Dec 10

Today’s News 10th December 2024

  • Here's What Has To Happen To Prevent Post-Assad Syria From Collapsing
    Here’s What Has To Happen To Prevent Post-Assad Syria From Collapsing

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

    The epic collapse of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) over the past ten days and Assad’s cowardly flight from Damascus early Sunday morning herald the dawn of a new Syria.

    The most immediate risk is that the entire country collapses just like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya before it.

    That could create a black hole of instability from which innumerable global terrorist threats could emerge. Here’s what has to happen to prevent post-Assad Syria from experiencing that dark future:

    1. The Army & The Security Services Must Remain Intact

    The three preceding cases of state collapse were characterized by the army and the security services dissolving shortly after their foreign-backed regime change plots succeeded. In Syria’s case, the SAA still exists as an institution even though it’s on the retreat to who knows where, perhaps to the Alawite-majority coast. It’s therefore imperative that it doesn’t fall apart and cooperates with the non-terrorist anti-government opposition (NTAGO) to ensure that everything doesn’t spiral out of control.

    2. Political Reform Must Begin Without Delay

    Lavrov repeatedly emphasized during his interview at Saturday’s Doha Forum that that the Syrian government and the NTAGO must immediately implement UNSC Resolution 2254 from late 2015, which calls for drastic political reforms such as a new constitution and UN-supervised elections. It was Assad’s refusal to compromise with the NTAGO that ultimately led to this disaster. Prime Minister Jalali will reportedly serve as caretaker leader during the political transition, however, which is a positive sign.

    3. The Russian-Written Draft Constitution Must Be Revived

    It was assessed late last month that one of “The Five Reasons Why Syria Was Caught By Surprise” is because Assad rejected the Russian-written draft constitution from January 2017’s first Astana Summit, which was constructively critiqued in detail here at the time. With him out of the way, the multiple concessions that this document called for Damascus to make might finally become a reality, and they might even be taken further than its authors initially envisaged given the new circumstances.

    4. The Alawite & Kurdish Minorities Must Be Protected

    The Alawite coast remains outside the control of Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorists for now as does the US-backed Kurdish-controlled northeast, both minorities of which must be protected from the jihadists. To that end, the aforesaid document could lay the basis for broad Bosnian-like federalized autonomy that could result in the coast falling under Russia’s “sphere of influence”, as could the northeast if Trump withdraws US forces from there like RFJ Jr. claimed that he plans to do.

    5. The Interim Government Must Maintain Russia’s Bases

    And finally, Russia can help the interim Syrian government fight against terrorists just like it helped Assad do from 2015 onward, so they must allow it to maintain its bases for that purpose. Their withdrawal would leave the Syrian state defenseless and the Alawite-majority coast at HTS’ mercy. In fact, since Russia’s intervention in Syria was driven by anti-terrorist motives, it might refuse to withdraw on national security pretexts and possibly midwife an independent coastal state to legitimize its continued presence.

    Post-Assad Syria is on the brink of all-out collapse that could turn it into the world’s largest hotbed of terrorism if this process isn’t soon averted.

    The most effective way to prevent this from happening is following the five pieces of advice from this analysis.

    Anything less would greatly raise the chances of the worst-case scenario transpiring, but even in that event, Russia could still mitigate some of the damage if it continues bombing terrorists in Syria and supports the creation of an independent coastal state.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 23:25

  • Where Corruption Is Or Isn't Seen As A Top Concern
    Where Corruption Is Or Isn’t Seen As A Top Concern

    International Anti-Corruption Day is observed annually on December 9 to raise awareness about the harmful effects of corruption and to promote efforts to combat it.

    Introduced by the United Nations in 2003 following the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, the day emphasizes the global nature of the problem, which erodes public trust, exacerbates inequality and undermines development.

    While corruptions is in fact a global issue, Statista’s Felix Richter shows in the chart below the degree to which people perceive it to be a problem varies greatly across countries. According to Ipsos’ What Worries the World survey, 26 percent of respondents from 29 countries named financial and political corruption as one of the three most pressing issues in their country in November 2024, trailing only crime/violence, inflation, poverty/inequality and unemployment as one of the top five concerns on people’s minds.

    Infographic: Where Corruption Is or Isn't Seen as a Top Concern | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Indonesia and Hungary topped the ranking, with 52 percent of respondents naming corruption as a top 3 worry ahead of Peru (47 percent and South Africa (46 percent).

    This year’s campaign for International Anti-Corruption Day serves as a call to action to build a culture of integrity for younger generations.

    “While young people are significantly affected by corruption, they also have the potential to become powerful agents of change in the fight for a future rooted in integrity,” the campaign website says.

    “Young people must demand accountability and actively participate in anti-corruption efforts.”

    At the other end of the scale, respondents from the Netherlands, Germany and France were most likely not to see corruption as a top 3 issue in their country at 7, 9 and 10 percent of respondents, respectively.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 23:00

  • Policy Blunders – Why The Great Depression Lasted So Long
    Policy Blunders – Why The Great Depression Lasted So Long

    Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER),

    Discover more about the policies that shaped a decade of hardship… and the lessons they hold for today…

    In 1940, Victor Records released the Dust Bowl Ballads, an album of songs written and performed by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. In two volumes and a dozen songs, the folk legend sang about the droughts that plagued North America in waves beginning in 1934 and ending in 1940.

    “On the 14th day of April of 1935, There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky. You could see that dust storm comin’, the cloud looked deathlike black, And through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track. From Oklahoma City to the Arizona line, Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grande, It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down. We thought it was our judgment, we thought it was our doom.”

    The lyrics of these tunes—those above come from “The Great Dust Storm Disaster”—reveal the psychological impact the Dust Bowl had on Americans, in no small part because it corresponded with another historical event: the Great Depression.

    In her new explainer “The Economic Consequences of Populism,” historian Amity Shlaes points out that as the Great Depression dragged on, more and more Americans began to feel as if God had abandoned America. At the pulpit, pastors compared Americans to Job and to the Hebrews in the Book of Exodus confronted by locusts and plagues.

    Shlaes touches on why so Americans felt as they did, noting that throughout the 1930s joblessness remained above 10 percent, while the stock market saw a 90 percent drop from its 1929 high, a peak it would not reach again until the 1950s.

    As Americans endured extended economic plight, many came to believe they were experiencing the wrath of God.

    One needn’t be a religious skeptic to doubt that Americans’ suffering was biblical retribution.

    Today we know that even the Dust Bowl was a man-made ecological disaster, triggered by government wheat subsidies that encouraged unsustainable plowing under of erosion-resistant native plants.

    And historians and economists have written extensively about what triggered the Great Depression: chief among them a lack of liquidity and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that restricted free trade.

    Shlaes points out that far less attention has been paid to the question that should follow.

    “What about the years that followed?

    Why did recovery not return after five years, or after seven?

    It is not, after all, a deflation shock, however sharp, that converted the initial depression, lower case, into a Great Depression, with capital letters.

    It was the duration that made the Depression great.

    Whether monetarist or Keynesian, economists respond to commonsense queries about the later years with a single line:

    ‘That is complicated.’ It is as if a sign has been placed over the period to intimidate the curious: ‘Here Be Dragons.’”

    A decade of misery Americans experienced did not stem from an angry God. A careful reading of the facts of the period suggests they stemmed from bad economic policies, ones initially passed by President Hoover that grew worse under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

    In a highly readable Explainer, Shlaes illustrates the economic mistakes of the Great Depression – which famously included government slaughtering and burying 6.5 million pigs to keep prices high while millions of Americans were going hungry – were even more nonsensical than you realized.

    Discover more about the policies that shaped a decade of hardship—and the lessons they hold for today.

    In her explainer “The Economic Consequences of Populism,” historian Amity Shlaes delves into the Great Depression’s blundering economic policies, illuminating how misguided decisions led to prolonged suffering.

    Yet a final thought, especially relevant now, involves the cost of politicizing economics. Any of us can understand that politicians must back silly or profoundly perverse policies to win an election. Many advocates of free markets will vote for candidates who emphasize anti-market concessions during campaign season, consoling themselves with the fact that the same campaigners, in a kind of aside, occasionally pay lip service to the power of markets. The voter, sometimes naively, hopes that once secure in office, the politicians will deliver the free-market policy. Sometimes, they do.

    What is truly insidious however is when politicians advertise those subpar policies, from tariffs to, say, child credits or make-work jobs, as optimal economics, a guarantee of prosperity. For then, at least for a while, voters believe them. That is what happened in the 1930s. In such cases, the public, like the long-suffering 1930s electorate, becomes complicit in its own deception and disappointment.

    In short, there is a price for placing faith in political leaders as one would in a church, a price for which voters are also responsible. “Have we found our happy valley?” Roosevelt asked when he called for a political license to continue his experimentation from on high in 1936. By reelecting him, even those many voters who did not have New Deal jobs agreed to continue to travel behind Roosevelt in his quest, and to tolerate policy that, at some level, they knew could not deliver. The consequence of this complicity was that second term of Depression.

