Today’s News 10th June 2023

• Moving Toward A Global Empire: Humanity Sentenced To A Unipolar Prison & A Digital Gulag
  Moving Toward A Global Empire: Humanity Sentenced To A Unipolar Prison & A Digital Gulag

  Authored by David Skripac via Off-Guardian.org,

  “COVID is critical because this is what convinces people to accept, to legitimize, total biometric surveillance.”

  Yuval Noah Harari, World Economic Forum

  Using the fake “COVID virus” narrative as cover, the privileged, power-mad parasites who pilfer the world’s wealth have sharply accelerated their longstanding plan to create a single global empire that is completely under their command.

  

  This single global empire will ultimately employ the services of all the transnational institutions on the planet in order to regulate and control every aspect of human life.

  It is a global empire run by an exclusive club, perhaps 8,000 to 10,000 strong, whose members do not pledge allegiance to any national flag, who snobbishly view themselves as superior to their countrymen, and who are indifferent to political ideology so long as they can control the political structure from within. They aim to erase all national borders and are well on their way to shredding the constitutions of every nation-state.

  It is a global empire that, unlike days of yore, needs no standing army to wage war on a battlefield against an opposing empire. For, in this era of the single global empire, the enemy being subdued is each and every one of us.

  That mission is being accomplished through a sophisticated information warfare campaign, which is designed to monitor and manipulate our every thought, word, and deed.

  Importantly, this offensive attack on us is intended to suppress and stamp out freedom in every aspect of our lives—economic freedom; political freedom (particularly the freedom to impart and receive information and to accept or reject information); physical movement freedom; healthcare decision freedom; and, above all, the independence to think for ourselves—what can be called mental freedom.

  Before I expose this global empire in more detail, I would like to share with you, dear reader, a story about my parents. It serves to contrast the 1950s’ version of mass surveillance and harsh restrictions on individual freedoms in certain parts of the world with the 2020s version of repression, wherein all of humanity—regardless of where one lives—is steadily and surreptitiously being herded into an omnipresent totalitarian control grid.

  HARKING BACK TO 1955

  In 1955, my parents, Maida and Janko, risked everything to leave their homeland, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was not a decision they took lightly, for it meant losing everything—possibly even their lives—if Yugoslav authorities ever found out that my parents had no intention of ever returning after visiting neighboring Austria for what they told border guards was simply a fun weekend excursion.

  Since the end of the Second World War, Yugoslavia had been ruled by the communists under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. Although Tito’s government tried to improve the living standards of the average person, his apparatchiks’ authoritarian rule left a lot to be desired.

  For instance, a major impediment to progress was the entrenched corruption at every level of the Yugoslav government. Members of the Communist Party received privileges and favors, while everyone else waited months on end for basic necessities, such as foodstuffs and housing. Among party members, kickbacks and bribery were commonplace. Advancement up the social and political ladder was based on party allegiance and on who you knew, not on merit.

  Another major drawback under Tito’s reign was the curtailment of individual freedoms. My parents had witnessed firsthand an erosion of their basic rights—their right to assemble; their right to speak freely; their right to travel; and their right to own a business. If anyone bravely spoke out, either publicly or privately, against these injustices, the state would monitor and track his every move. One could even be watched by a nosy neighbour, who might well be working as a snitch for the government.

  The surveillance net cast over Yugoslav society and the restrictions imposed on civil liberties became worse as the rift between Belgrade and Moscow intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Starting in 1948, the Soviets actively tried to interfere with Yugoslavia’s domestic political affairs. They even sought to overturn the Yugoslav government, for Moscow disapproved of Tito’s desire to chart an independent course, separate from the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc.

  In June 1948, for example, the Soviets addressed the Yugoslav people with a call to overthrow their government. Yet, despite Moscow’s shadow permeating all levels of Yugoslavia’s internal political affairs, Tito’s communists managed to retain power. The USSR and its Eastern European allies refused to retreat, though. They still threatened to invade upon any pretext.

  At Stalin’s behest, the Soviets tried to assassinate Tito on several occasions. Meanwhile, once-friendly neighbors like Hungary and Romania, now in the grip of the USSR, blocked Yugoslavia’s borders and shot at—and sometimes killed—Yugoslav border guards.

  

  Against this backdrop, my parents made the fateful decision to leave their homeland. For years, they had been hearing through the grapevine about the “Promised Land”: the continent of North America. A land where the post-war economy was booming. A land of endless possibilities and countless opportunities. A land where, if one were willing to work hard, anything could be achieved. It was time for them to make their move.

  Fortunately, my mother had stayed in contact with Franc Kopitar, a close friend of her family since childhood. Franc, after having served with Tito’s partisans (his partisan code name was Silvo) during the Second World War, had joined the Yugoslav state tourist and transport agency Putnik. (The agency was later renamed Kompas—a name it holds to this day.)

  Although Franc was a patriot, ready to do whatever was necessary to defend his nation against an invading military force, he deeply distrusted the communists. Thus, he was willing to secretly help my parents escape Tito’s iron fist to seek a better life.

  In 1955, through his connections in the government, Franc was able to secure the requisite visa and travel documents that enabled my parents to visit Graz, Austria, on a “temporary weekend pass.” The documents were the real deal: They bore the required stamps of authorization and other markings that would mislead the authorities into believing that my parents would return after their weekend sojourn in neighboring Austria.

  Franc had instructed my parents to fully furnish their apartment with newly purchased furniture before they left. He knew this would mislead anyone who might be prying into my parents’ travel plans. After all, why on earth would anyone spend all of their meagre earnings to buy brand new furniture for their apartment if they planned to permanently leave the country?

  With the deceptive scene of decorated rooms set in place and their deceptive scheme set in motion, my by-now-virtually-penniless parents packed everything they treasured into two small suitcases and set out for the Ljubljana train station on a cold January afternoon in 1955.

  Filled with hope and trepidation, they boarded the train that would take them to the Yugoslav/Austria border. Not knowing how this momentous day would end, three questions weighed heavily on their minds:

  Who and what was waiting for them at the border?

  If their papers were not in order, were they going to be taken to prison and interrogated for days on end?

  Worse, if their papers were not in order or their demeanor seemed suspicious, would they be hauled off the train and escorted to a nearby forest, never to be seen again? They knew such a tragic end had befallen many unfortunate souls who had tried to escape Tito’s reign.

  The train reached the border with Austria by nightfall. (Austria at the time was divided into four Allied occupation zones: British, American, French, and Soviet.) Before it was allowed to cross into the British occupation zone, Yugoslav military authorities boarded in search of anyone who looked remotely suspicious or was suspected of traveling without authorization.

  My parents had been instructed by Franc to look the soldiers straight in the eye and smile when asked to present their documents for inspection. It was imperative to make eye contact. If you were perceived to be avoiding the authorities’ direct gaze or if you looked nervous, you would immediately be ordered to disembark.

  But making eye contact was easier said than done. My parents watched helplessly as a passenger interrogated ahead of them was removed from their railway car and dragged into the adjacent forest. Within seconds, they heard the echo of gunshots.

  Years later, my parents told me it was one of the most difficult moments they ever had to endure. They recalled feeling morbid fear and dread as they forced themselves to sit calmly and not perspire—while their insides were turning to jelly.

  To their enormous relief, when it came time to have their documents examined, everything was found to be in order. Nothing about their papers, their countenance, or their actions betrayed their secret. And so they were allowed to remain on the train and proceed into Austria.

  Once they reached the Graz train station, they had no idea what to do or where to go. So they stood on the platform until a man in a grey trench coat approached and asked, in perfect Croatian (though with a British accent), “Are you visiting or escaping?”

  After hearing their answer, the man chaperoned them to a processing centre, where they were provided with food and water by the Catholic relief agency Caritas Internationalis. From there they were transported by bus, along with other refugees, to a Displaced Person Camp (DP Camp Nr. 1001) located in Wels, Austria, in the American occupation zone.

  There, my parents were interrogated and processed by American officials and then shown to their tight-but-blessedly clean accommodations in the crowded camp.

  

  Although the camp was crammed with refugees from all over Eastern Europe, everyone made a point of getting along. My parents met many wonderful people of every neighboring nationality—Hungarian, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian—and from all walks of life during their stay at the camp. In the evenings, everyone played cards and shared stories—always full of intrigue and often pathos—about their harrowing journey from Eastern Europe.

  After spending three months at the DP camp, my parents were invited to move into the home of a wonderful Austrian family as part of the Austrian government’s refugee sponsor program, which was coordinated through the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The program was intended to help refugees learn the German language while providing them with a trade so that they could better assimilate into and contribute to Austrian society. (On average, about ten percent of all refugees would end up permanently staying in Austria, while the remainder would move abroad.)

  Despite having forged an enduring bond of friendship during their sixteen months of lodging with the Austrian family, they nonetheless made the bold decision to voyage across the North Atlantic to the Port of Montreal, Canada, in 1957.

  And the rest, as they say, is history.

  ADVANCING TO 2023

  Lately I’ve asked myself: If my parents lived today in the region now known as the former Yugoslavia and if they sought to move to a country that promised them an opportunity to improve their fortunes, where would they go?

  If they were looking for a place in which the inherent, inalienable rights of citizens are respected by the government, could they find such a place on any continent?

  Would they still travel to the Commonwealth country of Canada?

  Would they venture as far as the two southernmost Commonwealth nations—New Zealand and Australia?

  Would they flee to the ostensibly free United States? Or to a US-controlled European Union country?

  How about moving to one of the BRICs—say, to Brazil, Russia, or India? (No, they probably wouldn’t be tempted by China!)

  One way to answer these questions is to take a look at the current political and economic conditions in the aforementioned countries—and ascertain the “freedom factor”—or lack thereof—in each.

  As we make our way from country to country, we will examine the actions of their governments over the past three years and reach a conclusion on behalf of my parents.

  Let’s start with the country they adopted and the country I was born and raised in: Canada.

  A 2023 LOOK AT CANADA

  When my parents immigrated to Canada in 1957, it was indeed a land of opportunity and of plenty. It was possible for a middle-class, single-income family with two children to own a house, a couple of vehicles, and perhaps a summer cottage.

  My parents had only a sixth-grade education, but they were willing to work hard. In a span of two years, they earned and saved enough to start their own business—a beauty salon. By 1963, they were able to buy their first detached home for $10,000, with a $5,000 down payment. Five years later, they managed to pay off the mortgage from the proceeds of their modest income. Looking back, I find their determination and savings skills incredible!

  Now, imagine what that same scenario would look like today. The average selling price of a Canadian detached home in January 2023 was $612,204. If we apply what my parents did, putting down half the price, we would shell out a whopping $306,000 up front then pay off the remaining $306,000 over the next five years.

  That works out to approximately $61,200 in annual mortgage payments, not including interest. If we calculate the cost of food, clothing, and fuel—another $40,000 per year for an average four-person family—we would have to earn around $100,000 a year plus another $100,000 or so to cover property and income taxes and mortgage interest.

  Thus, we would have to earn around $200,000 in pre-tax annual income to live a fairly moderate lifestyle, afford our mortgage, taxes, and basic costs of living—all to achieve what my parents were able to do in the early 1960s on an at-the-time much more modest income.

  Does such a scenario seem even remotely possible today? I think not.

  The truth of the matter is that in Canada, as in most of the world, the cost of living has skyrocketed. The broad middle class that existed in Canada and most of the Western world from the 1950s through the 1980s, three decades when the average worker could own his own home, is being squeezed out of existence.

  Rapid inflation has eaten away the purchasing power of both Canadian and US dollars even as housing costs have helium-ballooned up, up, and away. Making matters worse, rising energy, food, household goods, and healthcare prices have contributed to spiraling inflation, which is aggravating an already serious decline in real wages.

  On the political scene, the present conduct of the Canadian government is virtually unrecognizable compared to the conduct of its predecessor government in the 1950s. The current regime in Canada, like most of the so-called “Western liberal democracies,” has shown disdain for truth and for individual freedom ever since the pseudopandemic was unleashed on the world in March 2020.

  Like most countries, Canada’s federal and provincial governments implemented reprehensible COVID measures—lockdowns, physical distancing, masking, quarantines, QR codes, and experimental mRNA gene therapy mandates—to combat the alleged “deadly COVID virus.”

  When Canadians from all walks of life revolted peacefully against the assault on their inalienable and constitutional rights by forming and participating in the Truckers Freedom Convoy, the regime retaliated. Full of spite, the thuggish Trudeau found an extreme way to remove protesters’ right to peacefully assemble. On February 14, 2022, he invoked the Emergencies Act—the first time it had ever been enacted in Canadian history.

  The invocation of the Emergencies Act enabled Ottawa police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to forcibly dismantle the four-week-long, thousands-strong peaceful demonstration in the nation’s capital. Despite being orderly, respectful, and nonviolent, these unarmed citizens were beaten by brutal, rifle-wielding officers. Two elderly protesters were trampled by police horses, and journalists were pepper-sprayed and shot.

  Using the pretext of the Emergencies Act, the federal government even went so far as to freeze the bank accounts of some Canadians who had either organised or financially supported the convoy.

  Then, on April 27, 2023—more than a year after the protest was broken up—Bill C-11, officially known as the Online Streaming Act, became law. Cowardly Canadian senators voted for it despite all their previously recommended amendments to it having failed. The new law will enforce sweeping internet censorship legislation that silences everyday Canadians on social media platforms.

  In sum, Canada has completely lost its sense of humanity. The compassion and kindness that Canadians are known for throughout the world still exists, but it is being suppressed and buried under a mountain of lies propagated by the government and its handlers, who are part and parcel of the aforementioned global dictatorship.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in today’s Canada.

  We’ll now take a peek at three other Commonwealth of Nations countries.

  *

  A 2023 LOOK AT AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, AND THE UK

  The rulers of the other fifty-five nations in the Commonwealth couldn’t engineer an excuse for following Canada’s freeze on bank accounts, but some of them adopted especially savage measures to eradicate an alleged novel disease called COVID-19.

  The Australian government not only mandated curfews, masking, physical distancing, and the shutdown of the economy through lockdowns, but it ordered the army to patrol city streets during the lockdowns. In the Northern Territories, soldiers forcibly removed residents who were suspected of having the dreaded disease and transported them to Quarantine Camps.

  In two major Australian cities, the political puppets controlled by the global oligarchs may not have frozen the bank accounts of lockdown protestors, but they did order police in riot gear to attend protests in Melbourne and Sydney, where they shot rubber bullets at unarmed fleeing people and pepper-sprayed the face of a 70-year-old woman who had fallen and was lying helpless in the street.

  

  New Zealand, likewise, turned into a full-fledged police state, enforcing home detentions and citywide quarantine zones. Whoever was found breaching the government’s draconian lockdown orders faced arrest and even a prison sentence. In March 2023, for example, Pastor Billy Te Kahika and his colleague, Vincent Eastwood, were sentenced to four months and three months imprisonment, respectively, for illegally organising and attending a protest in front of TVNZ.

  Aside from implementing ruthless COVID measures similar to Australia’s, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arbitrarily mandated “vaccination” for public health officials, pharmacists, barbers, teachers, and community support service employees. (More on Ardern below.)

