Today’s News 10th November 2023

• Dr. Robert Malone Reveals How The Government Tore His Reputation Apart, "Piece By Piece"
  Dr. Robert Malone Reveals How The Government Tore His Reputation Apart, “Piece By Piece”

  Authored by Dr. Robert W. Malone, MD, MS via Who Is Robert Malone,

  Fellow Americans, the government will take care of you!

  

  They don’t want you to have to worry about information that they don’t approve in your social media accounts.

  They don’t want you to worry that the US government would directly interfere with your First Amendment rights, and certainly would never meddle in an election or with your medical freedoms.

  That said, the deep state will gladly “contract those jobs out to creepy left-wing “disinformation”-fighting firms”.

  A bombshell new report has been published, titled: “WEAPONIZATION OF “DISINFORMATION” PSEUDO-EXPERTS AND BUREAUCRATS: HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PARTNERED WITH UNIVERSITIES TO CENSOR AMERICANS’ POLITICAL SPEECH”, Interim Staff Report by the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government U.S. House of Representatives was released on November 6, 2023.

  In that report, the committee laid out the role of the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and other astroturf organizations contracted (that means paid for) by the Department of Homeland Security to censor Americans.

  Representative Jim Jordan on his Twitter account also provided the receipts how the Election Integrity Partnership was founded, by attaching a letter from the Atlantic Council advising a “sync-up” whereby they created the Election Integrity Partnership in 2020. Ergo, a partnership of four organizations working in collaboration with both the US Government and the Atlantic Council.

  

  In fact, the EIP is made up of four “partners”. They are the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), The U. of Washington Center for an Informed Public (CIP), Graphika, and the Atlantic Council. Each organization has a distinct role to play, from identifying “spreaders of misinformation”, to identifying the networks of social media landscapes that those so accused interacted on, to actual recommendations to social media companies for removal of identified offending posts, and communications back and further between the government and the EIP. This was done with government monies and resources.

  Below is a link for each partner, together with a description of their technologies or recent activities.

  • The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO): Stanford has removed the SIO page from their website, although the way back machine has a somewhat functional archival copy.

    Within those pages, is information about their operation “Platform Takedown”, which was developed to get information removed from the major social media platforms.

    The SIO Platform takedown only lists case reports up to June 2020, but the wayback machine has some detailed reports up through 2022.

  

  • The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP)
    Their mission “is to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse”.

    AS of this month (Nov 2023), the CIP has now turned its identification of targets for censorship to identifying the flow of what they view as the “new elites” of X (ergo influencers with large followings) regarding how they share information regarding the Hamas/Israel conflict.

    The implication being that “X” will be targeted in the future for more harassment by the Election Integrity Partnership.

  .

  • Graphika

  This is a company that specializes in “cutting-edge technology that creates large-scale explorable maps of social media landscapes”. Their in-depth analysis reveals insights to help “clients and partners understand complex online networks and take decisive action”. Graphika lists Harvard, Oxford and DARPA (DARPA = CIA) as its partners.

  

  • The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab)

  The Atlantic Council’s DFRL is staffed by former US intelligence establishment technology staffers (ergo, ex CIA and DIA = “Deep State” personnel), and of course the the Atlantic Council itself is known as a landing bed for deep state operatives (otherwise known as a cutout organization).

  The DFRL website states:

  Centralized and decentralized platforms share a common set of threats from motivated malicious users—and require a common set of investments to ensure trustworthy, user-focused outcomes…

  Further research and capability building are necessary to avoid the further proliferation of these threats.

  Within industry, decades of “trust and safety” (T&S) practice has developed into a field that can illuminate the complexities of building and operating online spaces. Outside industry, civil society groups, independent researchers, and academics continue to lead the way in building collective understanding of how risks propagate via online platforms—and how products could be constructed to better promote social well-being and to mitigate harms.

  Take away all the flowery words and it sure sounds like organized government-sponsored Deep State censorship to me!

  Beyond the websites listed above, the House Report does an excellent job of showing how the Election Integrity Partnership worked to censor the American People.

  Lets go back to the the Congressional report on censorship, it reads:

  Enter the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a consortium of “disinformation” academics led by Stanford University’s Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) that worked directly with the Department of Homeland Security and the Global Engagement Center, a multi-agency entity housed within the State Department, to monitor and censor Americans’ online speech in advance of the 2020 presidential election. Created in the summer of 2020 “at the request” of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the EIP provided a way for the federal government to launder its censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny.

  This interim staff report details the federal government’s heavy-handed involvement in the creation and operation of the EIP, which facilitated the censorship of Americans’ political speech in the weeks and months leading up to the 2020 election. This report also publicly reveals for the first time secret “misinformation” reports from the EIP’s centralized reporting system, previously accessible only to select parties, including federal agencies, universities, and Big Tech. The Committee and Select Subcommittee obtained these nonpublic reports from Stanford University only under the threat of contempt of Congress. These reports of alleged mis- and disinformation were used to censor Americans engaged in core political speech in the lead up to the 2020 election.

  As this new information reveals, and this report outlines, the federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions. This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefitted one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as “misinformation” while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors. The pseudoscience of disinformation is now—and has always been—nothing more than a political ruse most frequently targeted at communities and individuals holding views contrary to the prevailing narratives.

  <in other words, people that were saying things that the Deep State did not want to be said were the ones being censored>

  The EIP’s operation was straightforward: “external stakeholders,” including federal agencies and organizations funded by the federal government, submitted misinformation reports directly to the EIP. The EIP’s misinformation “analysts” next scoured the internet for additional examples for censorship. If the submitted report flagged a Facebook post, for example, the EIP analysts searched for similar content on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, and other major social media platforms. Once all of the offending links were compiled, the EIP sent the most significant ones directly to Big Tech with specific recommendations on how the social media platforms should censor the posts, such as reducing the posts’ “discoverability,” “suspending [an account’s] ability to continue tweeting for 12 hours,” “monitoring if any of the tagged influencer accounts retweet” a particular user, and, of course, removing thousands of Americans’ posts.

  The House committee (through Rep. Jim Jordan) also released a google doc (Jira Tickets) that lists some of those censored in chronological order and what their alleged “crimes” were.

  In the Jira Tickets list, it is worth noting that on 11 June 2021, the list abruptly changed its focus from “election misinformation” to “vaccine misinformation” and renamed these efforts as the virality project. Almost like there was some sort of directive from the top .

  On the last page of Jira Tickets list, they have included the censorship of my original interview with Tucker Carlson for Fox News. Almost directly after that, the list ends. So, how many times I was recommended for censorship is an unknown. Except that based on the obvious shadow-banning over the past two years, most likely it was in the hundreds of times.

  Some screenshots from the Jira Tickets report generated on me regarding the Tucker interview (page nine):

  My sin, as shown in the screenshot below, was that I claimed on the Fox interview that the risks outweigh the benefits in teenagers and young adults (per June 30, 2021).

  

  In the image below, the Election Integrity Partnership (now the Virality partnership) notes I am both “General anti-vaccination” and also “right wing” in my affiliations.

  So this is really creepy. That fact that my political leanings are mentioned implies that being “right wing” was/is criteria enough for censorship. That this criteria was enough for censorship shows direct election interference.

  As this list also labels me as being generally against vaccination. As if being against the mRNA gene therapy for specific vulnerable groups makes one against vaccination. This was enough apparently to be censored.

  

  I believe that is a listing of where that had been shared prior to the censorship:

  

  The Election Integrity Partnership also notes that I am a “repeat offender”

  

  Frankly, the whole document and the House Committee report makes me feel violated.

  The House report then goes to to document how even Congresspeople were censored and that under Biden, the censorship efforts were ramped up domestically.

  This did not end with the 2020 election.

  After President Biden was inaugurated in January 2021, the government’s censorship regime ramped up. At CISA, the CFITF team dropped any pretense of a “foreign”-focus and relabeled itself as the “MDM team” that would focus on foreign and domestic speech that the government considered mis-, dis-, or malinformation. Throughout 2021, the Biden White House engaged in a pressure campaign against Facebook and other social media companies to censor anti-vaccine content, even if it was true. By 2022, CISA invited Dr. Starbird, thenTwitter Executive Vijaya Gadde, and others to form an advisory MDM Subcommittee to consult with CISA about how the agency could and should combat Americans’ speech that the government considered to be mis-, dis-, or malinformation.

