to undermine an adversary, Donald Trump—by destabilizing the economy, and influencing the election through lockdown-necessitated mail-in ballots.
A deeper, but not necessarily mutually exclusive motive may lie in Fauci’s support for mRNA vaccine technology. Previously, mRNA treatments had only reached Phase I trials. The pandemic allowed for emergency-use authorization, fast-tracking this experimental platform and breaking regulatory barriers—likely saving a decade by creating a precedent for future mRNA treatments. He did this knowing systemic vaccines may not be appropriate for respiratory illnesses, and having observed close hand China’s failure to create an effective Coronavirus vaccine in the 2000s after SARS.
And this wasn’t the first time: his persistence in pushing for mRNA technology was evident during the previous decade’s Zika Microcephaly pandemic response. Even as Zika had fizzled to zero (microcephaly-) cases, Fauci persisted in pushing for Zika (DNA-and mRNA-) vaccines. He dangled ~$100 million in front of Brazil in 2018, but it refused—whereupon he pivoted in the 2020s to Johns Hopkins to inject and infect women with Zika to test the vaccine. This is a man who will not let a public health emergency go to waste—even if it involves aggrandizing it.
Despite his self-assessment as having a “DNA of caring,” Fauci’s actions suggest a focus more on institutional goals and the advancement of mRNA technology than on the people themselves—via corporatism: merging governmental authority with big business interests. Treating populations with a one-size-fits-all approach, stripping away individual rights, and using people as means to societal ends evokes an antidemocratic utilitarianism.
A Self-Professed “DNA of Caring”
A Google search for “Dr. Anthony Fauci’s promotion of the mRNA vaccine” performed today (helpfully for the otherwise beleaguered Dr. Fauci) funnels towards his On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service book tour—including this ironic and self-titled fluff piece: ‘I had that DNA of caring for people‘ sweetly afforded by PBS’ uncritical, team player Geoff Bennett.
Nearly comically—this June 2024 video, intending to polish his legacy, inadvertently highlights his dictatorial tendencies, tin ear, and inability to learn from mistakes. Despite his mea culpa about failing to listen to stakeholders during the 1980s’ HIV/AIDS crisis and promising to have learned from that experience, merely a few sentences later Fauci lashes out at his contemporary Covid-19 critics.
The irony here is stark. Fauci admits that he and his institutions were domineering and unheeding of criticism during the HIV/AIDS crisis—whereupon he retroactively wishes he had given those activists input into the process that had so directly affected them.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Understandably, but unacceptably, the scientific community and the regulatory community just said, “We know best for you. We’re the scientists. We’re the ones with the experience.” And they kept saying, “No, no, no. We really want a seat at the table.” When we didn’t listen, then they started becoming theatrical, iconoclastic, disruptive, and confrontative. As John Lewis used to say, ‘there’s trouble and there’s good trouble.’ They were making ‘good trouble’ in the field of health in wanting to have a seat at the table. One of the best things I think I have done in my career was to put aside the theatrics (note: an admission against interest) and listen to what they were saying, because what they were saying made absolutely perfect sense. And I remember saying to myself that, if I were in their shoes, I’d be doing exactly what they were doing.
GEOFF BENNETT: When you describe that (HIV/AIDS) experience as “enlightening,” how did it inform your approach moving forward to confront other epidemics?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Yes. Yes, listen to the patients. Listen. And don’t think that everything comes from the top down. Listen to the community. Listen to what they’re experiencing. And you’re going to make a much better and more appropriate response to whatever the disease challenge is. That was a lesson that was very well-learned from the activists.
Volte-face and thin-skinned (a possible alternate title for his book), he shows no such sympathy for those who opposed his Covid-19 rabbit-out-of-a-hat absurdities, dismissing them outright:
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: I think it’s important to say, because it’s the truth, that if ever there was a time when you didn’t want to have a public health crisis was at a time of profound divisiveness within our country, where you were having people making decisions about health based on political ideology. That is the worst possible circumstance.
It would have been really nice if we had a uniform message: “Masks work. Use them.” “Vaccines are good and save lives.” Let’s do it.
“No, hydroxychloroquine not only doesn’t work, but, in fact, it could harm you.” (ignoring risk/benefit ratio; “right to try,” FDA-approval, and track record—and that this is true for any treatment, cf. vaccines).
This dismissive attitude toward dissenting voices is ironic given Fauci’s complete 180 on his own views. He refuses to engage with anyone who challenges him, yet seems blissfully unaware he’s contradicting his past self. And there is this gem uncovered by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic from Dr. Fauci, Summer 2021—so different from his supposed HIV-lesson-learned to “Listen to the community. Listen to what they’re experiencing”—speaking more like a mob boss:
“I have to say that I don’t see a big solution, other than some sort of mandatory vaccination. I know federal officials don’t like to use that term. Once (administrators) feel empowered and protected legally, (they’ll) say, ‘you want to come to this college buddy, you’re going to get vaccinated.’ Yeah, big corporations are going to say ‘you want to work for us, you get vaccinated.’ And it’s been proven that when you make it difficult for people in their lives, they lose their ideological bullshit and they get vaccinated.”
Dr. Fauci’s actual “DNA of caring” is caring about pharmaceutical mRNA.
Fauci 1.0 Vs. Fauci 2.0
Somewhere around February 2020, there seems to have been a ‘software update’ of Dr. Fauci’s mindset, and not for the better. Generally speaking, people only turn to questionable behavior when faced with a greater agenda, threat to self, or conversion. Here’s a by-no-means complete table of Fauci Covid-era “flip-flops:”
This transformation was likely triggered by the realization of his agency NIAID’s and/or his own embarrassingly damaging complicity in the gain-of-function genesis of the “Wuhan flu” SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus threat. He aimed for self-preservation, politically maneuvering against Donald Trump to compromise him, while also greasing the skids for the mRNA vaccine.
This necessitated performing life support for the “emergency” in the “Emergency Use Authorization/ EUA” by quashing any interim medications, aggrandizing the threat of SARS-CoV-2—when he knew, from the Diamond Princess data, that it was not that severe (zero deaths, 25 days after exposure)—and backtracking from his comments that respiratory illnesses were not best approached by vaccines; that natural immunity was preferable to vaccine immunity, and that flu shots needed to be timely for the upcoming variant. Despite his previously calling the coronavirus threat “minuscule,” Fauci’s actions followed a pattern of (mis)using the crisis to bequeath a Big Science/Big Pharma (-regulatory-capture cycle untested mRNA treatments.
Covid-19 Pandemic: Overreach and Ignoring Early Data
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Fauci’s approach starkly contradicted the lessons he claimed to have learned from the HIV/AIDS crisis. He enforced top-down measures that often lacked scientific backing. For instance, he admitted in a January 2024 Congressional hearing (belatedly released in June) that he did not know the scientific basis for the six-foot social distancing rule and could not substantiate masking requirements for children.
“Collectively, the four pillars of the “Covidian Cult” were lockdowns, masks, social distancing and mRNA vaccines. Dr Fauci was one of the most powerful advocates of all of these things, and he became the public face of each demand. But here we have one of the architects, without too much pushing, admitting that two of those four pillars were never set in any scientific foundation at all. Now what this admission does is utterly destroy the entire Covidian argument. Because the argument was that we should “Follow the Science.” The argument was that technocratic experts had decided the course of action to follow, and that we had no right to question that course because they were the experts and we were simply, “Tracy from Facebook.” Daniel Jupp “Fauci’s Evidence: It just sort of appeared. You know, from nowhere.”
Fauci’s stance on vaccination mandates was equally inconsistent. In 2004, he advised against flu vaccines for those who had already contracted the flu. Yet during the Covid-19 pandemic, he supported mandatory vaccinations regardless of prior infection, ignoring the virus’ evolving nature. Vaccines were administered for an outdated strain, akin to giving expired flu shots, which are typically removed from circulation once the virus mutates significantly. This inconsistency highlighted his failure to adapt his policies to the realities of the virus’ mutations.
Fauci 1.0 had said, “You seek and learn…from an experiment“ (2005). The floating coronavirus-incubation/quarantine experiment, a.k.a. Diamond Princess was an incredible serendipity for the world—if not its 3,711 captives. Trying to enlist that number of people for an unknown viral threat would’ve required a pre-payout of ~$10 billion (and could not have included this random selection of individuals)—yet, the world was the beneficiary of this experiment in a timely fashion, February 2020 for “free” (although the passengers and crew might disagree with that term).
Instead of focusing on the obvious good news results: zero fatalities after three weeks’ exposure; essentially none of the children or young adults feeling much ill or even noticing infection—Fauci 2.0 sided with Chinese propaganda and extreme measures, contributing to widespread panic and economic devastation. Fauci 2.0 ignored the possibility of Chinese guile, either blithely or willfully—but in either case to our nation’s discredit, discomfort, disunion, and disinformation.