  The UK government, while not as harsh as its Aussie or Kiwi counterparts, nonetheless behaved repressively and reprehensibly in its anti-COVID efforts. Police were ordered to enforce a limit on gatherings of no more than six people in pubs, restaurants, cinemas, and outdoor spaces.

  Like its Commonwealth partners, Britain didn’t shy away from using dubious tactics to manipulate a subset of its population. Its “nudge unit,” set up by the Cabinet Office in 2010, has been applying behavioural science principles—aka the pressure of propaganda—to steer public policy on everything from paying taxes to insulating homes. During the scamdemic, this unaccountable and unethical “nudge unit” scared, shamed, and scapegoated the public into taking the COVID jab.

  We mustn’t forget that the UK is home to one of the world’s leading technocrats, the newly crowned King Charles III. In January 2020, then-Prince Charles returned to Davos for the first time in thirty years to speak at a World Economic Forum annual meeting—this one was celebrating the WEF’s 50th anniversary. And what subject did this pseudo-environmentalist address?

  Why, of course, his passion for adopting decarbonization and other sustainable development initiatives, which he had to know were designed to further impoverish the poor and further enrich His Royal Highness and his avaricious buddies around the globe.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in today’s Commonwealth of Nations countries.

  *

  We’ll pause here to inquire: Who are the actors reading their lines from the same worldwide script and performing identical roles as enforcers for the emerging global government?

  In Canada, the most notable cast members are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Both are lackeys of Klaus Schwab and graduates of his Young Global Leaders (YGL) academy—the indoctrination arm of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

  Other characters in this unfolding drama—YGL graduates all—include New Zealand’s dictatorial former Prime Minister-turned-Harvard-fellow Jacinda Ardern, France’s equally despotic President Emmanuel Macron and tech tyrants Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. According to one source, there are approximately 3,800 YGLs—and counting.

  The YGLs’ chief raison d’être, it would appear, is to carry out the WEF’s Great Reset/Fourth Industrial Revolution initiatives. The WEF agenda is being aided and abetted by the secretive Bilderberg Group, by Malthusian depopulationists at the eugenical Club of Rome, and, most notably, by the globe-wide organization that fathered the WEF: the United Nations.

  Through its deceptive Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its sinister Agenda 2030—the latter saddled with admirable-sounding-but-actually-imprisoning Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the UN has put in place a system designed to subjugate the entire population of the planet by transforming every human being into a feudal serf and a technocratic slave and a bug-and-synthetic-meat-eating transhuman—or topsoil!

  As I write this, Agenda 2030’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals are being instituted across the globe through the WEF’s Great Reset and its transhumanist Fourth Industrial Revolution.

  And, as I write this, the installation of those SDGs is being abetted by numerous central banks—most notably the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank (ECB), the People’s Bank of China (PBC), the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR), and the US Federal Reserve (the Fed). These and other nations’ central banks are coordinating their efforts with what Tragedy and Hope author Carroll Quigley called the “apex” of the central bank network, the Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

  The central bankers intend to unleash, eventually in every nation on earth, the most extensive, oppressive social control mechanism ever devised: the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). (In the beginning, each country will have its own CBDC, but it makes sense that ultimately they would be merged into a single global digital currency.)

  The implementation of CBDCs, combined with the rollout of a digital ID system, country by country, will spell the end of human freedom. Both the CBDCs and the digital IDs will be sold by the central banks to the unsuspecting public as a safeguard to protect the user’s anonymity and data. However, that pitch will be a deception designed to obscure the malicious intent and dictatorial bent of this monumental control grid.

  Of the 208 nations with central banks, 119 of them are currently developing their own form of digital currency.

  And that brings us to the United States of America, its all-seeing, all-knowing, all-controlling Federal Reserve Bank, and its other forms of imprisonment and enslavement.

  A 2023 LOOK AT THE US

  In addition to the planned rollout of the Federal Reserve-issued CBDC, there is movement afoot to launch a nationwide digital ID in the US.

  US Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming have introduced Senate Bill 884, also known as “the Improving Digital Identity Act of 2023.”

  If this bill passes both chambers and is signed into law, it will require all Americans to have a valid digital ID if they want to connect to the internet, open and maintain a bank account, obtain a passport, and gain access to medical care. In essence, it will mimic the social credit score system the government of China uses to track and control its citizens. It is the very vehicle that the WEF is so eager to deploy across the rest of the world.

  SB 884 is the latest, most obvious, and most concerning evidence of the US government’s ongoing public-private partnership with Big Tech. It points to the intent of the corporate-controlled, highly centralized and security-conscious government to surveil the movements of the entire US population.

  Of course, the panopticon created by the Improving Digital Identity Act will allow US federal and state agencies to not only monitor everyone’s actions but also to block, silence, and sideline dissenters who disagree with the official narrative. All layers of government will be able to openly, actively, legally censor citizens and ignore their rights as codified by the constitutions of the US and its 50 states.

  This is exactly what Google and its YouTube, Meta and its Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have been doing to their users in their attempts to silence anyone who presents inconvenient facts about COVID or any other politically sensitive agenda.

  For those of you who think the State of Florida is a shining example of preserving liberty and human rights, think again.

  Gov. Ron DeSantis has just sidelined Florida’s Senate Bill 222, the Protection of Medical Freedom Bill. SB 222 would have ended all discrimination against the unvaccinated, ended all existing and future vaccine mandates, and ended all existing and future vaccine passports for all Floridians, regardless of the vaccines being mandated by the federal government or by the eugenicists at the World Health Organization (WHO)—which, like the WEF, is allied with the UN.

  In its place, Gov. DeSantis is promoting SB 252, which would end vaccine mandates and passports only for existing “COVID-19 vaccines.” Under SB 252, citizens in Florida would not be protected from future “pandemics,” future vaccine mandates, or future vaccine passport requirements.

  Therefore, in the future, when the director (read: dictator) of the WHO declares a new pandemic under the vague requirements stipulated in the upcoming new global “Pandemic Treaty”—without even a shred of evidence of the existence of a contagious disease—Floridians would be required to surrender their bodily autonomy to an entirely new set of draconian mandates.

  In some ways, the US is the worst in the world when it comes to stripping citizens of the right to make their own healthcare decisions and safeguard their mental and physical sovereignty. For, besides working intimately with the transhumanist ideologues at the WHO, the Rockefeller Foundation, the WEF, and other UN agencies for several years, the US federal government has been at the epicenter of development, testing, and deployment of the experimental mRNA gene therapy “countermeasures.”

  This research and the resulting products have adversely affected the lives of not only Americans but of people throughout the world.

  Looking back, we recall that in early 2020 the US government, as part of Operation Warp Speed (OWS), worked hand-in-hand with the Department of Defence (DoD) and its US Army Contracting Command branch, plus the National Security Council (NSC) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), to award clinical development and manufacturing contracts to each of the “vaccine” manufacturers—Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax,

  AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Janssen—even before deployment of the dangerous COVID-19 experimental gene therapies to the 50 states and the rest of the world could proceed.

  The DoD went so far as to design, oversee, and organise the highly sensitive clinical trials for these experimental products. These steps are typically taken by the vaccine manufacturers themselves. They traditionally take years and years to complete, compared to the few weeks in which the COVID-19 trials were apparently conducted.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in today’s United States of America.

  But what if my parents decided to move to today’s Germany or the German part of Switzerland?

  Or what if they chose to join the defiant anti-Macron protesters in France instead of departing, as they did, from the port at Le Havre on a ship bound for the Port of Montreal?

  Or what if they felt for—and elected to fight side-by-side with—the persecuted farmers in The Netherlands?

  Or what if they opted to stay put in 2020s’ Austria?

  Would they find any aspect of freedom left in the European Union countries…?

  *

  A 2023 LOOK AT THE EU

  The simple answer: No! The EU is a premeditated economic, political, and social failure.

  In fact, the EU was an idea dreamed up not by the citizens of any nation in Europe but by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and David Rockefeller’s Club of Rome. Their rationale for creating the EU was painfully obvious: It’s easier for intelligence agencies and avowed eugenicists to control one larger, dependent, compromised, and impotent entity than to control numerous smaller, still-independent, sovereign nation-states.

  The leaders—if they can be called that—of the European nations are EU sock puppets and shills. As such, they are doing everything in their power to deindustrialise and destroy their respective economies. As I just said, weakened national and regional governments are much easier to fold into a global empire than are strong, independent ones. The leaders of Germany, France, Austria, Spain, et al. have to know this, which means they have been corrupted to the core.

  Here’s a prime example. The so-called heads of state in Europe insist they are protecting their own country’s national sovereignty and security by imposing economic sanctions on Russia—at Washington’s behest. They pretend the sanctions are meant to injure the big bad bear who dared attack NATO-controlled Ukraine.

  But this is not true. The sanctions are actually decimating their own economies and peoples. The energy shortages, rising prices of goods, food shortages, and climbing interest rates throughout Europe are all intended results of those sanctions. I repeat: The leaders of Germany, France, Austria, Spain, et al. have to know this, which means they have been corrupted to the core.

  They also pretend that the structure of the EU’s central government in Brussels is a “representative democracy.” No, it isn’t. Not even close. At its heart is the European Commission (EC)—the EU’s executive body—which is made up of unelected officials. The current EC President, notoriously corrupt Ursula von der Leyen, sets policy for the entire EU behind closed doors. Once the EC formulates a new policy, it’s just a matter of time before the bureaucrats in the European Parliament give it their rubber stamp of approval.

  Secrecy, non-transparency, and no accountability are the name of the game. The EC is a farce and a failure through and through.

  Similarly, the purported independence of the European Central Bank (ECB) is a sham. Although its website says the ECB is not “allowed to seek or take instructions from EU institutions or bodies, from any government of a Member State or from any other body,” the ECB is heavily influenced by the bank that created it in 1999: the BIS.

  And, like the BIS, the ECB’s day-to-day operations are kept secret. It never releases a press release after a monetary policy meeting of its Governing Council, despite the European Parliament passing repeated resolutions demanding that it do so. Moreover, its structure, method of operation, and lack of accountability mirror that of the BIS.

  In short, it’s hard to imagine a more undemocratic institution than the ECB. Yet this is the bank that Eurozone nations are asked to blindly trust when it comes to formulating their monetary policy. Simply mind-boggling!

  With such an autocratic structure already in place, it was oh-so-easy for EC members to go along with the “pandemic” narrative by making backroom deals with the pharmaceutical companies to purchase millions of doses of the COVID-19 “vaccine” and by recommending that all member states implement the criminal COVID-19 measures.

  Likewise, it was a snap to persuade EU member states to stand by in silence after Washington, the real power behind NATO, carried out a blatant act of war against them by destroying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

  We spoke earlier of a few graduates of Klaus Schwab’s YGL academy, mentioning one European alumnus, France’s Macron, by name. Other Young Global Leaders who have advanced through the political ranks in Europe include former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Not to be left out: EU President Ursula von der Leyen, who sits on the WEF’s Board of Trustees.

  Not surprisingly, the EU member states are following the US lead in pressing ahead with a digital ID system and basing it on China’s enslavement/imprisonment model.

  Croatia (once part of Yugoslavia), where my father, Janko, is from, plans to be the first EU member to roll out the digital ID system for travelers flying between Zagreb and Helsinki this summer. The “pilot project” is using the UK-based company Verify 365 to merge the electronic identity of passengers with the new MyID Digital Wallet system. As always, the scheme is being promoted to the public as “a safe, secure and convenient way to prove who you are.”

  Thankfully, some citizens in EU countries are rising up in defiance of the ruling oligarchy. In the Netherlands, for instance, thousands of Dutch farmers revolted against their government’s insane plan to cut nitrogen emissions by permanently closing more than 11,000 farms. The farmers created their own political movement, the Farmer-Citizen Movement—or BoerburgerBeweging (BBB)—which recently triumphed in regional elections after months of widespread tractor protests.

  Then we have the millions of disgruntled citizens who have been regularly flocking to the streets of Paris and other major French cities to protest various economic and political “reforms.” Their initial complaint about higher fuel taxes (remember the yellow vest movement in 2019?) has evolved into a revolt against “Monarch” Macron’s decision to increase the legal pension age from 62 to 64. Macron’s invocation of Article 49.3—for the 11th time in his “reign”—allowed him to bypass the National Assembly (France’s lower house of Parliament). On May Day, protests against that perceived injustice got ugly.

  To be sure, these massive demonstrations and the BBB’s encouraging victory are positive steps. No major liberation of Europeans from their own governments will take place, however, until the entire edifice of the EU is torn down. Most importantly, Europe will not be fully emancipated until NATO is dismantled. Only then will the people of each European nation be truly freed from the shackles of the Washington establishment that dictates every aspect—military and economic and otherwise—of their lives.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in today’s European Union countries.

  In all fairness, we must point out that totalitarian control and surveillance mechanisms, such as digital IDs and CBDCs, are not unique to Western countries. Venturing into the Eastern countries, we would encounter the exact same control grid being developed, with the same globalist, imperialist players at the helm, all of them ensuring that the East, like the West, remains under their domination.

  One group of nations that is neither geographically East nor West but that has formed a bloc to counteract the dominance of the US and its allies is what Goldman Sachs ex-chief economist Jim O’Neill coined the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

  I wonder: Would my parents ferret out a haven of freedom in any of the BRICS nations? We’ll soon find out.

  *

  A 2023 LOOK AT THE BRICS NATIONS

  Countless pundits and journalists in the alternative media have opined that the BRICS nations—particularly Russia, China, and India—are leading the charge in an anti-globalist, anti-global-governance, anti-single-global-empire crusade.

  On the contrary, nothing could be further from the truth.

  Here are some proofs that they misunderstand the geopolitical reality:

  All of the BRICS nations are firmly onboard the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution and the UN’s Agenda 2030—notably its SDGs.

  The central banks of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are all forging ahead with plans to roll out their programmable CBDCs as soon as possible. Among those five central banks, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are considering putting expiration dates on their CBDCs.

  The BRICS are not challenging Western economic hegemony. Their financial initiatives are deeply connected to the World Bank and the IMF. Therefore, they must be seen as closely connected to the Washington establishment, not clashing with it (despite appearances to the contrary).

  When it comes to COVID-19, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have been leading the pack in enacting a biosecurity surveillance state.

  Indeed, ever since the scamdemic scare was announced in early 2020, the Kremlin has been complicit, just like the collective West, in carrying out harmful anti-human, anti-health measures under the direction of the WHO’s health tyranny.

  For example, President Putin and his Minister of Health (and WHO executive board member) Mikhail Albertovič Murashko have been promoting mass vaccination.

  Their Sputnik V injection is virtually identical to the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s injection. In fact, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF)—the Kremlin fund that finances Sputnik V—signed a memorandum of cooperation with AstraZeneca in December 2020.

  Moreover, Russia has introduced vaccination mandates for certain regions of the country and mandatory jabs for the military.

  Because Russia has no equivalent of the US CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), it’s difficult to ascertain exactly how many Russians are being injured or murdered by their experimental Sputnik V jab. Nevertheless, thanks to Argentina’s Ministry of Health, we do know that, of the three “vaccines” the Argentinian government has adopted for use—Sputnik V, AstraZeneca, and China’s Sinopharm—the Sputnik V injection has been the leader of the pack when it comes to causing adverse reactions, beating the other two contenders by a huge margin.