  But by 2023, as Republicans retook the majority in the House of Representatives and initiated oversight of the censorship-industrial complex, CISA scrubbed its website of references to domestic censorship. The Committee and Select Subcommittee obtained and revealed how Facebook changed its policies because of pressure from the Biden Administration. Internal Facebook documents showed that the Biden White House in particular wanted true information and satire censored at a rate even Big Tech found objectionable.

  Based on the Committee’s and Select Subcommittee’s work, even the mainstream media could no longer ignore these constitutional violations. The plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden have obtained significant victories before a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and now will have their case heard by the Supreme Court. Public reporting shows that universities are reconsidering whether to permit their professors to receive funding and engage in censorship work. But the work is not done yet. The Committee and Select Subcommittee’s investigation remains ongoing.

  Clearly, the hit pieces on me by the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Washington post (twice), Business Insider, The Scientist and Rolling Stone and other main stream media outlets within a very short timeframe were a coordinated effort by the Deep State to bring me down . I believe that this effort was led by the intelligence agencies and DHS through the Deep State. Kash Patel nicely discusses how this these types of hits are conducted in his book, Government Gangsters. Whereby the government feeds information into operatives working in main stream media (ergo, as in CIA Operation Mockingbird). Now I am told that those same hit pieces were used against me in other government circles. The Supreme court case, Sullivan Versus New York Times, resulted in a situation whereby people in the public eye can almost never win a lawsuit for malicious defamation. The Deep State uses this fact to attack, malign, defame, harass and engage in direct character assassination. This is evil.

  For me, I will never get my reputation back as it once was. However, I will not give up fighting for our freedoms, whether it be to bring back integrity to the FDA, CDC, NIH, DoD and HHS or whether it be reining-in the intelligence agency. We all must continue to bring our government to heel.

  I will not concede to the Deep State character assassination. I will not let them ruin my life and reputation. And I will not allow them to victimize me.

  “Who is Robert Malone” is a reader supported publication. Please consider supporting us in our important work.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 23:40

• When Will The Global Population Reach Its Peak?
  When Will The Global Population Reach Its Peak?

  When will the world reach its peak population?

  According to data from the United Nations’ 2022 Revision of its World Population Prospects, we could see a peak of over 10.4 billion people sometime in the late 2080s.

  While the UN’s projections are the most widely used, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the most accurate. Several alternative models have predicted an earlier and lower peak, suggesting that the world’s population could decline sooner than expected.

  In the UN’s latest revisions, it lowered its own estimates for global population in 2100, from 10.9 billion (as of 2019) to 10.4 billion (as of 2022).

  In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcu Lu and Miranda Smith visualized population projections to 2100 from three organizations: the UN, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

  

  Data and Highlights

  The population projection data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below. Note that UN projections are as of 2022, IHME are as of 2020, and IIASA are as of 2014.

  

  From this data we can see that the UN expects the world to hit peak population in 2086, as well as maintain above 10 billion people in 2100.

  On the other hand, neither the IHME nor IIASA models expect global population to reach 10 billion, instead forecasting a peak of 9.7 billion in the 2060s (IHME) or 9.4 billion in 2070 (IIASA). Both models also predict population to fall back to the 8 billion range by 2100.

  The differential at 2100 is substantial, with IHME’s forecast lower than the UN’s by 1.6 billion people, for example.

  What Is the IHME and IIASA, and Why Do They Differ?

  The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is a Seattle-based research institute founded in 2007 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Its mission is to “deliver to the world timely, relevant, and scientifically valid evidence to improve health policy and practice.”

  The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), on the other hand, is an international research institute based in Austria, dating back to 1972. It was established to improve scientific cooperation between the Soviet Union and the U.S., and today has members in over 20 countries.

  To understand why the IHME and IIASA models differ from the UN’s, let’s look at each organization’s projections for fertility rate, which is measured as the number of children per woman.

  

  Based on this chart, the IHME and IIASA expect global fertility rates to fall at a quicker rate pre-2050, then stabilize as we approach 2100. This contrasts with the UN’s projections, which expect fertility to decrease at a slower, steadier rate all the way to 2100.

  Generally speaking, a country’s birth rate declines as it becomes more developed. This is due to many factors like higher education rates for women (and thus more women in the workforce), greater access to contraceptives and family planning, as well as higher childbearing costs.

  How Fast Will Fertility Rates Fall in Africa?

  Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, but this is quickly falling as the region experiences rapid economic growth.. For instance, GDP per capita in Sub-Saharan Africa has climbed from $632 in 2000, to $1,690 in 2022.

  Because of this economic transformation, some researchers believe that Africa will undergo a fast demographic transition similar to East Asia, in which population growth falls off sharply. For instance, a UNICEF survey from 2021 found that fertility rates in Nigeria had fallen from 5.8 to 4.6 (a 17% decrease) in just five years time.

  ℹ️ Consider this July 2023 article from the Wilson Center for more context on the evolution of Nigeria’s demographics.

  Now going back to the question at hand, let’s see how the UN and IHME’s fertility rate projections for Sub-Saharan Africa differ.

  

  These differences may seem small, but even a few decimal places can have a huge impact. For example, let’s revisit the UN’s population projection for the year 2100, which was 10.4 billion people.

  Under the UN’s low fertility scenario (birth rates remain 0.5 lower), population in 2100 would be a significantly smaller 7.0 billion. Meanwhile, under the high fertility scenario (birth rates remain 0.5 higher), population would balloon to 14.7 billion.

  As a result, how birth rates change in high fertility regions like Sub-Saharan Africa will have a significant influence on when the global population will reach its peak.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 23:20

• China Unveils Plan To Mass Produce Human-like Robots, Calling It 'New Engine' For Growth
  China Unveils Plan To Mass Produce Human-like Robots, Calling It ‘New Engine’ For Growth

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  China is setting out to mass produce human-like robots in two years, an ambitious plan that, according to a blueprint issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), it hopes will make the regime in Beijing the leader in the field of robotics.

  

  The goal is to establish an innovation framework for humanoid robots and ensure that the country can make core parts of the robots on its own.

  The products, under the MIIT plan, will meet advanced international standards in quality, for use in harsh environments, manufacturing, and service sectors, according to the directive. Like smartphones, computers, and new energy vehicles, humanoid robots have the “disruptive” potential to “revolutionize” people’s lives, the document said.

  The ministry told local officials to take advantage of China’s market size and its “whole-of-nation system” to accelerate humanoid robot development as a pillar industry to advance China’s manufacturing and digital dominance.

  Beijing hopes that by 2025 it will have two to three companies with global influence and will nurture more smaller businesses dedicated to the field. In another two years, the aim is to create a “safe and reliable supply chain” for the technology and make the country competitive globally. At that point, it said, such products will be deeply integrated into the economy and become a “new engine” for economic growth.

  The “brain,” “cerebellum,” and “limbs” of the robots should be the focus, and the industry should aim at creating “highly reliable” robots for harsh or dangerous conditions, the guideline said. When monitoring and safeguarding “strategic locations,” robots need to be able to move in “highly complicated terrains,” size up the situation, and make intelligent decisions, it said, adding that robots will need greater ability to protect themselves and work with higher precision in scenarios such as rescue work or where explosives are involved.

  Relevant authorities need to deepen international cooperation, encourage foreign companies to create research centers in China, and bring Chinese products to the international market, according to the document.

  Eager to partake in setting the global standard for emerging technology, Beijing said it’d like to get “deeply involved in the international rules and standard setting” and “contribute Chinese wisdom” to the industry’s development, the document said.

  The directive is China’s latest attempt to boost technological self-reliance as the United States tightens its ban on China’s access to advanced U.S. chips. Expanding on chip controls on China from October last year, the Bureau of Industry and Security of the Commerce Department in mid-October required more U.S. firms to obtain a license before they could export advanced semiconductor chips to China, a step they said is necessary to prevent Beijing from using these chips for their military ends. On Oct. 23, the U.S. government told Nvidia to stop shipping most of its key artificial intelligence chips to China.

  Without citing those actions by the United States, the document asked the industry to design AI chips for humanoid robots that would allow for self-learning and other capabilities.

  Half a dozen Chinese intelligence firms saw their shares jump by as much as 20 percent the day after the announcement, and stock value for other robotic electronics also surged.

