Nov 10

Today’s News 10th November 2024

  • Escobar: Putin Outlines The 'Moment Of Truth'
    Escobar: Putin Outlines The ‘Moment Of Truth’

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    President Putin’s plenary session performance (address + Q&A) at the annual Valdai Club meeting in Sochi felt like a high-speed train on cruise control.

    Totally cool, calm, comfortable, in full command of a Himalaya of facts, no political leader anywhere – recent past and present – would even come close to delivering what amounts to an extensive, detailed world view deeply matured over a quarter of a century at the highest geopolitical level.

    Putin began his address referring to the October 1917 revolution, drawing a direct parallel with our turbulent times: “The moment of truth is coming”. In a clear tribute to Gramsci, he stated how a “completely new world order” is “being formed before our eyes.”

    The subtle reference to the recent BRICS summit in Kazan could not possibly escape critical minds across the Global Majority. Kazan was a living, breathing testimony that “the old order is irrevocably disappearing, one might say, has already disappeared, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new one. Irreconcilable, first of all, because this is not even a fight for power or geopolitical influence, this is a clash of the very principles on which relations between countries and peoples will be built at the next historical stage.”

    As concisely as possible, that should be taken as the current Big Picture framework: we are not mired inside a reductionist clash of civilizations or the “end of History” – which Putin defined as “myopic” – but facing a make-or-break systemic clash of fundamental principles. The result will define this century – arguably the Eurasia Century, as “the dialectics of History continues.”

    Putin himself quipped that he would drive into “philosophical asides” during his address. In fact that went much further than a mere refutation of unilateral conceptual fallacies, as “the Western elites thought that their monopoly is the final stop for humanity” and “modern neoliberalism degenerated into a totalitarian ideology.”

    Referring to AI, he asked rhetorically, “will human remain human?” He praised the building of a new global architecture, moving towards a “polyphonic” and “polycentric” world where “maximum representation” is paramount and the BRICS are “coming up with a coordinated approach” based on “sovereign equality.”

    Six Principles For Global Sustainable Development

    Sovereignty had to be one of the predominant themes during the Valdai Q&A. Putin was adamant that Russia must “develop our own sovereign AI. As algorithms are biased and give massive power to a few big companies that control the internet, the need is imperative for “sovereign algorithms.”

    Answering a question on Eurasian security and the US as the dominant maritime power v. a multipolar Eurasia, he stressed the “consensus and desire in Eurasia for an anti-hegemonic movement”, and not for Eurasia constituted “as a bloc”. That’s the appeal of Eurasia’s “multi-vector foreign policy”, implying “more political independence”. The key example of “harmonizing interests”, Putin stressed, is the Russia-China partnership, and that was also what “made BRICS successful.”

    Compare it in contrast to “the inability in Europe to establish a system of “indivisibility of security” and to “overcome bloc politics”; Europe instead went for NATO expansion: “After the end of the Cold War there was an opportunity to overcome bloc politics. But the US had fear of losing Europe. The US installed almost a colonial dependence. Honestly I did not expect that.”

    Putin introduced a fascinating personal experience tidbit referring to a conversation – in German – with former German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1993, when Kohl said flat out that “the future of Europe” is linked to Russia.

    Yet that ended up leading to “the most important problem on our Eurasian continent, the main problem between Russia and European countries: the trust deficit (…) When they tell us that ‘we signed the Minsk agreements on Ukraine only to give Ukraine an opportunity to rearm, and we had no intention of resolving this conflict peacefully,’ what kind of trust can we talk about? (…) You have directly publicly stated that you have cheated us! Lied to us and deceived us! What kind of trust is that? But we need to get back to that system of mutual trust.”

    Putin then added that Europe should consider becoming part and parcel of a Chinese concept straight from Chinese philosophy (“they do not strive for domination”). With panache, he stressed that the Chinese uber-geoeconomic trade/connectivity project should be interpreted as One Belt, One Common Road.

    And that extrapolates to Central Asia, with all those nations “very young in their statehood” interested in “stable development”. For Russia-China, there’s “no competition” in the Heartland: “we only have cooperation.”

    Putin once again enumerated what he considers the 6 key principles for global sustainable development: openness of interaction (implying no “artificial barriers”); diversity (“a model of one country or a relatively small part of humanity should not be imposed as something universal”); maximum representativeness; security for all without exception; justice for all (erasing “the gap between the ‘golden billion’ and the rest of humanity); and equality.

    “Make Civilizations, Not War”

    On Ukraine, this was the money quote: “If there is no neutrality, then it’s difficult to imagine any kind of good neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine.” In a nutshell: Moscow is ready for negotiations, but based on facts on the battlefield and what was agreed upon in Istanbul in April 2022.

    That may be interpreted as a direct message to President Trump. To whom the door is open: “Russia has not damaged its relations with the US and is open to their restoration, but the ball is in the Americans’ court.”

    Putin on US Presidents (he met quite a few): “All of them are interesting people.” On Trump: “His behavior when there was an attempt on his life, I was impressed. He is a courageous person. He acquitted himself valiantly.” On the open door: “Whatever he does it’s up to him to decide.” Then Putin offered his own congratulations for the re-election – on the record. The dialogue may be on: “We are willing to talk to Trump.”

    Putin extolled Russia-China relations as part of their strategic partnership as being “at the highest level in modern history.” He also praised his own personal relation with Xi Jinping. That paved the way for the real killer, when it comes to US-Russia-China: “If the US had chosen a trilateral cooperation instead of double constraint – everyone would win.”

    An excellent question by Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr – a former vice-president of the NDB, the BRICS bank – led Putin to clarify his own position on de-dollarization. He stated flatly that “my role is to see ideas shaped that we then propose to our partners”.

    The key target is “proposing to create a new investment platform using electronic payments.” That will address the “most promising markets” in the near future – South Asia, Africa, parts of Latin America: “They will need investment, technologies.” And “tools independent from inflation” – with regulation “through Central Banks and the NDB. We agreed to have a working group meeting regularly at government level. We are in no hurry.”

    So that puts to rest any scenario of an immediate BRICS financial bombshell – even as “two-thirds of our trade is being serviced in national currencies” and among BRICS the figures are also high.

    BRICS Bridge will be tested – soon. As for creating a single currency, that’s “premature. We need to achieve greater integration of economies, increase the quality of economies to a certain – compatible – level.”

    Then, the bombshell: “We never wanted to abandon the dollar!” That goes a long way to explain Putin’s own view on de-dollarization: “They are undoing it with their own hand – the power of the dollar.”

    All of the above is just a sample of the width and breath of themes addressed by the President during the Valdai Q&A. The forum itself offered precious nuggets all across the spectrum. Some participants – correctly – noted the absence of “the majority of the majority”: youth and women. Africans were impressed with “the sharp mind of Russian bureaucracy.”

    A Chinese view noted how “the Chinese don’t swim against the current; they cross the river and reach the other bank.” There was a near consensus that development should be “based in different cultural values of civilizations” – actually Putin’s own view. Also imperative is the “need for aggregate authority” among the Global South.

    A Greek insight was particularly powerful when it comes to the civilizational approach to politics: “Civilizations don’t clash. States do.” Thus the new – playful – motto that could guide not only BRICS but the whole Global Majority: “Make Civilizations, Not War.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 23:20

  • Americans Spend Big On Christmas Cheer… And Mums
    Americans Spend Big On Christmas Cheer… And Mums

    With an expected per-person spending of $875, no other holiday rooted in long-standing tradition comes close to the winter holiday season, which starts on November 1 and ends on December 31. 

    Infographic: Americans Spend Big on Christmas Cheer - And Moms | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) shows that spending for the runner-up, Mother’s Day, only amounts to one third of Thanksgiving and Christmas consumer spending, with no other seasonal event coming close.

    While Mother’s Day spending stood at $274 per person in 2023, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Easter ranged between $192 and $196 in the past year. 

    Halloween, where money is mostly spent on costumes and decorations according to additional data from the NRF, comes in sixth with an expected per-person spend of $108. While most of the holidays featured on the list have roots in history reaching back hundreds to thousands of years, the Super Bowl is a relatively new phenomenon. This fact notwithstanding, U.S. Americans on average still spend $85 per person on arguably the most important U.S. sports event of the year.