  

  Russian doctors are well aware of health risks associated Sputnik V, but they are labeled “terrorists” and are threatened by the state with excessive fines and prison time if they voice their concerns. Afraid of the consequences, most of them self-censor.

  If you think biometric surveillance is unique to China and the West, you are wrong. Herman Gref, the CEO of Russia’s Sberbank and a member of the WEF’s Board of Trustees (with Ursula von der Leyden, you will recall), has teamed up with Russian telecom titan Rostelecom to form Digital Identification Technologies JV, which will create a unified biometric system for all of Russia.

  Soon, the poor propagandized and punctured people of Russia will not be able to access any government services unless they hand over their biometric data—bypassing the need for pesky QR codes altogether.

  Should we be surprised that Putin and his functionaries are no more curbing individual freedoms than are the West’s tyrants? Why would we be? What would prevent Putin from following in the footsteps of his predecessors? Nothing I know of, unless the people of Russia begin to mobilise and protest in a big way, as their French brothers and sisters have done in Paris.

  Consider: When Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the former Soviet Union, he was avowed member of the globalist-eugenicist Club of Rome. He also partnered with Canadian globalist-eugenicist Maurice Strong to establish the Earth Charter global sustainability project in conjunction with Agenda 21. Both Gorbachev and Strong were leading figures in the UN’s early steps toward global governance.

  Just because the Soviet Union petered out and Gorby and Strong are no longer with us is no reason to assume that Russia’s ruler of twenty-four years has not been pursuing the same globalist ends. Indeed, Putin hardly seems the type to let other world leaders hog the limelight, take all the marbles, or grow dangerously bigger and stronger than he is.

  Truth be told, BRICS bloc members Russia and China are simply another version of the same totalitarian control grid set up by the technocrats in the West. Neither of them offers any out—any salvation from the harms of biologics, biometrics, and biosecurity—to their people.

  In fact, China has been the test bed for all of the totalitarian mechanisms that either have been or will be let loose on the rest of the world. During the pseudopandemic, China launched a series of vicious COVID-19 measures—inhumane lockdowns, mandatory QR codes, ubiquitous biometric surveillance, mass compulsory vaccination, forced—and enforced—masking rules, and constant testing. In short, China is a full-fledged scientific dictatorship, aka technocracy.

  And what about the other three BRICS nations: Brazil, India, and South Africa?

  Besides being onboard the WEF bandwagon, the WHO bandwagon, the CDBC bandwagon, the World Bank and IMF bandwagon, and thus the entire Western hegemonic bandwagon, have these three countries installed any politicians or policies or programs that are freedom-oriented and that would make my parents want to flee to them?

  First, Brazil. The largest South American country is now under the thumb of the globalist cabal with the election of Luiz Inácio Lulada Silva (commonly known as “Lula”), Brazil’s 39th President. Unlike his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who refused to sign an international pandemic treaty and resisted certain aspects of the scamdemic scheme, Lula fully embraces the monolithic, world-dominating agenda of the WHO, GAVI, and the WEF.

  To wit: In February 2023, Lula declared that for families to remain eligible for the famous Bolsa Family Program (BFP), a social program for the poorest of the poor families, they must vaccinate their children—specifically with the COVID-19 experimental gene therapy. Otherwise, they lose the benefits afforded them under the BFP.

  Next, India. Contrary to what both the mainstream and the alternative media have been claiming, the Gates Foundation never got “kicked out” of India. In fact, the opposite is true. In 2006, for example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan, launched the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI).

  Over the years, the PHFI received funding from pharma companies (e.g., GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson), from “philanthropists” (e.g., the usual suspects: Bill and Melinda Gates and the Rockefellers), and from NGOs (e.g., the World Bank and USAID). When the WHO declared the “pandemic” in early 2020, members of the PHFI were perfectly poised to create, advise, and direct the Indian government’s national COVID Task Force. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to conclude that the PHFI was pivotal in steering all COVID-19 measures and COVID-19 injection-related policies in India.

  Last, South Africa. Working closely with the nation’s servile mass media, the South African government, headed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, imposed one of the longest, most severe lockdowns on the continent. The impact of closing small businesses on a populace that largely depends on weekly subsistence wages was catastrophic. Because the state failed to deliver subsides to the poor and self-employed for over a year, nearly one quarter of all small businesses went under, and unemployment skyrocketed.

  Brian Pottinger, writing for UnHerd, outlines what the consequences were for those brave individuals who dared challenge the South African government’s insane lockdown restrictions:

  An entire section of the population was effectively criminalised: in the first four months of the outbreak, 230,000 citizens, 0.4% of the population, were charged with infringement of the Disaster Regulations for breaking the restrictions, 311 of them policemen. All the charges were later dropped: the criminal justice system simply could not cope.

  Thus, there is no way to justify calling the BRICS economic model a non-globalisation alternative to the West’s globalisation push when, in reality, it is just another form of globalisation—a different approach to globalisation.

  Like the Western model, the BRICS model is structurally inflationary. Like the Western model, the BRICS model is not free market-based, but, rather, industrial policy-based. And, significantly, the BRICS model is part and parcel, as is the Western model, of the new international world order. They are the same dysfunctional plan, just with different brandings.

  CONCLUSION

  Maida and Janko would not find economic freedom, political freedom, physical freedom, healthcare freedom, or mental freedom in any of today’s BRICS nations.

  *

  Granted, there are great power rivalries taking place on the world stage. To the average person, it may actually look as if we are indeed living in a multipolar world, where the weakened nations of the West—led by the fading US empire—on one side of the divide are battling to retain supremacy over the energized nations of the East—led by Russia and China—on the other side of the divide.

  “But examples of multipolarity abound,” you insist.

  I understand: There’s the conflict in Ukraine, where innocent people on both sides are suffering and dying needlessly.

  I understand: Tensions are brewing off the coast of China, where the American Empire is trying in vain to prevent China’s inevitable takeover of Taiwan.

  I understand: That same slowly dying American Empire is feverishly trying to prevent European-Russian economic integration by blowing up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, thus enabling Washington to maintain its temporary grip on that region until its inescapable economic collapse is complete.

  Despite the veneer of multipolarity, however, there is—as I mentioned at beginning of this article—a single global empire operating at a higher level. Or, you could say, at a deep state level. The unipolar empire exists outside of the general field of perception of the majority of the world’s populace. It transcends not only the East-West partition but all other divides between nations. We will now find out how this is so.

  THE GLOBAL EMPIRE: A UNIPOLAR PRISON, A DIGITAL GULAG

  At the top of the global empire is “the central bank of all central banks”—the highly secretive and unaccountable Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Its task is to direct and coordinate monetary and fiscal policy for all the central banks around the globe. This is how the BIS directly controls the world’s money supply and indirectly controls trade and national economies.

  By holding such an influential and prominent position, the BIS forms the apex of a pyramid-like structure that consists of a ladder-like hierarchy of organizations and institutions comprising the global empire. All of them are run by what I call the parasite class.

  

  [click to enlarge]

  Per this Global Public-Private Partnership (G3P) chart created by UK researcher and journalist Iain Davis, the global empire’s structure is designed so that the chain of command flows from the BIS to the world’s central banks and from them to…

  …the policymakers at the think tanks. These include various Rockefeller funds and foundations, plus the Rockefeller-founded Club of Rome, the Rockefeller-founded Trilateral Commission, and the Rockefeller-founded Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Some of these think tanks actually have non-Rockefeller roots, among them the CFR’s UK equivalent, the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA), and the hardcore eugenicist Chatham House, founded by British diplomat Lionel Curtis in the aftermath of World War One.

  The think tanks work in partnership with the BIS and the central banks to set international public-private policy objectives. Once these big-picture objectives are formulated, they are sent to…

  …the policy distributors, such as the Rockefeller-founded United Nations, the UN’s WHO and IPCC, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, ostensible philanthropists (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation comes to mind), global corporations, and NGOs.

  As their name implies, the distributors are tasked with disseminating the policies far and wide, to all corners of the world. They make sure the policies also get into the hands of officials on the next ladder rung down, who are called…

  …the policy enforcers. Their ranks include the various military branches, the judiciary, police and security forces, and any other enforcement arms built into all layers of government (national, provincial, state, local).

  These governmental law enforcement bodies work in conjunction with selected “scientific” authorities, such as…

  …the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).

  All of these agencies and authorities must justify the policies they are required to enforce. They often write rules and regulations and ordinances and codes for the policies and then pass them down to the organizations on the lowest rung of the ladder. Iain Davis calls them…

  …the “policy propagandists”—or, in polite terms, the perception managers.

  These media and public relations outfits, consisting of the mainstream media (“Establishment” newspapers, magazines, and television and radio stations), social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter), and fact checkers (Full Fact, PolitiFact, Snopes, AP Fact Check, Poynter, etc.), work alongside hybrid warriors (77th Brigade and HutEighteen, for example) and anti-hate campaigners. The latter include the US-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

  The propagandists’ job is to persuade the public—us billions of ordinary folks who stand beneath the ladder-like pyramid—to unthinkingly accept the lies we are being fed and to automatically acquiesce to the repressive policies.

  In summary, humanity has never in its entire history faced such an all-pervasive totalitarian, technocratic system of governance.

  The purpose of this despotic empire is to curtail, if not remove, humans’ fundamental freedoms, steal our wealth, sap our physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual strength, separate us from our friends and families, and thus control us from head to toe, from here to there and everywhere, all day and all night.

  Working behind the scenes, the BIS and the central banks are already causing some sizable banks (think Signature, Silicon Valley, and First Republic banks) to collapse. From here on in, the number of bank failures will only increase. Soon the biggest banks (think JPMorgan Chase & Co.) will start gobbling up not just large and mid-sized competitors but also smaller regional and local banks.

  Once the central banks have completely implemented their planned AI-controlled digital monetary and financial system, we will all be held hostage in their global empire, sentenced to their unipolar prison, confined in their digital gulag.

  The ailing American Empire will continue to exist for the time being. But that’s only because the parasite class that has been feeding off America’s wealth for centuries still needs the American military to do its bidding—its dirty work—abroad. Once the corporate controlled US Empire has served its purpose economically and militarily and is no longer a viable host, those same greedy parasites will have a feast to end all feasts—with the aim of draining that once-strong, swaggering nation to the last drop. No empire has withstood the generations of blood-suckers.

  Putin, too, is dispensable and disposable in the parasitic globalists’ eyes. He cannot curry their favor simply by playing along with their agenda, even though he may perceive himself to be one of them. If Russia is not careful, it will be dismembered, piece by piece. Its valuable resources will be snatched and sold off. It will be turned into a land of warring fiefdoms. Parasites are equal opportunity feeders.

  Even common folk like you and I are not immune from the parasitic class, which attaches itself to and absorbs anyone willing to be its host. Regardless of our location, we are all, in varying degree, already living within reach of the tentacles of the parasites’ global empire.

  FINAL CONCLUSION

  And that brings us back to the question I asked at the start of this article: If my parents had stayed in their place of birth, the region now known as the former Yugoslavia, for the last 58 years and if only now, in 2023, they decided they’d had their fill of the technocratic state’s suppression of their rights, where would they go to find freedom?

  My 96-year-old father answered that question when I posed it to him recently.

  “Knowing what the world is like today,” he replied, “I would probably not go anywhere. Yes, Belarus holds the gold standard when it comes to not complying with the COVID narrative, but I would most likely stay in my home country of Croatia. I would join a network of likeminded people—someone like journalist Andrija Klarić of Slobodni podcast—so that together we can find solutions to this nightmare.”

  This article is written in memory of my mother, Maida, and in tribute to her childhood friend Franc, who saved her and her husband, Janko, from a life of repression in Yugoslavia and from possible death by firing squad during their escape.

  It also honors my father, Janko, who persuaded me to open my eyes to the ugly, if hidden, realities of the world. With perseverance and patience, he pounded into my teenage head that all is not as it appears to be. He told me to always question everything, to get as many different perspectives as possible when looking into any subject, and, above all, to “follow the money trail, for it never lies.”

  They would want me to expose and reject the global empire and its nefarious agenda. They would welcome a truly multipolar world. A world in which “we the people” live in peace, respect everyone’s God-given right to freedom, privacy, and individual sovereignty, and work together in ways that benefit all of humanity and bless our beautiful, abundant earth.

  Originally published by Global Research

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 23:40

• Colorado Bans Court-Ordered "Brainwashing" Camps For Abused Minors
  Colorado Bans Court-Ordered “Brainwashing” Camps For Abused Minors

  Colorado has become the first state in the nation to ban court-ordered camps where children are ‘reunified’ with a parent who has been accused of abusing them.

  

  These reunification camps are used by family court judges to settle private custody disputes or divorces involving minors. As part of the order, camp workers are sometimes given temporary custody of the children so they can legally take them from their homes. While at the camp, children are forced into what some have described as a “brainwashing technique” that the camps call “reunification therapy.”

  According to Tina Swithin, Founder of One Mom’s Battle, forcing children back into a relationship with an abusive parent is essentially “court-ordered child trafficking,” the Epoch Times reports.

  Evita Tolu, an attorney in Missouri where she has represented children forced into reunification counseling with an abusive parent, called the practice “kafkaesque”—a term based on German novelist Franz Kafka who wrote stories about characters who were subject to severely bizarre bureaucratic powers.

  The Epoch Times reached out for comment from the three major court-ordered reunification camps: Family Bridges, Turning Points for Families, and Lynn Steinberg’s reunification camp. None responded.

  Some children sent to the camps have described being dragged out of their homes by transport workers, being handcuffed, and transported to an unknown place. Some children have alleged undergoing degrading punishments if they don’t say they love the parent who allegedly abused them. -Epoch Times

  “I was so terrified, I couldn’t stop shaking,” said one former ‘inmate’ of such camps, Allyson Bender, who recounted her experience in 2017 when she was 16-years-old.

  More via the Epoch Times;

  The Colorado law, which now bans judges from ordering children to attend reunification camps against their will came on the heels of a string of tragic murders of children within a month by Colorado parents awarded custody despite having either convictions or pending allegations against them.

  It also followed the results of a state audit that turned up evidence that at least one custody evaluator admitted he dismissed 90 percent of child abuse claims without investigating them.

  The main trigger for ordering children to attend reunification camps is an allegation that they have made false allegations of child abuse against their parent as part of the other parent’s plot to alienate them from the accused parent.

  As The Epoch Times and other media outlets have reported, family court judges have been found in a high number of cases to refuse to consider evidence of child abuse against a parent.

  In some cases, the judges have ordered the suppression of criminal convictions of child abuse against a parent. Some parents who brought up past convictions have themselves been accused of parental alienation.

  As part of the practice, the parent accused of “alienation” is often stripped of custody and children are ordered to undergo reunification therapy.

  Court-ordered reunification has been denounced by several organizations including the American Psychiatric Association. Insurance companies will not insure the camps or the therapy administered. The therapy costs an average of $5,000 a day, according to bills shared with The Epoch Times by parents.