  The Beijing regime’s roadmap means it will be competing with international firms such as Samsung, Microsoft, and Tesla that are investing in the field.

  Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been trying to build a humanoid robot called Optimus or Tesla Bot. After much hype last year, though, the display of the robot walking slowly on the stage and waving to the crowd fell short of expectations.

  

  There seems to be optimism about the technology among Chinese media.

  Lu Hanchen, director of the Gaogong Industry Research Institute, told the state-owned Securities Times that while China is some distance away from producing humanoid robots at scale, that goal isn’t far off.

  More than 10 Chinese companies this year have revealed innovations related to humanoid robots, he noted, adding that China already has some supporting facilities from developing industrial robots.

  Beijing has set aside about 10 billion yuan (about $1.4 billion) to fund the robotic development. On Nov. 6, China opened the first provincial-level innovation center on humanoid robots in the country’s capital to work on solving pressing “key common problems,” including an operation control system, open source software, and robot prototypes.

  At least one Chinese company, Jiangsu Miracle Logistics System Engineering Co., has promised to introduce its first humanoid robot by the end of the year. Chinese securities brokerage firm Zheshang Securities estimates that the humanoid robot market will have a demand for 1.77 million machines by 2030.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 23:00

• Pentagon Is Starting To Restrict Flow Of Military Aid To Ukraine As Money Runs Out
  Pentagon Is Starting To Restrict Flow Of Military Aid To Ukraine As Money Runs Out

  No more green for Zelenskyy.

  With war funding for both Ukraine and Israel now seemingly snarled up beyond repair in Congress, on Thursday the Pentagon said that funding delays have forced the US to begin restricting the flow of military assistance to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has only $1 billion left to replenish stocks of weapons that were sent to the country, according to a spokeswoman.

  “We have had to meter out our support for Ukraine,” Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. “We’re going to continue to roll out packages but they are getting smaller.”

  Singh urged Congress to break a deadlock and approve the Biden administration’s $61.4 billion request for emergency funds for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, part of a masive $106 billion package that would include aid for Israel and the US-Mexico border, but which now has virtually no chance of passing. House Republicans have sought to separate the aid for Ukraine and Israel, an idea both the Senate and the White House oppose.

  Singh said the US had burned through about 95% of previous funding for Ukraine, which she said also totaled more than $60 billion; of course, much of that $60 billion was then rerouted back to the Military Industrial Complex and Deep state back in the US, where it served to boost various military companies, and their political supporters and assorted hanger-on lobbies. 

  She said the remaining $1 billion is part of a program that allows President Joe Biden to send existing US military hardware to Ukraine and replace it with new orders.

  Singh’s warning was only the latest from the administration, which has said repeatedly it’s scrambling to keep military aid flowing for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s forces. Last month, the Pentagon’s comptroller said a government shutdown, which is also looming later this month, would slow the pace of replacing weapons stockpiles sent to Ukraine.

  Perhaps realizing that Ukraine’s military forces are about to expire, Telegraph reported that Russia has amassed an estimated 40,000 troops around the key battlefront in Avdiivka as it prepares for a third wave assault on the shattered eastern town, the Ukrainian military has said.

  “They are building up reserves. They’ve brought in about 40,000 men here along with ammunition of all calibres,” said Anton Kotsukon, spokesperson for the 110th separate mechanised brigade. “We see no sign of the Russians abandoning plans to encircle Avdiivka.”

  Russian forces, he said, had surrounded the town on three sides and were “playing cat and mouse”, sending up “huge numbers” of drones to scout out Ukraine’s defences.

  Ukrainian forces regard the town as a gateway for future advances to recapture territory in the east; alternatively the Russian army expects capture of the town to allow to penetrate deep into Ukraine territory.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 22:40

• Taibbi: The Tragic Victimhood Of "Disinformation Experts"
  Taibbi: The Tragic Victimhood Of “Disinformation Experts”

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

  On June 8th, the Washington Post ran, “These academics studied falsehoods spread by Trump. Now the GOP wants answers,” a story about how “records requests, subpoenas and lawsuits” were wielded as “tools of harassment” against “scholars” in the “field of disinformation.” In photo portraits, Kate Starbird of the University of Washington stared plaintively in the distance, a caption under one: “The political part is intimidating — to have people with a lot of power in this world making… false accusations about our work.” Starbird sits on an advisory committee for the 245,000-person, $185 billion Department of Homeland Security, but perhaps she meant “a lot of power” in a different sense?

  

  When Bari Weiss, Michael Shellenberger, and I first started working on the Twitter Files, none of us knew much about people who did “anti-disinformation” work. Before it became controversial, these “experts” didn’t seem bashful about security-state credentials. For instance, New Knowledge, the firm profiled by Susan Schmidt last week that authored a Senate report on Russian interference and was caught creating fake accounts in an Alabama Senate race, gained this cheerful description in VentureBeat after raising $11 million for “anti-disinformation”:

  What further distinguishes New Knowledge is that its founders are AI and Homeland Security experts who grew up in the NSA and have worked as security advisers. [CEO Jonathon] Morgan, for instance, was an adviser for the U.S. State Department and published research at the Brookings Institution.

  When lawsuits like Missouri v. Biden and then the Twitter Files began shining light on this direction, experts reinvented themselves as “scholars” or research fellows. That their LinkedIn pages often featured odd gaps, or periods listed as “consultants” to the military or the FBI, was apparently not important, nor that “anti-disinformation” is not an academic discipline. Even if they were very new arrivals to campuses, we were expected to show deference to new roles as “researchers,” much as campaign reporters were asked to stop calling Rick Perry a dummy when he put on glasses.

  Reporters once didn’t fall for this sort of thing, reserving special bile for politicians or spooks who tried to pass themselves off as intellectuals. But these days they swoon like teen girls seeing the Elvis wiggle for the first time for “anti-disinformationists,” with anchors like Nicolle Wallace, Brian Stelter, and Rachel Maddow giving the “We’re not worthy!” treatment to anyone with intelligence credentials who utters dire prophecies about Trump and “fake news.”

  Even the once-mocked “smart glasses” trick became foolproof, as former counterterrorism warriors like Hamilton 68 frontman Clint Watts earned plaudits as bespectacled “disinformation experts,” and even media figures who once went for hunky or fetching in headshots donned solemn expressions — and glasses — when moved to the disinfo beat. I don’t remember Rick Stengel wearing specs much as editor of Time magazine, but he accessorizes nicely in his new role as former head of the Global Engagement Center, pimping books like Information Wars.

  This is all background for “Big Brother is Flagging You,” about the House Weaponization of Government Committee report on Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership. I’ve been in media long enough not to be shocked by much, but the people picked to man “anti-disinformation” bureaucracies have an almost admirably bottomless capacity for self-pity and deception. With teary eyes, they’ll swear they’re not in the censorship business, but then it will come out that they’re sending notes to platforms like, “We recommend that these posts be removed immediately.”

  They’ll describe concerns about the First Amendment as conspiracy theories, but then we learn about people like Stanford’s Renée DiResta making notes about “very real 1st amendment questions” in a presentation about the EIP, or a lawyer for former CISA director Chris Krebs snapping at congressional investigators to cite a legal authority “other than the First Amendment” to justify questioning. “Researchers” will declare unequivocally that CISA did not “found, fund, or control” their program, but then it will come out the superficially private structure of the EIP was necessary because “DHS cannot openly endorse the portal,” while a “behind-the-scenes” arrangement was fine. And so on.

  Put bluntly, these people lie, but do it in a way that would impress even a politician. In one of the many times I was pestered this year by a mainstream reporter asking why a nice “scholar” like DiResta should be prevented from “just doing research,” I asked him to go back and find out what academic credentials qualified her for “scholar” status (she’s listed as a “research manager”), and to cite another type of “research” that involves flagging content for removal of speech on behalf of an intelligence agency. As my podcast partner Walter Kirn puts it, Stanford’s Observatory is the first one in history that destroys planets.