    When taking into account not just festivities connected to specific celebrations, two other occasions take the first and second spots in the ranking: Back-to-college and back-to-school. However, these two events are not comparable to the rest of the list, since the average expected spending of $1,367 and $890, respectively, is calculated by household and not per person. Having more than one individual per household in need of school supplies, clothing or electronics for the new school year can skew the results. Therefore, it’s likely that even while the per-household figures for back-to-college and back-to-school are higher, the winter holiday season still ranks first in individual spending.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 22:45

  • What You Need To Know About Preparing For Emergencies, According To A Top Survivalist
    What You Need To Know About Preparing For Emergencies, According To A Top Survivalist

    Authored by Krista Thomas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Expert

    EJ Snyder knows a thing or two about survival. After 25 years in the U.S. Army, he emerged as the extreme survivalist “Skullcrusher” on television shows like “Naked and Afraid,” “Dual Survival,” and “First Man Out.”

    EJ Snyder is an Army veteran and experienced survivalist who has appeared on survival shows like “Naked and Afraid.” Adhiraj Chakrabarti/American Essence

    Today, in addition to teaching survival skills and speaking at events around the country, he also writes. His new book is “Emergency Home Preparedness: The Ultimate Guide for Bugging In During Natural Disasters, Civil Unrest, and More.” He’s also signed on as executive VP with SurvivalMastery.co, an online subscriber-based platform designed to teach self-sufficiency skills.

    “It’s been God’s path for me. I love getting the word out about these things,” he said. “It’s a matter of confidence if you do plan for these things. It makes the situation a little bit easier.”

    At the time of this interview, Snyder was putting his survivalist skills into practice in North Carolina, aiding other veterans with Hurricane Helene relief efforts.  We tapped the former Army Ranger for advice on how best to prepare for any kind of emergency with survival skills.

    The Epoch Times: There are a lot of different approaches to prepping, and different personalities teaching about the subject. What’s different about you and your approach?

    EJ Snyder: I try to approach teaching survival skills with skull-crushing common sense based on reality. I want you to be able to do the tasks when it matters most. I teach super simply … helping the everyday Joe or Joan to handle bad days and be sufficient.

    The Epoch Times: How did you get interested in preparing for emergencies?

    Mr. Snyder: When I was a little boy at 8 years old, I remember it was wintertime in the late afternoon, and we had been sitting in a tree stand. It was getting very cold. I followed the steps back a couple of miles to camp and it started snowing. I got distracted and I remember trying to follow my tracks, and I couldn’t see them because the snow covered them up.

    I got lost and panicked. I saw a rock and thought I should get on the rock and call my dad. I was in the dark for an hour. My uncles and dad were looking for me and finally found me. My dad then taught me about a compass and it taught me to be prepared for any situation.

    Later, I was a Ranger instructor and went to the U.S. Army SERE School. I became the primary survival and tracking expert for Ranger students. But Y2K was the real catalyst. I wanted myself and my family to be ready. So I started with a list of what I needed, like bug-out bags and stored foods such as rice. We had enough spaghetti for two years. If something would have happened, we would have been prepared. Several months later, we were able to help people survive a Category 3 storm.

    That is how it all got started. It is critically important because we’ve got to save lives here. I’m passionate about survival to help people help themselves.

    Snyder gathers wood in the forests of western North Carolina. Adhiraj Chakrabarti/American Essence

    The Epoch Times: Can you tell us about emergencies that you may have been in, and how that went for you and yours?

    Mr. Snyder: I remember there was a time when I was driving in the winter in upstate New York. I was big about preparedness by this point and made sure I had a winter survival kit in the vehicle: blankets, meals, extra coats, and dry clothing with gloves and hats. We were driving in a blizzard and the minivan slid off the road.

    We were way out, like three miles to the main road. Cell service was down. At that time, cell towers were not that great, but I was hoping my text would have gone through to a neighbor. My son, who was 3, was nervous and scared.

    We were there three hours and low on gas, so I wrapped us up in blankets and shut down the vehicle. I started a survival candle in a coffee can because it raises the temperature in the car by 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. We sat there while I was keeping him calm, and we ate a little food and drank some water.

    I decided to take action. I pulled out the sled and put my son in it, then got my winter boots and snow shoes on, and when we were bundled up we went hiking out three miles. Finally we got to an intersection and made it to a farmhouse, where I was able to make a landline phone call with my location. My neighbor with a four-wheel drive and skid plow picked us up and got us home. We had to wait a couple of days.

    That’s being prepared and thinking through a plan. You want to be forward-thinking about having the basics and think about what might be missing. Murphy is always waiting to ambush you when things go wrong.

    The Epoch Times: What kind of emergencies do you foresee the need to be prepared for, given the current state of the world?

    Mr. Snyder: It’s pretty cut and dry because we’ve seen a lot. Man-made disasters, natural disasters, war, pandemic, and civil unrest are the main situations. Or we have to deal with active shooters who want to hurt people.

    When you have these situations, you plan for them and always rehearse. Check your survival kit.

    How about a fire in your home? Evacuate and make sure you know how to get out. If you’re bugging in, have you rehearsed your escape route? In emergency planning, you have to have a PACE plan, which stands for primary, alternative, contingency, and emergency. This is your action plan. To sum it up, survival is simple. Keep your planning simple.

    The Epoch Times: How long should people be prepared to ride out an emergency?

    Mr. Snyder: Seventy-two hours isn’t going to do squat! You should stock three meals per day for each person in your family, plus snacks and one gallon of water per day per person—enough to last for 90 days. Then, add enough for another person who might knock at your door. You can help your neighbor out. If you have to stretch it out, do one meal a day.

    With 90 days down, start looking at six months for however many are in your family, rationing what you have plus supplies from fishing or hunting. You can stretch it out over a year.

    Have heirloom seeds and freeze them up just in case the grocery stores aren’t available. When you freeze the seeds, you extend their shelf life. They will be ready when you need them.

    Don’t be scared, be prepared. If you get some preparedness skills, it builds your confidence up. If you have prepared in an emergency situation, that’s power and confidence.

    Fear cripples people. Not doing anything in an emergency situation can cost you your life. One of the big things is to remain calm. Then assess the situation, take care of the wounded and sick, and after that make a plan. What resources do you have? What equipment is available? Who is around you and what skills do they have? Make a detailed plan and share the details with everyone.

    Rehearse and then execute. Have your situational awareness up. Adapt the plan as you go. Improvise if you have to and then, as they say, overcome. You’re a winner.

    Don’t forget health and fitness. You should have on hand extra prescription glasses, prescription medications to last six months to a year, over-the-counter medicines, and first aid kits to handle cuts and bruises. Learn basic first aid. Learn how to suture.

    Food and Water

    The Epoch Times: What water storage and purification equipment do you have and recommend?

    Mr. Snyder: I recommend getting five-gallon water jugs from a home improvement store. You can store water in an easy way. If you can’t afford it, buy water in jugs and refill them. Get 55-gallon drums to collect rainwater from your roof (to water plants or to wash).

    Lastly, consider one of several types of water filtration systems, including the Lifesaver Water Purifier or the Grayl GeoPress, a bottle that gives you crystal clear drinking water. I can boil water right in it, as there’s a nesting cup and an actual stove sleeve. Sawyer is a good brand to consider, too.

    Most of my systems are simplistic. Unless you have a backup generator, once you lose power, you won’t be able to power those sources. What can I have on hand that I don’t need electricity to generate? In emergency situations, have tradable items that you use, like gold and silver, because certain items will be important. It’s possible to be set back by 200 years.

    The Epoch Times: Please walk us through the essential foods in your own long-term storage pantry. What makes each item a good choice?

    Mr. Snyder: A good choice would be survival foods with nutritional value from My Patriot Supply. Store up on them, as they are packed with a lot of calories. MREs [meals, ready-to-eat] are good too because they have a long shelf life. After that, choose canned goods and dry goods like rice, black beans, pasta, dehydrated fruits, fruit snacks, and jerky.

    Supplement by fishing and hunting and trapping. You don’t have to complicate it. Use snares. Learn how to process fish and game. Eventually, supplies will run out and you will need to go out and get your own food.

    The Epoch Times: What essential emergency food storage and cooking equipment do you have and recommend?

    Mr. Snyder: Always have multiple ways to cook. I recommend a BBQ grill. I do keep propane in a storage cage for my Blackstone grill. Another option is the RockPot, a pot that doesn’t require flame. It is amazing. You can throw it on your stone or in the fire to heat it up; it cooks your food in the case.