    The Americans who succumbed to political lures and failed to wind down, halt, block, or attenuate the New Deal were our great grandparents, or at the very least, our forerunners. Americans today owe it to them to forgive that error – and remember it. After all, they and we are one people.

    It is possible therefore to extend the sage Anderson’s point.

    The Great Depression did not endure because God struck America. It endured because our leaders played God. And because we let them.

    Read her fascinating full analysis here: “The Economic Consequences of Populism”

    *  *  *

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

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 22:35

  • NY AG Limits 'Ghost Guns' At Buyback After Exploitation By 3D Printing Community
    NY AG Limits ‘Ghost Guns’ At Buyback After Exploitation By 3D Printing Community

    On X, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a new gun buyback event on Long Island for Saturday. The post was heavily ratio’d, with the usual X users in the reply section bashing the progressive politician and arguing how ineffective gun buybacks are at reducing crime. Meanwhile, it seems like James’ office has learned from previous gun buybacks how not to be exploited by the 3D-printed community.  

    “On Saturday, December 14, we’re hosting a gun buyback event in Bohemia at the True North Community Church from 10AM-1PM,” James’ post read, adding, “No ID is needed, and no questions will be asked.” 

    However, in small italicized font, James’ office wrote:

    “Anyone bringing homemade or 3D-printed guns will be paid a total of $25, regardless of how many are turned in.” 

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    The reason: In 2022, New York’s attorney general had to revise the rules surrounding gun buybacks after an unidentified man from West Virginia exploited a loophole at an event in Utica, New York.

    The man reportedly earned $21,000 in gift cards after turning in 60 printed auto sears, which likely cost him $50 in plastic filament. That’s a heck of a return. 

    “Are you guys going to get scammed by the ppl bringing in those cheap 3d printed guns? It was like an unlimited money glitch for them,” one X user asked James. 

    Someone found another “unlimited money glitch” … 

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    The 3D printer community has woken up to “unlimited money glitch” over the years:

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    James’ office appears to have learned from past mistakes. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 22:10

  • With Trump's Victory, America's Long National Nightmare Is Over
    With Trump’s Victory, America’s Long National Nightmare Is Over

    Authored by David Keltz via American Greatness,

    “My fellow Americans, our long, national nightmare is over,” the soon-to-be President, Gerald R. Ford, declared on August 9, 1974, upon taking the Oath of Office – following President Nixon’s resignation in the aftermath of Watergate.

    Those nine words could not be more appropriate to describe what President Donald J. Trump’s victory means for the United States and the world.

    On January 20, 2025, our long national nightmare will indeed be over.

    We will no longer have a president in serious cognitive decline—bordering on senility—who was never in charge of running the country and allowed his puppet masters to turn the greatest nation in the world into a Bernie Sandersesque socialist hellscape with our borders thrown wide open, our energy supply vastly diminished, our tax dollars spent on Ukraine and Green New Deal boondoggles, our once mighty military wokeified and weakened with recruitments dropping like flies (thanks Lloyd Austin)—our once mighty arsenal of aircraft and ships depleted—and our Justice Department corrupted and weaponized against the left’s political opponents.

    On January 20, 2025, we will no longer have a president who enters his REM cycle soon after sundown while our enemies in Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea plot their next destructive moves—knowing full well that the Ivy League morons in charge of our national security (Blinken & Sullivan) won’t do a damn thing in the way of deterrence.

    The stumbling, feet-shuffling, how-do-I-exit-the-stage, gibberish-speaking Manchurian president, who is somehow worth millions, despite working in government for half a century, will be replaced by a man who built luxury skyscrapers and golf courses all over the world and already presided over one of the most successful terms any president has ever had.

    On January 20, 2025, we will no longer have a vice president who is as dumb as a doorknob and as incompetent as the New York Giants offense—but would otherwise make a fine president of the giggle club.

    Replacing Mrs. Cackles in the second highest office in the land will be another successful businessman and well-respected senator who actually did grow up in poverty and showed us all his intellect, his charm, his cool demeanor, and sound judgment—during his masterful debate performance against one of the creepiest and phoniest individuals ever to seek the vice presidency.

    On January 20, 2025, our adversaries will once again fear us and will be put on notice, should they fail to comply with the world’s greatest superpower—as Trump brilliantly laid out on Truth Social this week:

    “Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire world, in the Middle East—but it’s all talk and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

    In other words, “F*** with us and find out.”

    That is the kind of leadership that has desperately been lacking on the world stage for the past four years.

    January 20, 2025, will also begin the start of a great U.S. economic boom and a cultural revival that has already begun.

    Since Trump’s victory, the stock market has been soaring, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average recently closing at record highs and the value of Bitcoin surpassing $100,000.

    Small businesses and large corporations will no longer be kneecapped by ridiculous regulations and excessive taxes and will not be penalized if, God forbid, they fail to show how woke they are.

    In fact, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Walmart, Starbucks, Boeing, and other corporations are already dismantling their DEI programs and will stop promoting anything having to do with “racial equity” or “LGBTQ.”

    As the great economist Milton Friedman once said, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.”

    And thankfully, the era of woke sports also appears to be dead. Instead of athletes kneeling for the National Anthem, now NFL and college football players do the famous Trump YMCA dance after scoring a touchdown—or after defeating an opponent in the UFC ring.

    These are all positive developments.

    But some things will unfortunately remain the same.

    Hollywood will continue to make anti-white, anti-male, and anti-Christian films that routinely mock middle America. They are free to do so, but their box-office numbers will likely suffer.

    And the leftist media will continue its crusade against conservatives and spew its regular anti-Trump derangement pieces—full of falsehoods and unverified sources that bear little or no resemblance to reality.

    But the good news is, very few people take The New York Times or The Washington Post seriously anymore—with Gallup reporting that just 31 percent of Americans have confidence in the media to fairly and accurately report the news—a new all-time low.

    Thanks to Elon Musk, free speech is no longer an antiquated relic controlled by left-wing tyrants—X is where the masses go to get their news now.

    And thanks to President Trump, there is a renewed sense of pride and love for the country.

    The stars and stripes are back in vogue.

    On January 20, 2025, our long national nightmare will finally be over—unburdened by what has been.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 21:45

  • Sleep Problems Could Be Key Driver Of Chronic Pain, New Study Finds
    Sleep Problems Could Be Key Driver Of Chronic Pain, New Study Finds

    While many believe that pain merely disrupts sleep, research at the UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is challenging this notion by revealing that poor sleep may play a critical role in the onset and worsening of chronic pain.​

    “It’s the biggest unresolved health issue of our time,” David Klyne, a scientist at The University of Queensland in Australia (UQ), said in a press release.

    Klyne’s work shows that up to 90 percent of people with chronic pain also struggle with sleep problems, underscoring how vital sleep is to managing and potentially preventing ongoing discomfort.

    Chronic pain is a debilitating condition for millions around the globe.

    However, new insights suggest that the relationship between pain and sleep may be more complex than previously thought. ​

    As George Citroner writes at The Epoch Times, Klyne wants to change how health care professionals treat patients with ongoing pain.

    He has found that inadequate sleep can lead to chronic pain rather than being solely a consequence of it.

    According to the study, up to 90 percent of people with chronic pain also battle sleep problems, underscoring the crucial role that sleep plays in the experience of pain.

    Expert Opinions on Sleep-Pain Connection

    Between 67 and 88 percent of people with chronic pain experience sleep disruption and insomnia, and approximately 50 percent of people with insomnia report chronic pain, Dr. William Caldwell, medical director of the Center for Pain Management at Stony Brook Medicine, told The Epoch Times.

    Caldwell advocates for a greater emphasis on treating both pain and sleep issues, as substantial evidence links chronic pain with poor sleep quality.

    “In my practice, I specifically ask if a patient’s pain leads to altered sleep behaviors,” Caldwell said.

    “If sleep is altered, a specific focus is made to improve nocturnal pain symptoms that will hopefully lead to more healthy sleep patterns,” he added.

    Klyne’s previous research has indicated a strong correlation between sleep and recovery from pain. For example, people recovering from injuries may heal more rapidly with better sleep.

    Lack of sleep may put extra strain on the nervous and immune systems, making pain worse and potentially leading to chronic conditions.

    IQ Ultra Joint Flex is a comprehensive supplement that supports joint health and mobility. This powerful formula combines Glucosamine, Chondroitin, Quercetin, and MSM to alleviate joint pain, maintain connective tissue integrity, provide antioxidant support, and enhance cartilage synthesis.

    Need for Urgent Attention

    Worldwide, chronic pain causes more disability than cancer and heart disease combined. Sleep has been overlooked as a treatment for pain, according to Klyne, who said he hopes his research will change.