  The length of the stay in the camps averages 90 days. But as one parent told The Epoch Times in March, his two girls were kept “indefinitely” at the reunification camp. They were forcibly transported by “transporters” in California under a family judge’s court order.

  “Family court judges are basically doing whatever they want with our kids,” Riley, who says he went broke paying for the camps, told The Epoch Times.

  In addition to the Colorado legislation, Swithin’s group has filed a class action lawsuit against the Turning Points for Families reunification camp and its owner Linda Gottlieb on behalf of several children who say there were abused at the camp.

  Gottlieb did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times.

  On its website, the camp, which operates nationwide, bills itself as “a therapeutic vacation” and refers to parental alienation as child abuse.

  On its website, the caption under a picture of a child’s hand reaching out to an adult’s hand reads, “It is anti-instinctual to reject a parent—even an abusive parent.”

  Other states are considering legislation similar to Colorado’s recently passed ban on courts ordering children to attend reunification camps.

  Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire have tried repeatedly to pass legislation banning reunification therapy.

  The lawmakers recently got the child and family law committee to form a special committee to study the state’s family court system.

  The committee has so far held four hearings. Parents and advocates for court reform have been held to a strict five minutes to speak, while judges and other supporters of the court have been allowed to speak for up to an hour.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 23:20

• Dozens Of Capitol Police Riot Helmets Were Confiscated Just Before Jan. 6, Former Lieutenant Says
  Dozens Of Capitol Police Riot Helmets Were Confiscated Just Before Jan. 6, Former Lieutenant Says

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Days before violence broke out at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a U.S. Capitol Police captain ordered the confiscation of dozens of riot helmets from officers without the knowledge of Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, a former USCP lieutenant told The Epoch Times.

  

  Former Capitol Police Lt. Tarik K. Johnson said he was ordered to collect “20 to 30” helmets by his immediate supervisor, Capt. Ben Smith. Johnson said there was no explanation for the order, but he assumed the equipment was past its expiration date.

  The collection was done within the two weeks prior to Jan. 6, most likely the week of Dec. 28, 2020, to Jan. 1, 2021, Johnson said.

  “Now, did they tell me that the helmets were expired? Nobody told me that they were,” Johnson said in an interview with The Epoch Times. “But if they were perfectly good helmets, why would you take them?”

  After receiving a list of officers from Smith, Johnson said, he had sergeants announce the helmet collection at roll call. He said officers brought their helmets to his office.

  Johnson said he first reported the helmet confiscation to the office of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) during a meeting on Jan. 11, 2021.

  Johnson said he served on Leahy’s Capitol Police protective detail for more than two years. Leahy retired from the U.S. Senate in January after nearly 50 years in office.

  

  Johnson said the day after he met with J.P. Dowd, Leahy’s chief of staff, he received notice of suspension from U.S. Capitol Police. The Epoch Times reached out to Dowd regarding the meeting, but did not receive a response by press time.

  More recently, Johnson reported the helmet issue to the GOP-controlled Committee on House Administration, which oversees Capitol Police. Committee staff asked him for a meeting to discuss Jan. 6 issues, he said. That meeting could take place within the coming days.

  A Committee on House Administration staff member contacted by The Epoch Times declined to comment on the helmet issue or Johnson’s possible testimony.

  The Epoch Times contacted Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger and USCP Director of Communications Tim Barber for comment on Johnson’s allegations, but they did not respond by press time.

  ‘Why the Urgency?’

  Johnson and Sund said the proper procedure would have been for the USCP Property Asset Management Division to handle the collection of the old equipment and issuance of new helmets.

  “I don’t do property inventory,” Johnson said. “So even when they were bringing me the helmets, there’s no mechanism for me to give them a receipt anyway because we never do that. I’ve never seen that done. I’d been there a lot of years, and I never had to take helmets.”

  Sund, who was forced to resign as chief on Jan. 7, 2021, said he would not have issued a confiscation order—especially so close to a major protest scheduled for the National Mall and Capitol grounds.

  “TK [Johnson] bringing this up is the first I’ve heard of them taking back helmets,” Sund told The Epoch Times.

  “These helmets could have expired a year, two years ago,” Sund said. “Well, why the urgency to collect them now? That’s what I just don’t know. I just don’t know when they expired, if, indeed, they expired.”

  

  Sund said that in the fall of 2020, he obtained a $320,000 budget to purchase helmets. The goal was for every sworn officer to have head protection. Supply-chain delays due to COVID-19 hindered the fulfillment of the USCP order, he said.

  Riot helmets are designed to protect officers from blunt impact from objects like bats or pipes, and projectiles such as stones, bricks, or water bottles. Flip-down face shields are also meant to protect from chemical agents such as pepper spray.

  The department secured the delivery of 104 helmets on Jan. 4, 2021. Those helmets were intended for officers who were not part of the Civil Disturbance Unit (CDU), Sund said.

  “I was pushing to get helmets in and get helmets distributed,” Sund said. “To hear TK [Johnson] say they’re pulling helmets back and not doing a one-for-one [exchange], that’s very concerning.

  “If they were concerned about the helmets being expired, why be concerned right then, right before January 6?” Sund said. “How long ago did the helmets expire? Did they expire a year ago? Why all of a sudden the urge, the rush to haul them in?”

  Photographs and video from the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 show dozens of Capitol Police officers outside the building wearing USCP baseball caps or knit winter hats. Some of the officers worked at police barricades where violence broke out.

  Videos show most of the USCP officers guarding the Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol did not have helmets or face shields. Agitators attacked Capitol Police with pepper spray and projectiles before the crowd entered the Columbus Doors that lead into the Rotunda.

  ‘Mine Was Also Taken Away’

  The chairman of the Capitol Police Labor Committee said he blew the whistle on confiscated safety equipment months before Jan. 6 and long before Johnson was ordered to collect riot helmets.

  “Helmets were taken from USCP officers way before Jan. 6th, as were gas masks.” Gus Papathanasiou told The Epoch Times in an email. “I was aware, as mine was also taken away.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 23:00

• Iranian Drone Factory To Be Built Outside Moscow, White House Says
  Iranian Drone Factory To Be Built Outside Moscow, White House Says

  Ever since Iranian-supplied suicide drones began being used by Russia to attack Ukrainian cities, the White House has been warning allies with growing alarm of the increasing military coordination between Moscow and Tehran, both which are under expansive US sanctions.

  But for the first time, the Biden administration’s Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday that Iran is helping Russia build a new manufacturing plant for Iran-designed drones outside of Moscow.

  

  The location was identified as in Alabuga special economic zone, east of the Russian capital, with Kirby qualifying that the plant “probably will be built” and could be operational as soon as next year.

  Already, NATO officials have said Iran has provided Russia hundreds of its Kamikaze ‘Shahed’ for use in the war in Ukraine.

  The White House further on Friday released what Kirby described as satellite imagery of the industrial location where the plant is expected to be constructed. The imagery was captured in April. According to more via The Associated Press:

  Kirby said that U.S. officials also have determined that Iran continues to supply the Russian military with one-way attack drones made in Iran: The drones are shipped via the Caspian Sea, from Amirabad in Iran to Makhachkala, Russia, and then are used by Russian forces against Ukraine.

  Other defense items, including ammunition, is also being shipped from Iran using the same Caspian Sea routes, the statement added.

  “This is a full-scale defense partnership that is harmful to Ukraine, to Iran’s neighbors, and to the international community,” Kirby said in the Friday briefing. “We are continuing to use all the tools at our disposal to expose and disrupt these activities including by sharing this with the public — and we are prepared to do more.”

  Satellite image of Russia’s Alabuga special economic zone, which the US says is where Iranian drones are likely to be made. And the route used to transfer Iranian drones to Russia and then to airfields where they are launched into Ukraine.https://t.co/deHqir4u6z
  📸 Maxar/US Gov pic.twitter.com/EtNTb00V58

  — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) June 9, 2023

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

  Throughout the invasion which started February 24, 2022, Russia has proven itself able to circumvent Washington sanctions and attempts to isolate Moscow globally with ease by deepening partnerships with other ‘official enemies’ and rivals of the US like China and Iran.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 22:40

• Snowden Warns Today's Surveillance Technology Makes 2013 Look Like "Child's Play"
  Snowden Warns Today’s Surveillance Technology Makes 2013 Look Like “Child’s Play”

  Authored by Julia Conley via CommonDreams.org,

  “We trusted the government not to screw us,” said Edward Snowden.

  “But they did. We trusted the tech companies not to take advantage of us. But they did. That is going to happen again, because that is the nature of power.”

  

  With this week marking 10 years since whistleblower Edward Snowden disclosed information to journalists about widespread government spying by United States and British agencies, the former National Security Agency contractor on Thursday joined other advocates in warning that the fight for privacy rights, while making several inroads in the past decade, has grown harder due to major changes in technology.

  “If we think about what we saw in 2013 and the capabilities of governments today,” Snowden told The Guardian, “2013 seems like child’s play.”

  Snowden said that the advent of commercially available surveillance products such as Ring cameras, Pegasus spyware, and facial recognition technology has posed new dangers.

  As Common Dreams has reported, the home security company Ring has faced legal challenges due to security concerns and its products’ vulnerability to hacking, and has faced criticism from rights groups for partnering with more than 1,000 police departments—including some with histories of police violence—and leaving community members vulnerable to harassment or wrongful arrests.

  Law enforcement agencies have also begun using facial recognition technology to identify crime suspects despite the fact that the software is known to frequently misidentify people of color—leading to the wrongful arrest and detention earlier this year of Randal Reid in Georgia, among other cases.

  Last month, journalists and civil society groups called for a global moratorium on the sale and transfer of spyware like Pegasus, which has been used to target dozens of journalists in at least 10 countries.

  Protecting the public from surveillance “is an ongoing process,” Snowden told The Guardian on Thursday. “And we will have to be working at it for the rest of our lives and our children’s lives and beyond.”

  In 2013, Snowden revealed that the U.S. government was broadly monitoring the communications of citizens, sparking a debate over surveillance as well as sustained privacy rights campaigns from groups like Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Fight for the Future.

  “Technology has grown to be enormously influential,” Snowden told The Guardian on Thursday.

  “We trusted the government not to screw us. But they did. We trusted the tech companies not to take advantage of us. But they did. That is going to happen again, because that is the nature of power.”

  Last month ahead of the anniversary of Snowden’s revelations, EFF noted that some improvements to privacy rights have been made in the past decade, including:

  • The sunsetting of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which until 2020 allowed the U.S. government to conduct a dragnet surveillance program that collected billions of phone records;

  • The emergence of end-to-end encryption of internet communications, which Snowden noted was “a pipe dream in 2013”;

  • The end of the NSA’s bulk collection of internet metadata, including email addresses of senders and recipients; and

  • Rulings in countries including South Africa and Germany against bulk data collection.

  The group noted that privacy advocates are still pushing Congress to end Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications, and “to take privacy seriously,” particularly as tech companies expand spying capabilities.

  “Despite calls over the last few years for federal legislation to rein in Big Tech companies, we’ve seen nothing significant in limiting tech companies’ ability to collect data… or regulate biometric surveillance, or close the backdoor that allows the government to buy personal information rather than get a warrant, much less create a new Church Committee to investigate the intelligence community’s overreaches,” wrote EFF senior policy analyst Matthew Guariglia, executive director Cindy Cohn, and assistant director Andrew Crocker.

  “It’s why so many cities and states have had to take it upon themselves to ban face recognition or predictive policing, or pass laws to protect consumer privacy and stop biometric data collection without consent.”

  “It’s been 10 years since the Snowden revelations,” they added, “and Congress needs to wake up and finally pass some legislation that actually protects our privacy, from companies as well as from the NSA directly.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 22:20

• Watch: Japan's Parliament Erupts In Scuffle Over Immigration Reform
  Watch: Japan’s Parliament Erupts In Scuffle Over Immigration Reform

  Several scuffles broke out in Japan’s parliament on Friday after a bill to revise the country’s immigration law was passed – enabling authorities to quickly deport foreign nationals seeking refugee status in the country.

  

  Left-wing political leader Taro Yamamoto, a former actor, attempted to block passage of the bill by using physical force – flinging himself toward other lawmakers to try and stop the vote.

  Here is some longer footage of the scuffle from NHK: pic.twitter.com/tN0Xs0s6gp

  — Jeffrey J. Hall 🇯🇵🇺🇸 (@mrjeffu) June 8, 2023

  Yamamoto later told supporters that his actions were driven by concern over loss of life.

  The immigration reform was passed by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s governing coalition and other conservative parties.

  The bill allows Japan to deport foreign nationals who have applied for refugee status more than twice and have failed to provide legitimate justification for doing so. Currently, foreign nationals applying for asylum are protected from deportation, however the government said people have abused the system in order to remain in Japan for extended periods of time.

  The revision will also allow foreign nationals facing deportation to stay outside of detention facilities, provided they are under the supervision of relatives or supporters. The decision on whether to allow detained foreigners to live outside detention facilities under the supervisory system will be reviewed on a three-month basis.

  However, opponents have raised concerns that the revision could lead to the repatriation of individuals who may face persecution or even risk losing their lives if they were to be returned to their home countries.

  Dozens of protesters stood outside the parliament building on Friday holding banners and shouting, “Stop bad revision!” and “Scrap the bill!” Inside parliament, opposition lawmakers took turns making protest speeches. –Epoch Times

  “The amendment bill does not contain sufficient procedural safeguards to ensure that refugees are not returned to countries in which they would be in probable danger of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, as required under refugee law,” said Human Rights Now (HRN) in a statement.

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 22:00

• How 'Child-Friendly' Drag Events Can Expose Children To Sex Offenders
  How ‘Child-Friendly’ Drag Events Can Expose Children To Sex Offenders

  Authored by Jackson Elliott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Drag events targeting children can be a hunting ground for sexual predators, according to a therapist with a long career in treating sexual predators.

  A relatively recent phenomenon “Drag Queen Story Hour,” which first appeared in San Francisco, now is happening around the nation—at public libraries, in eateries, at performance venues, in parades, and even at schools.

  These events often include men in women’s clothing performing erotic dances, wearing skimpy or suggestive costumes, and telling sexually charged jokes.

  These shows sometimes mask sexual predators and facilitate the sexual grooming of children, experts told The Epoch Times.

  

  ‘Significant Risk to Women and Children’

  Jon Uhler, a therapist who treats sex offenders, says that in his experience if a man feels comfortable performing sexual dance in a skimpy women’s outfit for children, he’s likely extremely sexually deviant and “poses a significant risk to women and children.”

  Uhler told The Epoch Times that men who want to perform for kids in sexy women’s outfits have likely watched hundreds of hours of deviant pornography that reshapes the brain to become a sexual predator.

  Men don’t become sexual predators all at once, Uhler said.

  Sexual deviancy requires a slow descent over time into deeper and deeper levels of evil, he said.

  “The issue is deviance,” Uhler said. “It always has been throughout human history.”

  Uhler draws his experience from 15 years spent treating hundreds of sex offenders, working with more than 4,000 sex offenders in several contexts, and spending more than 13,000 clinical contact hours with sex offenders.