The Gates Foundation’s mRNA Finesse; Zika Emergency
In 2017, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $100 million to Moderna to develop an mRNA-platform vaccine for Zika. This investment was made despite the fact that Zika, a relatively harmless dengue variant, was not (by that time) persistently linked to the microcephaly cases it was blamed for. The Zika-microcephaly phenomenon just petered out even in the initial “pandemic” panic crisis year of 2016. This rush to develop an mRNA vaccine for a non-crisis reflects a broader trend of aggrandizing potential threats to justify rapid and untested vaccine development.
My book, Overturning Zika: The Pandemic That Never Was, points out the complete absence of any Zika-related microcephaly increase in any year, including the incipient 2015 year. Once Zika tests were developed and Brazil adopted the WHO standard for statistical microcephaly determination, the link between Zika and microcephaly was never substantiated—and effectively disappeared. “Zika-Microcephaly” had always and only been “science” by press release, political pressure, and professorial self-aggrandizement.
Dr. Fauci never stopped pushing for Zika vaccines long after it was clear there was no recurrence of Zika-related microcephaly in Latin America. In 2018, he attempted to initiate a human challenge trial (HCT) in Brazil, but the authorities refused, not wanting to introduce the Zika virus into the population through experimentation.
HCTs had fallen out of favor due to the negative outcomes of the Guatemala and Tuskegee experiments. In 2017, the NIH’s ethics panel determined that Zika did not warrant human challenge trials, but Dr. Fauci pushed for them regardless, ignoring prevailing public health wisdom.
Why was he jonesing for a putative Zika vaccine? Fauci was a proponent of synthetic vaccinology and mRNA platforms. Conveniently ignoring Zika-Microcephaly’s fizzle, he continued over-generously funding Moderna (whose very name is a portmanteau of “modified RNA”).
When Zika’s shoddy underlying science and non-recurrence failed to sustain the necessary “emergency” for mRNA technology, an unrepentant and unpunished Fauci aggrandized Covid-19 to achieve the same goals. Had he been reprimanded for violating the NIH ethics panel’s decision, he might not have been so rash and brash in exaggerating Covid-19. It appears Fauci pursued his “fix” of stealthily introducing mRNA technology to the public and mainstreaming it through vaccines, despite the ethical breaches and potential risks involved.
mRNA Vaccines: From Never Done to Pandemic Panacea
The foundation for mRNA-vaccine technology was laid years before the pandemic. Here’s an excellent history (behind paywall) of the endeavor, beginning with Robert F. Malone’s late-1980s conceptualization—although (reminiscent of Breaking Bad’s Gray Matter Technologies: Walter White says, “It was my hard work. My research. And you and Elliott made millions off it.”) all of the financial-windfall beneficiaries currently in the field are happy to orphan whistleblower Malone who said the coronavirus “should never have been politicized.” Legacy media is happy to help discredit him: effectively always, his name is accompanied by the term, “spreading misinformation.”
The Obama Administration invested heavily in mRNA research through DARPA (via the mysterious network, “JASON”) and BARDA. By the end of the Obama era, mRNA vaccines were being tested in both animals and humans – but never beyond Phase 1.
The Covid-19 pandemic fast-tracked the push for mRNA vaccines under Operation Warp Speed, prioritizing them over traditional vaccines like Johnson & Johnson’s adenovirus vector vaccine. Concerns about side effects, such as myocarditis in young males, were brushed aside in the rush to advance mRNA technology. This urgency overshadowed the critical need for proper safety trials, effectively using the public as guinea pigs in a massive, premature experiment.
Now, with the ice broken, a flood of new mRNA vaccines is in the pipeline for diseases like cytomegalovirus (CMV), influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Researchers are even exploring mRNA vaccines for avian flu, hepatitis C, HIV, and more. This rapid adoption bypasses decades of proven safety from traditional vaccine platforms, raising ethical concerns about using the global population for untested innovations.
Even if mRNA vaccines prove beneficial in the long run, we deserve better than to be test subjects in this grand experiment—without getting a share of the proceeds. It’s like “My parents went to Vegas and all I got was this lousy T-shirt,” but with much higher stakes.
Profit over Safety
The profit motive may be king. Much as the ‘minor issues’ of people’s freedoms and safety (I’m joking) were completely ignored to help speed the development of mRNA vaccines, being politically favored has its benefits. Every accommodation is made for electric vehicles or climate change initiatives. One wonders, given that everyone turned a blind eye to safety and is still doing so regarding Covid’s mRNA vaccine(s), whether these newer possibilities—which are not emergencies per se—will go through proper multiphase studies over the proper length of time to check for long-term side effects.
Studies for “long-term effects” ipso facto need a “long-term” study: eight or 10 years may not even be enough. Other vaccines have been out for decades and there are still questions circulating given that they are being given more frequently and with multiple other vaccines in combination throughout the course of tender childhood.
Pre-NCVIA (1986 federal liability waiver for vaccine manufacturers), kids got a handful of vaccines, now we are up to 72 separate inoculations recommended through adolescence. With whispers of avian flu and other potential “emergencies,” we have to be careful that these aren’t just efforts to fan the flames and bypass safety studies once again.
The silver lining, the promise we are given is that mRNA technology may help cancer treatment, food- and environmental- allergies, genetic diseases, heart disease, stroke, heart failure, and neurodevelopmental disorders. While these advancements are promising, it is essential to balance innovation with rigorous safety protocols; to balance self-interested Big Science/Big Pharma claims with the normal skepticism, given the track record.
Lockdowns: Misguided Anachronism
Fauci’s advocacy for lockdowns was another significant departure from standard public health practices. Historically, “lockdown” was a term used exclusively in prison settings. Before Covid-19, general population lockdowns were virtually unheard of, except in extreme cases like a tuberculosis outbreak in a South African prison and limited restrictions during the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. Implementing such measures for Covid-19 ignored the relatively benign nature of the virus for most of the population. The lockdowns caused widespread economic disruption, halted education, and inflicted severe mental health consequences.
Donald McNeil of the New York Times famously espoused a “go medieval” approach to the virus, but only after the endorsement specifically of Dr. Fauci. McNeil’s article, “To Take On The Coronavirus, Go Medieval on It,” drummed up enormous fear and overreaction. In August 2020, McNeil revealed that his consultation with Dr. Fauci was pivotal in shaping the article.
Donald McNeil wrote:
“There are two ways to fight epidemics: the medieval and the modern. The modern way is to surrender to the power of the pathogens: Acknowledge that they are unstoppable and try to soften the blow with 20th-century inventions, including new vaccines, antibiotics, hospital ventilators and thermal cameras searching for people with fevers. The medieval way, inherited from the era of the Black Death, is brutal: Close the borders, quarantine the ships, pen terrified citizens up inside their poisoned cities.”
Mr. McNeil, writer and rhetorician (and decidedly not a scientist) is merely channeling this Fauci 2.0 bureaucrat/autocrat whose decidedly medieval methods fall into stark contrast with (erstwhile) modern public health’s. Fauci 2.0 essentially settled the issue for McNeil, who readily adopted this extreme stance.
Ironically, those advocating for a more modern public health approach, like the (genuine) experts behind the Great Barrington Declaration, were shut down. Fauci’s supposed “DNA of caring” seems to only extend to himself, his views, and his control over the narrative. His actions during Covid-19 show that he learned nothing from his self-professed enlightenment during the HIV/AIDS crisis.
He ignored and dismissed any criticism, especially from those on or above his level. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, (economics), for example, is arguably more qualified than Fauci, more of a political than medical ace. This is evident in his absurdly anachronistic “medieval” approach to the pandemic; his inability to tolerate dissent; his failure to listen to those who challenge him—in fact his censoring them, codifying a policy of “Shut Up!” to skeptics of his overreaching policies.
Even Fauci 1.0 was not a great medical doctor. In the 1980s, during the HIV/AIDS crisis, Fauci speculated that close household contact, without sexual interaction or needle sharing, could lead to AIDS transmission. This glib and unfounded claim led to widespread fear and misinformation. As a result, AIDS patients (it is posited) were often abandoned by their families due to the fear of casual transmission.
His stubborn focus on producing a vaccine rather than therapeutics was of particular frustration to activists and other scientists. Ironically, this emphasis on vaccines over therapeutics repeated in 2020 and 2021 with the push for mRNA vaccines, despite the availability of other potential treatments.
The government, under Fauci’s influence, went out of its way to insult and ridicule FDA-approved, off-label usage, rational treatment alternatives, such as hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Nobel-Prize generating ivermectin (which was FALSELY derided as mere horse medication). Many drugs used in humans are also used in animals. This dismissal and ridicule were strategic, aimed at maintaining the narrative that only a vaccine could solve the crisis, thus justifying the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the mRNA vaccines. Absent an emergency, they would not have been able to circumvent the necessary safety measures. This strategy was not only misleading but potentially criminal, as it prioritized the adoption of untested vaccines over exploring all possible treatment avenues.