    His team is recruiting participants for clinical trials, targeting people 18 and older who have experienced back pain for at least two days within two weeks.

    Klyne and his team plan to explore how sleep affects pain by having participants wear devices that track sleep patterns and collecting blood and saliva samples to study hormonal and immune responses. “Previous research has focused on understanding the development of new acute or chronic back pain, but this study will look at the far more common experience of fluctuating symptoms in people who live with the condition,” Klein said in a statement.

    The research will examine how the nervous and immune systems respond to both restorative and disrupted sleep. Participants will be awakened at varying times during the night, allowing researchers to gather comprehensive data on how different sleep stages impact recovery and pain levels.

    “This will allow us to examine the most detailed and important information ever collected for this population outside of a laboratory and minimize disruption to participant’s day-to-day activities,” he added.

    This research also ties into Klyne’s broader work exploring how lifestyle factors influence pain, which could prove essential in developing effective treatments.

    Implications for Chronic Pain Treatment

    If Klyne’s findings are confirmed, they could lead to changes in how chronic pain is treated, emphasizing sleep therapy alongside traditional pain management methods.

    IQ Sleep Formula, an all-natural supplement designed to help you unwind and enjoy deep, restful sleep. Packed with essential vitamins, minerals, and a powerful proprietary blend of herbs and amino acids, this formula promotes relaxation, supports your body’s natural sleep cycle, and helps you wake up feeling refreshed and revitalized.

    Recognizing sleep as a critical aspect of treatment might also help prevent the transition from acute pain to potentially debilitating chronic pain.

    Patients who struggle with chronic pain and believe their sleep may be affecting their condition should discuss their concerns with their physician, Caldwell said.

    “If chronic pain is altering sleep, it needs to be addressed directly,” he added.

    “We know that chronic pain and poor sleep are linked, but there are also clear correlations between altered sleep and general overall health.”

    A treatment plan focusing on modalities to address chronic pain and sleep “needs to be developed between the patient and physician,” Caldwell noted.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 21:20

  • HTS Extremists Appoint New Prime Minister Of Syria
    HTS Extremists Appoint New Prime Minister Of Syria

    Via The Cradle

    Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Al-Qaeda affiliate that has just assumed control over Syria, has appointed Mohammad Bashir as the head of a new Syrian transitional authority. Bashir was the prime minister of the HTS-led Salvation Government, which was formed in 2017 and ruled Syria’s northern province of Idlib – where HTS was based before the massive Turkish-backed assault against Syria that began late last month. 

    According to reports on Monday, Bashir has been chosen as the new prime minister of Syria, and is coordinating with outgoing Syrian premier Mohammad al-Jalali, who announced on Sunday that he is ready for a “smooth transition” and will cooperate with “any leadership chosen by the Syrian people.”

    Source: Facebook/@syrianministrymedia

    HTS – formerly known as Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the Nusra Front – has been implicated in numerous atrocities, including kidnapping, public executions, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, and other war crimes. 

    In 2016, the Nusra Front was rebranded and expanded into Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a coalition of armed factions with support from Qatar. The following year, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham became HTS in another Qatari-sponsored rebranding initiative aimed at legitimizing the group. 

    HTS has been a proscribed terrorist organization by the UN, US, UK, and EU. Despite a large US bounty on the head of HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the extremist leader sat with CNN for an interview last week. 

    Officials in Washington are considering removing HTS from the US terror list, The Washington Post reported on 9 December. “US officials are in contact with all the groups involved in fighting in Syria, including the main group that ousted Assad, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was once affiliated with Al-Qaeda and remains on a US terrorist list,” the newspaper wrote. 

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    A US official told the outlet that the US government has not ruled out removing the terror designation from HTS to enable deeper US contact and cooperation with the group.

    “We have to be smart … and also very mindful and pragmatic about the realities on the ground,” the official said.

    Another US official said the White House is in the process of conducting a “real-time assessment” about HTS, which took control of Damascus on Saturday after a lightning two-week offensive launched from its stronghold in Syria’s northwest Idlib governorate. 

    Meanwhile Syrian embassies around the world are hoisting a new flag:

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    The UK government is also considering removing HTS from the list of banned terrorist groups.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 20:55

  • Understanding The Implications Of The CME's New 1oz Gold Futures
    Understanding The Implications Of The CME’s New 1oz Gold Futures

    By Jesse Colombo of The Bubble Bubble Report

    CME Group Inc., the parent company of COMEX, the leading U.S. exchange for gold and silver futures, will introduce a one-ounce gold futures contract in January. This move comes in response to soaring demand from retail investors, spurred by gold’s record-breaking rally this year from $2,000 to $2,630—a respectable 32% gain. Smaller-sized gold products have grown increasingly popular among retail investors seeking exposure to precious metals and greater diversification in their portfolios.

    Jin Hennig, CME’s Global Head of Metals, described the one-ounce gold contract as “a great way to lower the barrier to entry in our market.” She also noted, “Our clientele is also getting younger. That’s a lot more doable.”

    The one-ounce gold futures contract is set to launch on January 13, 2025, pending regulatory approval. This new offering complements CME’s existing retail-focused products, including 10-ounce micro gold and 1,000-ounce micro silver futures, which represent smaller fractions of the standard benchmark contracts. According to CME, these micro contracts have been among the fastest-growing products in their metals derivatives lineup, achieving record trading volumes this year.

    CME anticipates strong demand for the new contract from retail investors in Asia, where gold is deeply ingrained in the culture as both a store of value and a hedge against economic uncertainties. Hennig emphasized that the contract provides “a meaningful way” for individual traders in the region to “manage their own wealth creations.”

    While the introduction of this new futures product is intriguing and reflects growing interest in precious metals and financial innovation—something I wholeheartedly support as a proponent of free markets—I do have some concerns. Chief among them is the fact that this is a cash-settled futures contract rather than a physically-settled one. This means that upon expiration of the futures contract, traders cannot take physical delivery of a 1-ounce bullion bar or coin, which is a drawback for those seeking tangible ownership of gold.

    This also implies that these contracts are unlikely to be backstopped (even unofficially) by actual physical gold, making them yet another form of “paper” gold in a market already saturated with such instruments that include futures, options, forwards, swaps, CFDs, and exchange-traded funds. Currently, it is estimated that there are an astonishing 133 ounces of paper gold for every ounce of physical gold, as illustrated in the chart below. This imbalance poses several concerns, chief among them the heightened risk of a future run on physical gold. Such a scenario could see the price of scarce physical gold soar while the value of paper gold plummets, creating a significant market shock.

    Paper gold—especially when it vastly exceeds the supply of actual physical gold—undermines some of the core advantages of owning physical gold, such as its simplicity, and its freedom from counterparty and default risk. This concept is well illustrated by Exter’s Pyramid, where rare physical gold (not paper gold) occupies the base of the inverted pyramid as the most secure and reliable form of collateral. In contrast, paper gold falls into the far riskier and more abundant derivatives category near the top of the pyramid. This starkly contrasts with physical gold’s role as the ultimate foundation of financial stability at the bottom of the pyramid.

    Another significant concern is that the proliferation of paper gold products tends to divert and diminish demand that would otherwise flow into physical bullion. Many analysts argue this is a key factor keeping gold prices lower than they might otherwise be. While the new 1-ounce futures contract makes gold more accessible to investors with moderate means—allowing them to control the equivalent of a $2,700 ounce of gold with only a few hundred dollars in margin—it raises concerns. This easier access may further shift demand away from physical bullion, which represents the true, tangible market for gold.

    Bob Coleman, founder of Idaho Armored Vaults, highlighted that a 1-ounce gold futures contract could have been an excellent innovation if it were physically settled. Such a product would have helped reduce spreads and transaction costs in the physical bullion market while enhancing market transparency and liquidity. However, Coleman lamented that CME Group opted to make this contract cash-settled instead, missing an opportunity to provide these benefits:

    Vince Lanci, publisher of the GoldFix newsletter, humorously suggested in a post on X that CME Group’s new 1-ounce gold futures contract could drive down premiums on small gold bullion products. While this development would benefit consumers, it would also erode bullion dealers’ profit margins.

    The introduction of CME Group’s 1-ounce gold futures contract seeks to address growing retail investor demand and expand access to the gold market, but it also underscores critical challenges tied to the dominance and proliferation of “paper” gold. With its cash-settled structure and lack of physical backing, the new contract raises concerns about transparency, reduced demand for physical bullion, and the broader stability of the gold market. While it lowers barriers for younger and global retail investors, its potential to divert interest from physical gold risks deepening the disconnect between paper and physical markets. As the market evolves, balancing financial innovation with the enduring value of tangible, secure, and stable assets like physical gold is crucial.