  He said he has treated sex offenders both inside and outside of prison.

  All the men he has worked with eventually admitted they did porn, he added.

  It Starts With Porn

  Viewing increasing amounts of “deviant” pornography supercharges the journey into perversion, Uhler said.

  People aren’t born sexual predators, Uhler said. Instead, they become remorseless abusers through a process that starts with pornography, he asserted.

  People on the way to deviance move from simple lust, to objectification, to power and control, to defiling, to increasingly warped behavior.

  Every stage of deviance pulls abusers into increasingly warped behavior, he said.

  Uhler said that men who enjoy wearing drag tend to get that way because they watch huge amounts of porn, he said.

  Anyone can sink down this scale, and sexual deviancy destroys the brain’s capacity for empathy, Uhler said.

  That leads to psychopathy, and psychopaths tend to be callous, detached, manipulative, remorseless, parasitic, sexually promiscuous, and without the capacity for guilt.

  “A psychopath’s brain is very different than a normal person’s brain,” Uhler said. “And there’s no going back.”

  The Epoch Times found no comprehensive list of drag performers in the United States.

  Ru Paul’s New York DragCon event drew a record 50,000 visitors this year. But not all of these people were drag queens, and some came from outside America, the group’s Facebook page shows.

  Not all drag queens perform at “child-friendly” events but verifying the criminal history of a large number of performers would be nearly impossible without a nationwide drag group’s cooperation.

  Drag performers usually use stage names, wear flamboyant costumes that disguise their identity, and put on heavy makeup that further camouflages their normal appearance. Their real names rarely appear in promotional materials.

  The Epoch Times emailed all 28 American chapters of Drag Queen Story Hour and the national hub to ask how many members they have, and whether performers have their backgrounds checked before being scheduled to read with children.

  None of them responded to requests for information.

  Convicted Sex Offenders

  In the past four years, at least eight American drag performers accused of sexual crimes have worked with children, The Epoch Times has found. Seven of these men have been convicted of child sexual abuse, child pornography, and prostitution.

  Three of these men participated in Drag Queen Story Hour events for children. Two took part in a reality TV competition. One taught children as a dance instructor. Another mentored young boys wanting to learn how to perform in drag. Yet another performed in “all-ages” drag shows.

  One drag performer was arrested in 2012 for running a child sex-trafficking operation. He became a transgender activist in prison.

  A man charged with sexual crimes was president of an activist group that facilitated Drag Queen Story Hours.

  It’s important to remember that these men are only the ones who got caught, Uhler said.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 21:40

• Robusta Coffee Prices Soar To New Record As El Niño Sparks Supply Fears
  Robusta Coffee Prices Soar To New Record As El Niño Sparks Supply Fears

  Vietnam and Indonesia, some of the top-producing coffee countries, are experiencing extreme weather that could worsen a shortage of robusta beans. This has pushed robusta coffee prices to a record high, making it more expensive for buyers to obtain cheap beans, Bloomberg reported. A confirmed El Niño ahead of a Northern Hemisphere summer could worsen the shortage and perhaps explain why prices are skyrocketing. 

  Just weeks ago, “Robusta Prices Hit 12-Year High As El Niño Threat Sparks Shortage Fears,” and fast forward to Friday, robusta bean prices per ton have jumped to $2,790, the highest since the contract started trading 15 years ago. 

  

  Due to dwindling supplies, prices have surged more than 50% since the start of the year. Also, the anticipated El Niño weather pattern, which is now confirmed, has supported prices. El Niño means hotter, drier conditions for top suppliers Vietnam and Indonesia that will crimp yields. 

  Bloomberg explains robusta demand has been increasing:

  The switch was first observed among roasters who increased the amount of robusta used in commercial blends to offset higher arabica costs and energy bills. Then, double-digit inflation in many parts of the world saw grocery bills surge to the highest in decades, forcing some consumers to trade down to cheaper options.

  And then warned:

  As roasters increase the amount of robusta in their coffee blends, growers struggle to keep pace. A combination of higher fertilizer costs and drought has slashed crop yields. That’s set to keep the global coffee market in a deficit for a third straight season in 2023-24.

  As we started to see El Niño probabilities increase in April, we informed readers, “El Nino Watch Initiated As Ag-Industry In Crosshairs.”

  And on earnings calls, the number of corporate executives discussing weather-related impacts has surged to multi-year highs.

  

  The global economic impact of El Niño could be in the trillions of dollars over the next several years. It appears the ag space is seeing the brunt of the first impacts. 

  So, what does this mean for consumers when they go to the supermarket? Well, brace yourselves because the rise in food prices is far from over. In particular, coffee prices are set to rise even more, making that morning cup of joe even more costly. The good news: egg prices have collapsed. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 21:20

• Russia's Gasoline Exports Have Surged By 37% This Year
  Russia’s Gasoline Exports Have Surged By 37% This Year

  By Charles Kennedy of OIlPrice.com

  Despite the Western sanctions, Russian oil companies boosted their gasoline exports by 37% between January and May compared to the same period in 2022, Russian daily Kommersant reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the data.

  

  The Russian Energy Ministry last month asked oil companies to reduce their exports and raise supply on the domestic market, according to Kommersant’s sources.

  After a sharp rise in wholesale gasoline prices in May and recommendations from the Energy Ministry to oil firms to curb exports, Russia’s daily gasoline exports in the first six days of June were four times lower than the levels at the end of May, Kommersant reports. 

  Russia has stopped reporting official data about oil production and exports, much to the frustration of its OPEC+ partners, as the leader of the pack, Saudi Arabia, is reportedly looking to boost oil prices to at least $80 per barrel—the estimated breakeven price for its budget for 2023.

  Russia has redirected both crude oil and petroleum product exports after the EU embargoes on imports of seaborne Russian oil. The EU banned crude imports in early December 2022 and embargoed fuel imports from Russia as of February 5, 2023.

  Russian gasoline exports surged in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2022, as Moscow placed growing volumes of fuels with African customers after the EU embargo on seaborne imports of Russia’s fuels. Russian gasoline exports were estimated at 1.9 million tons in the first quarter of 2023, up compared to 1.3 million tons exported in the same period of 2022, per Refinitiv data cited by Reuters.

  The trade shift in Russian oil flows also benefits Moscow’s Middle Eastern allies in the OPEC+ pact as the biggest Arab Gulf oil producers, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), scoop up Russia’s fuels at discounted prices.    

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 21:00

• Baltimore's Top Cop Abruptly Steps Down, Leaves Crime-Fighting Plan In Limbo 
  Baltimore’s Top Cop Abruptly Steps Down, Leaves Crime-Fighting Plan In Limbo 

  Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison stepped down this week as the progressive-run city struggles with homicides, a drug crisis, and a troubling rise in violence involving teenagers.

  “I have been truly blessed to serve this city of Baltimore… and this opportunity to serve as your police commissioner is one that I will always cherish,” Harrison said Thursday at a news conference. 

  Harrison’s abrupt exit as Baltimore’s top cop marks the 11th change in leadership since 2000. He was the longest-serving police commissioner in the metro in more than two decades. After nearly three decades in the New Orleans Police Department, he joined the Baltimore Police Department in 2019.

  If you missed yesterday’s BREAKING NEWS on @wbalradio from @BaltCityHall Here are a few of my videos & pics of @MayorBMScott’s press conference that I was one of the reporters here as we learned of changes atop @BaltimorePolice with Michael Harrison “out” & Rich Worley “in” pic.twitter.com/zE9bCqN22T

  — Scott Wykoff (@ScottWykoffWBAL) June 9, 2023

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  Harrison told local news WBAL TV in an interview in April that progress in making reforms and rebuilding community trust has been seen over the four years: 

  “We’re totally different than we were four years ago, but we’ve made all these improvements. Let me be the first to say we have a long way to go,” he said. 

  The only difference Baltimore City has seen in the last four years is that it descended quicker into a hellhole of shootings, homicides, and other violent crimes as teenagers run amuck. Troubled youth has become so bad that the city’s Democrat mayor, Brandon Scott, has placed a curfew on teens this summer. 

  Baltimore’s top cop had more than 1.5 years left on his contract. An abrupt exit is a sign the crime-fighting plan by the police department and the mayor might be failing to reduce crime. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 20:40

• "We Don't Have To Hide": The Rise Of Conservative Brands
  “We Don’t Have To Hide”: The Rise Of Conservative Brands

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

  Multiple brands touting conservative values have been launching and gaining market share amid the current economic climate where an increasing number of consumers are reacting harshly to—even boycotting—companies promoting progressive ideologies, especially transgenderism.

  

  NBA player Jonathan Isaac, for example, announced the launch of his UNITUS apparel brand in a tweet on June 2. Pitched as an “alternative” to retail brands that are going woke, UNITUS is scheduled to launch in August. “UNITUS is a sports and apparel company, and the basis of it for me is freedom. You have companies that are in that field who have made a conscious decision to either attack or undermine Christian values, conservative values, and things like that,” Isaac told Prager U’s Amala Ekpunobi for the documentary “Unwoke Inc.”

  “And I think they have the free choice to do so, as much as I disagree. But I feel that we also have the freedom to create what we want to create,” the NBA star sadi to make his position clear.

  Isaac said that the UNITUS brand is aimed at giving parents who want to buy their kids sneakers and clothes the option to give their money to a company that “they know is going to work toward bolstering their values.”

  “We can be proud of what we believe in. We don’t have to hide or be ashamed of it … As the day continues to get darker and darker and crazier and crazier, you standing up for what you believe in is only going to get harder. But it’s only going to become more and more necessary,” Isaac said.

  Conservative Beer

  A business looking to capitalize on conservative anger against woke companies is beer brand “Ultra Right.” The brand was launched in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding Bud Light hiring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a promotion campaign.

  Ultra Right began selling its beer around mid-April, and was on its way to exceeding $1 million in sales in just 12 days, according to an April 26 report by Fox News. By that time, the business had garnered more than 10,000 customers.

  In an April 25 video posted to Twitter, Ultra Right CEO Seth Weathers said that “we’re a movement of people that are speaking up and saying no to the woke nonsense. Ultra Right beer and this movement will never be stopped, no matter what they throw at us.”

  Back in April, Anheuser-Busch, the company which owns Bud Light, sent beer cans to Mulvaney featuring the trans-activist’s face—a move criticized as pushing transgenderism. People began boycotting the beer brand and sales numbers subsequently crashed.

  Between April 3 and May 30, the market capitalization of Anheuser-Busch fell from $132.06 billion to $108.19 billion—a decrease of over 18 percent.

  New Firms and Some Old

  The Daily Wire team launched a new razor company in March called Jeremy’s Razors after razor firm Harry’s pulled out ads from the media outlet in 2021.

  “After we said that boys are boys and girls are girls, they [Harry’s] publicly condemned our views as ‘inexcusable’ and dropped their ads because of what they called ‘values misalignment,’” stated the Jeremy’s Razors website.

  “You’re damn right our values are misaligned. We embrace masculinity and the courage to uphold it. And since no other razors out there did … we built our own.”

  Jeremy’s Razors notched up 15 million views for its first ad across social media platforms by the end of March, selling 45,000 razor subscriptions as well.

  While companies like Bud Light advocate for leftist agendas, other firms have existed for years without having to resort to such measures.

  For instance, Black Rifle Coffee Company, which promotes support for law enforcement, veterans, and first responders, saw a 29 percent revenue growth in 2022.

  Mixed martial arts promotion company UFC has been doing far better than competitors like Bellator and Professional Fighters League. Goya Foods is the biggest Hispanic-owned food company in America. Goya’s CEO is a Trump supporter, and has insisted that the results of the 2020 presidential election were not legitimate.

  The company has supported initiatives to end child trafficking, showing that there are multiple other avenues for brands to give back to the public instead of relying on LGBT causes. However, the primary reason for many companies to support such causes is to align with the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) framework.

  ESG principles make companies look beyond making market demand and profits, and focus on taking actions related to issues like climate change, racism, and sexual identity, among others. It is adopted by firms mainly to appease large investors like BlackRock that use these metrics to evaluate whether to invest or not.

  With many companies increasingly pushing woke ideologies, shoppers are shifting more toward brands that align with their traditional values, choosing not to remain passive in an increasingly politically charged climate. More brands are expected to hit the marketplace in the near future.

  In the end, companies need to make profits, boycotts hurt, and competitors catering to market demand will take up market share.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 20:20

• Why Is The Establishment So Scared Of RFK Jr.?
  Why Is The Establishment So Scared Of RFK Jr.?

  Authored by Marie Hawthorne via The Organic Prepper blog,

  The OP has suffered a lot from deplatforming, as Daisy has documented. This has been very difficult financially, but we’re far from alone. One of the biggest public figures regularly getting shut down is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an official presidential candidate. RFK is constantly getting banned and smeared as an “anti-vaxxer.” But is he really that crazy?

  

  Some background on RFK Jr.

  RFK Jr. was born famous and privileged, except, of course, for his father and uncle getting assassinated in his childhood. For a long time, RFK Jr. was best known as an environmental lawyer. He became involved in cleaning up the Hudson River in the 1980s as part of court-mandated community service from a heroin arrest. His community service inspired him to work with multiple groups dedicated to cleaning up the Hudson, and he eventually founded Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999.

  His environmental hero status didn’t last, however. In 2005, he entered the vaccine debate after being contacted by parents of vaccine-injured children. Since then, it has been hard to find an article about RFK Jr. that doesn’t begin by describing him as an “anti-vaxxer.”

  For about fifteen years, most people (myself included) were content to dismiss him and the anti-vaccine movement in general as cranks. I raised my children with all their shots, trusting the medical profession to keep us healthy.

  Until Covid.

  As the “two weeks to flatten the curve” turned into months and sometimes years, many people began to realize there was something deeply wrong with many of our formerly-trusted institutions. We saw businesses get shut down and livelihoods ruined. Decisions were not being made in the best interests of normal Americans, those who ran small businesses and relied on institutions like the public schools.

  When the jabs came along, things got weirder. Natural immunity was totally ignored and the nation was expected to submit itself as guinea pigs for this treatment that had never been tested for long-term effects. When vaccine mandates began to be implemented, RFK Jr.’s advocacy for parental choice regarding medical treatments started to sound a lot more reasonable.

  It became obvious that there was a lot of lying and manipulation going on. I became increasingly suspicious of “official” voices and more willing to listen to figures like RFK Jr. I bought his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, almost as soon as it was available.

  I read the whole thing. All 492 pages detailing one scam after another. You may not agree with RFK Jr. on every issue, but no one can deny that he knows his material. And no one has sued him for libel or slander, which makes me think the book is mostly accurate.

  The Real Anthony Fauci sold over a million copies and has more than 23,000 reviews culminating in 4.8 stars, yet garnered no book reviews from legacy media.

  So, why are the Democrats so afraid of him?

  On pages 142-142, RFK Jr. recounts going from a sought-after guest speaker whose articles were regularly featured in legacy media to a total outcast. His status changed abruptly once he turned from cleaning up waterways to pharmaceutical companies. However, he has deep pockets, he’s got the Kennedy name, and he hasn’t gone away.