Unprecedented Excess Deaths
The implications of these decisions have been far-reaching and devastating. According to researchers from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, there have been more than three million excess deaths since 2020, with the trend continuing despite (or because of) the rollout of vaccines and containment measures. In BMJ Public Health, the authors stated,
“excess mortality has remained high in the Western World for three consecutive years, despite the implementation of COVID-19 containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines. This is unprecedented and raises serious concerns. During the pandemic, politicians and the media emphasized daily that every COVID-19 death mattered and every life deserved protection through containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the same morale should apply.”
This is the tragic outcome of Fauci’s policies. The world was promised salvation, but instead, we have worse economies, more top-down nondemocratic management, halted education, and disrupted lives. Children couldn’t see people’s faces, and the societal impacts have been profound.
We Were Betrayed by Falsehoods
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic mirrored the very failings he claimed to have learned from the HIV/AIDS crisis. His inability to adapt, combined with a penchant for authoritarian measures, has left a legacy of distrust and division. Fauci’s enforcement of arbitrary measures, disregard for scientific data, and contribution to economic and social disruption have caused untold harm. His tenure stands as a stark reminder of the dangers of unchecked authority.
Fauci’s role in the Covid-19 response has shown a disregard for American values of liberty and openness. His actions have inflicted deep scars on the nation, from economic devastation to the erosion of public trust. The world deserves better from its public health leaders, and Fauci’s tenure stands as a cautionary tale of what happens when power goes unchecked. The suffering caused by his decisions is a legacy not of public health triumph but of public health failure and manipulation.
As H.L. Mencken famously said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Unelected Dr. Fauci’s prison-styled lockdowns and tyrannical, unproven, mRNA-over-vaccinating within an overall disdainful, peremptory medical misgovernance made sure of that.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 22:35 - Visualizing 45 Years Of Growth In US Real Wages, By Income Group
Visualizing 45 Years Of Growth In US Real Wages, By Income Group
Since 1979, the top income earners in America have seen their real wages grow at more than double the rate of every other income group.
Given this rapid rise, income inequality in the U.S. exceeds nearly every other rich nation, driven by several complex factors. Among these, tax policy, technological change, and economic downturns have widened this gap. Diminishing bargaining power across workers has also contributed to wage disparities.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the growth in real wages over time across income groups, based on data from the Economic Policy Institute.
Stark Differences in Real Wages Over Time
Below, we show the cumulative growth in real wages between 1979 and 2023 by wage group:
As we can see, the lowest paid workers in America have seen their real wages increase just 17% over the period—averaging a dismal 0.4% annual growth rate.
If we take out the pandemic-era’s period of strong wage growth for low-wage workers, this figure drops to 0.1% between 1979 and 2019. By contrast, real wages boomed at an annualized rate of 2.9% over the pandemic, outpacing wage growth in the previous 40 years combined.
A similar trend of slow wage growth can be seen across all other income groups apart from the highest income earners. This has contributed to the middle-class—those falling between the lowest and highest income quintiles—to shrink from 61% of the population in 1971 to 51% in 2023.
At the same time, the share of lower-income households grew by 27% in 1971 to 30% in 2023, while the share of upper-income households rose from 11% to 19% over the period.
Wage Growth During the Pandemic
As we can see in the table below, high labor demand during the pandemic led to significant wage increases, particularly for lower-income groups:
What is notable about these wage gains is that they outpaced inflation, which totaled nearly 20% over this period.
Today, a strong labor market is continuing to push real wages above inflation as price pressures have eased, but this growth has slowed considerably since pandemic peaks. In June 2024, year-over-year real wage growth was 0.8% on average, compared to 7.7% in April 2020.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 22:10 - Overnight Drone Attack Targets US Troops Occupying Syria
Overnight Drone Attack Targets US Troops Occupying Syria
Update(2210ET): American troops occupying northeast Syria have come under overnight attack by a drone, which some reports say was sent by ‘pro-Iran’ militants.
US officials did not indicate that there were any initial casualties, in what is the second such attack on a US base in less than a week. “Initial reports do not indicate any injuries, however medical evaluations are ongoing. We are currently conducting a damage assessment,” a defense official told Reuters.
The U.S. Military Base at Kharab al-Jir Airport in Northeastern Syria has reportedly been Struck by several Iranian-Backed Drones within the last hour, with Fire and Smoke seen coming from the Base. pic.twitter.com/dUgFLmuccN
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) August 9, 2024
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But it’s not just Iran-linked militants who have upped the pressure on the US occupation of late – Arab tribes have been attacking US-backed Kurdish positions in the oil and gas rich eastern region as well.
The whole region is still on edge awaiting a likely Iranian attack on Israel, which would likely see stepped-up activity from Hezbollah and from militias in Syria and possibly even Iraq.
A drone attack on US forces at Kharab al-Jir base in Syria resulted in a massive explosion and destroyed at least one building a few hours ago.
An individual told me “I’ve never been so terrified in my life dude. That shit was way too close. Once we heard the actual drone there… https://t.co/kukfjfDdmk pic.twitter.com/hbOquWwdYO
— Shoe (@samosaur) August 10, 2024
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With the Middle East on the brink of a possible major war between Iran and Israel, also involving Lebanese Hezbollah, the White House and its regional partners are desperately trying to salvage ceasefire talks.
The United States, Qatar, and Egypt are calling on Israel and Hamas to step back to the negotiating table. They say it is urgent “to resume urgent discussion” on August 15 in Doha or Cairo “to close all remaining gaps and commence implementation of the deal without further delay.” Gaps?
While the statement speaks of “remaining gaps” – a fresh Axios report cites a diplomatic source strongly suggests the situation is a far cry from mere closing gaps…
A source familiar with the negotiations said the planned summit is a “Hail Mary” attempt by the Biden administration to get a deal and prevent a regional war.
The White House also needs to present to the American public that it has helped secure a ceasefire, which would be a boost to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her supposed foreign policy credentials going into the November election.
Via Reuters The statement from the US, Qatar, and Egypt continued: “It is the time to conclude a ceasefire agreement and release hostages and prisoners,” they said.
“We have worked for months to reach framework agreement and it is now on the table, with only details of implementation missing.”
But this is the same language that negotiators have presented to the public for several months at this point. They are always and ever “near the goal line,” we are told. Yet Israeli and Hamas officials themselves constantly suggest the opposite. There also doesn’t seem to be much US pressure on Israel, or serious efforts to reign in its adventurism in places like Iran.
Additionally, Washington policy itself is schizophrenic: President Biden has criticized Israel at times, lamenting the mass civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, while at the same time he continues to arm Israel’s military to the teeth.
Consider too the rosy picture of negotiations painted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month at the Aspen Security Forum: “I believe we’re inside the 10-yard line and driving toward the goal line in getting an agreement that would produce a cease-fire, get the hostages home and put us on a better track to trying to build lasting peace and stability,” Blinken said July 19.
Perhaps it’s past time for Blinken and US officials to retire the football metaphors when it comes to Hamas negotiations?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 22:09 - US Ambassador Boycotts Nagasaki A-Bomb Ceremony Because Israel Not Invited
US Ambassador Boycotts Nagasaki A-Bomb Ceremony Because Israel Not Invited
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel boycotted Friday’s memorial service in Nagasaki commemorating the 79th anniversary of the US dropping a nuclear bomb on the city because Israel was not invited to attend.
Emanuel said the ceremony had become “politicized” by the decision not to invite Israel, but Russia and Belarus will also be excluded for the third year in a row, a move supported by the US.
Envoys from the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the European Union sent a letter to Nagasaki last month saying it would “become difficult for us to have high-level participation” if Israel wasn’t invited. The envoys said the decision would equate Israel with Russia and Belarus.
Lanterns placed in Hypocenter Park in Nagasaki on the eve of the 79th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the southwestern Japan city. via Kyodo Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki stuck to his decision not to invite Israel despite the pressure. He said it was due to concerns that Israeli attendance could lead to demonstrators disrupting the ceremony. “I will continue to persevere and ask for understanding of the decision as often as necessary,” Suzuki said.
Suzuki said he made the decision “not for political reasons” but to ensure “a smooth ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment.”
Israel’s ambassador to Japan was invited to Hiroshima’s ceremony on Tuesday, which was attended by Emanuel and other Western ambassadors. The ambassadors of the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the EU are expected to boycott the Nagasaki ceremony along with Emanuel, and the Western nations will send lower-level representatives instead.
Israeli officials have pointed to the US and allied bombings of Japan and Germany during World War II to justify the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. President Biden said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed to the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed over 200,000 Japanese civilians, in conversations they had about Gaza.