    If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing to this newsletter.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 20:30

  • VDH: Biden's Paranoid Pardons & The Morass Of Leftists Morality
    VDH: Biden’s Paranoid Pardons & The Morass Of Leftists Morality

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

    Pardoner-in-Chief

    Joe Biden has now established two precedents in presidential history.

    First, he “pardoned” his own son Hunter.

    No prior president has ever tried that shameless act, which is an affront to the entire hallowed notion of “equality under the law.”.

    Second, he did so in a way that no president has rarely, if ever, pardoned anyone.

    Hunter, a convicted federal felon awaiting sentencing, was gifted by his father a blanket exemption from federal prosecution over the entire past decade (2014-2024).

    Biden thus exempted Hunter from a series of much-discussed past criminal activities and provided further pardons for any federal criminal exposure occurring over the last ten years—yet to turn up.

    Given the Biden suppression of the justice system and the media’s complicity in hiding the Biden family’s criminality, it is quite possible that in the next few years, disinterested prosecutors might finally expose Hunter Biden’s long-suppressed, sordid career. And that could mean possible criminal exposure for three generations of Bidens.

    Third, in the remaining waning 40 days of his now nonperforming presidency, Biden threatens to establish yet another presidential precedent. He contemplates issuing pardons to a variety of controversial cronies, bureaucrats, and officers—even though none of them have yet been indicted or even are under federal investigation.

    Worse, Biden completed his shameless trifecta by breaking his serial pledge, voiced at least six times, and most prominently as a 2024 campaign plug, unequivocally not to pardon Hunter Biden.

    That performance-art braggadocio was serially greeted—by design—with glee in the media.

    On spec, the vow supposedly contrasted Biden’s “reverence for the rule of law” with a purportedly legally insubordinate Trump.

    Biden would put the law above family. Trump, in contrast, was supposedly chronically questioning the morality, fairness, and legality of his own five criminal and civil indictments over the campaign cycle—some of them (i.e., Bragg, Smith, Willis) demonstrably with the full knowledge of, if not coordinated by, the Biden White House.

    The Biden Family’s Known Unknowns

    Yet, why would Biden go out with such brazen, precedent-setting pardons when his own administration, Department of Justice, and the obsequious media for nearly four years have all bragged that the left is the party of principled democracy (e.g., “democracy is on the ballot”), forced into an existential fight against a supposedly “dictator,” “fascist,” and “Hitlerian” Donald Trump?

    Obviously, Hunter Biden might have faced some jail time for deliberate and callous federal tax evasion of millions of dollars of income. Such a conviction would certainly earn the average American incarceration and a crippling fine.

    The Biden family’s plea that Hunter was “addicted” is a pathetic excuse.

    The president expects the American people to believe his lie that a supposedly temporarily non compos mentis Hunter was too drug-addled to remember to pay his taxes but clear enough to shake down millions of dollars in largess for generations of the Biden family syndicate.

    We are told no one is ever jailed for feloniously lying on a federal affidavit to buy a handgun, and thus Hunter is a victim of a right-wing witch hunt.

    That too is another absurd assertion when the Biden Department of Justice oversaw the prosecution. And it only fulfilled its proper nonpartisan role when an intervening federal judge nullified an unprecedented DOJ sweetheart tax evasion deal, one designed specifically for the presidential son.

    Plenty of average Joes also go to jail for knowingly committing federal perjury or deliberately and fraudulently completing a required federal background check.

    But the real agenda behind the Hunter pardon, and possible future Biden family pardons to come, involved the current president of the United States.

    Hunter’s ten-year window of exemption dates back to the last two years of Joe Biden’s vice presidency, when his sloppy shakedowns of foreign governments even bothered an embarrassed Obama administration.

    By pardoning Hunter, and de facto other Bidens to come, Joe believes that there will be no subpoenaed witness who can testify about the source of the family’s some $20 million grift: where the money came from, what it was for, where it went, and whether anyone fully paid federal and state income taxes on these foreign cash infusions.

    In fairness to Joe, he has legitimate worries.

    The sheer audacity of the Biden operation was evident—as, for example, when Joe boasted publicly that he got a special Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, fired for looking too closely into corruption involving Hunter Biden—by withholding U.S. congressionally approved aid.

    (Note well: Donald Trump was impeached and tried in the Senate for merely suspending but eventually sending aid to Ukraine, out of legitimate worry that the Bidens had once unduly leveraged taxpayer money to have ensured their then steady revenue streams from Ukraine.)

    Proof of the Bidens’ shake-down success was apparent in the lavish lifestyles of Joe and Hunter, otherwise inexplicable in light of Joe’s federal salary or any legal or consulting expertise evident in Hunter’s mostly grimy and grubby career.

    Canary-bird Hunter?

    But more worrisome might be the thought of an unplugged, unpardoned, and underappreciated Hunter.

    As an ordinary citizen facing jail time after January 20, 2025, Hunter would be either one relapse, one plea bargain, or one fit of resentment away from turning state’s evidence to avoid years in federal prison—by disclosing the various roles of an apparently insufficiently appreciative Biden family.

    Hunter certainly was capable of flipping.

    In his laptop texts and email logs, he often voiced resentment of his father, variously and cynically dubbed “the Big Guy” and recipient of “ten percent”—monikers not usually associated with filial affection.

    The gist of Hunter’s referents was that Joe got his utility bills paid and was subsidized by Hunter, who in return felt he was privately underappreciated and overcharged by the supposedly legit members of the family as their wayward and embarrassing, though hard-working, bagman.

    That pique was no fiction.

    Hunter’s plea-bargaining attorneys once threatened to call President Joe Biden into court to testify on Hunter’s behalf. The veiled subtext was a threat to put the president on record in a federal trial as vouching for his son and thus likely denying when cross-examined by the judge whether Joe himself had ever received foreign cash (i.e., Joe’s checks labeled as “loan repayments” or seen as “gifts” or undisclosed but routed through Hunter or a Biden sibling).

    What was Hunter’s brief career as a straw-snorting “artist” about in the earlier days of the Biden presidency—if not to bring down to earth the haughty first couple?

    Why would the profligate son, now under global scrutiny, seemingly shake down would-be quid pro quo Biden donors to buy his teenaged, paint-by-the-numbers “art”—sometimes painted by blowing paint via a straw, as perhaps a not-so-subtle reminder to the family of his earlier snorting antics?

    Joe Biden was only two months into his presidency when Hunter published his tell-all book. It graphically recalled his drug- and sex-filled escapades and was met with great fanfare by obsequious liberal critics who noted his supposed “raw” honesty. Yet if a son will seduce his own deceased brother’s widow and mother of his own nephew and niece, and then cajole her to indulge in his own addictive crack cocaine use, then he has demonstrated that family fealty is a mere abstraction if not a bad joke.

    Pardoning such a miscreant for ten years of yet uncovered misadventures is a veritable insurance policy that Hunter—who knows all the Biden family business secrets—would not plea-bargain away his family’s so-far successful avoidance of criminal accountability.

    Just the Latest Assault on Democracy

    How do we locate this latest assault on democracy in the left’s wider narrative that Biden and company ‘saved’ democracy from a tyrannical Donald Trump?

    The answer is not difficult.

    This unprecedented pardon is not aberrant. It is characteristic of the left’s recent contempt for the rule of law. And it is consistent with its own brazen violation of constitutional customs and norms that it so often projects onto its opponents.

    The left’s warped modus operandi, remember, is to brand Trump such a menace that his intellectual and moral superiors are entitled to trample on any law or custom necessary to eliminate such an existential ‘threat to democracy.’

    So, at the end of the Biden presidency, what is the Biden-Obama-era “democracy dies in darkness” legacy?

    Just ponder the following questions.

    Who soiled the FBI and the DOJ to fabricate Russian collusion to undermine a 2016 oppositional presidential opponent?

    Who hired a has-been British spy to fabricate a smear dossier and leak it to the media to destroy a candidate?

    Who rounded up “51 intelligence authorities” to lie on the eve of an election about the authenticity of Hunter’s laptop, then already verified and in the possession of the FBI?

    Who tasked the FBI to partner with social media to censure and suppress verified news stories about the laptop’s authenticity deemed incriminating to the Biden campaign?

    Who impeached a president over a phone call as soon as it recaptured the House of Representatives?

    Who envisioned removing a major-party candidate from sixteen state ballots to undermine the election of an opponent?

    Who orchestrated a SWAT raid on the home of an ex-president and presidential candidate over an ongoing archival dispute concerning the proper storage of presidential papers?

    Who coordinated the lawfare to empower a special counsel to indict Donald Trump, to consult with a partisan Georgia prosecutor to indict Donald Trump, and to dispatch a federal prosecutor to join a local Manhattan prosecutor to indict Donald Trump, previously on the staff of yet another New York state attorney general who indicted Donald Trump?

    Who advocated packing the Supreme Court?

    Who sought to end the Electoral College?

    Who wanted to create two new blue states to win four new senators?