    I have a ton of cast-iron frying pans and pots from The Lodge. Aluminum-type pans are good for backpacks. I have a fire pit with a cooking area with bricks for open fire. Backpack stoves are good for one person. I’ve had a Coleman 2 Burner Stove in my camping gear forever.

    Read the rest here…

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 22:10

  • General Flynn Delivers Bone-Chilling Post-Election Warning
    General Flynn Delivers Bone-Chilling Post-Election Warning

    First, they tried to take Trump from the ballot.

    Then, they tried to throw him behind bars.

    And when that didn’t work, they went after his life.

    But now, as The Burning Platform’s Jim Quinn details below, after two terrifying assassination attempts, General Flynn warns that it could happen again.

    During an eye-opening conversation with Steve Bannon, Flynn told Trump’s inner circle to brace for another attempt on Trump’s life before he reaches the Oval Office in January.

    Speaking with urgency, Flynn stated

    “Number one, Trump needs to be very, very certain of the security around him… They have already tried it a couple of times. They’ll try it again between now and inauguration. That, to me, is job number one.”

    He also told viewers that the real battle lies ahead, urging Trump to prepare for an all-out war against the Deep State.

    “We can eliminate a lot of this nonsense by being prepared for what we know the enemy is going to do… Accountability must happen.”

    This conversation is a must-listen…

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

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 21:35

  • Entrepreneurialism Isn't A Choice, It's A State Of Mind: The Genius Of Bernie Marcus
    Entrepreneurialism Isn’t A Choice, It’s A State Of Mind: The Genius Of Bernie Marcus

    Authored by John Tamny via RealClearMarkets,

    “Get out of the car! Get the f**k out of my car.” That’s a paraphrase of the words of the recently passed, and incomparably GREAT Bernie Marcus. Marcus, along with Arthur Blank and Ken Langone, co-founded The Home Depot.

    The individual Marcus ordered out of his car was a venture capitalist, and more crucially for Marcus and his colleagues, a venture capitalist who had agreed to invest $3 million in The Home Depot. As Marcus recalled in Built From Scratch, the 1999 business memoir he co-authored with Blank, “we needed that $3 million the way somebody dying of stab wounds needs blood in his veins.”

    Yet the principled Marcus still wouldn’t take a cent from the investor precisely because the investor insulted Marcus and the team he’d put together with all sorts of demands. They would have to give up health insurance, and accept even less pay than the low pay they’d already accepted in return for risky employment at a business that was more a concept than a business.

    Marcus’s actions from long ago raise an obvious question: With money extraordinarily tight for a concept that had attracted no interest from blue-chip investment banks (they went with the wonderful Ken Langone and his “no-name investment bank”), why didn’t Marcus accept the terms (any terms) necessary to keep things afloat?

    The answer is that entrepreneurialism isn’t a choice, it’s a state of mind. It’s a powerful belief in a different way of not just meeting, but leading the needs of customers that’s so deeply ingrained that it’s near impossible to compromise one’s vision. Marcus’s vision wouldn’t be insulted by this nit-picking investor, only for Marcus and colleagues to have the last laugh. By the late 1990s, the $3 million would have been worth $12 billion.

    About the gains the VC missed out on, they’re a happy story, but also realistically a distraction. The much bigger story is just how profoundly the market’s view of The Home Depot had changed. In the staggering return that the unnamed VC missed out on, it’s easier to see just how at odds the vision of Marcus, Blank and Langone was relative to conventional wisdom. As Marcus himself explained it, “no one believed we could do it.” The latter is regularly said by people from all walks of life, and is often said in self-serving fashion.

    Marcus was speaking the truth, though in surely understated fashion. See the VC’s would-have-been returns yet again. No one passes up an investment like that unless the consensus is that they most certainly can’t do it. Yet Marcus et al did do it.

    Better yet, they did it in decent fashion. About the bankers who helped finance and liquefy the eventual growth of The Home Depot, Marcus wrote that “they put their careers on the line for us, and we protect them.” So true. Banks make loans that need to be paid back, which means bankers that make errant loans won’t long be in the employ of banks.  

    Customers were treated even better than bankers. They had to be handled with care, and more important, they were never to be sold what they didn’t need. Instead, they would be treated beautifully by The Home Depot’s expert associates on the assumption that if catered to, eventually they’d rely on The Home Depot for the big purchases required to execute big projects in the home.

    Crucially, the cost of buying for big projects was very low. Marcus understood as the greats of business do that real wealth is created not via so-called “pricing power” and the margins that come with it, but through prices that are pushed down as much as possible in concert with shrinking margins. Marcus knew that low prices provided to customers would be made up for in much higher sales volume. He was correct.

    Evidence supporting the previous claim can be found in the continued rise of Home Depot’s market cap. Notable about the latter is that the aforementioned VC’s missed investment opportunity of the $12 billion variety was calculated by Marcus in 1999 numbers. Stop and imagine what it would be now with The Home Depot valued at roughly $400 billion.

    Which further speaks to the endless decency of Marcus. He recognized that “real money is equity,” and lived up to his aphorism. He developed an employee stock ownership plan that created thousands of millionaire associates at The Home Depot. More evidence of his greatness. His genius will be missed, but not forgotten.

    John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, President of the Parkview Institute, a senior fellow at the Market Institute, and a senior economic adviser to Applied Finance Advisors (www.appliedfinance.com). His latest book, released on April 16, 2024 and co-authored with Jack Ryan, is Bringing Adam Smith Into the American Home: A Case Against Homeownership. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 21:00

  • Even Shapiro Couldn't Have Saved PA For The Democrats
    Even Shapiro Couldn’t Have Saved PA For The Democrats

    Authored by Oliver Bateman via RealClearPennsylvania,

    Elections often tell you less about the winners than the losers. Victory has many fathers, as the saying goes, but defeat shows you exactly what went wrong. Pennsylvania’s 2024 results offer a master class in Democratic collapse: while Trump edged out Kamala Harris by 2 points in the presidential race, Republicans romped to victory in every down-ballot statewide contest. Dave McCormick pulled out a narrow victory over three-term Senator Bob Casey; Dave Sunday trounced Eugene DePasquale by 5 points in the attorney general race; and incumbent Tim DeFoor beat Malcolm Kenyatta by an even wider margin for auditor general.

    The story of how Democrats fumbled Pennsylvania reveals itself in the campaign’s final weeks. Trump’s operation blanketed working-class neighborhoods with simple, direct messaging: “Trump: Safe Borders/Kamala: Open Borders,” “Trump: Low Inflation/Harris: High Inflation.” His team’s “Kamala is for they/them” ad sparked legal threats but achieved its intended effect — the Democrats are worried about boutique issues rather than kitchen-table concerns like inflation. Harris, meanwhile, released a series of slickly-produced but culturally tone-deaf ads attempting to portray Pennsylvania working-class life.

    Harris’s response proved telling. Her team launched what they considered their October surprise: a series of joint appearances with unpopular former Republican Liz Cheney focused on “saving democracy.” The rallies, held primarily in affluent suburban enclaves, epitomized the campaign’s fundamental misread of the state’s political geography. Her campaign’s last notable attempt at working-class authenticity – a commercial featuring a supposed working-class local who seemed like an actor delivering focus-grouped lines about Trump being a “little silver spoon boy” – landed with my working-class relatives about as well as vegan bulgogi tacos at a union hall.

    This messaging disconnect infected every Democratic campaign. DePasquale, running for attorney general, leaned heavily on his record as a fiscal watchdog and government reformer – but not as a prosecutor, because he never was one. A compelling pitch in theory, but it withered against career prosecutor Sunday’s relentless focus on fentanyl seizures and declining crime rates in York County. While DePasquale talked process and oversight, Sunday’s team plastered social media with bodycam footage of drug busts and arrests.

    Kenyatta’s auditor general campaign highlighted the party’s deeper problems. The 34-year-old progressive rising star, known mainly for viral speeches and an unsuccessful Senate bid, campaigned on transforming the office into a vehicle for social change – which made sense when one realized he had no experience in the role. Against incumbent DeFoor’s straightforward non-partisan message about cutting waste and protecting taxpayers, Kenyatta’s ambitious agenda read like a DEI solution in search of a problem.