Let me get it straight… Israel, which did not exist as a country then, wasn’t invited. So the US… which actually dropped the bomb.. is angry. https://t.co/muhnmPU8Di
— Brad Hoff (@BradRHoff) August 8, 2024
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“It was pointed out to me that — by Bibi (Netanyahu) — that ‘Well, you carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died,'” Biden said in December 2023.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 21:45 - Panama Hits 'VIP' Chinese Migrant-Smuggling Route Through Notorious Darien Gap
Panama Hits ‘VIP’ Chinese Migrant-Smuggling Route Through Notorious Darien Gap
In the latest indication that new President Jose Raul Mulino may be serious about his campaign pledge to end the country’s role as a major funnel of masses of illegal immigrants bound for the United States, Panamanian border police on Wednesday arrested 15 people linked to an illicit “VIP” migrant-smuggling operation that caters to Chinese clients, AFP reports. The detainees — who face 15 to 20 years in prison — are all Panamanian, but are accused of working for Colombian gangs.
While the Pan-American Highway stretches some 19,000 miles through South, Central and North America, there’s a 66-mile gap that starts just inside Colombia and stretches into Panama. That means migrants have to make a harrowing journey on foot through a mountainous and marshy region called the Darien Gap. They not only have to survive dangerous natural conditions, but also criminal gangs known to rape, murder, kidnap and rob them.
Not the VIP version: Most migrants traverse the Darien Gap on foot, braving days of heat, rain, mud, dehydration, water crossings, disease, thieves and rapists (John Moore/Getty Images via Council on Foreign Relations) The VIP service targeted this week promised a faster, easier and safer passage into Panama — but at a higher price. Migrants pay about $500 for a standard escort through the gap, but fees for this expedited trip range from $2,600 to $8,000, local prosecutor Emeldo Marquez told AFP. Given the price, most customers who can afford the first class experience are Chinese.
The VIP trip is shortened in a variety of ways, starting with boat service that bypasses a portion of the jungle trip by departing the Colombian coast from Capurgana or Necocli and dropping migrants in Carreto or Caledonia, Panama. Smugglers then whisk them through the remaining wilderness using canoes, horses and ATVs. That helps cut the average VIP jungle jaunt down to just two days, instead of upwards of eight days or more for everyone else.
A detainee is guarded by a Panamanian National Border Service member near Santa Fe in Panama’s Darien province (Abraham Teran via Associated Press) About a half-million migrants made the Darien Gap trek in 2023, and about 200,000 so far this year. They come from many countries, but most of the recent migrants are Venezuelan. While still a small percentage, Chinese traffic has soared, with more than 55,000 Chinese crossing the Mexican border since 2023.
On the campaign trail, President Jose Raul Mulino emphasized his intent to end Panama’s role as a critical link in a path that funnels northbound migrants into Central America. He reiterated that intention in his inaugural address, saying, “I will not allow Panama to be a path open to thousands of people who illegally enter our country supported by an entire international organization related to drug trafficking and human trafficking.”
Earlier this summer, Panama started installing concertina-wire fences inside the Darien Gap. “The patrol at the national border service has begun to block the majority of border passages,” said Frank Abrego, Panama’s minister of public security during a June 28 visit to the area.
On July 1 — the same day that Mulino was sworn into office, Panama announced it had signed an agreement with the United States with a goal of cutting the flow of migrants through the isthmus. Under the deal, the US government has committed to covering Panama’s expenses for deporting people who enter Panama illegally, and to help with “equipment, transportation and logistics.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 21:20 - Democratic California State Lawmaker Switches To Republican Party
Democratic California State Lawmaker Switches To Republican Party
Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A California state lawmaker announced on Thursday that she’s switching affiliation to the Republican Party in a bid to save the state from heading in the wrong direction under a Democratic supermajority.
State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil (D-Jackson) at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., on July 10, 2023. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo) State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, who represents the state’s fourth Senate district, said she joined the Senate Republican Caucus and party after deep reflection and to help “in their fight to fix California.”
“I was elected to serve the public, not a political ideology,” Alvarado-Gil said in a statement. “The status quo under a supermajority Democratic rule in the legislature is simply not working for this state.”
Democratic state Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire said her decision would be disappointing for voters who elected her in 2022.
“They trusted her to represent them, and she’s betrayed that trust,” he said in a statement.
However, Alvarado-Gil, who represents a largely conservative-leaning rural district in northeast Central Valley, said the decision was “right for the constituents that voted me into office” and about putting them first.
California has a Democrat supermajority in both the Assembly and the Senate. After Alvarado-Gil’s defection, which gives Republicans nine votes in the 40-member Senate, Democrats will retain their veto-proof majority.
Despite Democrats having more power and ability in the state Legislature, Alvarado-Gil said that since she’s been elected, she’s had a front-row seat to watching the Democratic supermajority push California in what she characterized as a wrong direction.
Republicans’ nine votes still leaves them well under the majority they need to control the chamber. Democrats hold supermajorities in both the Assembly and Senate at the Capitol.
Alvarado-Gil is known for working with Republicans and has split from Democrats to vote on issues where she feels politics is being put over public safety.
State Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones, in a statement welcoming Alvarado-Gil to the GOP, said it takes courage for a lawmaker to stand up to the supermajority the way she has.
“Her record on tackling crime, protecting communities from sexually violent predators, and prioritizing her constituents speaks for itself,” said Jones, who has recently worked with Alvarado-Gil on a number of key Republican measures.
Alvarado-Gil, who is in her first term, has broken with Democrats on a number of bills, including gun legislation, caps on oil industry profits, and restrictions on homeless encampments over the last year. She was one of three state Democratic senators to co-author legislation led by Jones to restrict homeless encampments.
She said on Thursday that she will continue to aggressively advocate for fiscal responsibility, public safety, supporting veterans, tackling the homelessness crisis, and lowering living costs.
Alvarado-Gil has supported legislation addressing crime, fentanyl, human trafficking, child sex trafficking, sexual assault, and relocating sexually violent predators to rural communities.
“I look forward to collaborating with my Republican colleagues on their plan to Fix California and continuing to lead with a pragmatic approach on issues affecting my district and this great state,” she said.
California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson said, “Senator Alvarado-Gil has represented her community as an independent, fiscally-conservative voice in Sacramento, and we are honored to have her represent them going forward as a member of the Republican Party.”
Alvarado-Gil beat out a progressive Democrat by more than five points in the 2022 election. Registered Republican voters in her district have increased since 2022 to nearly 39 percent to Democrats’ 34 percent in 2024.
It’s uncommon for a member of a majority party to switch affiliation, according to California State Library legislative historian Alex Vassar.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 20:55 - Breast Or Bottle? China Is The Global Market For Infant Formula
Breast Or Bottle? China Is The Global Market For Infant Formula
In a press release published ahead of World Breastfeeding Week (August 1 to 7), the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that:
“Over the past twelve years the number of infants under 6 months who are exclusively breastfed increased by more than 10 percent globally. Now, almost half (48 percent) of infants worldwide benefit from this excellent start in life”.
But this progress needs to be put into perspective if we take into account sales of breast milk substitutes, which have more than doubled worldwide over the last twenty years. Additionally, while countless studies have found the benefits of breastfeeding, others have claimed that when you eliminate selection bias, i.e. richer women being more likely to breastfeed, the positive effects almost disappear as larger socioeconomic factors overlay the still substantial benefits that breast milk does have.
Breastfeeding is sure to provide all the nutrients and energy needed for the growth and development of newborns and provides immune protection and other benefits through bioactive ingredients that formula doesn’t have.
In developing countries, water safety is another factor that makes breast milk the superior option, while of course, the small chance of formula itself being contaminated also remains a risk.
However, the product is still marketed aggressively around the world, using with exaggerated claims to its benefits – something that has been criticized widely together with the baby milk industry’s high spending on lobbying.
The WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding until the age of 6 months and continued breastfeeding (with appropriate complementary feeding) until 2 years or more. However, apart from the response to marketing, not exclusively breastfeeding can have many reasons, including the mother working, personal reference, division of labor considerations and physical issues breastfeeding.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the chart below, based on UNICEF data, the regions where breastfeeding is most prevalent are South Asia and Eastern and Southern Africa, where around 60 percent of infants aged 0 to 5 months are exclusively breastfed.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Conversely, breastfeeding rates up to 6 months are lowest in North America (26 percent) and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (36 percent). For Western Europe, this data is not available due to the lack of a standardized collection method and incomplete national data, but breastfeeding rates are generally low across Europe.
However, despite the high rate of breastfeeding in Asia, China is the biggest market worldwide for baby milk and infant formula.