    Who wanted to demolish the filibuster—depending on whether it held a Senate majority?

    Who radically changed American balloting, rendering, in most states, the historic Election Day to a mere construct of as little as 30 percent of the electorate voting?

    Pardons as Incrimination

    The final irony?

    Biden may well pardon a variety of cronies who will not be indicted by the Trump Department of Justice, but who, by acceptance of such exemption, will remind the American people of their culpability if not criminality.

    Anthony Fauci likely lied under oath about his role in subsidizing illicit and undeniable gain-of-function virology research in communist China.

    Gen. Mark Milley clearly violated his oath of office as an advisor to the president by improperly breaking, and inserting himself into, the chain of command by ordering theater and unit commanders first to report directly to himself in supposed existential crises rather than to the Secretary of Defense.

    Most Americans would deem it actionable for a chairman of the Joint Chiefs to stealthily contact his Chinese communist, People’s Liberation Army counterpart in order to warn him about the supposedly unstable nature of his own president and commander-in-chief and thus to assure the Chinese that American officers would nullify any presidential directives that they themselves diagnosed as improper.

    What did intelligence and investigative bureaucratic grandees John Brennan, James Clapper, and Andrew McCabe—all current media-paid consultants—all have in common? They admittedly lied either under congressional oath or to federal investigators and did so with complete exemption.

    The list of the culpable could be expanded.

    But it will not be Donald Trump—who refused to investigate, much less seek to indict, Hillary Clinton for destroying federally subpoenaed communications and devices—who will remind the American people of what past zealots did to their nation.

    Instead, it may be Joe Biden himself and any who accept his envisioned self-incriminating pardons.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 20:05

  • Americans Agree That Money Has Too Much Power In Congress
    Americans Agree That Money Has Too Much Power In Congress

    The line between lobbying, political donations and corruption is perilously thin.

    While the former is sometimes referred to as “bribery in a suit” by critics, the key difference between the two is that lobbying is legal, while bribery as a form of corruption is not. While both practices are seeking influence, bribery is actually buying it while lobbying is merely trying to sway lawmakers’ opinions in the desired direction – at least officially.

    Critics argue that lobbying, especially in the form of large-scale campaign donations, be it from individuals, organizations or interest groups, often implies an element of quid-pro-quo that borders on corruption. “We supported you and now we expect you to do the same for us,” is the understanding behind such transactions, with the absence of any guarantees making sure that no legal lines are crossed.

    While there’s not much that Americans from both sides of the political aisle agree on, there is a broad consensus that money buys too much influence in Washington these days.

    As Statista’s Fleix Richter details below, according to a Pew Research survey from 2023, 80 percent of U.S. adults think that large campaign donors have too much influence on the decisions made by members of congress, while 73 percent say the same of lobbyists and special interest groups.

    At the same time, 70 percent of respondents agree that the people have too little influence on what their representatives in Congress decide.

    Infographic: Americans Agree That Money Has Too Much Power in Congress | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As a consequence, 72 percent of the 8,000+ people surveyed, regardless of their political views, agree that there should be limits on the amount of money that individuals or organizations can contribute to political campaigns.

    Last week, federal filings revealed that Elon Musk had spent over a quarter of a billion dollars in this year’s presidential election to help Donald Trump win back the presidency.

    Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, now heads the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, in the latest and perhaps greatest example of how money buys influence in Washington DC.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 19:40

  • Jay-Z Denies Raping 13-Year-Old In Civil Lawsuit
    Jay-Z Denies Raping 13-Year-Old In Civil Lawsuit

    Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    American rapper Jay-Z, 55, denied sexual assault accusations on Dec. 8 after his name was added to a civil lawsuit alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs for allegedly drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl more than two decades ago.

    U.S. rapper Jay-Z arrives for Sony’s premiere of “The Book of Clarence” at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, Calif., on Jan. 5, 2024. MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images

    The lawsuit, amended on Dec. 8 and viewed by The Epoch Times, lists Jay-Z by his legal name, Shawn Corey Carter, alongside Combs, who was criminally charged in September with racketeering, sex trafficking, and other offenses.

    The case was first filed in October in the Southern District of New York, naming Combs as the only defendant.

    According to the updated complaint, the plaintiff, identified only as “Jane Doe,” alleges she was drugged and sexually assaulted by both men at an after-party following an MTV Video Music Awards night in 2000.

    Carter responded to the claims Sunday night, saying in a statement that the plaintiff’s attorney, Tony Buzbee, had sent him a letter demanding a settlement. The rapper accused Buzbee of trying to force him to settle given “the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny.”

    The rapper said he would not pay anything and would “expose” what he said were fraudulent claims to the public in court.

    “These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?” Carter said.

    “These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case.”

    Buzbee responded on the social media platform X on Sunday to Carter’s comments, saying that since he sent the letter on behalf of his client, Carter has “filed his frivolous case under a pseudonym” and “tried to bully and harass” him and the plaintiff.

    Buzbee was sued in November by California-based law firm Quinn Emanuel for alleged extortion and threats of “publicizing false information for financial gain” that targeted “high profile individuals.”

    Carter hasn’t publicly commented on his alleged lawsuit against Buzbee as of publication time, and it is unclear if Buzbee’s post regarding Carter was referring to the Quinn Emanuel suit.

    Buzbee said that while Carter claims the lawsuit is after his money, the plaintiff hadn’t asked Carter for money in the settlement offer.

    “What he fails to say in his recent statement is my firm sent his lawyer a demand letter on behalf of an alleged victim and that victim never demanded a penny from him. Instead, she only sought a confidential mediation,” the lawyer posted on X.

    Buzbee said that Jay-Z’s response to the settlement has not intimidated his client but “had the opposite impact.”

    “She is emboldened. I’m very proud of her resolve,” he wrote.

    Buzbee said he would comment no further on the allegations and the case. “[W]e will let the filing speak for itself and will litigate the facts in court, not in the media,” he said.

    Lawyers for Combs told media outlets that the multiple claims filed by Buzbee against their client in recent months are “designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them.”

    “Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process,” they said in a statement. “In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone—man or woman, adult or minor.”

    Combs was arrested in September for the sex trafficking charges and has pleaded not guilty. He is currently being held in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center without bail. His trial is scheduled for May 5.

    The Epoch Times has contacted attorneys for Carter, Combs, and Doe for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 19:15

  • Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Challenge To Race-Based Admission Policy By Elite Boston Schools
    Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Challenge To Race-Based Admission Policy By Elite Boston Schools

    The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Dec. 9 that it won’t consider whether three Boston public schools violated the Constitution with a purported racial diversity policy that admitted students based on their zip codes.

    Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in Washington

    As Matthew Vadum reports for The Epoch Times, the new decision was made after the court’s landmark ruling in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. Harvard struck down the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies at U.S. colleges. After that ruling, schools began using supposedly racial-neutral admission policies such as geography to attempt to make student bodies more diverse.

    Two conservative justices – Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas – dissented from the court’s decision not to grant the petition in Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence v. The School Committee for the City of Boston.

    Represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Boston Parent Coalition filed its petition on April 17.

    The school committee changed its admission criteria for its competitive “exam schools” effective from the 2021–22 school year, replacing the usual standardized test with a quota based on applicants’ zip codes “that reserved seats for students with the highest [grade point average] in each Boston neighborhood.”

    Although “the number of seats allocated to each neighborhood was based on the neighborhood’s population of school-aged children,” school officials “spoke openly of their intent to racially balance the Exam Schools at the expense of Asian American and white students,” the petition said.

    A federal district court dismissed the lawsuit in 2021. In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the ruling, finding that even though the zip code-based quota “was chosen precisely to alter racial demographics,” it did not violate students’ equal protection rights.

    Alito said in his dissent, which was joined by Thomas, that the new ruling is the court’s second refusal “to correct a glaring constitutional error that threatens to perpetuate race-based affirmative action in defiance of [the] Students for Fair Admissions [decision].”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 18:50

  • Has Nuclear Energy Finally Overcome The Chernobyl Disaster?
    Has Nuclear Energy Finally Overcome The Chernobyl Disaster?

    Authored by Felicity Bradstock via OilPrice.com,

    • Accidents like Chornobyl and Fukushima have damaged the public perception of nuclear power, leading to decreased investment and development.

    • Nuclear power is a low-carbon energy source with a proven track record of safety and reliability.

    • Despite past challenges, there is a growing global interest in nuclear power as a key component of a sustainable energy future.

    Three major nuclear events throughout the history of nuclear power production have tainted the image of the clean energy source, according to recent reports and years of public opinion polls. The events at Chornobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island swayed public opinion against nuclear power in many areas of the world for several decades, encouraging governments worldwide to move away from the clean energy source in favor of continued fossil fuel use.

    Today’s energy mix could look extremely different if these events had not occurred, or greater efforts had been taken to raise public awareness over nuclear safety.