  I asked the same reporter why non-doctors should be allowed to police the scientific opinions of MDs and PhDs, why publicly funded programs targeting the speech of voters should be exempt from FOIA requests, and so on, but it’s hopeless. In the new world, brazen enough scams are respected, those who don’t fall for them become the outlaws, and we all have to get used to it.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 22:20

• Pentagon Confirms Series Of New Attacks On Bases In Syria, Iraq After Latest US Airstrikes
  Pentagon Confirms Series Of New Attacks On Bases In Syria, Iraq After Latest US Airstrikes

  The overnight Pentagon airstrikes on alleged Iran-back militia targets in Syria’s east has already been met with retaliation attacks. The US strikes marked the second major such aerial operation in Syria in recent weeks since the Gaza war began. 

  “American troops were hit four times by Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East after a U.S. strike Wednesday on an Iranian facility in Syria,” The Hill reports based on fresh defense official statements. 

  

  Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh in a Thursday briefing filled in more details on the continuing tit-for-tat as US troops are in the line of fire while occupying some one-third of Syrian territory.

  She indicated that in 56 American soldiers were wounded in more than 46 attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria in the period of time spanning Oct. 17 to Nov. 9

  One of the Wednesday US strikes was reportedly against an “IRGC-linked weapons storage facility” – and Singh said it was ‘successful’ as “we were able to render that building pretty much non-usable.” She described that the prior attacks on US bases have all involved rockets and suicide drones, which in total has been 24 attacks in Iraq and 22 in Syria.

  “If these attacks continue against our personnel, we won’t hesitate at a time and place of our choosing to respond again,” Singh added.

  Defense officials have further said that all or most of the over 50 US troop injuries have been minor, and that all have since returned to duty.

  Below: an initial round of US strikes in late October:

  

  The US has had some 1,000 or more troops and personnel in Syria for years. Originally claiming a “counter ISIS” mission, the US “mission” quickly became an oil and gas resource grab – ultimately with an eye toward regime change in Damascus, via suffocating sanctions and diverting of domestic energy.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 22:00

• Watch: Rand Paul Says It's "Difficult To Imagine Trump Winning" In 2024
  Watch: Rand Paul Says It’s “Difficult To Imagine Trump Winning” In 2024

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  GOP Senator Rand Paul says that he thinks it is difficult to imagine Donald Trump winning another term in office because of the magnitude of everything that is being done by Democrats and the establishment to prevent it happening.

  

  “It’s difficult to image Trump winning, but it’s also difficult to imagine anything more unfair they could do to him, and also how pitiful the performance of Biden has been, and how frail and detached that he looked in doing his job,” Paul said during an interview with Piers Morgan.

  “It worries people that he is still able and has enough vim and vigour to actually be the president,” Paul continued.

  Paul also, somewhat jokingly, said “I haven’t endorsed [Trump or anyone else] yet because I haven’t decided whether I’m going to run or not.”

  “I ran in 2016, maybe I should through my hat in, I don’t think it’s going that well for everybody else,” the Senator further stated.

  Elsewhere during the interview, Paul urged that the solution to “ugly or despicable” speech is “more speech”. 

  Morgan had asked Paul about the Anti-Israel demonstrations that threaten to disrupt Remembrance Day events at the weekend in London. Paul responded that countering with better ideas and useful arguments is “much better than banning speech”. 

  Watch:

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 21:40

• Iraq Combat Vet Explains Why The US Might Be Marching On The Middle East Again Soon
  Iraq Combat Vet Explains Why The US Might Be Marching On The Middle East Again Soon

  Former Army drill instructor and Iraq combat veteran ‘Angry Cops’ offers some interesting evidence that suggests the US military is gearing up for a major deployment to the Middle East. 

  Where specifically?  It’s hard to say. 

  While all eyes are currently on Israel and Gaza, US air forces are striking targets in Syria, naval units are intercepting drones and missiles from Yemen and tensions are rising with Lebanon and Iran. 

  It’s clear from previous statements by US and Israeli officials that Iran is the ultimate target of the growing conflict, and if this is the case there is no doubt American troops would be involved. 

  ‘Angry Cops’ points out that two odd command decisions made simultaneously by two different military branches hint that the US government is about to take on a war posture, and they may deploy troops very soon…

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 21:20

• Aussie Telco Blackout Chaos Proves Cash Still Remains King
  Aussie Telco Blackout Chaos Proves Cash Still Remains King

  Authored by Eric Abetz via The Epoch Times,

  The Optus blackout proves that a small glitch in the system can cause total mayhem in a cashless society…

  Modern technology is a wonderful thing … until it isn’t.

  Australians experienced that truism when telco giant Optus had a substantial outage on Nov. 8, resulting in a stop to call services and any bank card transactions for several hours.

  

  In short, the mayhem, frustration, and missed opportunities piled up in all quarters.

  Some businesses, like the call centres for the banks, may have breathed a sigh of relief given they could not field calls from concerned customers after they suffered another 0.25 percent interest rate hike the day before, courtesy of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

  However, for most people and small businesses, it spelled disaster. The ever so convenient “tap and go” method of making payment was removed. And without warning.

  It’s a timely reminder to us all that carrying cash may be a sensible thing to do for occasions such as that experienced on Nov. 8.

  Such outages have happened in the past and will happen in the future. So the wise counsel is to be prepared.

  Speaking of which, it is making more and more sense to use cash as retailers and banks continue charging for the use of cards and “tap and go”—to which we were all seduced by its ease and promised “no extra costs.”

  Remember when Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) delivered you cash free of charge because it saved the bank from paying wages?

  Tap and go sped things up considerably for the customer, the business, and the bank. It was less labour intensive and created new savings for businesses and banks (particularly during COVID-19 we were all encouraged not to use cash because of its propensity to transmit germs).

  Yet once enough of us had been lured into ATMs, rather than real live human tellers behind a counter in a local branch, banking staff was then cut and branches closed. Then, fees started to be charged at the ATM.

  

  People queue for ATM machines outside a branch of the Commonwealth Bank in Melbourne on Aug. 8, 2018. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)

  An Extra Price to Pay

  Fast forward to today and the surcharges for paying with a card have been quietly introduced, meaning that the supposed “savings” for customers were now being ignored.

  The surcharges vary but can be as high as a few percent on a total transaction.

  In a period of cost of living pressures, those extra gouged percentages can be avoided by paying cash. A saving that could place literally hundreds of dollars back into the family budget.

  Surely, the cost of a cashless transaction is far less than one that involves receiving money from the customer, giving change, balancing the till at the end of the day, and taking the proceeds to the bank for depositing.

  Further, tap and go often makes the customer oblivious to what they are actually paying for. In the past, the customer would have had to dig a bit deeper into his pocket and pull out an extra coin or note making a person a lot more price aware and the merchant more self-conscious about increasing prices.

  

  Supplied image of people using a new contactless payment app designed by Optus on a smartphone at a retailer in Sydney, Australia, on Nov. 13, 2014. (AAP Image/Fuel Communications, Optus)

  From a privacy point of view, cash payments allow purchases to be made without traceability as well. But in that case, it is important to ask for a receipt as proof of purchase may become necessary.

  With the federal government’s ham-fisted announcement that it will shortly outlaw cheques, it is more important than ever that the public retains access to cash and that cash transactions be accepted by all merchants.

  The removal of cash from the economy will give unprecedented power to the banking institutions, as they will be able to control all transactions other than bartering.

  The Royal Commission into the Australian banking sector exposed the power exercised and the moral free zone it became as profits were pursued in an ethics-free environment. It is doubtful that with even more market power, there would be a commensurate enhancement of moral and ethical standards.

  The Australian Mint has announced that by Christmas 2023 the visage of the king of Australia, King Charles III, will start appearing on local currency.

  This a timely reminder that cash is king and it is in every Australian’s interest to ensure it remains a viable method to undertake transactions, besides potentially saving hundreds of dollars each year.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 21:00

• "Younger Voters Have Turned Against The Governor": Berkeley Poll Reveals Record Number Of Californians Disapprove Of Newsom
  “Younger Voters Have Turned Against The Governor”: Berkeley Poll Reveals Record Number Of Californians Disapprove Of Newsom

  A new poll from the University of California-Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) reveals that more Californians disapprove of the job Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is doing (49%) than approve (44%) – the first time this has happened since Newsom took office in 2019.

  

  This marks an 11-point decline in Newsom’s approval rating since the last time IGS asked the same question in February, just nine months ago.

  “This includes significant declines among the governor’s Democratic voter base and is most prominent among two of the state’s swing voter blocs – political moderates and No Party Preference voters,” according to the poll.