In 2024, Statista Market Insights estimates that sales will reach almost $17 billion in the country. The second biggest market, the United States, is far behind at just $6.2 billion. However, per-capita spending was higher in the U.S. and actually lowest in China out of the top 5 biggest markets. Numbers by UNICEF show that the use of formula is more widespread in more developed countries and has also become typical in China’s burgeoning middle class, while it hasn’t caught on everywhere in the nation – explaining the lower per-capita spending.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Like in other nations, families in China are subject to aggressive baby formula marketing and urban Chinese women were found to have the highest exposure to respective advertising messages in a recent survey.
Due to its high price, the global market for baby formula is large at almost $54 billion.
The above survey also names Vietnam as a country saturated with such marketing. It was identified as the fifth biggest formula market by Statista, while another Asian nation, Indonesia, came in rank 3. Out of the top 5, Vietnam exhibited the highest estimated per-capita spending on infant formula given that estimates say only 17 percent of babies there are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of their lives.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 20:30 - Smith Is No Longer In A Hurry: Special Counsel Moves To Slow Down District Court Judge
Smith Is No Longer In A Hurry: Special Counsel Moves To Slow Down District Court Judge
For over a year, Special Counsel Jack Smith has made one element the overriding priority in his prosecution of former president Donald Trump: speed. Smith repeatedly moved to curtail Trump’s appellate rights and demand expedited appeals to try to secure a conviction before the election. In that effort, he found an equally motivated judge in U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who virtually turned her court into a rocket docket to try Trump. Now, in a neck-breaking change of direction, Smith is trying to slow down Chutkan who appears again ready to pull out the stops in this case.
After the mandate in the case was returned to her, Judge Chutkan immediately resumed her high-speed scheduling to look at the pre-trial issues after the Court reversed her earlier rulings on the basis of presidential immunity.
The past problem with a court making speed the priority is that it does not allow much time to create a record. The remand will now require Judge Chutkan to do so on the question of what charges and evidence may be barred under the ruling in Trump v. United States.
As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills.
In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress.
In this decision, the Court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions.
Only hours after receiving the mandate, Judge Chutkin scheduled an Aug. 16 conference to lay out the schedule and issues going forward. The former version of Jack Smith would have been delighted.
He did not even see the need for the right for an en banc appeal in previously pushing for a pre-election trial.
Now, however, Smith is telling Judge Chutkin to slow down already.
Smith told the court that:
“The Government continues to assess the new precedent set forth last month in the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. Although those consultations are well underway, the Government has not finalized its position on the most appropriate schedule for the parties to brief issues related to the decision.”
He has asked for a three-week delay to further consider what he wants to do. It is not clear if the press and pundits will now charge Smith with “slow walking” the case.
The question is whether Smith is considering a drastic move in light of the calendar and the ruling. There is, of course, always the possibility that he either throws in the towel or opts for a post-election trial. That would certainly go against the grain of Smith, who has always pushed both the law and the calendar to the breaking point. However, as some of us have been arguing for months, he may no longer view a trial as a plausible objective.
There is also the possibility that Smith will do something that some of us have discussed over the last year: pare down his case. Smith has always been undone by his appetite. As shown in his 8-0 reversal in his conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Smith has rarely shown moderation as a prosecutor.
His overloaded criminal complaints created this disaster for his team.
In Florida, Smith unwisely loaded up the prosecution with controversial charges on the retention of classified material. It not only triggered difficult challenges but slowed the case to a crawl as the parties dealt with classification laws. Had he proceeded solely on obstruction charges, he might have secured his trial before the election (and before the recent ruling on immunity). Even if the reduced case was heard by the Court on immunity, an obstruction case would have been far stronger for Smith.
The same is true with the D.C. case. Smith loaded up the case to raise the January 6th speech and other issues. Most were unnecessary, but Smith used his press conference to denounce the January 6th riot.
A three-week delay will give Smith ample time (in addition to the weeks following the Supreme Court decision) to deliberate. However, it will take roughly a month off the calendar for just internal debate with the election only three months away.
So, even with a judge who appears chomping at the bit to resume the fast track to trial, Smith now wants more time. Even before this request, it was hard to see how a trial could be held before the election. Now it seems a virtual certainty that any trial will have to await the results of the election. As I wrote in 2023, the odds were against a federal trial before the election, which would convert the voters into the largest jury in history.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 20:05 - Million Dollar Ba-Boy: Genetic Male Wins Gold In Women's Olympic Boxing
Million Dollar Ba-Boy: Genetic Male Wins Gold In Women’s Olympic Boxing
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, a genetic male, won a gold medal in the Paris Olympics Friday night after beating 13 women to snatch victory in the walterweight final.
The 25-year-old Khelif – who was disqualified from last year’s IBA World Championships for failing a gender test, beat China’s Yang Liu in front of a packed audience at Roland Garros – capping off a controversial path to first place in which the boxer didn’t lose a single round.
🚨 IMANE KHALIF STEALS GOLD MEDAL IN WOMEN’S BOXING.
Today, the IOC allowed a male boxer with XY chromosomes to win a gold medal in women’s boxing, beating 4 women to get there.
For shame. Women’s sports is a joke.
SAVE WOMEN’S SPORTS. #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/Zms6jACk2r
— Hazel Appleyard (@HazelAppleyard_) August 9, 2024
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After winning, Khelif could be seen with a raised arm in a mock military salute before being carried around the ring.
As the Daily Mail notes, questions have been raised over whether Khelif should have been permitted to fight in the women’s competition in Paris, where eligibility rules were lax compared to the IBA.
The IBA was stripped of its right to run the Olympic competition amid a war with Games bosses the IOC. As a result, there are no gender or testosterone exams in Paris and the category is open to those who have ‘female’ in their passport.
Khelif, who roared ‘I am a woman’ after cruising to quarter-final victory, has been the subject of a wave of online abuse.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, who was also disqualified from the IBA World Championships, will fight for gold in the featherweight division on Saturday night.
There has been a massive controversy over whether Khelif was actually born a male or a female – with some claiming ‘she’ has hyperandrogenism, a condition which features higher-than-usual levels of androgens (male hormones), however earlier this year IBA president Umar Kremlev told Russian news agency TASS that DNA tests “proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded from the sports events.”
The IBA told The Guardian that it had made the decision “following a comprehensive review and was intended to uphold the fairness and integrity of the competition.”
Last week the IOC and the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit issued a joint statement saying that every athlete competing in the 2024 games had complied with their regulations.
“All athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations set by the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU).”
And since there were no gender tests, and all that was required was a passport that says ‘female,’ they complied.
Meanwhile, IOC President Thomas Bach claims there are ‘zero scientific ways’ to identify a woman.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Bach just said we have zero scientific ways to identify a woman pic.twitter.com/LUqsrNXLr3
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 9, 2024
The balls on these people…
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It’s no secret men can easily beat the fuck out of women. That’s why we carry a gun.
— Valentina Gomez (@ValentinaForSOS) August 9, 2024
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Fuck the Olympics. This is horrific.
— Alexander (@AlexandrTheOkay) August 9, 2024
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 19:40 - RNC Asks Supreme Court To Reinstate Arizona's Citizenship Check Voting Laws
RNC Asks Supreme Court To Reinstate Arizona’s Citizenship Check Voting Laws
Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is asking on the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate an Arizona law requiring voters to prove their U.S. citizenship for the upcoming presidential election.
An elections worker inspects a mail-in ballot in Phoenix on Nov. 6, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) In an application for emergency relief filed on Aug. 8, the RNC asked Justice Elena Kagan to block a previous lower-court ruling that put the state law on hold.
The Committee centered much of its filing around how the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handled the matter.
The laws at the center of the debate are H.B. 2492 and H.B. 2243—collectively known as the “Voting Laws”—which were passed by the Arizona Legislature in 2022.
Among other things, they require that people who register to vote in Arizona using a state form provide “satisfactory” proof of citizenship or residency, such as a birth certificate, to be eligible to vote.
The laws also require individuals to include their state or country of birth and mandate that counties conduct citizenship checks and remove non-citizens from the rolls.
Although a district judge partially blocked the law in 2023 after ruling that federal laws, not state, take precedence when it comes to proof of citizenship for voters, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit later stayed the injunction.
In July, another panel of judges granted a request from Republicans to reinstate some but not all parts of the laws.
However, the same panel turned down the RNC’s bid to require election officials to check records from the Social Security Administration and other databases to ensure individuals who do not provide proof of citizenship are actually citizens.
In its Aug. 8 filing, the RNC said the Ninth Circuit’s reversal violates what’s known as the Purcell principle, which bars federal courts from enjoining the enforcement of state election laws with an election impending.
“The principle recognizes the important interests state officials have in protecting their elections and avoiding voter confusion,” the RNC wrote. “But the Ninth Circuit turned this principle against the enforcement of state election-integrity laws.”
It further argued that the district court’s injunction is an “unprecedented abrogation of the Arizona Legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections.”
Voting Rights Group Sue to Block Arizona Laws
The district court’s judgment will also “irreparably harm” the RNC, while a stay in the matter “would not inflict any countervailing harms on the plaintiffs or the public interest,” the Committee said in its filing.