    According to a recent report published by a think tank from the ex-U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair – Tony Blair Institute (TBI), the nuclear power industry could have had a significant impact on global carbon emissions had it continued to grow at the same pace as before the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster.

    It predicted that carbon emissions would be around 6 percent lower today if a different narrative of nuclear energy had been established following the Chornobyl disaster, rather than one that spurred “unfounded public concern”.

    The Chornobyl nuclear power station was located in Pryp’yat, 10 miles northwest of the city of Chornobyl and 65 miles north of Kyiv. It consisted of four reactors, each with a 1 GW capacity. The disaster happened on April 25–26, 1986, when workers shut down the reactor’s power-regulating system and its emergency safety systems and withdrew most of the control rods from its core while it ran at 7 percent power. A combination of human errors led to several explosions triggering a large fireball that blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor, which resulted in a partial meltdown of the core. This led large quantities of radioactive material to go into the atmosphere and spread for miles around.

    Around 30,000 inhabitants were evacuated from Pryp’yat and a cover-up took place by the Soviet Union. However, Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity, which led authorities to admit there had been an accident. The attempted cover-up and delayed information about the event led to an international outcry over the dangers of radioactive waste. The heat and the radioactivity leaking from the reactor core started to be contained in May, and the highly radioactive reactor core was later enclosed in a concrete-and-steel sarcophagus. Reports on the number of deaths associated with both the disaster and the lingering radioactivity in the region vary widely.

    The TBI report found that over 400 reactors commenced operations in the three decades before Chornobyl, but fewer than 200 had been commissioned in the almost three decades since. The report stated, “The result is that nuclear energy has never become the ubiquitous power source many had projected, with countries instead turning towards alternatives such as coal and gas.” It suggests that two other major nuclear incidents – Fukushima and Three Mile Island – also harmed the public perception of nuclear power.

    Nevertheless, the TBI predicts the world will see a “new nuclear age” in the coming years, as environmentalists and governments worldwide double down on their commitment to nuclear power as part of a green energy transition. Nuclear energy has been providing abundant clean power to countries worldwide for around 70 years. Unlike most renewable energy sources, nuclear energy can be produced 24 hours a day, rain or shine, providing a stable flow of clean power to the grid. Some new-generation power plants are now capable of operating for up to 80 years, which is far longer than gas- or coal-fired power stations, as well as many renewable installations.

    In addition, a multitude of studies over several decades show that fossil fuels are overwhelmingly more harmful to health and the environment than nuclear power. Experts think that air pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for around 7 million deaths a year, while nuclear energy carries a similar level of risk to wind power, which is around 350 times safer than coal. Per terawatt-hour of energy production, coal is thought to cause 24.6 deaths, oil 18.4 deaths, natural gas 2.8 deaths and nuclear energy 0.07 deaths.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency says that nuclear power plants are among “the safest and most secure facilities in the world.” They must adhere to strict international safety standards and both training and best practices have become stricter and more internationally standardized in recent decades. Further, nuclear waste storage facilities are highly protected against earthquakes, tornadoes, and other potential disasters.

    The lead author of the report Tone Langengen stated, “A new nuclear age is beginning. But whether it continues will depend entirely on whether leaders are willing to move past false alarm and ideology, making judgment based upon fact-based assessment of risk.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 18:25

  • Mobile Dominates America's Favorite Gaming Platforms
    Mobile Dominates America’s Favorite Gaming Platforms

    People engage in gaming through a variety of formats, from consoles to mobile devices, driven by factors like convenience, cost, and immersive experiences.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the share of U.S. consumers that reported gaming on a specific device within the past month, using data from a Circana online survey of 5,100 active U.S. gamers conducted in May through June 2024.

    The categories of gaming devices are as follows:

    • Mobile: iPhone, Android smartphone, iPad, and other smartphone or tablet devices

    • Computer: Desktop, laptop, Steam Deck, or other portable PC devices

    • Console: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Xbox One X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo Wii

    • Other: Virtual reality (VR) headsets, plug-and-play devices, child-oriented devices

    Which Gaming Devices Do Americans Use The Most?

    Below, we show the share of U.S. consumers ages two and up that played on a qualifying device within the previous month of Circana’s survey.

    About 71% of U.S. consumers played some form of video game in the month prior to Circana’s survey, with mobile gaming being the largest platform with 65% of U.S. consumers gaming on a mobile device in 2024.

    Over half of gamers’ weekly playtime takes place on their phones, according to Circana. The main draw is convenience, as players already have their devices with them, along with the low cost and easy accessibility of mobile games.

    PC and console gaming are almost evenly tied, with 36% and 35% of respondents gaming on these platforms respectively.

    When looking these formats’ market shares, console gaming held a slight lead over PC gaming with 57% of the 2023 market share, or $53.1 billion revenue compared to PC’s $40.4 billion.

    The “Other” gaming category grew by 2% since 2022 due to increased adoption of virtual reality (VR) gaming. VR usage and ownership among U.S. teens is on the rise, with weekly VR use increasing from 10% to 13% and headset ownership growing from 31% to 33% over the past six months, according to a survey by Piper.

    Gaming preferences are also dependent on generation. Younger generations like Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and Millennials tend to play on PCs or console more often than older generations, according to Newzoo.

    In terms of gaming genres, older generations like Gen X and Boomers tend to gravitate towards puzzle games, usually played on mobile devices.

    To learn more about the video game industry, check out this graphic that visualizes console launch prices, adjusted for inflation.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 18:00

  • "This Is Not The Time For Balance": LA Times Columnist Resigns In Protest… Over Balanced Commentary
    “This Is Not The Time For Balance”: LA Times Columnist Resigns In Protest… Over Balanced Commentary

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    When now President-Elect Donald Trump was convicted, the thrill-kill atmosphere around the courthouse and the country was explosive, but no one was more ecstatic than liberal columnist and former prosecutor Harry Litman.

    The then L.A. Times columnist told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that it was a “majestic day” and “a day to celebrate.”

    A lawfare advocate, Litman excitedly laid out how Trump could be barred from office, declaring that the raid in Mar-a-Lago was the “whole enchilada” in ending Trump’s political career.

    Now, Litman has resigned from the L.A. Times because the owner wants more diversity of opinion in the newspaper.

    Litman went on MSNBC to declare that “this is not a time for balance.”

    Those seven words sum up much of what has destroyed American media with millions turning away from the echo chamber created by the Washington Post, L.A. Times, and other publications.

    Litman is not alone. Many liberals are dispensing with the pretense of declaring opposing views “disinformation” and are now openly fighting to preserve ideological echo chambers and media silos.

    In my new book, The Indispensable Right,  I write about the decline of newspapers as part of the “advocacy journalism” movement. Opinion pages became little more than screeds for the left, including legal commentators who have been consistently wrong and misleading on merits of challenges or cases.

    Last year, Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

    Litman has been one of the most unabashed lawfare warriors.

    Even when the Justice Department was seeking to dismiss the Flynn case, Lipman wrote an L.A. Times column advising Judge Emmet Sullivan how to “make trouble” for the administration.

    Litman admitted there is “very little leeway to reject the government’s decisions to dismiss charges” but encouraged Sullivan to “accomplish what Congress, multiple inspectors general, and a majority of the electorate have not been able to do — hold the president and his allies accountable for their contemptuous disregard for the rule of law.”

    On MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Litman declared to Nicolle Wallace that Trump’s victory is “an absolute five-alarm fire.”

    He called the effort to restore a diversity of viewpoints as little more than an attempt “to curry favor with Trump.” He then added:

    “And I just think this is not a time for balance when you have someone who’s not telling the truth on the other side. And it’s a deep responsibility. And instead, I think they cowered and are worried about their personal holdings and just being threatened by Trump. And that’s a really shameful capitulation, I think. So, I just felt I couldn’t be a part of it and had to resign.”

    It was a telling moment. Litman appeared on a network that has lost half of its viewership and is fighting for its existence in an effort by NBCUniversal to unload it.

    Readers are fleeing to new media after papers like the L.A. Times and the Washington Post literally wrote off half of the country.

    Yet, these figures would rather lose their jobs and media platforms than their bias.

    *  *  *

    Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 17:40

  • China Blocking Drone Supplies Crucial To Ukraine As US Trade Conflict Escalates
    China Blocking Drone Supplies Crucial To Ukraine As US Trade Conflict Escalates

    As part of its ongoing campaign to hit back at US punitive trade actions and sanctions, China is pushing new and extended export restrictions which negatively impacts Ukraine and its war effort.

    Drone warfare has long been heavily relied upon by the Ukraine armed forces, but Beijing is now restricting key components vital in the production of unmanned vehicles, Bloomberg reports Monday.

    AFP/Getty Images

    “Manufacturers in China recently began limiting sales to the US and Europe of key components used to build unmanned aerial vehicles, according to multiple people with knowledge of the developments, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information,” the report says.