    Even Casey, who built his career on careful moderation and labor support, couldn’t find enough votes to secure a fourth term in office. After decades positioning himself as a blue-collar, Blue-Dog Democrat, Casey’s recent selective embrace of progressive causes provided perfect fodder for McCormick’s advertising team. While Republican ads hammered Casey’s voting record and association with flip-flopping presidential candidate Harris, his campaign responded with a barrage of increasingly desperate fundraising emails, each one predicting imminent doom. The horrendously off-key messaging – subject lines included “To avoid a catastrophe” and “The worst news yet” – became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who wants to vote for a loser?

    The results expose the bankruptcy of Democrats’ coalition-building strategy. Harris’s team believed they could unite urban progressives and anti-Trump suburbanites while holding just enough working-class voters through careful messaging and strategic positioning. Instead, they achieved a rare political feat: speaking convincingly to absolutely no one.

    Gov. Josh Shapiro, floated as Harris’s potential running mate, embodied these contradictions. His “Get Sh*t Done” gubernatorial slogan had promised pragmatic results but delivered historic inaction, as the Commonwealth Foundation has reported –d just 111 bills signed in 18 months, the fewest of any Pennsylvania governor in 50 years. For comparison, Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin pushed through 1,654 bills in the same period with a part-time (and divided) legislature.

    The implications stretch beyond a single election cycle. Despite its slowly-dwindling population, Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes and competitive Senate seats make it essential to any future Democratic coalition. Yet Tuesday’s results suggest the party has lost its ability to communicate effectively with voters outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The state office margins – larger than the presidential gap – indicate problems deeper than any individual candidate’s shortcomings.

    Much as they have since 2016, Democrats continued to try to thread an impossible needle: mollifying progressives with substance-free identity politics while also wooing suburban Republicans and maintaining their working-class base in the absence of genuine working-class policy proposals. The result was messaging so carefully calibrated it became meaningless, every bit as insubstantial as Kamala Harris’ final cameo appearance on SNL.

    Unless and until Democrats can craft a message that resonates beyond their urban strongholds – and find experienced, competent candidates capable of delivering said message without sounding like McKinsey consultants explaining steel manufacturing to career steelworkers – Tuesday’s results may augur a permanent realignment in a state they once considered to be winnable. Here in the Keystone State, as elsewhere in the country, the party’s obsession with building the perfect coalition has left them with hardly any coalition at all.

    Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 20:25

  • Can Trump Tame Resistance 2.0?
    Can Trump Tame Resistance 2.0?

    Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

    Last Tuesday, we were all equal – one person, one vote. Against every effort by the liberal elites, a slim majority of Americans returned Donald Trump to the White House, investing him with vast authority through their 73 million votes.

    On Wednesday, the normal order of inequality was restored. The potent forces in government, business, media, and academia that opposed Trump by hook or crook took back up their undemocratic reins of power and began to plot how, as Kamala Harris put it in her concession speech, they “will continue to keep fighting.”

    This is not as bad as it sounds. America became a free and prosperous nation in large part because of the constraints our founders put on government – both in the checks and balances at the federal level and the federalism that invests states with great authority. This, along with the visionary Bill of Rights and the refusal to establish a national church, created vast opportunities for individuals and non-governmental organizations to shape our country.

    This diffusion of power is a major reason why we have never come close to dictatorship. Even with the vast expansion of government since the New Deal and Great Society, there are still too many moving parts for a wannabe authoritarian to corral.

    As it empowers the non-governmental actors, the American system depends on an implicit set of checks and balances – both vigilance and restraint – on the behavior of the people. One clear example concerns speech. The First Amendment’s broad protections are limited by the guardrails imposed by ever-evolving community standards regarding acceptable discourse. In theory, everybody can say the n-word, but you really can’t, along with a host of slurs that once filled our newspapers.

    Another example involves accepting the results of elections. Even in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide, about 42% of Americans did not vote for the Gipper. Still, the losing side is expected to accept defeat graciously, to respect the authority their adversary has gained in this zero-sum game of elections, and take up the mantle of the loyal opposition.

    In the wake of Trump’s victory, this is another norm that conspicuous segments of the modern Democratic Party seem intent on breaking – not through a Jan. 6 episode of violence but through the legislative maneuvers, investigations, and lawfare that marked their resistance during his first term.

    Before the election, the legacy media was filled with largely celebratory articles about efforts to Trump-proof government in case he won. This effort is now being turbocharged with reports that President Biden aims to use the lame-duck session to thwart his successor. Governor Gavin Newsom has called a special session of the California legislature to Trump-proof state laws. Governor Maura Healey has said Massachusetts state police will not support Trump’s mass immigration plans – a bedrock promise of his campaign, which is backed by a majority of Americans.

    This opposition is only the tip of a long spear of Resistance 2.0. The liberal and leftist elites in the legacy media, academia, and various other power centers have made clear that they will do everything they can, not just to oppose but to undermine and delegitimize the democratically elected president. This is not business as usual, nor is it merely an echo of Mitch McConnell’s vow in 2010 to make Obama a one-term president. It is a rejection of the compact that has long ruled American politics in which the losing side gives the winner a chance to prove them wrong.

    How could they? Their unhinged claims that Trump is an authoritarian fascist are not a political ploy but a deeply held belief, cultivated over decades of Manichean indoctrination. They have used similar language to describe every Republican president since Reagan. Trump is the culmination of this uncompromising worldview.

    The concise paraphrase of the physicist Max Planck’s insight – that science proceeds one funeral at a time – captures what Trump is up against. Democrats and their allies are too invested in their own ideology to change. They will keep fighting, banking on a return to power in two or four years when they can continue their project to transform America. They are masters of the long game.

    In response, Trump and his allies must first hope that the GOP retains control of the House of Representatives – votes are still being counted. This is crucial for limiting the Democrats’ ability to kneecap the new administration with spurious congressional investigations. More importantly, Trump must, as best he can, limit his love for battle, resist his instinct to take the bait. He should treat his opponents with the contempt they deserve, ignoring their provocations for the sake of effective governance.

    He should be guided by the single best line of his campaign, “My revenge will be success.” He must focus on our problems rather than his enemies. The challenges we face – especially our unsustainable debt, an economy that is not working for ordinary Americans, and a world beset by conflict – have little to do with the opinions of Democrats and the New York Times.

    Yes, his opponents enjoy great power, which they will brandish in an attempt to weaken and frustrate him. But if he can rise above their malice – and his own pettiness – he just might make America great again.

    *  *  *

    J. Peder Zane is an editor for RealClearInvestigations and a columnist for RealClearPolitics. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @jpederzane.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 19:50

  • Visualizing The Rise Of Bitcoin's Hashrate
    Visualizing The Rise Of Bitcoin’s Hashrate

    The computing power used to mine bitcoin is at all-time highs, rising by more than sixfold since November 2019.

    Today, 94% of bitcoin’s supply has been mined out of the total cap of 21 million. To mine bitcoin, powerful computers solve complex math problems that validate and secure the network. The total computing power, or bitcoin hashrate, measures how many guesses per second are made to solve these calculations.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows bitcoin’s hashrate since 2016, based on data from Blockchain.com.

    Bitcoin Hashrate Hits Record Highs

    Below, we show how the total bitcoin hashrate hit a 693.1 million terahashes per second in late October, rising significantly over the past month:

    Date Bitcoin Price (USD) Total Hashrate (Terahashes per second)
    Oct 30 2024 $70,287 693.1M
    Oct 2024 $62,051 641.4M
    Sep 2024 $56,157 637.6M
    Aug 2024 $60,675 615.9M
    Jul 2024 $57,042 580.4M
    Jun 2024 $70,542 599.4M
    May 2024 $64,023 624.0M
    Apr 2024 $67,857 604.8M
    Mar 2024 $63,154 574.9M
    Feb 2024 $42,658 524.7M
    Jan 2024 $42,862 506.4M
    Dec 2023 $44,084 476.6M
    Nov 2023 $35,035 446.6M
    Oct 2023 $27,429 407.4M
    Sep 2023 $25,970 387.1M
    Aug 2023 $29,076 380.4M
    Jul 2023 $30,499 370.0M
    Jun 2023 $25,742 358.1M
    May 2023 $29,039 346.4M
    Apr 2023 $27,812 331.0M
    Mar 2023 $22,351 293.6M
    Feb 2023 $22,936 273.5M
    Jan 2023 $16,669 250.1M
    Dec 2022 $16,966 256.0M
    Nov 2022 $21,300 261.8M
    Oct 2022 $19,633 232.6M
    Sep 2022 $19,835 211.4M
    Aug 2022 $22,624 200.0M
    Jul 2022 $20,154 214.5M
    Jun 2022 $29,902 216.5M
    May 2022 $37,720 209.1M
    Apr 2022 $46,422 199.9M
    Mar 2022 $39,167 198.4M
    Feb 2022 $41,405 187.3M
    Jan 2022 $46,460 173.9M
    Dec 2021 $49,484 161.2M
    Nov 2021 $61,006 149.1M
    Oct 2021 $48,234 136.6M
    Sep 2021 $50,025 121.9M
    Aug 2021 $39,722 101.3M
    Jul 2021 $33,698 120.1M
    Jun 2021 $35,539 159.7M
    May 2021 $57,213 157.3M
    Apr 2021 $57,094 160.6M
    Mar 2021 $48,369 154.6M
    Feb 2021 $38,311 149.4M
    Jan 2021 $33,081 136.7M
    Dec 2020 $18,658 129.0M
    Nov 2020 $14,161 130.5M
    Oct 2020 $10,795 135.2M
    Sep 2020 $10,168 123.9M
    Aug 2020 $11,233 121.3M
    Jul 2020 $9,139 112.5M
    Jun 2020 $9,788 103.1M
    May 2020 $9,029 112.0M
    Apr 2020 $6,778 105.9M
    Mar 2020 $8,758 111.5M
    Feb 2020 $9,614 109.1M
    Jan 2020 $7,334 96.3M
    Dec 2019 $7,394 91.7M
    Nov 2019 $9,322 95.1M
    Oct 2019 $8,240 89.5M
    Sep 2019 $10,628 74.8M
    Aug 2019 $10,978 67.0M
    Jul 2019 $11,005 57.4M
    Jun 2019 $7,789 50.4M
    May 2019 $5,657 45.8M
    Apr 2019 $4,976 45.0M
    Mar 2019 $3,701 44.0M
    Feb 2019 $3,428 41.9M
    Jan 2019 $3,788 38.3M
    Dec 2018 $3,694 42.9M
    Nov 2018 $6,404 51.3M
    Oct 2018 $6,466 51.3M
    Sep 2018 $7,257 49.0M
    Aug 2018 $7,005 40.0M
    Jul 2018 $6,533 37.4M
    Jun 2018 $7,613 31.7M
    May 2018 $9,726 28.5M
    Apr 2018 $7,425 25.2M
    Mar 2018 $11,470 22.3M
    Feb 2018 $6,905 18.2M
    Jan 2018 $15,098 13.6M
    Dec 2017 $11,718 9.9M
    Nov 2017 $7,392 9.4M
    Oct 2017 $4,308 7.9M
    Sep 2017 $4,626 6.4M
    Aug 2017 $2,857 6.1M
    Jul 2017 $2,617 5.1M
    Jun 2017 $2,698 4.5M
    May 2017 $1,533 3.8M
    Apr 2017 $1,152 3.5M
    Mar 2017 $1,274 3.2M
    Feb 2017 $1,016 2.8M
    Jan 2017 $1,021 2.3M
    Dec 2016 $768 2.0M
    Nov 2016 $706 1.8M
    Oct 2016 $613 1.7M
    Sep 2016 $606 1.6M
    Aug 2016 $573 1.5M
    Jul 2016 $682 1.5M
    Jun 2016 $576 1.4M
    May 2016 $450 1.3M
    Apr 2016 $422 1.2M

    Since bitcoin’s fourth halving in April 2024, the hashrate has hit all-time highs, while bitcoin’s price has increased by roughly 4% as of November 4, 2024.

    During each halving event, which occurs every four years, the reward for mining bitcoin is cut in half. In April, it dropped from 6.25 to 3.125 bitcoins, making it harder for miners to turn a profit with unchanged operating costs.

    Despite this, rising hashrates indicate a rising number of active miners, signaling a bullish outlook. As bitcoin’s price rises, it incentivizes miners to join the network since it becomes more profitable, pushing up the hashrate.

    Today, notable miners include publicly traded companies like Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, and Marathon Digital, which operate machines capable of trillions of hashes per second using specialized hardware. For instance, Core Scientific runs 169,000 miners, while Riot Platforms aims to fully deploy at least 100,000 miners by 2025.

    Still, performance varies across major bitcoin mining companies this year. While Core Scientific stands as one of the top-performing miners year-to-date, with 267% returns as of November 4, both Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital have declined over 20%. By comparison, bitcoin has risen 53%, approaching record highs seen in March.

    To learn more about this topic from a crypto ownership perspective, check out this graphic on the largest corporate holders of bitcoin.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 19:15

  • Here's Why These Geopolitical And Financial Chokepoints Need Your Attention…
    Here’s Why These Geopolitical And Financial Chokepoints Need Your Attention…

    Authored by Chris MacIntosh via InternationalMan.com,

    • The Houthis in Yemen tried to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

    • Then Hezbollah droned his house. Apparently, he was not at home at the time.

    • Iran launched an unprecedented missile attack on Israel. The part you probably didn’t hear about is that Iran says a “state of war” now exists between them and Israel.

    • France ended all arms exports to Israel, and the Israel’s pissed and subsequently bombed a French factory in Syria — an F you and no thanks for all the previous arms shipments and military aid.

    • Russia sent 33 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Lebanon.

    • Israel bombed Syria’s capital, Damascus.

    • Erdogan compared Israel with the Nazis.

    I’ve probably missed a whole lot of things, but you get the picture. None of the above is good in any shape or form.

    This last point I pay a lot of attention to, and here’s why.

    • Turkey has the second largest military in NATO, and it’s clearly going to leave or be kicked out.

    • Turkey also controls the Bosphorus, and Iran controls the strait of Hormuz.

    • The Houthis effectively now (to some extent at least) control the Suez.

    That, my friends, is the holy trinity of supply disruption in oil shipments.

    What else?

    Well, an interesting little dilemma is opening up for NATO. What happens if Israel decides to have a go at Turkey — either inside Turkish territory or outside? That would, according to the NATO treaty, constitute an attack on a NATO partner and immediately mean that all NATO members were now at war with… Israel.

    So should that actually happen, obviously NATO will side with Israel. Realise that the Mossad agent Epstein was not the only scumbag running such an operation, controlling influential US politicians and businessmen, and the idea that similar operations throughout NATO countries are not carried out is beyond naive. So all this means is that NATO will back Israel, despite Israel not being part of NATO. And when Turkey is kicked out of NATO, it will, I believe, be a nail in the coffin for NATO, at least as it stands today, which is to say kinda, sorta legitimate (if you bend your mind enough and watch enough CNBC, BBC and CNN). But this would put an end to that and NATO’s quickly fading veneer of credibility would fall away.

    Then we’d have three of the most critical geopolitical choke points on the planet all controlled by members of the BRICS. I do hope you realise that this will never be allowed to happen by the Western powers. And because the world seems to be run by Satanic paedophiles who will never want to give up power, war it will be.

    Speaking of geopolitical chokepoints…

    Chairman Xi has reportedly ordered his military to “prepare for war.”

    During a visit to the PLA Rocket Force, the elite unit overseeing China’s nuclear and conventional missiles, Xi gave a commanding speech demanding they “enhance their strategic deterrent and ensure combat readiness at all times.”

    The PLA Rocket Force controls nukes and long-range missile capabilities crucial for any conflict, including a potential invasion of Taiwan.

    Xi’s visit comes just days after Beijing deployed over 100 jets, drones, and warships around Taiwan, signalling an escalation in the ongoing standoff.

    China has repeatedly stated it won’t rule out using force to bring Taiwan under its control.

    I do hope you’re long hard assets.

    Gold, despite being under-owned by both institutional and retail, keeps making new highs, and in all currencies!

    Capital Controls by Another Name

    When I made the claim that Europe would soon experience capital controls, folks looked at me like I’ve two heads. Lunacy, I tell you. Wild, crazy, conspiracy theories.

    The blustering turns to huffing when I point out the following from the not so distant past:

    • Cyprus implemented capital controls in 2013 during its banking crisis, restricting bank withdrawals as well as transfers abroad.

    • Greece imposed capital controls in 2015 amid its debt crisis, limiting cash withdrawals and overseas transfers.

    • Iceland instituted capital controls in 2008 during the global financial crisis.

    Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made policy changes in 2022 allowing nations to implement capital controls preemptively and for “national/international security reasons.” Conveniently, they don’t tell us what those might be.