Republicans are asking for the court to rule on the issue by Aug. 22.
While Arizona lawmakers have said the voting laws are needed to prevent voter fraud, voting rights groups—including the Arizona-based Mi Familia Vota and Living United for Change in Arizona—quickly filed lawsuits against both measures.
In court filings, the groups argued the measures were discriminatory, confusing, and unnecessary, among other things.
Current Arizona law states that, in order to be qualified to vote in Arizona, a person “must be a United States citizen, a resident of Arizona, and at least eighteen years of age.”
Section 2. A of the state’s election law specifically says: “No person shall be entitled to vote at any general election, or for any office that now is, or hereafter may be, elective by the people, or upon any question which may be submitted to a vote of the people, unless such person be a citizen of the United States of the age of eighteen years or over, and shall have resided in the state for the period of time preceding such election as prescribed by law, provided that qualifications for voters at a general election for the purpose of electing presidential electors shall be as prescribed by law.”
The law notes that “citizen” is defined as “persons of the male and female sex.”
In a statement, the RNC called the application for emergency relief a “critical legal step in ensuring Americans decide American elections,” and said it is important that “only citizens vote in our elections, especially by mail.”
If successful, the move will allow Arizona to “enforce proof of citizenship requirements” in the upcoming presidential election, the RNC said.
“Requiring proof of citizenship is common sense and fundamental to preserving the integrity of our elections – especially in our country’s most important presidential election,” said RNC Chairman Michael Whatley. “This application in the Supreme Court is pivotal to ensuring that Arizonans’ votes are not canceled by non-citizens. ”
“Non-citizen voting is illegal and we are taking every possible action to ensure American elections are decided solely by Americans,” Whatley added.
The Epoch Times has contacted Mi Familia Vota and Living United for Change in Arizona for comment.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 19:15 - Cartel Drones Fly With Explosives Near Southern Border
Cartel Drones Fly With Explosives Near Southern Border
Vice President Kamala Harris’ role as President Biden’s “border czar” has sparked the worst border crisis in American history, a fact well known by now. However, a new report highlights a concerning new threat stream: drug cartels on the southern border are increasingly weaponizing drones with explosives, similar to what’s being seen on modern battlefields in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. All of this is happening under VP Harris’ watch.
Here’s the report from the New York Post:
Cartel drones packed with explosives are flying just south of Arizona’s border with Mexico, The Post has learned, alarming Senate defense hawks who are pushing for legislation to counter novel aerial incursions into the US.
Members of Los Salazar, a cell of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, are using drones “to drop explosives” on Los Pelones, an independent rival cartel, as part of ongoing conflict in Sonoyta, Mexico, according to an internal bulletin circulated by the US Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector Intelligence Unit on Tuesday.
The US Border Patrol’s internal bulletin noted the following:
The Yuma Sector Intelligence Unit recently received information that members of Los Salazar are utilizing drones to drop explosives on members of Los Pelones in an ongoing confrontation south of Sonoyta, MX. Other confrontations between these two organizations have occurred along the border, south of Wellton Stations area of operations, in recent months.
Souce: NYPost Separately, US Northern Command’s top general, Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing in mid-March that more than 1,000 incursions of drones occur along the southern border each month.
Guillot warned lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the incursions present a “growing” defense threat to the homeland.
Since the Biden-Harris Administration assumed office, there have been more than 8 million illegal aliens encountered entering the country through the southwest border and over 1.6 million ‘gotaways.’
Biden-Harris’ border crisis is an absolute mess, which has contributed to murders, sexual assaults, and serious bodily injuries committed against numerous Americans by illegal aliens.
Earlier this week, an interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, revealed nearly 100 illegal aliens on the FBI terror watchlist were released into the US after being arrested by Border Patrol.
Most Americans care about two things before the elections: 1) inflation and 2) the border.
For Harris and Obama’s Democrat party, there’s no escaping that disastrous border issue.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 18:50 - Harris's Big Gift To Trump… If He Uses It
Harris’s Big Gift To Trump… If He Uses It
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via X,
Harris’s selection of Walz at least reveals the left’s full-bore agenda, something that previously her handlers seemed at pains to hide: an overt doubling down on the Biden neo-socialist record that will require a far more vigorous stealth 90-day campaign to camouflage the hard-left record of both Harris and Walz.
Minnesota under Walz became merely a smaller version of Gavin Newsom’s California – shameless woke pandering, wars against fossil fuels, fiscal nihilism, thousands fleeing the state, high crime, high taxes, poor services, sanctuary city/pro-illegal alien activism, eroding downtowns of once majestic cities, loud-in-your-face, attack-dog denials of reality, a two-tier state legal system, tolerance of BLM/Antifa/Hamas street violence, and on and on.
So Walz is a force multiplier of Harris’s vulnerabilities.
His selection (was Harris terrified of leftwing threats from her base that a Shapiro pick would guarantee her 1968-like riots at her Chicago convention?) did not just reveal the now overt anti-Semitic, anti-Israel nature of the Democratic Party (Shapiro would have likely ensured Pennsylvania’s electoral votes). Her pick also reveals the confidence that the Left has in winning what will be the most flagrant, bait-and-switch 90-day campaign in presidential history.
So, the real Harris-Walz campaign messaging will be: ‘In 2024 we have to lie and mislead you about who we are and what we did, so that in 2025 we can govern you in ways you will not like.’
What are the challenges for this weirdest of tickets?
Harris, in Biden-fashion, cannot finish a coherent thought. So again, like Biden in 2020, she will retreat and outsource her campaign to the media, while counting on outspending Trump 3-1, and radiating feigned moderation.
She is taking heat for neither yet meeting with a real journalist nor speaking impromptu. But in her defense, to do either might at any opportune moment collapse her stealth campaign, given that to listen to her for 60 seconds off script is to prefer her to remain silent and hidden. And she has confidence in absentia that a bankrupt media will praise her nonexistent elegance, fluency, and articulateness.
Walz will customarily serve as a designated hit man for Harris. But he is just as much a liability— a shoot-from-the-hip blowhard, while owning an even more embarrassing leftwing record than Harris. And he is even less discreet.
This week Walz introduced himself to the nation as a VP candidate by smearing J.D. Vance with the brazen “couch” lie. And then while foolishly beaming, he doubled-down on his crude slur (“See what I did there?”). So, he even outdid Harris who had recently called Trump a “predator”—just days before it was disclosed that her married husband earlier had once impregnated his own children’s young nanny and tutor and had never disclosed what followed from his predation.
Both will either ignore or lie about their joint opposition to fracking and pipelines; their disgraceful pro-BLM/Antifa advocacy during the lethal and destructive 2020 looting and rioting; their support for open borders and illegal immigration; their woke pandering; and their generic leftwing promotion of the usual high taxes, big government, poor services, and ‘who cares if they flee my state’ arrogance.
The Harris-Walz ticket will also collapse if, horribile dictu, the prior Biden-Harris appeasement of Iran, distancing from Israel, weakening of the military, and loss of deterrence in the next 90 days leads to theater-wide wars on the Ukrainian borderlands or in the Middle East and/or to a recession due to cumulative inflation, high interest, stagnant wages and anemic citizen employment, and unsustainable national debt service.
In sum, Trump is very much even in the race. He was given a rare gift by the shunning of Josh Shapiro as Harris’s running mate. That leftwing blunder could energize the Trump campaign—if again he sticks to warning the country of who these two are, what they have done, how they are hiding their real agendas, what they will do if elected, and how they differ from his own presidential record and future agenda.
Nothing else matters.
And that means Trump should ignore the now inert and evaporating Biden, refrain from attacking any Republican, stop all recriminations about 2020, avoid race and DEI ambushes, and prep hard and in detail for as many debates as he can obtain.
Trump should appear magnanimous and above the fray by compromising with Harris on the debates: one debate now by her rules on ABC, and one by his rules on Fox before early voting begins.
Rarely have the Democrats so foolishly gone hard left.
And when they did in 1972, 1980, and 1988, Republicans used to know how to use those gifts, expose them, and win landslides despite media and institutional bias.
They can do it again, but only if they are as adroit, united, and disciplined as their predecessors once were.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 18:25 - Iran's New President Battling IRGC Hardliners Over Tempering Response To Israel: Telegraph
Iran’s New President Battling IRGC Hardliners Over Tempering Response To Israel: Telegraph
While Western mainstream media in general has a terrible record of reporting on Iran and its intentions, a fresh report in The Telegraph comes to an interesting conclusion concerning the prospect of major war breaking out with Israel.
It claims that there is an ongoing severe internal split among Iran’s top decision-makers on how to respond to Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month. Well over a week after the July 31st assassination, and the ballistic missiles have still been held back, despite several vows of severe retaliation against Israel being issued from Iranian leadership.
New Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian is said to be fighting hardliners especially within the military establishment, specifically leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), over the extent of a response. Pezeshkian reportedly wants a toned down and limited response, akin to the April 13th missile and drone attack on Israel – which was something highly telegraphed and thus averted all-out war. The IRGC is ready to launch a much bigger operation, the report says.
Via APF Pezeshkian, widely viewed as a ‘moderate’, wants to strike hidden Mossad spy bases in the region, while IRGC generals have pressed for more aggressive retaliation which is direct in nature, The Telegraph says. According to the publication’s sources within the Iranian government:
“These recent [military]exercises in the country’s western border are just to intimidate Mr Pezeshkian. Sepah [the IRGC] is very insistent on targeting Israel and they think it is easy,” a second aide to Mr Pezeshkian told The Telegraph.
“He has suggested targeting somewhere related to Israel in the Republic of Azerbaijan or [Iraqi] Kurdistan and let these countries know before that and get done with the whole drama.”
The Telegraph report further paints a picture of a somewhat rogue IRGC leadership which has by and large dismissed the newly installed president as too weak.
The IRGC is directly answerable to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, so if this is accurate it means there is currently some distance between the Ayatollah and Pezeshkian’s office as well.
The UK-based report says an IRGC official has conveyed: “The number one consideration is still striking Tel Aviv with Hezbollah and others at the same time.” The official is further cited as saying, “There has been discussion within the forces on how to block Mr. Pezeshkian’s efforts. Almost everyone believes what he is insisting on is not in the revolution’s reputation.”
🚨#BREAKING: Is Iran bluffing?
U.S. Secretary of State, told Members of the G7 during a Conference Call last tonight, that Iran could launch an Attack against Israel in the next 24-48 Hours
but all Iran has done so far is air war propaganda videos, threaten that they have… pic.twitter.com/kp9bKQt65V
— Wesley Marius (@WesleyMarius) August 5, 2024
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But again, whether the report detailing this alleged back-and-forth between moderate and conservative factions within Iran over how to respond to Israel is accurate remains an open question.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 18:00 - Abbott Orders Texas Hospitals To Report Health Care Costs For Illegal Immigrants
Abbott Orders Texas Hospitals To Report Health Care Costs For Illegal Immigrants
Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order on Aug. 8 requiring that hospitals collect data on patients living illegally in the United States and report the costs of medical services provided to them.
In a statement, Abbott said he aims to collect data on illegal immigrants who use public hospitals so that Texas can seek reimbursement from the federal government for their medical expenses.
“Texas will hold the Biden-Harris Administration accountable for the consequences of their open border policies, and we will fight to ensure that they pay back Texas for their costly and dangerous policies,” the Republican governor stated.
Under the executive order, Texas hospitals are required to collect data on inpatient discharges and emergency visits by illegal immigrants, as well as the costs of medical services provided to them, starting on Nov. 1.
Hospitals will need to report the information to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) by March 1, 2025, and continue reporting data on a quarterly basis.
The executive order also requires that hospitals inform patients that, under federal law, their responses to questions about their immigrant status will not affect patient care.
It stated that HHSC will need to report annually to the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the House speaker on the preceding year’s costs for medical care provided to illegal immigrants starting Jan. 1, 2026.
Abbott said that people in Texas should not have to “shoulder the burden” of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Texas Hospital Association (THA), representing over 85 percent of the state’s acute-care hospitals and health care systems, said that it is reviewing Abbott’s executive order “as quickly as possible.”
“Right now, hospitals don’t ask about patient immigration status as a condition of treatment,” THA said in a statement.
“Hospitals are required by law to provide life-saving treatment to anyone, regardless of ability to pay or status.”
More than 1,000 illegal immigrants wait in line to be processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Dec. 18, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Texas has seen a 74 percent decrease in illegal border crossings since the launch of the state’s border security mission, dubbed Operation Lone Star, in March 2021, the governor’s office stated on June 14.
As part of the initiative, state authorities have deployed floating border barriers, installed wire fencing, and used the Texas National Guard to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
According to the statement, the multi-agency effort has led to over 513,700 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 44,000 criminal arrests, with more than 38,600 felony charges so far.
The Texas governor criticized President Joe Biden’s recent executive actions, announced by the White House in June, stating that they “will do little to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the country.”
“As long as the Biden Administration refuses to provide any type of enforcement, any type of blockage, of people crossing illegally, all that this new Biden policy is going to do is to actually attract and invite even more people to cross the border illegally,” Abbott said in the statement.
According to a White House fact sheet published on June 4, the executive orders will bar illegal immigrants from receiving asylum when border officials deem illegal border crossings are at “high levels.”
“This ban will remain in place until the number of people trying to enter illegally is reduced to a level that our system can effectively manage,” Biden said at a news conference on June 4.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 1.44 million encounters with people trying to enter the United States nationwide as of June 2024.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 17:40 - Putin Said To Be Stunned By Ukraine's Shock Attacks On Kursk & Lipetsk
Putin Said To Be Stunned By Ukraine’s Shock Attacks On Kursk & Lipetsk
In addition to the ongoing Ukrainian cross-border offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, Russia has been hit hard by a “massive attack” of drones Thursday and Friday, Lipetsk’s regional governor has said Friday.
The chief target appears to have been a nearby airfield. “The enemy is hitting civilians in Kursk and Belgorod,” Gov. Igor Artamonov wrote on Telegram. “Today [it] massively attacked our region with drones. We will not be frightened, we will not give in, but we are not going to risk the lives of our people either.”
The Ukrainian National News agency has claimed that some 700 guided bombs were destroyed in the strike on Lipetsk airfield. Russia’s defense ministry subsequently said it intercepted at least 75 “aircraft-type” drones in the southern region, and others were sent over Crimea and the Black Sea. The Skhemy investigative project of US state-funded Radio Liberty has circulated the following before and after satellite images of the airfield…
Thousands of civilians were already evacuated in Kursk, which has seen intense battles over the past four days of what appears an outright Ukrainian invasion attempt; and on Friday at least hundreds have been evacuated in western Lipetsk. Several villages have been emptied out amid a state of emergency.
New reporting by a source which claims to have an insider’s view on the Kremlin’s halls of power says President Putin and his top officials were caught off guard and stunned by these developments:
Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk and Lipetsk border regions has stunned the Russian military and come as a “slap in the face” to President Vladimir Putin personally, four Russian officials told Politika.Kozlov.
The ongoing offensive, which Russia has failed to repel for three days, has exposed Russia’s territorial defense shortcomings and undermined Putin’s propaganda coup as the rescuer of an FSB hitman and failed Russian spies in last week’s prisoner swap with the West.
“The chief [Putin] was in a poor mood… He probably hasn’t been seen like this since our [Russian army] was forced to retreat from Kherson in the fall of 2022,” said an official involved in preparing Kremlin events involving Putin.
The official, along with Politika.Kozlov’s other sources, spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.
Putin’s appearance and facial expressions during his public appearances on Wednesday and Thursday indicated that he was “dissatisfied” and “annoyed” with the situation, several Russian officials who have known Putin personally for years told Politika.Kozlov.
This also comes as images and videos widely circulate which point to serious Russian troop losses in these cross-border attacks on Kursk and Lipetsk.
Russian military surrenders at the Sudzha checkpoint. Ukraine forces have also filmed themselves in possession of Gazprom natural gas facility in Sudzha…
⚡Ukrainian media outlets publish video showing Ukrainian soldiers saying they control Gazprom facility in Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region pic.twitter.com/YhGEbmJ5oB
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) August 9, 2024
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Pro-Russian military bloggers have acknowledged the authenticity of many of these videos, and the troop losses which they reveal:
A video that surfaced online appears to show bodies on burnt-out Russian military trucks in the country’s southwestern Kursk region, the latest sign that Ukraine’s cross-border assault is probing more deeply and inflicting significant damage on Moscow’s troops.
In the daytime video – shared by Russian military bloggers and independent outlets, and geolocated by CNN – about a dozen trucks are seen on the side of a road in the village of Oktyabrskoye, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) east of the town of Rylsk, appearing to contain dozens of dead bodies.
…The video, which a Russian military blogger says shows the aftermath of a Ukrainian strike Thursday night, comes three days after Kyiv shifted tactics with a surprise incursion into Russian territory.
Despite these attempts of Ukrainian forces to capture territory inside Russia being essentially a suicide mission, Kiev is spiking the proverbial football and is seizing the moment to lobby for even more muscular Western military support.
Watch Putin’s face while Gerasimov speaks
‘Ukrainian forces lost 54 armored vehicles and 7 tanks in the Kursk attack.’ pic.twitter.com/s5nvxjRgRo
— OSINTNic (@OSINTNic) August 7, 2024
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Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, claimed that most of Ukraine’s Western allies “quietly approve” of the cross-border action.