    “The moves are a prelude to broader export restrictions on drone parts that western officials expect Beijing to enforce in the new year, the people said,” it continues. “Those rules could take the form of license approvals based on the intended use of the components or softer requirements for Chinese companies to notify the government of their shipment plans, according to one of the people.”

    Sources further described that “Chinese producers of motors, batteries and flight controllers have capped the quantities they deliver or stopped shipments altogether” as part of the ratcheting Beijing-Washington tit-for-tat conflict on trade policy.

    This comes in the context of recent months of Chinese retaliatory sanctions targeting US firms which supply the Pentagon. Increasingly these firms are seeing access to vital Chinese-produced components.

    Russia is able to sit back and benefit from these US-China tensions, after it has been subject of literally hundreds of drone attacks out of Ukraine over the past nearly three years of war.

    Ukrainian drones have been quite effective in damaging in some instances oil and energy depots in Russia, naval assets in Sevastopol, as well as airbases in various parts of Russia.

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

    There have even been reports that Ukrainian drones were in the hands of the Syrian jihadist insurgents which just took over Syria. Increasingly sophisticated small drones were used over the past months against the Syrian Army, helping to erode its effectiveness and morale, and this contributed to its collapse. 

    But without Chinese parts, the West’s drone arsenal could suffer temporary production pauses, and be set back to a degree.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 17:20

  • Why Trump Must End Capital Gains Tax On Bitcoin
    Why Trump Must End Capital Gains Tax On Bitcoin

    Authored by Mark Mason via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    In a world where digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of global finance, the United States stands at a crossroads.

    The Trump administration has repeatedly emphasized its dedication to making everyday Americans more prosperous. From pledging to restore economic strength on the campaign trail to appointing forward-thinking advisors, the White House seems poised to usher in a new era of financial freedom. But if President Trump truly wants to supercharge wealth creation for average citizens—and establish the U.S. as the world’s leading “Bitcoin Superpower”—his administration must embrace a bold, transformative policy: eliminate capital gains taxes on Bitcoin.

    This global map shows how various countries tax (or don’t tax) Bitcoin after one year. Many green jurisdictions, including those in parts of Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia, have chosen to exempt long-term Bitcoin holdings from capital gains tax.

    The Winds of Change: Lessons from Abroad

    The Czech Republic recently made headlines when its Parliament overwhelmingly voted to exempt capital gains from Bitcoin and other crypto-asset sales from personal income tax—provided they’re held for more than three years and meet certain income thresholds. This is not an isolated event. Countries like Switzerland, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, El Salvador, Hong Kong, and parts of the Caribbean have long recognized that zero or minimal capital gains taxation on Bitcoin can help spur adoption, financial innovation, and consumer confidence.

    As John F. Kennedy famously said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” If we apply that logic to economic growth through Bitcoin, the tide is global—and it’s rising fast. In a sea awash with global liquidity and debt, America’s economic ship must navigate these digital currents. These nations’ policy choices—and their citizens’ increasing prosperity—send a powerful signal: The U.S. can and should leverage Bitcoin as a tool for growth, not burden it with outdated taxation models.

    Trump’s Own Words: A Path to Prosperity

    President Trump himself has indicated a willingness to rethink Bitcoin taxation. “They have them paying tax on crypto, and I don’t think that’s right,” he said in a recent interview, echoing the frustrations of millions of Americans who find it absurd to pay capital gains taxes after using Bitcoin to purchase something as small as a cup of coffee. “Bitcoin is money, and you have to pay capital gains tax if you use it to buy a coffee?” he asked rhetorically, highlighting how current laws discourage everyday transactions. He added, “Maybe we get rid of taxes on crypto and replace it with tariffs.”

    This sentiment isn’t just rhetorical flourish. Trump, who spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville, proclaimed his vision for America to become the world’s “Bitcoin Superpower.” He’s also pledged to “Make Bitcoin in America,” turning the U.S. into a leading hub of Bitcoin innovation. Moreover, he appointed former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as his ‘White House A.I. & Crypto Czar’ on December 5—a move widely seen as a step toward implementing forward-looking crypto policies.

    The BITCOIN Act of 2024: A Strategic Reserve for the People

    The U.S. has already taken monumental steps in this direction. The BITCOIN Act of 2024 mandates that all Bitcoin held by any federal agency be transferred to the Treasury to be held in a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Over five years, the Treasury must purchase one million Bitcoins, holding them in trust for the United States. This government-level accumulation shows a long-term vision for incorporating Bitcoin into national financial strategy. But why stop there? Eliminating capital gains tax on Bitcoin would create a positive feedback loop between national policy and personal prosperity. As the federal government invests and holds Bitcoin, private citizens could do the same without facing punitive tax obligations.

    Serving the Everyday American

    For everyday Americans, the cost of living and the sting of inflation were focal points of President Trump’s reelection campaign. Traditional strategies—interest rate manipulations, quantitative easing—often amount to rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship when confronted with truly systemic economic challenges. Bitcoin offers a life raft—dare we say, a digital Noah’s Ark—for Americans trying to preserve and grow their wealth against the erosive forces of inflation. Removing capital gains taxes on Bitcoin would allow citizens to transact, invest, and save in a stable, finite asset without the drain of federal taxes on every incremental gain.

    The ripple effect here is clear: More people adopting Bitcoin as a store of value and medium of exchange means stronger demand, which could further buttress the U.S. Treasury’s strategic holdings. It’s a virtuous cycle, a positive feedback loop. As Bitcoin’s value grows, so does the nation’s wealth base—helping pay down national debt, bolstering the dollar’s hegemony in global trade, and genuinely making Americans richer and more secure.

    Why America Needs Bitcoin

    Bitcoin is no longer a niche experiment reserved for a small band of enthusiasts. It has evolved into a mainstream, urgent priority for everyday Americans—especially the rising generation that will shape our nation’s future economy. This is not some ideological plea; it’s a practical, data-backed reality. According to the Stand With Crypto Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to transparent blockchain policies, more than 52 million Americans now own some form of cryptocurrency. Nearly nine in ten Americans believe the financial system needs updating, and 45% say they would not support candidates who stand in the way of crypto innovation. These numbers represent a sweeping, cross-partisan groundswell: Stand With Crypto’s research shows that 18% of Republicans, 22% of Democrats, and 22% of Independents hold crypto. This cuts through the usual tribal politics and points to a fundamental truth—Bitcoin is now a national policy talking point, not a side note on a fringe agenda.

    The demand for America to lead is clear. 53% of Americans want crypto companies to be U.S.-based, ensuring that technological innovation and the wealth it generates remain on home soil. Among Fortune 500 executives, 73% prefer U.S.-based partners for their crypto and Web3 initiatives, signaling a corporate desire to keep America at the forefront of global financial progress.

    Failing to act now risks a replay of past mistakes. America once led the world in advanced manufacturing, yet today 92% of the most sophisticated semiconductor production sits in Taiwan and South Korea. We cannot afford to cede the future financial landscape to other regions. Bitcoin isn’t just another investment class; it is the digital backbone of a rapidly evolving monetary system. If the U.S. wants to preserve its economic hegemony, maintain innovation leadership, and ensure everyday Americans have access to a stable, growth-oriented financial future, it must embrace Bitcoin wholeheartedly. In doing so, the nation can secure its place as the global Bitcoin superpower—uplifting our citizens, strengthening our economic base, and safeguarding our strategic interests in the 21st-century digital economy.

    America, Charting the Course

    By aligning with global best practices and enacting forward-thinking policies, the U.S. can position itself as a beacon of financial liberty and technical innovation. Eliminating capital gains tax on Bitcoin would signal to investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens that America is serious about leading in the 21st century’s digital economy. It’s not just about being “Bitcoin-friendly”; it’s about ensuring that average Americans have the tools they need to navigate turbulent economic waters.

    The complexity and inefficiency of taxing every digital transaction is an unnecessary burden on innovation and everyday life. Americans deserve better—they deserve the freedom to transact in a digital world without punitive oversight.

    In essence, this is America’s chance to do what it has always done best: innovate, adapt, and lead. Removing capital gains taxes on Bitcoin wouldn’t just fulfill a campaign promise; it would set the stage for long-term prosperity, empower citizens to secure their financial futures, and cement the United States as the world’s foremost Bitcoin champion. A rising tide, indeed, lifts all boats—and what better vessel to embark upon than a Bitcoin Ark, captained by a visionary administration determined to truly Make America Great Again?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 17:00

  • Israel Striking Bases & Equipment Across Syria, Including Assad’s Chemical Weapons Sites
    Israel Striking Bases & Equipment Across Syria, Including Assad’s Chemical Weapons Sites

    Israeli warplanes in the last several hours have been conducting major airstrikes against facilities across Syria, just 48 hours after the Assad government’s fall and the entrance of Al-Qaeda linked militant factions into Damascus.