  

  “Younger voters have also turned against the governor, while voters ages 65 or older remain supportive.”

  Poll Director Mark DiCamillo suggested the sharp decline was due to those with extreme views, “with the proportion strongly approving of Newsom’s performance declining from 25% to 18%, while those strongly disapproving climbed from 29% to 36%,” NY1 reports.

  According to DiCamillo, the decline is “broad-based and is particularly noteworthy among political moderates and No Party Preference voters.”

  While 66% of Democrats approve of the job Newsom is doing, just 37% of No Party Preference and 7% of Republicans approve. Support was strongest in San Francisco (53%), where Newsom served as mayor before being elected governor, and among females, with 46% of women approving of his job performance compared with 41% of men.

  While 53% of voters age 65 or older continue to support the governor, younger voters are less approving. Just 35% of voters age 18 to 29 and 38% of voters age 30 to 39 approve of the job he’s doing. -NY1

  Newsom’s declining approval rating comes as California struggles with budget shortfalls and other issues. Meanwhile, just 50% of California voters approved of Newsom’s recent trip to China to meet with President Xi Jinping, while 39% disapproved.

  It also comes as Newsom stands accused of running a ‘shadow’ Presidential campaign to take the mantle if Joe Biden dies or otherwise isn’t the Democratic nominee in the 2024 US election.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 20:40

• Running On Censorship: A California Candidate Seeks To Ride The Anti-Free Speech Wave
  Running On Censorship: A California Candidate Seeks To Ride The Anti-Free Speech Wave

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  It is not easy to unseat an incumbent in Congress, but Will Rollins believes that he has hit on a guaranteed winner to galvanize Democratic support in California’s 41st congressional district.

  

  He is pledging to push for greater censorship to stop those “profiting by spreading division based on lies.”

  Of course, the former assistant U.S. Attorney suggests that he will know who is lying and who should be allowed to speak freely.

  Rollins is also running on his role “prosecuting insurrectionists” from January 6. While most of us condemned the riot on that day and supported the prosecution of those who broke into the Capitol, polls show that most Americans do not view what occurred as an actual insurrection or rebellion.

  That, however, is a legitimate matter of debate and people of good faith can differ in how they view the crimes committed that day. What is far more serious is the embrace of censorship as a political cause.

  Rollins pledged to stop people saying things that “erode our democracy.” His policy platform promises “accountability” for tech platforms that “spread conspiracy theories” and do not yield to demands for censorship. It appears to be a pitch to restore censorship systems on sites like X but also pledges to go after “media outlets.”

  He is not alone in such efforts. Democratic members caused a firestorm previously by writing to cable carriers like AT&T to ask why they are still allowing people to watch FOX News. Rollins promises to crackdown on “propaganda networks to protect the public’s right to be informed.” He does not identify which networks would be targeted, but the assumption is that it is not MSNBC. (For full disclosure, I am a legal analyst on Fox News). However, he wants ramped up penalties for anything that he considers “harmful lies and conspiracy theories.”

  Of course, one person’s “conspiracy theory” is another person’s news. It is again unlikely that Rollins will be pursuing the Washington Post which recently reaffirmed that it is standing by past false claims made about Lafayette Park, the Hunter Biden laptop, and Russian collusion. Rollins is not likely referencing the false conspiracy theories funded by the Clinton campaign like the Alfa Bank allegations.

  As someone who was raised in a liberal, politically active Democratic family in Chicago, I remember when the party championed free speech as a touchstone of the party. Now it is often treated as an existential threat to democracy.

  In recent hearings on the government’s censorship programs, Democratic members and pundits attacked witnesses as “Putin lovers” or supporters of “insurrectionists” in opposing censorship.

  President Joe Biden is now arguably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. His administration is unabashedly and unrepentantly pursuing the silencing of those with opposing views. Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

  Democratic members have warned social media companies that they will not tolerate any backsliding after Elon Musk dismantled the massive censorship system at Twitter.

  In one hearing, tech CEOs appeared before the Senate on past censorship. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) pushed back on statements from the witnesses suggesting an effort to protect free speech and reminded them that “the pandemic and misinformation about COVID-19, manipulated media also cause harm” as well as “climate change misinformation policy” and “climate denialism.”

  It did not matter that many censored over their views on the efficacy of masks or the necessity of shutting down schools have been vindicated. Even raising the lab theory on the origin of Covid 19 was denounced as a conspiracy theory. Even after the theory was embraced by government agencies as possible or the most likely explanation, science and health reporter for the New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli,  continued to denounce the theory as “racist.”

  The concerning aspect of Rollins’ campaign is that censorship was largely used as a political tactic in Washington to silence critics and opposing views. It is now an actual political campaign. It shows how speech regulation has become popular with the rank-and-file in the party. It now defines the party.

  Campaigning for censorship should be a warning sign of the breakdown of democratic values. Limiting free speech is akin to cutting off oxygen to the body politic. It produces atrophy in a system, the breakdown of our political tissues. That is also reflected in a recent poll that shows that 52% of Biden supporters say Republicans are now a threat to American life while 47% of Trump supporters say the same about Democrats. Roughly 40% of both parties believe violence is now justified and roughly a quarter of both parties now question our system of government.

  Politicians fuel that anger by running on silencing their opponents in the name of disinformation or malinformation. It is of course popular. Rage is often popular. Indeed, it can be addictive. Yet, what remains is release from reason in the blind pursuit of those with opposing views.

  Will Rollins is right that this is a popular pitch for an age of rage. However, it is the political version of the Dead Sea Fruits that were irresistible to pick but would turn to ashes in one’s mouth. Silencing others creates an insatiable appetite for combating an ever widening circle of “lies.” Until, that is, when you find yourself encircled by your own truth police.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 20:20

• Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy Rocket To Launch Mysterious Space Plane Into Orbit 
  Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy Rocket To Launch Mysterious Space Plane Into Orbit 

  The US Space Force’s Boeing X-37B unmanned, reusable space plane will be launched via a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, for the first time in early December, the US military wrote in a press release. 

  “The X-37B Mission 7 will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, designated USSF-52, with a wide range of test and experimentation objectives,” Space Force said.

  The mysterious spaceplane is built by Boeing and operated by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and the Space Force. Its last mission ended one year ago after spending 2.5 years in space.

  

  Space Force said the Falcon Heavy rocket will launch the X-37B into space on a mission called “USSF-52” on Dec. 7 and perform “tests include operating the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies, and investigating the radiation effects on materials provided by NASA.” 

  “We are excited to expand the envelope of the reusable X-37 B’s capabilities, using the flight-proven service module and Falcon Heavy rocket to fly multiple cutting-edge experiments for the Department of the Air Force and its partners,” said Lt. Col. Joseph Fritschen, the X-37B Program Director. 

  

  The X-37B is similar to the retired space shuttle, although the space plane is a fraction of the size, coming in at 29 feet in length and 9.5 feet high, with a wingspan of 15 feet. 

  

  Here’s a list of the prior X-37 B’s top-secret missions in low-Earth obit:

  • OTV-1: launched on Apr. 22, 2010 and landed on Dec. 3, 2010, spending over 224 days in orbit.
  • OTV-2: launched on Mar. 5, 2011 and landed on Jun. 16, 2012, spending over 468 days in orbit.
  • OTV-3: launched on Dec. 11, 2012 and landed on Oct. 17, 2014, spending over 674 days in orbit.
  • OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days in orbit.
  • OTV-5: launched on Sept. 7, 2017 and landed on Oct. 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days in orbit.
  • OTV-6: launched on May 17, 2020 and landed on Nov. 12, 2022, spending over 908 days in orbit.

  There are rumors the X-37B might be a testbed for space weapons or could be used to capture adversary satellites… 

  News of the X-37B launch via SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket further shows Elon Musk is becoming the ‘uncancellable’ billionaire as the West increasingly relies on his rocket technology.  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 20:00

• 2.9 Million Borrowers Pay Nothing In Biden's 'Most Generous Ever' Student Loan Repayment Plan
  2.9 Million Borrowers Pay Nothing In Biden’s ‘Most Generous Ever’ Student Loan Repayment Plan

  Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Nearly 5.5 million federal student loan borrowers have enrolled in what the Biden administration calls “the most generous” repayment option ever offered, federal officials said on Wednesday.