  As the public, in general, became more and more distrustful of the Covid response, people became more willing to listen to non-mainstream voices like RFK Jr. His non-profit, Children’s Health Defense, saw its profits double in 2020.

  His “Defeat the Mandates” rally in January 2022 was attended by over 30,000 people.

  After The Real Anthony Fauci was published, Tucker Carlson hosted RFK Jr. more regularly. The two men had an interview on April 19, the day RFK Jr. announced his plan to run as a Democratic presidential candidate. On April 24, five days later, Fox fired Tucker, leading to speculation that Tucker’s willingness to give RFK Jr. a large platform was part of the reason for his dismissal.

  RFK Jr. has been interviewed by the likes of Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson. Despite being endlessly labeled “crazy” and “extremist,” after watching him interact with a variety of hosts, he comes across as anything but.

  After immense social pressure, Instagram had to reinstate his original account as well as his campaign account once he announced his presidential bid. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has endorsed RFK, much to the outcry of the MSM. He’s proven difficult to silence.

  He would be very impressive in a presidential debate.

  Rather than name-calling, if RFK Jr. is so dead-wrong about vaccines and children’s health, why doesn’t anyone actually engage him?

  People refuse to engage in arguments with RFK Jr. because they can’t. He’s a long-time trial lawyer, so he’s good at arguing, and he’s also very, very intelligent. He’s comfortable reading scientific material and understands much of the debates around childhood health and vaccines in a way that many people, even many college-educated people, just don’t.

  For example, in The Real Anthony Fauci, on pages 285-286, he discusses the debate between Louis Pasteur and Antoine Bechamp back in the 19th century. To simplify: Pasteur is the guy who realized that germs spread diseases. He posited that, by keeping environments germ-free, we could avoid infections. Obviously, there is a lot of truth in this. It is the model Western healthcare runs on.

  Bechamp, however, who lived at about the same time as Pasteur, argued that it wasn’t so simple. He thought we could never kill every imaginable germ, nor should we try to. Instead, Bechamp thought our time would be better spent focusing on optimal nutrition and basic sanitation so that our bodies would be best able to fight off whatever harmful germs came along. We know, at this point, that there is truth in this as well, and RFK Jr. uses Bechamp’s line of thinking to posit that maybe we should focus more on higher-quality food and a healthier environment for children rather than more pharmaceutical products.

  There is nothing crazy about this, and in fact, the more we uncover about the importance of the microbiome in our intestines, the more it makes sense. In David Quammen’s book The Tangled Tree, featuring the lifetime work of microbiologist Carl Woese, he puts forth the recent research indicating that we understand the microscopic world far less than we think we do. Simply lumping microscopic life forms into “good” and “bad” categories, and then trying to kill off all the “bad” ones, cannot work when the lines between the species are fairly blurry.

  Many scientifically-literate individuals understand this to varying degrees, and this is part of the reason that PhDs displayed the most persistent suspicion around the Covid vaccines. Time has proved them correct, as we find that the jabs were, at best, fairly ineffective and, at worst dangerous for certain groups.

  Controversial or not, he gets the word out.

  And this all goes to prove that RFK Jr. understands issues at a level that most public figures just don’t. His stances are definitely debatable, but they are not unhinged and they don’t come out of nowhere. However, because understanding his point of view well enough to engage in serious argument requires an understanding of both science and history, most pundits find it far simpler to just call him crazy and refuse to let him speak.

  But RFK Jr. gets his message out anyway, finding alternative outlets, doing his best to expose the inner workings between Big Government and Big Business.

  And this is probably why RFK Jr. is such a thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment. He doesn’t play along with most of the big donors he’s supposed to play along with. He has watched the Democratic Party go from being anti-war, anti-corporate, and pro-free speech to being the party of lockstep conformity. No other family represents the old Democratic Party the way the Kennedy clan does; he is in a unique position to point out the ways in which the Democratic Party has morphed into something completely different than it was even twenty years ago.

  RFK Jr. also has a pulse on using media in a way that most establishment figures don’t. During his recent interview with Jordan Peterson, he referenced the first televised presidential debate back in 1960, when young, handsome John F. Kennedy mopped the floor with Richard Nixon.

  The way in which his uncle used the newest form of media to his advantage sixty years ago obviously made an impression on RFK Jr. He said that Trump won the 2016 election, in part, because he used Twitter to his advantage, even though legacy media treated his campaign as a joke. RFK Jr. believes that the 2024 race will be hugely influenced by podcasts, and he has a real advantage here because, unlike so many other candidates, he is ready and willing to sit down and debate for two or three hours at a time.

  He’s an interesting candidate.

  I should make it clear, again, that I disagree with RFK Jr. on plenty of issues. I used to work in oil and gas, and I think his characterization of “clean” wind and solar is way off. I could argue with him on that.

  But I’m happy he’s out there, throwing rocks at establishment windows and forcing powerful figures to either explain themselves or prove by their silence that they have something to hide.

  *  *  *

  Support The Organic Prepper blog via PayPal or Patreon

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 19:40

• MbS Threatened 'Major' Economic Pain On US While Pursuing Saudi-Russia Concord In OPEC+
  MbS Threatened ‘Major’ Economic Pain On US While Pursuing Saudi-Russia Concord In OPEC+

  A US intelligence document revealed and analyzed by The Washington Post shows what’s really behind the Saudis no longer playing ball with the Biden administration with its decision slash oil output amid already high energy prices, which also won’t bode well for the Democrat incumbent in the fast-approaching 2024 election…

  Polite but firm public pronouncements from the kingdom aside, the Post wrote this week that “in private, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman threatened to fundamentally alter the decades-old U.S.-Saudi relationship and impose significant economic costs on the United States if it retaliated against the oil cuts,” based on the classified intel document.

  The document leaked by 21-year-old National Guardsman Jack Teixeira cited the crown prince as asserting “he will not deal with the U.S. administration anymore,” vowing that there will be “major economic consequences for Washington.”

  

  This is perhaps why (along with little leverage/few cards to play) the White House has refrained from imposing any costs or consequences on the longtime close Gulf ally. Biden last year warned of “consequences” coming, but still no bite.

  The Biden administration has been quick to downplay the intel document and Washington Post’s reporting: 

  A spokesperson with the National Security Council said “we are not aware of such threats by Saudi Arabia.”

  “In general, such documents often represent only one snapshot of a moment in time and cannot possibly offer the full picture,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an intelligence matter.

  “The United States continues to collaborate with Saudi Arabia, an important partner in the region, to advance our mutual interests and a common vision for a more secure, stable, and prosperous region, interconnected with the world,” the official added.

  So it seems the man who Biden once called a “pariah” after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is defiantly in the driver’s seat vis-à-vis Washington, also while American officials have since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war been scrambling for untapped energy resources, even beginning to bring the Maduro regime of Venezuela “in from the cold”. But Riyadh is currently provoking Washington by itself reaching out to Maduro of late.

  Meanwhile, Middle East news source The Cradle writes that Saudi-Russian concord is the secret behind OPEC+ in the below analysis [emphasis ZH]…

  * * *

  A curious thing happened in Vienna on Sunday just as the 35th Ministerial Meeting of OPEC+ was about to start at its headquarters. Three princely western news organizations – Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal – were barred from entering the OPEC premises. When asked about it, pat came the reply: “This is our house.” 

  Indeed, OPEC officials were left with no option other than an unorthodox way of “mood setting,” given their heightened sensitivity about the wild stories disseminated in the western media about disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two high flyers in OPEC+. 

  To be sure, OPEC+ touches raw nerves in Washington even seven years after the group took shape as the brainwave of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). The two leaders intended that they would have more control over the global crude oil market. The impetus to realism on the part of Moscow and Riyadh has only grown since 2016, and will crystalize further after the US-led G7 inserted itself into rule making in the world oil market last year, threatening to fragment the entire ecosystem. 

  Saudi Arabia’s BRICS aspirations

  Neither Russia nor Saudi Arabia can afford a break-up of OPEC+. In fact, had there been no OPEC+ today, there would be an urgent need to create one, as both Moscow and Riyadh have, in different ways, come under US pressure on account of their global pre-eminence as energy producers. 

  Their potential to be key players in the emerging multipolar world is giving Washington the jitters. Saudi Arabia has formally applied for BRICS membership and sought to join the New Development Bank, the multilateral development bank established by the BRICS states and headquartered in Shanghai, China.

  In fact, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud was present in Cape Town last week for the BRICS ministerial meeting. On the sidelines, Bin Farhan met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Russian readout underscored the depth and profundity of the current level of relations between the two counties. 

  Saudi Arabia is tiptoeing toward BRICS at a historic juncture when the group is reportedly all set to create its own currency at its forthcoming summit in Durban, South Africa. This, of course, will be a calamitous development for the petrodollar – the pillar of the western banking system – and holds the potential to create a new global oil market. 

  

  Russia-Iran oil cooperation

  To digress a bit, on May 18, Russia and Iran signed 10 documents for cooperation in the oil industry, comprising six memorandums of understanding, two contracts, one agreement, and a roadmap related to bilateral cooperation in the fields of industry, transfer of technology, and oil recovery enhancement.

  These agreements allow Russia (together with China in separate agreements) to have its companies present in any oil and gas field in Iran that Moscow chooses. Following the signing ceremony in Tehran, the visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who is also the co-chair of the Permanent Russian-Iranian Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation, stated that the two countries held negotiations on banking interactions and using their national currencies in the bilateral transactions.

  Quite obviously, Iran’s strategic ties with Russia is a spectre that haunts the administration of US President Joe Biden. In that context, Saudi Arabia’s gravitation toward BRICS adds to the angst in the western mind. It is hardly surprising that feverish US attempts are afoot to undermine OPEC+. 

  Agreement on oil production cuts

  No sooner than the OPEC+ ministerial at Vienna ended, Deputy PM Novak made clear that Russia and Saudi Arabia were in lockstep on the OPEC+ deals:

  “No, there were no [Russian-Saudi] differences. We always find common solutions. For years, our agreements have been in force in the interests of the market, in the interests of the countries participating in the agreement, and in the interests of both exporters and producers. We always find common solutions with Saudi Arabia. Naturally, we always have preliminary discussions, but nevertheless we always reach concord.” 

  In Moscow on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The Russian Federation is a member of the joint understanding (in Vienna). The OPEC+ format continues its work, there are common agreements that, of course, everyone will follow. Of course, this format retains its importance and its significance for ensuring stability in international energy markets.” 

  The decisions taken by the OPEC+ ministerial after seven hours of talks amply bears out the Saudi-Russian “concord”: An agreement on pegging the 2024 baselines at 40.46 million barrels a day, against which the production cuts are to be measured; reduction of overall production targets from 2024 by a further 1.4 million bpd in total; the deep cut by Saudi Arabia to its output in July on top of a broader OPEC+ deal to limit supply into 2024 as the group seeks to boost flagging oil prices; Russia’s extension of its voluntary oil production cut by 500,000 barrels daily till end-December 2024, which will be calculated from the 2024 quota, which in turn has now been reduced to 9.828 million barrels a day as part of the deal. 

  OPEC+ seeks ‘stability and market balance’

  Novak told Russian TV on Sunday that OPEC Plus nations have taken “an important decision to extend the voluntary cuts announced by the countries from 1 May, 2023 in order to balance the market. This is 1.66 million barrels a day on top of what was announced last October … So, in aggregate terms, it is 3.66 million barrels undertaken by the OPEC+ countries to ensure stable market operation.” He continued: 

  “The agreement is in force until the end of 2023, that is why we discussed the issue of its possible extension until the end of 2024 for quite a long time today. Two major decisions have been passed: first, to extend the existing agreement until the end of 2024, and, second, to extend throughout 2024 voluntary cuts by 1.66 million barrels a day starting 1st May undertaken by nine countries.” 

  “This will make it possible to have long-term forecasts of the effect of our agreement for 18 months ahead. These are key decisions we discussed and passed today… Naturally, we have possibilities to adjust our decisions. If necessary, we will do so to ensure the market stability so that it is balanced and clear for investors, buyers, and exporters. For all market players.” 

  Indeed, as the Saudis have sought, oil prices rose on Monday, with global benchmark Brent oil climbing toward $78 a barrel. On the whole, if there has been any “winner” in the OPEC+ talks on Sunday, it must be the UAE, which gets a boost to its production limit for next year at the expense of some African members who were asked to give up part of their unused quotas. 

  The finely balanced OPEC+ decisions “to achieve and sustain a stable oil market, to provide long-term guidance for the market, in line with the successful approach of being precautious, proactive, and pre-emptive,” – to borrow from the OPEC press release on Sunday – have only been possible due to the trust and mutual confidence among the key players within the group, Russia and Saudi Arabia, in particular. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 19:20

• Panicked LGBTQ Group Declares 'National Emergency' As Fed-Up Americans Pose Threat To Its Institutional Power
  Panicked LGBTQ Group Declares ‘National Emergency’ As Fed-Up Americans Pose Threat To Its Institutional Power

  Authored by Jarrett Stepman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The institutional Left senses that its dominance over our societal mores faces a sudden and unexpected challenge. It is responding with predictable derangement.

  

  The Human Rights Campaign, a powerful and well-funded left-wing advocacy group, declared a “national emergency” for “LGBTQ+” people on Tuesday.

  “LGBTQ+ Americans are living in a state of emergency. The multiplying threats facing millions in our community are not just perceived—they are real, tangible, and dangerous,” HRC’s president, Kelley Robinson, said in a press release.

  “In many cases, they are resulting in violence against LGBTQ+ people, forcing families to uproot their lives and flee their homes in search of safer states, and triggering a tidal wave of increased homophobia and transphobia that puts the safety of each and every one of us at risk.”

  Just over two months ago, a person who was “identified” as transgender engaged in a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. The Human Rights Campaign had nothing to say about the targeting and killing of Christians in that case, despite a clear increase in attacks on churches in the past few years. Most of the media pivoted to explaining how a terrorist attack on Christians is really a threat to the LGBTQ+ community.

  The Biden administration followed suit.

  If the Human Rights Campaign is worried about violence, maybe it should say something about incidents like this:

  “One day, somebody is going to shoot you in the head.”

  At the @dallasprideorg event on June 3, a group of pride participants confronted conservative group @protecttxkids_ and one person made a death threat on camera. pic.twitter.com/sxeoFHI1eM

  — Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) June 6, 2023

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  The evidence that the group has produced to prove its case of an LGBTQ+ “national emergency” was that many states passed bans on so-called gender-affirming care for children, prohibited gender-neutral restrooms, and prevented biological males from competing in female sports.

  Most of these laws are broadly popular.

  That, of course, is the real crisis for the Human Rights Campaign.

  The “crisis” is that the American people will pass laws limiting the group’s demands on society and that the laws will be widely accepted.

  Its declaration is obviously hyperbolic. However, it’s understandable why it’s in a moment of panic.

  There’s been a noticeable vibe shift to begin this year’s “Pride Month”—the holiest of times in the secular Left’s liturgical calendar.

  It’s clear that many Americans have become fed up with the insanity. They are fed up with the Rainbow Mafia dominating our society, and most of all, they are fed up with the extreme demands of the LGBTQ+ movement attempting to bend every institution to its will.