    Anyway, fast forward to today…

    There is a very good reason for this. Here’s Tether’s market cap over time.

    Try sending money across borders, and you’re increasingly facing mounting restrictions.

    If you’re Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Palestinian, then things are even harder. But it is everywhere, and increasingly everyone is affected.

    For instance, I just received a notification from a bank (I was moving money from one account to another) stating the following:

    Regulations have changed regarding the justification of the origin of funds and transfers from abroad. Our institution is governed by these regulations.

    In the past, statements of account were accepted, but now it does not apply. Therefore, now the origin of the funds must be justified by means of an attestation report, Cpa, or its equivalent abroad (in this case the document must be apostilled in the country of origin).

    In order not to reject the incoming transfer, please justify it with one of the above mentioned documents.

    This is to send a small (a few thousand dollars) sum of money simply to get some bills paid. Sheesh!

    So you can see why Tether is so attractive. It allows you to still use the USD, since Tether is backed by treasuries (supposedly, I don’t really know and they’ve never passed an audit, so…), allowing for liquidity and, of course, subsequent lack of volatility. BUT importantly, it moves on rails outside of the Western-controlled banking system. It’s what has the technocrats getting their panties in a bunch and moving to block it.

    Next up, actual ostensible capital controls in the traditional banking system. Watch! This is needed before they blow up the debt bubble.

    *  *  *

    The Western system is undergoing substantial changes, and the signs of moral decay, corruption, and increasing debt are impossible to ignore. With the Great Reset in motion, the United Nations, World Economic Forum, IMF, WHO, World Bank, and Davos man are all promoting a unified agenda that will affect us all. To get ahead of the chaos, download our free PDF report “Clash of the Systems: Thoughts on Investing at a Unique Point in Time” by clicking here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 18:40

  • Radical Left Activates Anti-Trump Protests In Midtown Manhattan
    Radical Left Activates Anti-Trump Protests In Midtown Manhattan

    Democrats have activated their network of social justice warriors for the second time in days following a Trump victory early Wednseday morning. The latest mobilization effort of far-left activists by mysterious and dark money-funded nonprofit groups is occurring on the streets of New York City on Saturday afternoon. 

    X user Open Source Intel uploaded footage of what appears to be thousands of anti-Trump protesters in Midtown Manhattan. 

    “Thousands march in Midtown Manhattan as New York City law enforcement monitors. Protesters rally against fascism, deportation, anti-trans hate, and systemic oppression, expressing concerns over Donald Trump’s election as the 47th President,” the X user said, adding, “Chants of “Racist, sexist, anti-gay” and signs highlight their solidarity for marginalized communities.” 

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

    Here’s more footage of the protest, which appears well organized and funded—in other words, not organic.

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

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

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

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

    On Wednseday night, hundreds—if not thousands—of protesters—many holding signs outside the Trump Hotel in Obama’s Chicago shouted into megaphones, “Trump is a fascist” and “racist,” echoing hate speech spewed by the defunct Harris-Walz campaign in the months leading up to November 5.

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

    Remember this week, far-left activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on X, saying the quiet part out loud: “There are … mass movements of people that mobilize to protect one another in times of fascism and authoritarianism … and this is the era that we are poised to enter.”

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

    In other words, AOC appears to be giving marching orders to her followers, whom some Marxists regard as “agents of change” or “agents of history.” These folks will be herded like cattle—or “useful idiots”—onto city streets by a mysterious web of nonprofits funded by dark money from leftist billionaires.

    The Democrat’s playbook to potentially unleash another wave of social unrest through activism campaigns, with command-and-control centers operated by nonprofits, will likely not be tolerated under a Trump administration.

    Under the Trump administration, if Elon Musk wants to cut wasteful government spending while increasing national security, then slash the government’s ability to hand out grants like candy to far-left activism groups, done with little oversight. 

    The problem with radical leftist protests this time around is that Trump won the popular vote, and a majority of Americans won’t put up with this activist shit any longer. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 18:05

  • All States Are Empires Of Lies
    All States Are Empires Of Lies

    By Thomas DiLorenzo of The Mises Institute. This article is a version of a speech delivered at the 2024 Mises Institute Supporters Summit.

    “Most economists are political apologists masquerading as economists,” wrote Doug Casey in one of his columns.

    “They prescribe the way they would like the world to work and tailor theories to help politicians demonstrate the virtue and necessity of their quest for power.”

    Moreover, wrote Casey, “The field of economics has been turned into the handmaiden of government in order to give a scientific justification for things the government wants to do.”

    This of course is not a new development. Ludwig von Mises was calling the universities of his day “nurseries of socialism” but, thankfully, there is always a remnant of students who resist the statist brainwashing. The above quote about concocted “scientific” justifications for interventionism and socialism, by the way, sounds like a precise definition of Keynes’s General Theory. 

    Casey’s sound advice is that to be a good citizen one needs to “become your own economist.” Don’t rely on the state’s mouthpieces in the “media” or even academe for your economic knowledge. Educate yourself to some degree; it doesn’t take a university degree. Indeed, everything we do at the Mises Institute is geared toward helping anyone anywhere to become their own economist (preferably Austrian School and not Keynesian or Post Keynesian!) and avoid being bamboozled by the state and its court historian economists. 

    Mises never joined the American Economic Association, the association of academic economists founded in the 1880s. The association’s founding document provides a clue as to why. “The state is an educational and ethical agency whose positive aid is an indispensable condition of human progress,” the document purred. “The doctrine of laissez faire,” on the other hand, “is unsafe in politics and unsound in morals,” said the statist moral scolds who founded the American Economic Association.

    There are exceptions, the Austrian School economists being the most prominent, but the majority of academic economists view themselves as advisors or potential advisors to the state. They are Rothbard’s “court historians” with degrees in economics instead of history. The role that they serve is the same as all “intellectuals” in our almost 100 percent state-funded universities. As Rothbard put it: “The majority [of the electorate] must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise, and at least inevitable. Promoting this ideology . . . is the vital task of the ‘intellectuals.’” In return, the “intellectuals” are given government jobs, grants, placement at prestigious universities, book deals, and myriad other political payoffs. (Mises wrote that history, law, and economics are the disciplines most widely used to bamboozle the public about the supposedly good, wise, and inevitable state).

    Take the Fed – please (as Rodney Dangerfield would say). Economist Larry White published a journal article several years ago that revealed that about 75 percent of all articles published in academic economic journals on the subject of monetary policy are published by economists who are in some way associated with the Fed. As Milton Friedman once said, “If you want a career as a monetary economist it is best not to criticize the major employer in your field.” And so they do not. 

    If there is ever any criticism it is always constructive criticism about how to supposedly become even better at central planning. Most Americans are rationally ignorant of the Fed, and what little they do know about it is overwhelmingly shaped by the Fed’s “court historians,” especially the ones who teach economics at colleges and universities. The Austrian economists (but not all of them) are the only ones to challenge the existence of the Fed and call for its abolition. 

    In addition to being the federal government’s legalized counterfeiting arm, the Fed is also another appendage of the government’s massive propaganda apparatus. The laughingly labeled “independent” Fed’s research, according to economist Emre Kuvvet writing in The Independent Review, increasingly focuses on “climate change, gender, race, and inequality” – the “woke” political agenda of the Democrat party. The one true statement that Joe Biden made as president was “It’s not Milton Friedman’s Fed anymore.”

    The New York Fed has always been considered to be the most powerful and influential of all the Fed branches. Its homepage defines its mission as a “desire to root out the intolerable inequities and injustice grounded in systemic racism . . . steadfast in our commitment to work for a more equitable economy and society.” A clearer definition of socialism would be hard to find.

    Kuvvet found that of all the employees of the Fed’s Board of Governors there are 97 Democrats and 2 Republicans.

    “Leadership positions” on the Board consist of 45 Democrats and 1 Republican. As I said, it’s just another D.C. government propaganda mill. 

    Some Examples of the Empire of Economic Lies

    A typical introductory economics textbook devotes most space to endless stories of “market failure” (free-rider problems, externalities, monopoly and oligopoly, monopolistic competition, asymmetric information, and on and on), and almost nothing about entrepreneurship, the cornerstone of capitalism. 

    It wasn’t always like that. When the first federal antitrust law was passed in 1890 (the Sherman Antitrust Act) the entire economics profession, which was very small at the time, opposed then new law as being inherently incompatible with competition, as Jack High and I proved by quoting all of them in a July 1988 Economic Inquiry article. They all viewed competition like the Austrian economists always have – as a dynamic, rivalrous process of discovery and entrepreneurship, and thought that antitrust law could only disrupt that process and distort markets.