  

  The repayment plan, dubbed the Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, went into effect in August as part of President Joe Biden’s regulatory effort to dramatically reduce monthly obligations for student borrowers who aren’t earning very much, with many borrowers seeing their bills shrink to practically nothing.

  According to the latest update from the U.S. Department of Education, about 2.9 million of the SAVE plan’s current enrollees have incomes that are low enough that they have monthly payments of $0.

  The updated SAVE enrollment figure includes 1.8 million borrowers who have newly signed up for the program, as well as another 364,000 borrowers who were automatically switched to SAVE because they had already been in one of the existing income-driven repayment (IDR) plans that the Biden administration seeks to replace with SAVE.

  The new figure is based upon enrollment in the program as of Oct. 15. It reflects an increase from the the 4 million borrowers that the Education Department said were enrolled in the plan at the beginning of September.

  Overall, borrowers are repaying $300 billion in federal student loans on the plan. That represents about 19 percent of the $1.6 trillion in outstanding debt from the federal student loan portfolio.

  One of the biggest differences between the SAVE plan and IDR plans is that the amount of income incurring no charge, or protected income, rises from 150 percent above the federal poverty guidelines to 225 percent. Under the SAVE plan, payment also drops from 10 percent of the difference between earnings and protected income to 5 percent.

  In practice, this means a single person who earns less than $32,800 a year is required to pay $0 a month. The same applies to a family of four that has an annual income less than $67,500.

  On top of all that, under the SAVE plan, borrowers will see their remaining loan balances wiped out after 10 years of repayments. By comparison, it takes 20 or 25 years under IDR for borrowers to get their remaining debt canceled.

  “I’m thrilled to see that in less than three months, nearly 5.5 million Americans in every community across the country are taking advantage of the SAVE Plan’s many benefits, from lower monthly payments to protection from runaway student loan interest,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement on Monday, promising to “not rest” in the efforts to “make paying for college more affordable.”

  Biden Plan Faces Republican Challenge

  The SAVE plan is expected to cost billions in taxpayer dollars, a point Republican lawmakers have been emphasizing since the plan’s announcement.

  Estimates vary widely, but one analysis by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School suggests that the plan will cost about $475 billion in a span of 10 years.

  “About $200 billion of that cost will come from payment reduction for the $1.64 trillion in loans already outstanding in 2023,” the analysis read.

  According to the leading business school, the SAVE plan will be incentivizing college students to collectively borrow billions more dollars every year in the next decade due to the expectation that they may not have to repay the debt.

  “The remainder of the budget cost, or about $275 billion, comes from reduced payments for about $1.03 trillion in new loans that we estimate will be extended over the next 10 years,” it added.

  Citing Wharton’s estimates, a group of 17 Republican senators in September introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution against the plan. A CRA resolution does not only nullify an existing rule but bans the federal agency from issuing the same rule again unless Congress later passes a new law authorizing the agency to do so.

  “It’s incredibly unfair to those who never incurred student debt because they didn’t attend college in the first place or because they either worked their way through school or their family pinched pennies and planned for higher education,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of Senate’s education committee.

  “Our resolution protects the 87 percent of Americans who don’t have student debt and will be forced to shoulder the burden of the President’s irresponsible and unfair policy,” he added.

  Sen. Cassidy is joined by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), John Thune (R-S.D.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

  A companion CRA resolution was introduced by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) in the lower chamber. Both chambers are expected to vote on the Republican-led resolutions in the coming weeks.

  In defense of the repayment plan, Mr. Cardona implored lawmakers seeking to undo it to speak with borrowers who are “drowning in debt.”

  “We’re hearing from the American people who are drowning in debt and can’t buy a home in the economy because of college costs,” he said during a Sept. 8 interview on CNN. “Those who are vehemently opposed to it have not spoken to their constituents who are drowning, who need support, who need to make higher education more accessible.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 19:40

• Arab Spring 2.0? Gro Intelligence's Head Warns Global Food Crisis 'Much Worse Than 2008'  
  Arab Spring 2.0? Gro Intelligence’s Head Warns Global Food Crisis ‘Much Worse Than 2008’  

  Speaking at the sidelines of Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore, Sara Menker, founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence, cautioned that the current food crisis surpassed the one in 2007-08, which ultimately sparked Arab Spring across the Middle East a few years later. This is primarily due to elevated crop prices and steep declines in local currencies against the dollar. 

  Bloomberg’s Yvonne Man asked Menker: “When we talk about where we see food prices – come off from the record highs of last year. What drives food insecurity is wars, climate change, and economic shocks. And we’re feeling that on all fronts right now… So what worries you the most?” 

  Menker responded: “It’s actually the narrative that food prices have come off the highs, which has been the narrative we’re using because we’re all following future markets that are all dollar-denominated as a gauge of where food prices are.” 

  She said, “Year-on-year food prices have come off quite substantially.”

  

  “But what has happened in most other parts of the world that import food – is that food prices continue to go up because local currencies are weakening significantly against the dollar,” she said, adding, “People eat in local currency and not in US dollars.”

  

  She pointed out, “While wheat futures are down double digits year on year – it’s up double digits year on year in Egypt because the price of importing wheat has gone up just due to the decimation of the Egyptian pound.” 

  Menker said in Syria, food inflation is up 2,000%, 1,200% in Lebonan, and 700% in Argentina. She said the food crisis “is far from over for most people in the world.” 

  Later in the interview, Man asked Menker: “Where are we headed now? Obviously, we look at the 2007-08 food crisis at that time. Are we getting closer to that scenario?” 

  Menker’s response was apocalyptic: “Actually, I think we are much worse.” 

  She explained again, “Where food prices are in a lot of countries – if you take it in a local currency basis – food prices are significantly higher when compared to 2007-08.” 

  Here’s the interview.

  For some context, after global food prices spiked in 2007-08, in late 2010 and early 2011, discontent over soaring prices triggered the Arab Spring. 

  

  In late 2020, SocGen’s Albert Edwards started to warn about the Federal Reserve blowing bubbles during the Covid pandemic and how it could spark a rise in food prices and the usually ongoing risks, such as social-economic instabilities. 

  The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recently warned the world food import bill jumped to nearly $2 trillion in 2022 as many poor countries are on the brink of crisis. 

  This time, unlike a decade ago, the Western world has been battered with food inflation crushing tens of millions of low-income folks. 

  Everything is fine … 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/hEpZZ3moUE

  — Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) November 9, 2023

  “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy,” American investigative journalist Alfred Henry Lewis stated in 1906. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 19:20

• Minnesota Supreme Court Dismisses Case To Keep Trump Off The Ballot
  Minnesota Supreme Court Dismisses Case To Keep Trump Off The Ballot

  Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit that sought to keep former President Donald Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot on Wednesday, after having heard arguments on whether they should take the case.

  

  In a brief opinion and order written by Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, the justices said the petition was dismissed without prejudice.

  Free Speech for People, a liberal group, had sued on behalf of eight local voters, arguing that the secretary of state putting President Trump on the ballot would be an “error.”

  In the opinion, Chief Justice Hudson wrote, “there is no ‘error’ to correct here as to the presidential primary election if former President Trump’s name is included on the presidential primary ballot after the Chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota provides his name to the Secretary of State.”

  “Because there is no error to correct here as to the presidential nomination primary, and petitioners’ other claims regarding the general election are not ripe, the petition must be dismissed,” she wrote.

  She added that this dismissal would not prevent the petitioners from bringing forth the claim again regarding the general election ballot.

  President Trump commented on the decision in a Truth Social post.

  “Ridiculous 14th Amendment lawsuit just thrown out by Minnesota Supreme Court. Without Merit, Unconstitutional. Congratulations to all who fought this HOAX!” he wrote.

  State Secretary Powers

  During a hearing on Nov. 2, the justices had seemed skeptical of the petitioner’s arguments, noting that it would give the secretary of state a great amount of power if, as petitioners argued, they had the power to decide who to put on election ballots.

  The secretary of state, Steve Simon, had declined to make arguments on merit, saying only that he disagreed it was his authority to determine eligibility and would defer to the court’s decision.

  In the opinion, Chief Justice Hudson wrote that allowing President Trump to appear on the ballot if the state’s Republican party deems he meets their requirements is the correct procedure under state law.

  “There is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office,” she wrote.