  What was once a distinct counterculture in America has taken over to become the dominant strain of what’s defined as the public good. The Human Rights Campaign and its allies have browbeaten corporate America into submission—which was easy, given how higher education has conditioned upper-middle-class Americans to accept their values to begin with.

  But the LGBTQ+ movement got ahead of its skis. It assumed that the war had been won, the courts were on its side, and it could impose its version of the public good on society without restraint—shoving aside the old Christian ethos that used to dominate.

  The countercultural Left, which always preaches about the open society and “tolerance,” is paradoxically and savagely intolerant of those who cling to the belief that there is an absolute truth and that some behaviors are inherently good or bad. As the left gains power, it as become increasingly become totalitarian. Those who disagree are punished by law or subjected to woke struggle sessions.

  Now, there’s resistance.

  Perhaps it’s the complete departure from truth and endangering women and children that has stirred up the most opposition. Whatever the impetus, it does appear that something is changing as of late—and it certainly is late.

  A “drag queen in every school” has replaced a “chicken in every pot” as the focus of the managerial ruling elite.

  In response, fed-up Americans are using the power of the purse and democracy to short-circuit the Human Rights Campaign—one of the biggest drivers of corporate wokeness—and its political allies.

  Stocks for major companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Target have been hit hard after embracing woke, LGBTQ+ promotional campaigns. It’s particularly impressive to see Target’s downturn. After all, this isn’t an inexpensive beer brand with countless—and mostly better—options on the market. It’s a major retail chain with a large and diverse shopping base.

  Going woke hasn’t always meant that a company will go broke. With “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) investments and in some cases government involvement, companies have been able, from time to time, to anger their customers, yet keep making money. But even those wells might dry up as red states begin the process of banning ESG rules for public pension funds.

  It seems corporate America will back down after all.

  Whereas “celebrating Pride” in the past came with minimal commitment and risk, Americans opposed to the new institutional moral paradigm are more relentlessly boycotting the brands that promote it. More importantly, they are passing laws and refusing to allow woke corporations and groups such as the Human Rights Campaign to decide what the rules of society are.

  The cultural Left continues to have enormous institutional strength. For decades, all it has had to do is play the equivalent of a “prevent defense,” and it ultimately got its way.

  Now, there is a real movement and momentum to circumvent that power. The Human Rights Campaign and its friends are trying to gin up as much hysteria as they can in the hope that they can mute that movement just enough to let it burn out.

  The Right needs more than a few successful boycotts to “win.” To capitalize on this moment, it needs a governing agenda and leadership to play the long game and create lasting institutional and societal change.

  That’s how we go from winning a few culture battles to winning the culture war.

  Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 19:00

• California Advances Bill To Help Shoplifters Steal
  California Advances Bill To Help Shoplifters Steal

  Shoplifting in California may get a lot easier, after the state Senate passed a controversial bill on May 31 that would make it illegal for store employees to confront thieves.

  

  SB 553, authored by Democrat Senator David Cortese (San Jose), requires employers to maintain violent incident logs, provide active shooter and shoplifter training, and to discard policies requiring workers to confront suspected active shoplifters, the Epoch Times reports.

  According to Cortese, the bill is intended to “help employers keep employees safe at work.”

  The bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of 29 to 8, is pending further review by state Assembly committees.

  According to the California Realtors Association (CRA), the bill will apply to all industries – not just retail, if passed. CRA president and CEO Rachel Michelin told Fox2/KTVU that the bill “goes way too far.”

  “I think it will open the doors even wider for people to come in and steal from our stores,” she said.

  According to the CRA, most retailers already prohibit regular employees from approaching someone who is shoplifting. These situations are handled by employees specially trained in theft prevention instead.

  If employees trained in theft deterrence are not allowed to do their job per the bill, “What does that mean? We are opening up the door to allow people to walk into stores, steal, and walk out,” Michelin added. -Epoch Times

  According to a position letter from the California Chamber of Commerce, the bill “takes a regulation written for hospitals related to workplace violence and applies it to all workplaces, regardless of size of resources.”

  “Substantively, SB 533 does not change the realities around workplace violence—namely, that it is a criminal matter that employers are not well-equipped to prevent.”

  In recent years, shoplifting has become a serious problem, with retailers such as Target anticipating a $1.3 billion hit due to “theft and organized crime.”

  In Downtown San Francisco, Target employees told the San Francisco Standard that they’re experiencing at least 10 thefts a day.

  

  The Target store at 1690 Folsom St initially locked up most of its merchandise to deter shoplifting, but quickly changed to only locking up more valuable goods.

  As shoplifting plagues the San Francisco Bay Area, confronting thieves could be dangerous, even for trained professionals.

  Whether to confront or not confront shoplifters has become a hot topic, especially after a security guard shot and killed a suspected shoplifter at a Walgreens store in downtown San Francisco.

  San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins decided not to charge the guard, Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, after reviewing the surveillance video and Anthony’s testimony. -Epoch Times

  It’s unclear whether SB 553 applies to security guards.

  Meanwhile, in 2014 California voters passed Prop 47, which downgraded certain thefts and drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. Its most well-known statute raised the minimum amount of stolen goods from $400 to $950 for a theft case to be classified as a felony, which critics consider to be the main cause of a rise in petty theft across the state.

  It also allowed felons serving prison terms to petition for resentencing under the new classifications. Those who have already served their terms can also have their past convictions reclassified as misdemeanors.

  Thanks to Prop 47 thefts under $950 will not be prosecuted, so cops will not bother showing up. Just a reminder that you get what you voted for, California! pic.twitter.com/jWUPdJzy0A

  — Adam Carolla (@adamcarolla) July 20, 2021

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  As the Times notes, weeks before the fatal Walgreens shooting, a 26-year-old Home Depot employee, Blake Mohs, was shot and killed attempting to stop an active robbery at a store in Pleasanton when he grabbed a DeWalt box out of the hands of the suspected shooter, Benicia Knapps. Knapps reportedly grabbed the box again after shooting Mohs, and got into a car driven by her boyfriend, David Guillory. She was later apprehended by Alameda Country Sheriff’s Deputies following a pursuit.

  Apparently the answer to incidents such as the above is to allow shoplifters to simply walk out without confrontation.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 18:40

• Russiagate: The Scandal That Became Business As Usual
  Russiagate: The Scandal That Became Business As Usual

  Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClear Wire,

  Special Counsel John Durham may have issued his final report last month, but the Russiagate scandal is far from over. This is not because there is no more to learn about the years-long effort by the Democratic Party, the FBI, CIA, and major news outlets to advance the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump teamed with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election.

  

  Rather it’s because Russiagate never ended. Unlike political scandals of the past – from the XYZ Affair to Watergate and Iran-Contra – it is not a discrete set of events with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, it has become a form of governing in which the entrenched forces of the Washington bureaucracy punish their enemies, protect their friends and interfere in elections with impunity.

  A continuous thread connects the schemes to deny the results of the 2016 election, to cover up the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes during the 2020 election, and the ongoing effort to tar President Biden’s opponents as extremists or racists.

  Ironically, all of this is especially dangerous because it is out in the open. The profound misdeeds are not hidden in the dark web; they are part of the public record. And yet, none of the major malefactors – including Joe Biden, former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James B. Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan, among others – have been held to account. Rather, they are lionized, and in some cases employed, by leading media organizations.

  The breadth of these machinations is so extensive that I would need a book, rather than a column, to detail it. But here is a brief recap that can serve as a reminder of key events of this dark period of our history.

  On July 28, 2016, then CIA Director John Brennan informed President Obama about intelligence reports indicating Hillary Clinton’s campaign “plan” to tie Donald Trump to Russia in order to distract the public from the growing controversy over her use of a private email server while Secretary of State. Notes in the margin – “JC,” “Susan,” and “Denis” – almost certainly refer to then FBI Director James Comey, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough.

  On July 31, Comey’s FBI launched a counterintelligence probe into whether the Trump campaign was conspiring with Russia to damage Clinton through the release of her emails.

  On Jan. 3, 2017, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer warned the president-elect not to challenge the intelligence community’s claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

  On Jan. 5, 2017, in his finals days in office, Obama held an Oval Office meeting with Brennan, Comey, Rice, Vice President Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and others to strategize responses to alleged Russian election interference and Trump’s victory.

  On Jan. 6, Comey briefed President-elect Trump about the Steele dossier – a series of absurd and salacious memos paid for and disseminated by the Clinton campaign that sought to tarnish Trump’s character while tying him and his campaign associates to the Kremlin.

  On Jan. 10, CNN used a leak it received about Comey’s briefing to broadcast the dossier’s smears, fueling a partisan feeding frenzy that led to the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Trump/Russia ties. Buzzfeed News published the entire dossier the same day.

  On Jan. 28, after assuring Trump privately that he wasn’t under investigation, Comey wrote a memo recounting that he’d boasted to the new president, “I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves.” He then went to his car and typed up his version of the conversations. When Trump fired him on May 9, Comey immediately leaked the memos, in violation of FBI rules, to a sympathetic college professor in hopes, he conceded later, of prompting the appointment of a special prosecutor. On May 17, Robert S. Mueller III, a longtime Comey friend and ally, was appointed special counsel to investigate potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

  On April 18, 2018, the New York Times and Washington Post shared the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for their “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.” This work, much of which was based on leaks from anonymous government sources, was filled with “false and misleading claims” which, my RealClearInvestigations colleague Aaron Maté reported, the newspapers have still refused to correct.

  On March 22, 2019, Mueller submitted a report on his investigation which “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Mueller, however, claimed that the source of these falsehoods was beyond his mandate, so he did not look into the role Clinton, Comey, Brennan, Obama, and other high-ranking Democrats played in ginning up charges of treason against a duly elected U.S. president.

  On May 13, it was reported that Attorney General William Barr had appointed John Durham to examine the origins of the Russia probe. Barr upgraded Durham to a Special Counsel role on Dec. 1, 2020. Durham’s final report, issued last month, detailed the Clinton campaign’s central role in the Russiagate conspiracy while concluding that “the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election” because it relied on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.” Durham’s investigation also undermined the other pillar of the Russia hoax, endorsing earlier findings that there was no conclusive evidence that the Russians had hacked DNC servers. Like the Trump/Russia collusion theory, this claim also originated from associates of the Clinton campaign.

  On Sept. 24, the Mueller report a bust, House Democrats began proceedings to make Trump just the third president in history to be impeached based on the claim that he sought foreign influence in America’s elections by holding up aid to Ukraine for a short period to pressure the country into looking into its potential connection to the Russiagate hoax and the Biden family’s work in Ukraine. The aid package was later delivered, and no investigation was undertaken. Nevertheless, the House approved two articles of impeachment on December 18, 2019, along party lines – all Republicans and three Democrats opposed the measure – and sent them to the GOP-controlled Senate, which acquitted Trump on Feb. 5, 2020, on another party-line vote (only Republican Mitt Romney crossed party lines to convict Trump on a single charge).

  On Oct. 14, 2020, the New York Post reported “that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.” The article, based on email from a laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop, suggested an influence-peddling scheme while flatly contradicting Joe Biden’s claim that he never discussed his son’s foreign business dealings.

  On Oct. 17, Biden campaign official and future Secretary of State Antony Blinken discusses the laptop with former acting CIA Director Mike Morell.

  On Oct. 19, Politico reported that a letter signed by Morell and 51 other former intelligence officials – including Brennan and Clapper – claimed that allegations in the Post article had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Echoing the false Russiagate claims, the letter continued, “For the Russians at this point, with Trump down in the polls, there is incentive for Moscow to pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and/or to weaken Biden should he win.” Major news outlets and social media companies relied on this letter to downplay and suppress the revelations. The FBI, which had taken possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop in December 2019, refused to comment on its authenticity.

  On Oct. 22, Joe Biden invoked the letter in his final debate with Trump to dismiss the laptop as “a Russian plant.” On November 3, Biden became president through razor-thin margins in key swing states.

  On March 30, 2022, the Washington Post reported that it had authenticated thousands of emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop. CBS News subsequently verified almost all the contents of the laptop.

  On May 15, 2023, the New York Post reported that the Internal Revenue Service removed “the entire investigative team” in its years-long tax fraud investigation of Hunter Biden at the behest of President Biden’s Department of Justice. This purge came after several whistleblowers stepped forward claiming the probe was being slow-walked. The move also came after a series of revelations showed how the Biden family used a series of shell companies to funnel millions of dollars from foreign sources to at least nine family members – including Joe Biden’s young grandchildren. As Andrew C. McCarthy recently noted in the National Review, it is still not clear what the Bidens provided in exchange for this money, other than access to Joe.

  On June 4, former FBI Director Comey, noting the long string of cases being brought against Trump by Democratic officials, told MSNBC that “it’s a crazy world that Donald Trump has dragged this country into, but he could be wearing an ankle brace while accepting the nomination at the Republican convention.”

  J. Peder Zane is a RealClearInvestigations editor and columnist. He previously worked as a book review editor and book columnist for the News & Observer (Raleigh), where his writing won several national honors. Zane has also worked at the New York Times and taught writing at Duke University and Saint Augustine’s University.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 18:20

• GOP "Wrecking Ball" Erodes Support For Woke ESG Shareholder Proposals
  GOP “Wrecking Ball” Erodes Support For Woke ESG Shareholder Proposals

  Conservatives have been a “wrecking ball” to the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing movement, as well as other trends, including DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and CRT (critical race theory). A growing number of Red states have pulled billions of dollars from BlackRock’s management as they disapprove of the world’s top asset manager’s ‘woke’ investing policies. Now investor support for ESG proposals slides to a six-year low, a wake-up call for BlackRock’s Larry Fink. 

  A recent count of votes compiled by the Sustainable Investments Institute through the end of this week shows the average backing of resolutions centered around ESG, DEI, and CRT has dropped to about 22% at annual shareholder meetings, down from a peak of 33% in 2021, according to Bloomberg. Support for sustainable investing is at the lowest level since 2017. 

  

  Heidi Welsh, who runs Sustainable Investments, described Republican opposition to ESG initiatives as a “wrecking ball.” She said support for ESG is sliding “across the board.” 

  Elon Musk has called out ESG on Twitter, and many Republican lawmakers want to cancel it. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill last month barring the use of public money for ESG investing. A growing number of anti-ESG bills are springing up in GOP-controlled states while these states also pull billions of dollars from BlackRock. 

  GOP lawmakers have argued that ESG gives Wall Street too much control over companies, allowing woke asset managers to ram through radical corporate policies via shareholder votes. “We are concerned that taxpayers’ best long-term economic interests might have become subordinated to environmental, social and political interests,” a group of state chief financial officers wrote in a letter to 20 asset managers on May 15. 

  The Center for Active Stewardship found support for climate-related proposals has been halved to 23% this year versus two years ago. Activist investors have been more “aggressive” in environmental resolutions this year, and that’s led to a higher rejection rate, said Nolan Lindquist, executive director of the group. 

  “Before, investors were merely asking for reports disclosing emissions goals and energy-transition plans.

  “Recent proposals are much more specific about executing on those plans,” Lindquist said. 