    By the 1930s a new and more “scientific-sounding” theory of “perfect” competition had been invented, which asserted that competitive perfection required all homogenous products and prices in an industry, perfect information in the minds of buyers and sellers, costless entry into and exit from industry, an “many” firms, whatever that might mean.

    For the next half century and more, economists would spin thousands o tall tales about how the real world fell short of this “perfection,” defined as market failure, and prescribed regulation, control, nationalization, or regimentation by presumably wise and, well, perfect politicians and bureaucrats. UCLA economist Harold Demsetz labeled this dishonest method of analysis “the Nirvana fallacy”: Comparing the real world to an unachievable never never land of Nirvana. As F.A. Hayek once described it, “In perfect competition there is no competition.” That is, there could not be product differentiation, price cutting, advertising, research and development, the rise to the top of a few superior-performing firms in an industry – all the ingredients of genuine competition.

    Generations of students have also been taught that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries large-scale production of electricity, water supply, telephone services and other similar products was producing “natural” (i.e., free market) monopolies. Governments then stepped in and legally mandated public utility monopolies, supposedly to be regulated “in the public interest.” I proved this to be yet another falsehood in my paper, “They Myth of Natural Monopoly.” There was vigorous competition in all these industries. They were monopolized by the state, not the free market, with loot-sharing agreements whereby state and local governments would share in the monopoly profits created by their government-mandated monopolies.

    Then there’s the Big Lie of the Sherman Antitrust Act which was supposedly needed because of “rampant monopolization” in the 1880s as the industrial revolution proceeded in America. In an article in The International Review of Law and Economics I showed that the industries being accused of monopolization at the time were by far the most competitive, dynamic, price-cutting, innovative, and production-expanding industries in America. The purpose of the Sherman Act was to stifle competition, not to “protect” it. 

    One of the most ridiculous things taught to generations of economics students was that because of the free-rider problem the U.S. would be spending far too little on “national defense.” “Efficiency” requires coercive taxation. There are economists who have defended Pentagon corruption and fraud on the basis that it expands defense spending, which is supposedly hindered by that nasty free rider problem. Who on earth would define Pentagon spending as “efficient”? !

    It was only in the past ten years that the “mainstream” of the economics profession finally discovered that the massive interventions of the New Deal actually made the Great Depression more severe and longer lasting, something the Austrian economists have said all along. This Big Revelation was made in an article in the prestigious Journal of Political Economy by Professor Lee Ohanian of UCLA, an editor of the American Economic Review at the time. Better late than never.

    Nobel prizes in economics have been awarded for many theories of “market failure” that subsequent research proved to be bogus. Janet Yellen’s husband, George Akerloff, was a co-recipient of the award for a paper that, in 1970, predicted that the used car market would soon disappear because of “asymmetric information” between buyers and sellers. He apparently never heard of thirty-day warranties that allow car buyers to determine whether or not they had been sold a “lemon.”

    David Card was awarded a Nobel prize for a paper claiming that minimum wage laws do not cause unemployment that was called “deeply flawed” by a National Bureau of Economic Research redo of his study. There are many similar episodes.

    Economics students are taught that the root cause of pollution is profit seeking, which ignores the fact that the worst pollution in all the world over the past century, by far, was in the socialist countries of the world in the twentieth century that prohibited private profit seeking. A corollary to the profit-seeking-causes-pollution theory is that wise and benevolent government bureaucrats are needed to solve this problem. This not only ignores political reality, but also ignores how the absence of property rights causes many pollution problems in the first place, and also how entrepreneurs solve many “externality” problems because it is profitable to do so. 

    In public finance students are taught that tax “loopholes” are inefficient because they supposedly create “artificial” market distortions. It’s much more efficient, they are taught, to let government bureaucrats spend more of your money. Then there’s the cornerstone of Keynesian economics – the canard of “the paradox of thrift” which asserts that savings reduces consumption, which in turn reduces GDP, which leads to lower savings. This theory has “justified” confiscatory taxation of interest income on savings for decades. 

    The intellectual godfather of mainstream economics will probably always be Paul Samuelson, whose Principles of Economics textbook dominated textbook sales for forty years, with almost all other textbooks during that time being imitations of his book. The statist bias that permeated that book and the others like it can be encapsulated by what Samuelson wrote in his 1988 edition – a prediction that by the year 2000 Soviet GDP would be larger than U.S. GDP. 

    All of this demonstrates why Austrian economics is more important now than ever. The economics profession has not been immune from the cult of political correctness. In fact, it was politically incorrect before political correctness was cool, as Mises’ comment about how the universities of his day were “nurseries of socialism” shows. Doug Casey was right when he wrote that most economists are political apologists masquerading as economists. Yours Truly recognized this as a college student decades ago, and was blown away by the discovery of Mises and the Austrian School, the writings of which very clearly showed that the Austrians were unique in that they were powerfully devoted to the intellectual search for the truth about how the economic world (and beyond) works, and how governments don’t work, and were not at all interested in being apologists for the plundering class.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 17:30

  • Dems Float Plan To Push Ailing Justice Sotomayor Off Supreme Court So Biden Can Replace Her Before Trump Is Sworn In
    Dems Float Plan To Push Ailing Justice Sotomayor Off Supreme Court So Biden Can Replace Her Before Trump Is Sworn In

    Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

    Democrats are reportedly having serious discussions about mounting a pressure campaign to force ailing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign so Joe Biden can nominate a replacement before President-Elect Donald Trump is sworn in.

    After losing their Senate majority to the GOP, Democrats are concerned that Republicans will be “revving up the old conveyor belt of conservative judicial nominees” as soon President-Elect Trump takes office, Politico reported.

    For Democrats, this is a hair-on-fire moment. And though the discourse in the media is presently dominated by recriminations about how this all happened, another arguably more urgent conversation is blowing up largely outside of public view: whether to push for 70-year-old Supreme Court Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR to step down while Dems still have the power to approve her replacement.

    This isn’t simply some flight of fancy happening among progressive activists online. It’s a conversation members of the Senate are actively engaged in.

     

    A Democrat senator told Politico that the topic of pushing Sotomayor off the Supreme Court “has come up repeatedly this week in talks with their colleagues.”

    These “Beltway speculative conversations,” according to Politico, have inevitably hit roadblocks for two reasons:

    (1) It’d be a risky play with the party already trying to figure out how to handle a crowded lame-duck session

    (2) no senator seems to be offering to be the person to put his or her neck on their line publicly (or even privately) by pushing for Sotomayor to step aside.

    When Democrats first floated the idea of jettisoning Sotomayor last year, they were accused of ableism and racism.

    The names of possible replacements have been discussed, including the allegedly “moderate” D.C. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was reportedly on Joe Biden’s SCOTUS short list, and has already been vetted.

    Another name floated on Friday was none other than Kamala Harris.

    On CNN this morning, attorney Bakari Sellers,  a Democrat former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, suggested that Biden could nominate Harris, giving her a new purpose in life after being vanquished by Trump.

    Just as Democrat elders forced Biden to quit his campaign after his disastrous debate with Trump, the party could pressure Sotomayor to step down. Harris, of course, quickly replaced Biden as the presidential candidate and could potentially replace Sotomayor on the Supreme Court if Democrats succeed in their pressure campaign.

    Sellers suggested the operation could be pushed through before Trump takes the presidency.

    “I think that’s actually a very good plan. I think it’s something that should happen,” he said. “You know, Justice Sotomayor has been a more than able justice. I know that she may be having some personal issues that she contends with while serving on the bench. But, you know, I don’t want Justice Sotomayor to be another Ruth Bader Ginsburg in terms of staying too long.”

    The plan is not without certain risks for Democrats.

    If Sotomayor agreed to resign, “she can sort of resign conditionally on someone being appointed to replace her,” the Democrat senator told Playbook. “But she can’t resign conditioned on a specific person. What happens if she resigns and the nominee to replace her isn’t confirmed and the next president fills the vacancy?”

    Then there’s the abbreviated timeline. Democrats would have to convince her to retire immediately, Biden would have to nominate a successor, they would have to figure out how to bring enough senators on board, dodge whatever obstructions Republicans throw in their way and get a whole floor vote before the new Congress is sworn in. There would be no room for error or delay.