    “At least two explosions heard in Damascus have taken place in the area of Barzeh, north of Damascus, where the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre has an office,” several eyewitnesses have told Reuters.

    Social media image from the fresh Israeli evening attacks on Syria.

    “The SSRC has been sanctioned and previously struck for its links to chemical weapons production under toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,” the report continues. It is a location that Israel first struck all the way back in 2013, and has hit on several occasions since then.

    Sensitive military facilities formerly belonging to the Syrian Army and now defunct Assad defense ministry have also been destroyed by Israeli attacks across the south of Syria on Monday.

    A weapons warehouse near the Damascus international airport, which has ceased operations, has also been hit. Massive strikes have been reported on Latakia port as well, which giant fireballs lighting up the night sky.

    Amid the chaos of the HTS takeover of the country over the last week, and before any type of new government can coalesce in Damascus, it appears Israel is preemptively taking out all military technology and heavy weaponry before anyone else can access it. 

    An Israeli broadcast correspondent from Kann writes that “An Israeli source tells me: Israel’s goal is to destroy everything from Assad’s army that could fall into the hands of the rebels – from tanks to missiles. We are destroying the equipment of the Assad army.”

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    Israel has also expanded its penetration into historic Syrian territory in the south:

    After fighting wars on multiple fronts for months, Israel is now concerned that unrest in Syria could spill over into its territory. Israel also views the end of the Assad regime as a chance to disrupt Iran’s ability to smuggle weapons through Syria to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

    The Israeli military over the weekend began seizing control of a demilitarized buffer zone in Syria created as part of a 1974 ceasefire between the countries. It said the move was temporary and meant to secure its border.

    But the incursion sparked condemnation, with critics accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire and possibly exploiting the chaos in Syria for a land grab.

    Indeed ‘exploiting’ the situation for a land grab is precisely what the game plan has likely been from the start, as both Israel and Turkey are the big winners in the Syria crisis, and with Assad gone (having been given asylum in Moscow). The Israeli attacks began even as HTS was making its way toward Damascus from Aleppo and Homs.

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    According to more details of what’s been hit in the ongoing Israeli attacks:

    New Israeli airstrikes are reported in Syria, targeting an airbase near the capital Damascus.

    Al Jazeera reports that the Qabr Essit Airport, used by the ousted Assad regime’s army for helicopters, was hit in the strikes. The airbase is located south of Damascus, close to the town of Aqraba.

    Some reports are saying that as many as 100 sites have been struck in the last 12-24 hours, but more is likely to be confirmed when the dust settles. Israel sources are saying 250 or more strikes. Jets and aerial equipment, and runways at bases are being obliterated.

    Part of Israel’s aim also seems to be preventing pro-Iranian entities from ever popping up again in Syria, and to finally and definitively dismantle Hezbollah and Shia militias’ arms networks.

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    Sunni hardline factions are also a feared element, given they could eventually turn the same weapons against Israel, and in the Golan Heights area, and as Israeli troops continue invading the south for a so-called buffer zone.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 16:40

  • Daniel Penny & The Twilight Of The Race Hustle
    Daniel Penny & The Twilight Of The Race Hustle

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

    “There is nothing more fake than when the libs pretend to have an emotional outpouring over some dead loser they didn’t give a f**k about while they were living.”

    – Aimee Terese

    Were you thinking of Daniel Penny this weekend? A year and a half ago, the US marine veteran, age 26, subdued one Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless schizophrenic with a record of 42 arrests who was menacing riders on a New York City subway car. Neely was, at the time, a fugitive on an arrest warrant for felony assault on a sixty-seven-year-old woman. Penny applied a choke hold after Neely declared he was of a mind to kill somebody on the train. Neely was still alive when the cops came, but they declined to give him CPR because he was filthy and an apparent drug-user, and they feared getting AIDS or hepatitis from giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. . . so Neely died there in the subway.

    Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicted Penny for manslaughter in the second degree and secondarily for criminally negligent homicide. His trial has been going on all month. On Friday, the jury reported its inability to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charge. Instead of declaring a mistrial, Judge Maxwell T. Wiley dismissed the primary charge and directed the jury to continue deliberations this week on the secondary negligent homicide charge, a procedurally dubious action.

    Everybody knows that the trial is an absurd injustice, but that has been the temper of our society for many years now in the age of the Woke Jacobins.

    Unlike the original Jacobins of 1794 in Paris, who were ultra-extreme idealists, our Woke Jacobins are extreme cynics, imagining only the worst about the project of civilization. Hence, their alt-project to de-civilize the rest of us.

    It has been a long game of pretend.

    At the center of it is the race hustle – a hustle being the attempt to get something for nothing – in this sense, seeking respect and approbation for people engaged in uncivilized behavior.

    It kicked off in 2012 when one Trayvon Martin, 17, got shot while bashing the head of a neighborhood watch coordinator, George Zimmerman, against the pavement in Sanford, Florida. The news media dishonestly portrayed Martin as a skittle-munching child when police reported him as six-feet-tall. Zimmerman, five-foot-eight, was eventually acquitted of all charges on grounds of self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was born.

    Next up in 2014 was Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, Missouri. After robbing a convenience store, Brown was stopped on the street by Police Officer Darren Wilson. According to Wilson’s account, Brown reached into his patrol car trying to seize his gun. Brown’s DNA was later found on Wilson’s gun, and Brown’s blood was detected on the car’s door, suggesting a struggle. Following the incident, riots, arson, and looting broke out in Ferguson for days after. A local grand jury declined to indict Officer Wilson, and he was eventually exonerated of civil rights violations when investigated by the US Department of Justice. The case amplified the Black Lives Matter (movement.

    Other incidents followed in 2014: one Eric Garner, 43, was stopped in Staten Island for selling individual cigarettes on the street. Garner resisted arrest and was put in a choke hold. He repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe,” before dying of an asthma attack. In November, same year, Tamir Rice, 12, was brandishing a toy gun that looked like a real firearm in a Cleveland, Ohio, park, when police trainee Timothy Loehmann responded to a 911 call and shot the boy. A Cuyahoga County grand jury declined to indict Loehmann. The city of Cleveland settled $6-million with the Rice family in a wrongful death suit.

    In May, 2020, George Floyd, 46, a released felon, resisted arrest after trying to pass a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill in Minneapolis. Officer Derek Chauvin eventually subdued Floyd with a restraint, knee-on-back, recommended by the city police department’s training guide. Floyd died at the scene with 11 ng/mL of fentanyl, 19 ng/mL of methamphetamine, and cannabinoids detected in his blood at autopsy, plus heart disease and hypertension. Officer Chauvin was convicted on several counts of murder and manslaughter and three other officers at the scene also went to jail on lesser charges. Riots, arson, looting, and murder ensued in Minneapolis and many other American cities. Statues of George Floyd were erected around the country and the city of Minneapolis settled a wrongful death suit for $27-million with the Floyd family.

    There were other incidents around the country in this period involving black suspects killed by police and a narrative spread — with help from the news media — that innocent black citizens were being exterminated in great numbers by police.

    The truth was a statistically tiny number of black men killed by police, and always either in commission of a crime or violently resisting arrest. The hustle is that they should be excused for all that, even venerated and celebrated with statues, tributes, and payouts. Why everybody else goes along with it has been an abiding cultural mystery of our time. It probably just boils down to cowardice. In fact, cowardice doubled because we are too cowardly to even admit that we are cowards.

    One signal result of all this has been the increasing reluctance of police to stop criminal behavior, which, of course, leads to ever more bad behavior.

    Add to that new modes of law enforcement that make it difficult to hold violent criminals in custody — no cash bail, down-charging, catch-and-release. This has been the mode in New York under state AG Letitia James and Manhattan DA Bragg.

    It was the decision out of Bragg’s office to keep Jordan Neely on the street despite the danger he posed to the public, as denoted in his arrest record. Daniel Penny stepped in where law enforcement failed. Jordan Neely was not dehumanized by the system. He dehumanized himself and his death was the result of his own recklessness. He wasn’t anyone else’s victim. He doesn’t deserve a statue. The father who abandoned him does not deserve a multi-million-dollar payout from New York taxpayers.

    I’ll be surprised if the jury returns with a guilty verdict against Daniel Penny on the secondary charge of negligent homicide. That charge is just as unreasonable and dishonest as the primary charge was, and, anyway, a conviction will likely get thrown out on appeal due to the procedural mistakes of Judge Wiley.

    [ZH: The jury has acquitted Penny of the lesser charge in the hours since this note was written.]

    The Penny case, I’m sure you realize, is not the only bit of professional mischief that Alvin Bragg has engaged in.

    A case might be made that he has systematically tried to deprive non-black citizens of their civil rights.

    The Department of Justice in a new administration ought to contemplate prosecuting him for it.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 12/09/2024 – 16:20

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