  Waning ESG, DEI, and CRT support at the corporate level follows a massive backlash among consumers who have unleashed boycotts of companies that promote the ultra-radical woke movement, some of which have targeted children. 

  BlackRock’s Fink warned earlier this year about the ‘demonization‘ of the ESG narrative.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 18:00

• If We're Not Careful, The AI Revolution Could Become The "Great Homogenization"
  If We’re Not Careful, The AI Revolution Could Become The “Great Homogenization”

  Authored by Aleksandar Svetski via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  As artificial intelligence grows, so do attempts to control it. But, if we can differentiate the real risks from the fake risks, this technology could be used to encourage diversity of thought and ideas…

  

  The world is changing before our very eyes. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a paradigm-shifting technological breakthrough, but probably not for the reasons you might think or imagine.

  You’ve probably heard something along the lines of, “Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is around the corner,” or, “Now that language is solved, the next step is conscious AI.”

  Well… I’m here to tell you that those concepts are both red herrings. They are either the naive delusions of technologists who believe God is in the circuits, or the deliberate incitement of fear and hysteria by more malevolent people with ulterior motives.

  I do not think AGI is a threat or that we have an “AI safety problem,” or that we’re around the corner from some singularity with machines.

  But…

  I do believe this technological paradigm shift poses a significant threat to humanity — which is in fact, about the only thing I can somewhat agree on with the mainstream — but for completely different reasons.

  To learn what they are, let’s first try to understand what’s really happening here.

  INTRODUCING… THE STOCHASTIC PARROT!

  Technology is an amplifier. It makes the good better, and the bad worse.

  Just as a hammer is technology that can be used to build a house or beat someone over the head, computers can be used to document ideas that change the world, or they can be used to operate central bank digital currencies (CDBCs) that enslave you into crazy, communist cat ladies working at the European Central Bank.

  The same goes for AI. It is a tool. It is a technology. It is not a new lifeform, despite what the lonely nerds who are calling for progress to shut down so desperately want to believe.

  What makes generative AI so interesting is not that it is sentient, but that it’s the first time in our history that we are “speaking” or communicating with something other than a human being, in a coherent fashion. The closest we’ve been to that before this point has been with… parrots.

  Yes: parrots!

  You can train a parrot to kind of talk and talk back, and you can kind of understand it, but because we know it’s not really a human and doesn’t really understand anything, we’re not so impressed.

  But generative AI… well, that’s a different story. We’ve been acquainted with it for six months now (in the mainstream) and we have no real idea how it works under the hood. We type some words, and it responds like that annoying, politically-correct, midwit nerd who you know from class… or your average Netflix show.

  In fact, you’ve probably even spoken with someone like this during support calls to Booking.com, or any other service in which you’ve had to dial in or web chat. As such, you’re immediately shocked by the responses.

  “Holy shit,” you tell yourself. “This thing speaks like a real person!”

  The English is immaculate. No spelling mistakes. Sentences make sense. It is not only grammatically accurate, but semantically so, too.

  Holy shit! It must be alive!

  

  Source: Author

  Little do you realize that you are speaking to a highly-sophisticated, stochastic parrot. As it turns out, language is a little more rules-based than what we all thought, and probability engines can actually do an excellent job of emulating intelligence through the frame or conduit of language.

  The law of large numbers strikes again, and math achieves another victory!

  But… what does this mean? What the hell is my point?

  That this is not useful? That it’s proof it’s not a path to AGI?

  Not necessarily, on both counts.

  There is lots of utility in such a tool. In fact, the greatest utility probably lies in its application as “MOT,” or “Midwit Obsolescence Technology.” Woke journalists and the countless “content creators” who have for years been talking a lot but saying nothing, are now like dinosaurs watching the comet incinerate everything around them. It’s a beautiful thing. Life wins again.

  Of course, these tools are also great for ideating, coding faster, doing some high-level learning, etc.

  But from an AGI and consciousness standpoint, who knows? There mayyyyyyyyyyy be a pathway there, but my spidey sense tells me we’re way off, so I’m not holding my breath. I think consciousness is so much more complex, and to think we’ve conjured it up with probability machines is some strange blend of ignorant, arrogant, naive and… well… empty.

  So, what the hell is my problem and what’s the risk?

  ENTER THE AGE OF THE LUI

  Remember what I said about tools.

  Computers are arguably the most powerful tool mankind has built. And computers have gone through the following evolution:

  1. Punch cards

  2. Command line

  3. Graphical user interface, i.e., point and click

  4. Mobile, i.e., thumbs and tapping

  

  Source: Author

  And now, we’re moving into the age of the LUI, or “Language User Interface.”

  This is the big paradigm shift. It’s not AGI, but LUI. Moving forward, every app we interact with will have a conversational interface, and we will no longer be limited by the bandwidth of how fast our fingers can tap on keys or screens.

  Speaking “language” is orders of magnitude faster than typing and tapping. Thinking is probably another level higher, but I’m not putting any electrodes into my head anytime soon. In fact, LUIs probably obsolete the need for Neuralink-type tech because the risks associated with implanting chips into your brain will outweigh any marginal benefit over just speaking.

  In any case, this decade we will go from tapping on graphical user interfaces, to talking to our apps.

  And therein lies the danger.

  In the same way Google today determines what we see in searches, and Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok and Instagram all “feed us” through their feeds; generative AI will tomorrow determine the answers to every question we have.

  The screen not only becomes the lens through which you ingest everything about the world. The screen becomes your model of the world.

  Mark Bisone wrote a fantastic article about this recently, which I urge you to read:

  “The problem of ‘screens’ is actually a very old one. In many ways it goes back to Plato’s cave, and perhaps is so deeply embedded in the human condition that it precedes written languages. That’s because when we talk about a screen, we’re really talking about the transmission of an illusory model in an editorialized form.

  “The trick works like this: You are presented with the image of a thing (and these days, with the sound of it), which its presenter either explicitly tells you or strongly implies is a window to the Real. The shadow and the form are the same, in other words, and the former is to be trusted as much as any fragment of reality that you can directly observe with your sensory organs.”

  And, for those thinking that “this won’t happen for a while,” well here are the bumbling fools making a good attempt at it.

  THE ‘GREAT HOMOGENIZATION’

  Imagine every question you ask, every image you request, every video you conjure up, every bit of data you seek, being returned in such a way that is deemed “safe,” “responsible” or “acceptable” by some faceless “safety police.”

  Imagine every bit of information you consume has been transformed into some lukewarm, middle version of the truth, that every opinion you ask for is not really an opinion or a viewpoint, but some inoffensive, apologetic response that doesn’t actually tell you anything (this is the benign, annoying version) or worse, is some ideology wrapped in a response so that everything you know becomes some variation of what the manufacturers of said “safe AI” want you to think and know.

  Imagine you had modern Disney characters, like those clowns from “The Eternals” movie, as your ever-present intellectual assistants. It would make you “dumb squared.”

  “The UnCommunist Manifesto” outlined the utopian communist dream as the grand homogenization of man:

  If only everyone were a series of numbers on a spreadsheet, or automatons with the same opinion, it would be so much easier to have paradise on earth. You could ration out just enough for everyone, and then we’d be all equally miserable proletariats.

  This is like George Orwell’s thought police crossed with “Inception,” because every question you had would be perfectly captured and monitored, and every response from the AI could incept an ideology in your mind. In fact, when you think about it, that’s what information does. It plants seeds in your mind.

  This is why you need a diverse set of ideas in the minds of men! You want a flourishing rainforest in your mind, not some mono-crop field of wheat, with deteriorated soil, that is susceptible to weather and insects, and completely dependent on Monsanto (or Open AI or Pfizer) for its survival. You want your mind to flourish and for that you need idea-versity.

  This was the promise of the internet. A place where anyone can say anything. The internet has been a force for good, but it is under attack. Whether that’s been the de-anonymization of social profiles like those on Twitter and Facebook, and the creeping KYC across all sorts of online platforms, through to the algorithmic vomit that is spewed forth from the platforms themselves. We tasted that in all its glory from 2020. And it seems to be only getting worse.

  The push by WEF-like organizations to institute KYC for online identities, and tie it to a CBDC and your iris is one alternative, but it’s a bit overt and explicit. After the pushback on medical experimentation of late, such a move may be harder to pull off. An easier move could be to allow LUIs to take over (as they will, because they’re a superior user experience) and in the meantime create an “AI safety council” that will institute “safety” filters on all major large language models (LLMs).

  Don’t believe me? Our G7 overlords are discussing it already.

  Today, the web is still made up of webpages, and if you’re curious enough, you can find the deep, dark corners and crevices of dissidence. You can still surf the web. Mostly. But when everything becomes accessible only through these models, you’re not surfing anything anymore. You’re simply being given a synthesis of a response that has been run through all the necessary filters and censors.

  There will probably be a sprinkle of truth somewhere in there, but it will be wrapped up in so much “safety” that 99.9% of people won’t hear or know of it. The truth will become that which the model says it is.

  I’m not sure what happens to much of the internet when discoverability of information fundamentally transforms. I can imagine that, as most applications transition to some form of language interface, it’s going to be very hard to find things that the “portal” you’re using doesn’t deem safe or approved.

  One could, of course, make the argument that in the same way you need the tenacity and curiosity to find the dissident crevices on the web, you’ll need to learn to prompt and hack your way into better answers on these platforms.

  And that may be true, but it seems to me that for each time you find something “unsafe,” the route shall be patched or blocked.

  You could then argue that “this could backfire on them, by diminishing the utility of the tool.”

  And once again, I would probably agree. In a free market, such stupidity would make way for better tools.

  But of course, the free market is becoming a thing of the past. What we are seeing with these hysterical attempts to push for “safety” is that they are either knowingly or unknowingly paving the way for squashing possible alternatives.

  In creating “safety” committees that “regulate” these platforms (read: regulate speech), new models that are not run through such “safety or toxicity filters” will not be available for consumer usage, or they may be made illegal, or hard to discover. How many people still use Tor? Or DuckDuckGo?

  And if you think this isn’t happening, here’s some information on the current toxicity filters that most LLMs already plug into. It’s only a matter of time before such filters become like KYC mandates on financial applications. A new compliance appendage, strapped onto language models like tits on a bull.

  Whatever the counter-argument to this homogenization attempt, both actually support my point that we need to build alternatives, and we need to begin that process now.

  For those who still tend to believe that AGI is around the corner and that LLMs are a significant step in that direction, by all means, you’re free to believe what you want, but that doesn’t negate the point of this essay.

  If language is the new “screen” and all the language we see or hear must be run through approved filters, the information we consume, the way we learn, the very thoughts we have, will all be narrowed into a very small Overton window.

  I think that’s a massive risk for humanity.

  We’ve become dumb enough with social media algorithms serving us what the platforms think we should know. And when they wanted to turn on the hysteria, it was easy. Language user interfaces are social media times 100.

  Imagine what they can do with that, the next time a so-called “crisis” hits?

  It won’t be pretty.

  The marketplace of ideas is necessary to a healthy and functional society. That’s what I want.

  Their narrowing of thought won’t work long term, because it’s anti-life. In the end, it will fail, just like every other attempt to bottle up truth and ignore it. But each attempt comes with unnecessary damage, pain, loss and catastrophe. That’s what I am trying to avoid and help ring the bell for.

  WHAT TO DO ABOUT ALL THIS?

  If we’re not proactive here, this whole AI revolution could become the “great homogenization.” To avoid that, we have to do two main things:

  1. Push back against the “AI safety” narratives: These might look like safety committees on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper, you realize they are speech and thought regulators.

  2. Build alternatives, now: Build many and open source them. The sooner we do this, and the sooner they can run more locally, the better chance we have to avoid a world in which everything trends toward homogenization.

  If we do this, we can have a world with real diversity — not the woke kind of bullshit. I mean diversity of thought, diversity of ideas, diversity of viewpoints and a true marketplace of ideas.

  An idea-versity. What the original promise of the internet was. And not bound by the low bandwidth of typing and tapping. Couple that with Bitcoin, the internet of money, and you have the ingredients for a bright new future.

  This is what the team and I are doing at Laier Two Labs. We’re building smaller, narrow models that people can use as substitutes to these large language models.

  We are going to open source all our models, and in time, aim to have them be compact enough to run locally on your own machines, while retaining a degree of depth, character and unique bias for use when and where you need it most.

  We will announce our first model in the coming weeks. The goal is to make it the go-to model for a topic and industry I hold very dear to my heart: Bitcoin. I also believe it’s here that we must start to build a suite of alternative AI models and tools.

  I will unveil it on the next blog. Until then.

  *  *  *

  Aleksandar Svetski is the founder of The Bitcoin Times and The Amber App, author of “The UnCommunist Manifesto,” “Authentic Intelligence” and the up-coming “Bushido Of Bitcoin.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 17:40

• Putin Reveals New Details On Positioning Tactical Nukes In Belarus
  Putin Reveals New Details On Positioning Tactical Nukes In Belarus

  Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has given new details concerning his order to move tactical nuclear weapons into Belarus. Prior and somewhat ambiguous statements from Putin as well as top Kremlin and Belarusian officials had suggested that nukes could already be in Belarus. These past statements have also been subject of widespread speculation and misinterpretation in Western press reports, which was perhaps purposeful on the part of Moscow, or part of strategic ambiguity.

  But on Friday Putin clarified the timeline, after he first announced all the way back in March that Russian tactical nukes would be stationed in close neighboring ally Belarus. He told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at a meeting Sochi that tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed in Belarus after hosting facilities are ready on July 7-8.

  

  “So everything is according to plan, everything is stable,” Putin said according to a Kremlin readout.

  “Preparation of the relevant facilities ends on July 7-8, and we will immediately begin activities related to the deployment of appropriate types of weapons on your territory,” Putin said, to which Lukashenko responded, “Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich.”

  Reuters points out the relevant context as follows:

  More than 15 months into the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two, Putin says the United States and its Western allies are pumping arms into Ukraine as part of an expanding proxy war aimed at bringing Russia to its knees.

  Only a mere months ago mainstream media sources and the major news networks, echoing top US officials, rejected the idea that the conflict is indeed a major proxy war pitting NATO against Moscow, with Ukrainians in the middle.

  But now the tone of MSM reporting has clearly shifted and changed to that of belatedly acknowledging the US-NATO’s outsized role in determining the course of the war…

  Biden administration acknowledges it keeps crossing Putin’s red lines because he hasn’t launched a nuclear response yet. https://t.co/bmNOu3Ifzf

  — Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) June 1, 2023

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

  As for the early July timetable on the arms transfers, reportedly the land-based short-range nuclear missiles will remain under Russian control and oversight while being hosted at Belarusian bases.

  Starting months ago, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov blasted what he described as America’s hypocrisy for long stationing tactical nukes in Europe: “For the last 60 years Washington has been playing a key role in NATO’s nuclear sharing missions by supporting deployment of its tactical nuclear weapons in five non-nuclear weapon states – Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey,” he said previously.

  The Russian ambassador had further cited a proverb: “If your face is crooked, do not blame the mirror,” in reference to this charge of US ‘nuclear hypocrisy’. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/09/2023 – 17:20

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