  14th Amendment Challenges

  The 14th Amendment grants citizenship and equal rights to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. Ratified after the Civil War, it also included a section that prohibited those who had participated in “rebellions” or “insurrections” against the nation from holding office.

  The Minnesota petition argued that, under section three of the 14th Amendment, President Trump is disqualified from holding elected office again because he engaged in an “insurrection.”

  Similar challenges have been brought in several other states, with most courts having ruled similar to Minnesota in dismissing the cases. Some note they don’t have jurisdiction over the matter, while in Minnesota justices also brought up the question of whether it was prudent for them to take on the case even if they did have jurisdiction, as it could potentially create “chaos” with ballots varying from state to state.

  Likewise, secretaries of state have across the board said they don’t have the authority to determine the eligibility of a candidate under state laws, sometimes leading to petitions against them.

  On Thursday, a hearing will take place in Michigan, where petitioners have sued Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, arguing she needs to keep President Trump off the ballot. President Trump and the Trump Campaign are intervenors in this case, as they have been with other 14th Amendment challenges.

  To date, only Colorado has brought such a case to trial, and a state court spent two weeks hearing substantive testimony from witnesses and experts on whether Jan. 6, 2021, constituted an “insurrection” and whether President Trump “engaged” in that.

  Colorado District Court Judge Sarah Wallace will rule on the case next week.

  “This is an internal party election to serve internal party purposes.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 19:00

• Tesla Shares Fall 5% On HSBC $146 Target, Continued Cybertruck Skepticism
  Tesla Shares Fall 5% On HSBC $146 Target, Continued Cybertruck Skepticism

  Tesla shares sold off by more than 5% on Thursday after HSBC came out and added yet another bearish sell side voice to the discussion about Elon Musk’s EV automobile empire. HSBC’s Michael Tyndall began coverage of Tesla shares on Thursday, advising a sell and setting a target of $146, suggesting a potential 33% decline from current prices.

  Following this, Tesla’s shares had fallen by almost 5.5% at Thursday’s close, adding to a now 18.9% fall over the last month, according to Yahoo Finance.

  

  “We see considerable potential in Tesla’s prospects and ideas, but we think the timeline is likely to be longer than the market and valuation is reflecting. Hence the Reduce rating,” the note said. 

  “Timing of delivery is our primary concern: we think questioning Tesla’s credibility is  problematic. Its ambitions may be grand (20m units by 2030), but it has a track record of  generally doing what it promises. Equally, as outsiders, we struggle to challenge the feasibility  of the group’s ideas. So, our caution stems from the uncertainty around the timing and  commercialisation of its varied ideas. We see considerable potential in Tesla’s prospects and  ideas, but we think the timeline is likely to be longer than the market and valuation is reflecting.  Hence the Reduce rating,” the note continues. 

  It continued, questioning the future prospects of many of the “growth” stories Tesla’s valuation depends on: “Our DCF [discounted cash flow] valuation is generous as we assume businesses such as FSD [full-self driving], Dojo and Optimus all become successful by the end of the decade, contributing around 40% of our DCF value. We think, however, that the expected cost of capital for these businesses should be well above the group average given the regulatory and technological challenges they face.” 

  

  Yahoo Finance wrote that HSBC recognizes Tesla’s unique position in the electric vehicle (EV) market, acknowledging its cost leadership and strong growth prospects.

  And although Tyndall considers Tesla’s target of 20 million units by 2030 ambitious, he notes that doubting the company’s commitments is challenging, given its track record of fulfilling its promises, despite some skepticism regarding the feasibility of such figures at present.

  

  Calling CEO Elon Musk a “risk”, Tyndall continued: “Musk’s global fame has afforded the group a customer awareness that far outweighs the money it has spent on marketing and advertising, which is therefore a tangible benefit. Leaving aside the current legal issues Elon Musk faces, we think his prominence presents a considerable ‘singleman’ risk at the group.”

  

  The autonomous software sector, including Tesla, faces challenges, with investigations into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot software by NHTSA and the Department of Justice, Tyndall noted. Additionally, GM’s Cruise service has now been halted nationwide, his note pointed out.

  Despite the pessimism, Tyndall does admit that Tesla is an innovator and deserves a premium:

  It is more than just an auto company; Tesla has positioned itself as an innovator. Cars  may well be the main driver of revenue and profits currently, but if the group is to be taken at its  word, the future for Tesla is about robots, autonomous vehicles, energy storage and super computers. Many of these ideas are in concept stage at present, which makes modelling them  and valuing them problematic. To gain a better understanding of the prospects for each, we  have relied on HSBC’s domain experts in each field. This has helped round out our opinion and  valuation on the stock, but it seems clear, to us, there is a fair degree of hope in the current  share price.

  Ironically, the better Tesla is as an auto company, the more it deserves an “auto like” valuation, so arguably the ideas need to become reality to support the current share price. Tesla auto faces fewer challenges than the incumbents and as such, deserves a  premium: we view conventional carmakers as ex-growth businesses; they are selling to  (largely) saturated markets and their ability to price higher content has historically been limited.  

  For the incumbents, the switch to electric is simply another price-cost challenge – how long will  EV premiums prevail? Can they cut costs quickly enough to maintain margins? These  challenges don’t exist for Tesla. EVs, by virtue of rising penetration, are a growth market and  are likely to be for decades. Tesla is already the cost leader and given its stated ambitions (and  scale), is likely to remain so.

  

  Adding to the misery for Tesla this week was InsideEVs writeup on the company’s forthcoming Cybertruck. The article was called: “I Saw The Tesla Cybertruck Up Close. It Still Looks Horrible” and it sports a subtitle that says “A close look reveals a lot of issues.”

  “Basking in the SoCal sun, this Cybertruck looked frankly horrible,” the article says. “I’ve been around hundreds of prototype cars in my career, ranging from early test mules to near-production prototypes, and I’ve never seen an automaker proudly present something of this poor quality, especially not this late in development.”

  

  Daniel Golson from InsideEVs added: “It is absolutely baffling to me that Tesla’s lead designer would parade around a vehicle in this condition just weeks before deliveries of production cars are allegedly commencing and even more baffling that he’d park it at such a public enthusiast event.”

  

  The article concluded:

  “Yes, this is still just a prototype at the end of the day. But at this stage of development, this close to customer deliveries starting, I couldn’t help but feel something akin to second-hand embarrassment when looking at it. If Tesla feels comfortable showing this Cybertruck off, I don’t think it bodes well for early customers.”

  Recall, Tesla shares were trounced after last quarter’s earnings due to comments Musk made about the difficulties the company was having (and would be having) with producing the Cybertruck. Elon Musk said at the time:

  “It’s an amazing product but I do want to emphasize that there will be enormous challenges in reaching volume production with the Cybertruck and then in making the Cybertruck cash flow positive,” Musk said during Tesla’s earnings call on Wednesday.

  “While I think this is potentially our best product ever — I think it is our best product ever — it is going to require immense work to reach high-volume production and be cash flow positive at a price that people can afford.”

  However, Musk claims demand for the Cybertruck is “off the charts” with more than 1 million potential buyers putting down $100 to reserve one.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 18:40

• To Understand Mike Johnson, Look To Small-Town Louisiana
  To Understand Mike Johnson, Look To Small-Town Louisiana

  Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In the classic American film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” an idealistic leader appointed to the U.S. Senate finds himself in a tangle of political corruption and intrigue as he struggles to do what’s best for the people.

  

  Mr. Smith, played by actor Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 film, arrives at Congress from an unnamed Western state after the death of an incumbent senator. Initially, he’s unaware of the dishonest actions of some of his new congressional colleagues, and his inexperience leads the press to take advantage of him.

  In the movie, Mr. Smith refuses to become corrupt, proving the importance of decency and honesty and driving home the idea that one person really can make a difference.

  The film appears to be as relevant today as it was more than 80 years ago, a cautionary tale for politicians who believe that they can change what they see as a broken system.

  Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from small-town America, appears to want to do just that.

  

  Shaping a Speaker

  To understand Mr. Johnson, one must look to the places that shaped him—his church and community.

  God is loved in Louisiana. America is, too.

  When people speak about Mr. Johnson in his hometown of Benton, their comments always weave back around to his faith, which was demonstrated to the world after he was elected House speaker.