Podolyak has praised the West’s reaction to the surprise assault as being “absolutely calm, balanced, objective, and based on an understanding of the spirit of international law and the principles of defensive warfare.” He added: “Now, a significant part of the global community considers [Russia] a legitimate target for any operations and types of weapons.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 17:20 - There's Just One Problem: AI Isn't Intelligent, And That's A Systemic Risk
There’s Just One Problem: AI Isn’t Intelligent, And That’s A Systemic Risk
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Mimicry of intelligence isn’t intelligence, and so while AI mimicry is a powerful tool, it isn’t intelligent.
The mythology of Technology has a special altar for AI, artificial intelligence, which is reverently worshiped as the source of astonishing cost reductions (as human labor is replaced by AI) and the limitless expansion of consumption and profits. AI is the blissful perfection of technology’s natural advance to ever greater powers.
The consensus holds that the advance of AI will lead to a utopia of essentially limitless control of Nature and a cornucopia of leisure and abundance.
If we pull aside the mythology’s curtain, we find that AI mimics human intelligence, and this mimicry is so enthralling that we take it as evidence of actual intelligence. But mimicry of intelligence isn’t intelligence, and so while AI mimicry is a powerful tool, it isn’t intelligent.
The current iterations of Generative AI–large language models (LLMs) and machine learning–mimic our natural language ability by processing millions of examples of human writing and speech and extracting what algorithms select as the best answers to queries.
These AI programs have no understanding of the context or the meaning of the subject; they mine human knowledge to distill an answer. This is potentially useful but not intelligence.
The AI programs have limited capacity to discern truth from falsehood, hence their propensity to hallucinate fictions as facts. They are incapable of discerning the difference between statistical variations and fatal errors, and layering on precautionary measures adds additional complexity that becomes another point of failure.
As for machine learning, AI can project plausible solutions to computationally demanding problems such as how proteins fold, but this brute-force computational black-box is opaque and therefore of limited value: the program doesn’t actually understand protein folding in the way humans understand it, and we don’t understand how the program arrived at its solution.
Since AI doesn’t actually understand the context, it is limited to the options embedded in its programming and algorithms. We discern these limits in AI-based apps and bots, which have no awareness of the actual problem. For example, our Internet connection is down due to a corrupted system update, but because this possibility wasn’t included in the app’s universe of problems to solve, the AI app/bot dutifully reports the system is functioning perfectly even though it is broken. (This is an example from real life.)
In essence, every layer of this mining / mimicry creates additional points of failure: the inability to identify the difference between fact and fiction or between allowable error rates and fatal errors, the added complexity of precautionary measures and the black-box opacity all generate risks of normal accidents cascading into systems failure.
There is also the systemic risk generated by relying on black-box AI to operate systems to the point that humans lose the capacity to modify or rebuild the systems. This over-reliance on AI programs creates the risk of cascading failure not just of digital systems but the real-world infrastructure that now depends on digital systems.
There is an even more pernicious result of depending on AI for solutions. Just as the addictive nature of mobile phones, social media and Internet content has disrupted our ability to concentrate, focus and learn difficult material–a devastating decline in learning for children and teens–AI offers up a cornucopia of snackable factoids, snippets of coding, computer-generated TV commercials, articles and entire books that no longer require us to have any deep knowledge of subjects and processes. Lacking this understanding, we’re no longer equipped to pursue skeptical inquiry or create content or coding from scratch.
Indeed, the arduous process of acquiring this knowledge now seems needless: the AI bot can do it all, quickly, cheaply and accurately. This creates two problems: 1) when black-box AI programs fail, we no longer know enough to diagnose and fix the failure, or do the work ourselves, and 2) we have lost the ability to understand that in many cases, there is no answer or solution that is the last word: the “answer” demands interpretation of facts, events, processes and knowledge bases are that inherently ambiguous.
We no longer recognize that the AI answer to a query is not a fact per se, it’s an interpretation of reality that’s presented as a fact, and the AI solution is only one of many pathways, each of which has intrinsic tradeoffs that generate unforeseeable costs and consequences down the road.
To discern the difference between an interpretation and a supposed fact requires a sea of knowledge that is both wide and deep, and in losing the drive and capacity to learn difficult material, we’ve lost the capacity to even recognize what we’ve lost: those with little real knowledge lack the foundation needed to understand AI’s answer in the proper context.
The net result is we become less capable and less knowledgeable, blind to the risks created by our loss of competency while the AI programs introduce systemic risks we cannot foresee or forestall. AI degrades the quality of every product and system, for mimicry does not generate definitive answers, solutions and insights, it only generates an illusion of definitive answers, solutions and insights which we foolishly confuse with actual intelligence.
While the neofeudal corporate-state cheers the profits to be reaped by culling human labor on a mass scale, the mining / mimicry of human knowledge has limits. Relying on the AI programs to eliminate all fatal errors is itself a fatal error, and so humans must remain in the decision loop (the OODA loop of observe, orient, decide, act).
Once AI programs engage in life-safety or healthcare processes, every entity connected to the AI program is exposed to open-ended (joint and several) liability should injurious or fatal errors occur.
If we boil off the mythology and hyperbole, we’re left with another neofeudal structure: the wealthy will be served by humans, and the rest of us will be stuck with low-quality, error-prone AI service with no recourse.
The expectation of AI promoters is that Generative AI will reap trillions of dollars in profits from cost savings and new products / services. This story doesn’t map the real world, in which every AI software tool is easily copied / distributed and so it will be impossible to protect any scarcity value, which is the essential dynamic in maintaining the pricing power needed to reap outsized profits.
There is little value in software tools that everyone possesses unless a monopoly restricts distribution, and little value in the content auto-generated by these tools: the millions of AI-generated songs, films, press releases, essays, research papers, etc. will overwhelm any potential audience, reducing the value of all AI-generated content to zero.
The promoters claim the mass culling of jobs will magically be offset by entire new industries created by AI, echoing the transition from farm labor to factory jobs. But the AI dragon will eat its own tail, for it creates few jobs or profits that can be taxed to pay people for not working (Universal Basic Income).
Perhaps the most consequential limit to AI is that it will do nothing to reverse humanity’s most pressing problems. It can’t clean up the Great Pacific Trash Gyre, or limit the 450 million tons of mostly unrecycled plastic spewed every year, or reverse climate change, or clean low-Earth orbits of the thousands of high-velocity bits of dangerous detritus, or remake the highly profitable waste is growth Landfill Economy into a sustainable global system, or eliminate all the sources of what I term Anti-Progress. It will simply add new sources of systemic risk, waste and neofeudal exploitation.
* * *
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 17:00 - Investors Flooded Into Money-Market Funds & Bank Deposits As Markets Crashed
Investors Flooded Into Money-Market Funds & Bank Deposits As Markets Crashed
Money-market fund assets rose to a fresh record ($6.19TN) as a global selloff in risk assets earlier in the week sent investors flying into cash. About $52.7BN flowed into US money-market funds in the week through Aug. 7, the largest weekly inflows since the period ended April 3 (Tax-Day prep)…
Source: Bloomberg
Also of note this week, demand for a rarely used Federal Reserve facility rose to the highest level in almost a month on Thursday as counterparties tested its accessibility.
Counterparties tapped the Fed’s Standing Repo Facility, or SRF – where eligible banks can borrow reserves in exchange for Treasury and agency debt – for $101 million on Thursday, the most since July 11.
There’s been at least one pop in usage every month since February, which suggests banks are testing their systems, though with minuscule amounts for a facility that at its peak attracted $153 billion in March 2020
Source: Bloomberg
Reserves are closing in on the $3 trillion level Federal Reserve Board member Christopher Waller has touched upon as the lowest comfortable level of reserves, i.e. the level that funding problems could manifest.
The RRP represents a sort of buffer on top of the current level of reserves, as (principally) money market funds can draw down it, adding to reserves in the process.
Source: Bloomberg
As all of that was happening, and yen carry trades unwound, US bank deposits soared on both a seasonally-adjusted (+$90BN) and non-seasonally-adjusted (+$189BN) basis.
That surge pushes SA deposits back above pre-SVB levels for the first time…
Source: Bloomberg
The NSA rise is the largest since May 2023 and the SA rise in deposits is the largest since the end of April 2024.
Excluding foreign flows, US domestic deposits spiked dramatically: +$77BN SA (large banks +$75BN, small banks +$2BN)…, +$179BN NSA (large banks +$149BN, small banks +$30BN)…
Source: Bloomberg
On the other side of the ledge, loan volumes soared by their most since the start of the year with large bank loan volumes rising $16.8BN and small bank loan volumes up $2.7BN…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, we note that as reserves fade, US equity market capitalization has begun to catch down to that long-tight-correlation…
Source: Bloomberg
The question is – how long will The Fed allow this to drop before juicing reserves once again?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/09/2024 – 16:40
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