  “I want to tell all my colleagues here what I told the Republicans in that room last night,” Mr. Johnson said, addressing the House chamber after receiving the gavel on Oct. 25. “I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that scripture—the Bible—is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority.”

  Benton has a population of about 2,000 and serves as a bedroom community for the much larger nearby city of Shreveport.

  At least 18 churches have Benton addresses, far outnumbering the single-traffic-light intersection in the small downtown.

  Couples holding hands stroll through the upscale neighborhood that Mr. Johnson calls home, as children laugh and play on manicured green lawns where American flags wave beneath towering pines and hardwoods.

  “He’s not afraid,” Marty Treece said of his now-famous neighbor.

  Mr. Treece and his wife, Brenda, told The Epoch Times that they believe that God is using Mr. Johnson just like he used former President Donald Trump.

  People in the community were excited when they heard that their congressman, a dark horse candidate for speaker, had ascended to the position without a single dissenting Republican vote.

  For weeks, Republicans in Congress bickered among themselves in an attempt to elect another speaker, after hardline Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida and seven other Republicans voted to oust sitting Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) with the help of Democrats.

  

  “All I want to say to Mike Johnson and those Republicans up there is ‘Stand up,’” Mr. Treece said. “It’s just sad that there are so many RINOs [Republicans in name only]” serving in Washington.

  Mr. Treece said he likes the way in which Mr. Johnson is approaching the job already, especially in proposing a cut to the IRS budget to find money for Israel in its war with the terrorist group Hamas.

  The Treeces said everyone knows that people will try to smear Mr. Johnson. But they feel certain that the new speaker won’t fear the trials ahead because his faith is his backbone.

  No sooner had the little-known Louisiana congressman been elected as speaker than both sides of the political divide tried to quantify Mr. Johnson. He had managed to do what heavy-hitters in the GOP, such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), couldn’t—get elected as speaker.

  Those on the political left dubbed him MAGA Mike, a Bible-thumping fundamental Christian who supported President Trump as he fought against what he maintains was a rigged 2020 election.

  To those on the right, especially in his community, Mr. Johnson is known as a devout Southern Baptist who loves family and country.

  A politician often said to have no enemies, Mr. Johnson emerged as the right man at the right moment to unite a fractured Republican conference during turmoil at home and abroad, his allies say.

  Prayers From Home

  Christians in Benton indicate that they see a spiritual significance in Mr. Johnson’s rise in politics.

  Cypress Baptist Church—the home church of the Johnson family—was packed on Nov. 5 with believers who came to hear the Rev. John Fream.

  “God, continue to lift up our dear friend House Speaker Mike Johnson and his wife, Kelly,” the pastor prayed aloud.

  Mr. Fream, known in these parts as Pastor Fream, spoke of being thankful, even in a wicked world.

  His sermon dovetailed with Psalm 37, reportedly Mr. Johnson’s favorite Bible verse. It calls on the faithful to “fret not” because the righteous will prevail against evildoers.

  Some nonbelievers might scoff at those who follow the Bible, Mr. Fream said in the sermon. He knows some mock the idea that there are only two sexes and that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

  “What was worse, Sodom and Gomorrah, or today?” he asked a hushed congregation from the pulpit.

  “They celebrate evil as good. We live in a world that is so upside down and inside out that you say, ‘God, send your wrath.'”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 18:20

• The Delta Between New York City And New Jersey Rents Across The River Is Narrowing
  The Delta Between New York City And New Jersey Rents Across The River Is Narrowing

  If you still thought you could still escape the astronomical rents in New York City by the time-honored tradition of hopping across the river to Jersey City, your window of time may be coming to an unceremonious close. 

  According to data from rental platform StreetEasy, the median rent in Jersey City, located directly across from Manhattan, soared to $2,850 last month. This represents a staggering 48% increase since January 2020, surpassing the growth rates of the majority of neighborhoods in New York and nearly a hundred other principal cities.

  In other words, rents are growing quicker than in New York City, meaning the delta between the two locations is narrowing, according to Bloomberg.

  StreetEasy economist Kenny Lee told Bloomberg: “The opportunity for rent arbitrage in New Jersey has been going away.”

  Their report caught up with several people who tried to make moves to save money. One person was Angel Njoku, who moved to Brooklyn after her rent in Jersey City went up $125 to $3,795 per month. 

  “‘I was like, ‘There’s no point living in New Jersey’. I’m basically paying New York prices, why not just live in New York?” she told Bloomberg. 

  

  One realtor told Bloomberg that, as of 2019, a one-bedroom apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey typically remained available for around 14 days before being rented out.

  The Bloomberg report notes that these units are being snapped up in nearly half that time and at markedly increased rates, as the inventory of available rental properties has shrunk by one-third. A notable case, as mentioned, is an apartment that once would list for $5,500 and might have been offered two or three times is now commanding a rent of $8,500.

  “The lack of housing is crippling people,” the agent commented.

  After a 35% rent rise on their two-bedroom Jersey City apartment, 32 year old Oliver McAteer, and his wife renegotiated to $4,150 temporarily. Post their daughter’s arrival in spring, they purchased a house in Maplewood, New Jersey, with a mortgage matching their rent.

  McAteer told Bloomberg: “Everyone was coming over from Brooklyn, making Hoboken and Jersey City the new Williamsburg. What surprised me was how quickly it changed. It was such a shame that so many people got driven out.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 18:00

• Watch: Biden DHS Head Claims There Is "No Disaster" At The Border
  Watch: Biden DHS Head Claims There Is “No Disaster” At The Border

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Despite record numbers of encounters will illegal immigrants crossing the southern U.S. border in their thousands every day, including suspected terrorists, the head of the Biden Department for Homeland Security claimed under oath Wednesday that there is “no disaster”.

  

  Alejandro Mayorkas made the claim while testifying before Congress regarding the border security budget and spending, and asking for more funding.

  GOP Senator John Boozman told Mayorkas that “by every metric the situation at the border is a disaster,” adding that “what you’re asking for does nothing to get those numbers down.”

  Mayorkas attempted to pivot the exchange to suggest Republicans are resistant to providing funding to hire more personnel at the border.

  Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith further asked Mayorkas: “So the situation at the border, you’re saying, is not a disaster?”

  “That is correct,” Mayorkas then answered.

  Mayorkas says the situation at the border is NOT a disaster

  pic.twitter.com/GMEe3pqeTk

  — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 8, 2023

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

  Mayorkas was further pressed by other Senators about whether he sees the border situation as a crisis and again failed to respond:

  “Either you’re not qualified to manage a Costco food court or you believe in open borders,” says @SenJohnKennedy to Biden’s incompetent DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

  “It’s the latter.” pic.twitter.com/2cshQhIIWN

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 8, 2023

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

  Does this look like a crisis/disaster nor not?

  UPDATE: The deceased innocent Americans have been identified as an elderly married couple from Dalton GA, in Whitfield County, according to @TxDPS. Their names are Jose Lerma & Isabel Lerma. Their son has been notified. They were driving to MX from GA when killed. DPS is…

  — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 8, 2023

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

  Per CBP source, Border Patrol’s Tucson, AZ sector recorded over 2,400 illegal crossings yesterday alone.
  The sector continues to be the biggest hot spot along the border, with illegal immigrants crossing there from all over the globe, including the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. https://t.co/iA8pPazWwg

  — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 7, 2023

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

  NEW: “Jesus Christ…”

  Video courtesy of @TxDPS shows illegal immigrants bailing out of a human smuggler’s stolen SUV and running into the brush as they are pursued by TX troopers & Border Patrol near Del Rio, TX over the weekend. You can hear the trooper’s reaction to the chaos. pic.twitter.com/5yaF5fkjS4

  — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 7, 2023

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

  NEW: An illegal immigrant from Honduras who was released into the US after being apprehended by Border Patrol in TX in June 2021 is now charged with felony rape & abduction by force in Virginia. He was arrested by local police there, but the Fairfax County jail didn’t honor ICE’s…

  — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 7, 2023

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

  NEW: An illegal immigrant from Honduras who was released into the US after being apprehended by Border Patrol in TX in June 2021 is now charged with felony rape & abduction by force in Virginia. He was arrested by local police there, but the Fairfax County jail didn’t honor ICE’s…

  — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 7, 2023

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

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/09/2023 – 17:40

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