    “We would have to have assurances from any shaky senator that they would back a nominee in the lame duck, because what do you do if she announces she’s going to step down and then independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin doesn’t support her and then [Republican Sens.] Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski back off and say they’re not going to support a new nominee?” a senior Democrat told Politico. “Do you just rescind that letter?”

    The senator told Politico that the logistics of the operation may well be “insurmountable,” and it might “be better to focus on confirming lower-court judges, filling vacancies Trump can’t later fill himself.”

    Sen. Josh Hawley commented on the record Friday: “This is not happening. No way, no how,” he posted on X . “The Senate will not confirm any last-minute Dem Supreme Court nominee between now and January. The next SCOTUS justice will be nominated by Donald J. Trump.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 16:20

  • Musk Says "Time Is Up For The Warmonger Profiteers" In Nod To Trump Ukraine Peace Plan
    Musk Says “Time Is Up For The Warmonger Profiteers” In Nod To Trump Ukraine Peace Plan

    The Wall Street Journal this week reported that President-Elect Donald Trump is being presented with an array of competing proposals from advisers related to his campaign promise to immediately end the war in Ukraine upon entering the White House.

    While he’s reportedly yet to approve a specific plan, and much might also depend on his team identifying who will fill the top national security and foreign policy posts in the administration, what’s clear is the Zelensky government will feel the pressure to immediately sit at the negotiating table with Moscow.

    The WSJ has revealed that the current options being considered all involve imposing a ‘freeze’ on the war, which to Kiev’s dismay would involve “cementing Russia’s seizure of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine” while imposing a 20-year suspension on Ukraine pursuing NATO membership.

    Via Reuters

    The front lines in the east “would essentially lock in place” according to the proposed plan which is reportedly attracting most attention within Trump’s team, and this freeze would be enforced by European peacekeepers along an 800-mile demilitarized zone.

    Trump officials have told the WSJ that the president-elect is committed to seeing that no American troops are deployed as part of policing this buffer zone; instead the Europeans should shoulder the burden:

    Who would police that territory remains unclear, but one adviser said the peacekeeping force wouldn’t involve American troops, nor come from a U.S.-funded international body, such as the United Nations.

    “We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European,” a member of Trump’s team said. “We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine. And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.”

    The degree to which this plan is actually being mulled and favored by Trump is unclear. Ukraine is likely to object to being forced to give up such a large chunk of what it sees as its legitimate sovereign territory.

    “Anyone—no matter how senior in Trump’s circle—who claims to have a different view or more detailed window into his plans on Ukraine simply doesn’t know what he or she is talking about or doesn’t understand that he makes his own calls on national-security issues, many times in the moment, particularly on an issue as central as this,” a former Trump National Security Council aide told WSJ by way of important caveat. 

    However, Elon Musk, who was invited by Trump to join in on a phone call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky this week, has suggested the above peace plan is likely top of the list of what’s being considered.

    “The senseless killing will end soon. Time is up for the warmonger profiteers,” Musk posted on X in direct response to X commentator Mario Nawfal, who wrote about “Trump’s plan for Ukraine.”

    Nawfal in his original post which caught Musk’s attention wrote that Trump “reportedly plans an 800-mile demilitarized zone between Russia and Ukraine, with British and European troops patrolling the area” – quoting Newsweek. “Under the proposal, Russia would retain its territorial gains, and Ukraine would agree not to join NATO for 20 years,” Nawfal’s post added. 

    Another controversial aspect to the plan would be Washington would continue to pump Ukraine full of weapons while declaring it ‘neutral’ regarding NATO. J.D. Vance has previously called for Ukraine being “heavily fortified so the Russians don’t invade again” as part of a future peace process.

    But this would probably be especially objected to by the Kremlin, given a stated aim of Putin’s in executing the war is precisely to ‘demilitarize’ Ukraine, and to halt the advance of NATO infrastructure into the former Soviet satellite. Putin might perceive that the West continuing to arm Ukraine for many years to come would just set things up for another major future clash and war in Eastern Europe.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 15:45

  • US District Court Judge Blocks Illinois Ban On Certain Types Of Rifles, Attachments
    US District Court Judge Blocks Illinois Ban On Certain Types Of Rifles, Attachments

    Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

    A U.S. District Court Judge has permanently enjoined the state of Illinois from enforcing its “Protecting Illinois Communities Act” (PICA), a ban on certain types of semiautomatic rifles and so-called “high capacity” magazines.

    In a 168-page ruling, Judge Stephen McGlynn of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois wrote that PICA was “unconstitutional under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.” The order is stayed for 30 days.

    Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office said it plans to appeal the ruling.

    “Although this decision is disappointing, the Protect Illinois Communities Act remains in effect for the next 30 days. The law is an important part of the state’s comprehensive efforts to make communities safe from gun violence,” Raoul’s spokesperson Annie Thompson wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

    “We will continue to defend the law’s constitutionality, as we have in courtrooms throughout Illinois, and plan to appeal the court’s decision.”

    Gun rights advocates hailed the ruling as a victory in their fight to preserve the Second Amendment.

    “We are gratified that the Court properly found that these bans violate the constitutionally protected rights of Illinois residents and visitors,” Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, wrote in a post on X.

    “As we clearly showed at trial, PICA fails even under the Seventh Circuit’s misguided test that conflicts with binding Supreme Court precedent.”

    The ruling was issued for four lawsuits that had been combined because they covered the same issues. Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation, and plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits, issued statements celebrating the injunction as a step forward.

    “We are thrilled with the victory and for the citizens of Illinois. We the People deserve the right to decide how best to protect ourselves and our loved ones,” Erich Pratt, GOA’s senior vice president, said in a statement on the group’s website.

    Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed PICA into law in January 2023. It outlawed AK-47 and AR-15 style rifles, as well as rifle magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and pistol magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.

    The only exceptions to the ban were for “trained professionals,” such as law enforcement officers, and people who owned such guns before January 2024. The law also expanded licensing and permitting regulations.

    McGlynn ruled that the Illinois law did not meet the standard set under the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, the high court ruled that gun laws must be in accordance with the plain text of the Constitution and comparable to the law in effect at the time the Second Amendment was ratified.

    While the state referenced firearms regulations found in English Common law in its argument, McGlynn said it failed to meet the Bruen standard.

    “Sadly, there are those who seek to usher in a sort of post-Constitution era where the citizens’ individual rights are only as important as they are convenient to a ruling class,” McGlynn’s decision states.

    Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker gives a COVID-19 update in the Blue Room at the Thompson Center in Chicago on Feb. 9, 2022. Tyler LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP

    “Seeking ancient laws that may partner well with a present-day infringement on a right proclaimed in the Bill of Rights without reading it in conjunction with the aforementioned history is nonsense.”

    The plaintiffs hope the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to hear a similar case from Maryland and settle the question of so-called “assault weapons.”

    Plaintiffs in that case, Snope v. Brown, filed a petition for certiorari—a request to be heard—with the high court on Aug. 21. The plaintiffs claim that, like PICA, Maryland’s law unconstitutionally prohibits firearms that are “in common use for lawful purposes.”

    In 2013, Maryland adopted the Firearms Safety Act, which bans 45 types of guns, including AR15 and AK47-style rifles and various shotguns “or their copies, regardless of which company produced and manufactured that assault weapon.”

    The plaintiffs originally sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on Dec. 1, 2020.

    Snope v. Brown is the third iteration of the 2020 lawsuit. It is commonly known by its most recent title, Bianchi v. Brown.

    “Certiorari is required in this case,” said Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation at the time the petition to the Supreme Court was filed, “to correct an increasingly widespread misunderstanding of the Supreme Court precedent, and the Second Amendment, itself. The specific type of firearm in question is commonly owned across the country, placing it well within the scope of the Second Amendment.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 15:10

  • Israeli Jets Wound Syrian Soldiers In Third Attack This Week
    Israeli Jets Wound Syrian Soldiers In Third Attack This Week

    The Saturday overnight hours witnessed another Israeli attack on Syria, which marks at least the third such air raid this week, as part of a stepped up campaign to wage war on the ‘pro-Iran’ axis which includes Damascus and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    The new strikes occurred in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib, wounding several soldiers and resulting in destruction of military infrastructure. “At around 00:45 after midnight, the Israeli army launched an air aggression from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting a number of sites in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib,” SANA news agency cited a military source as saying.

    IAF jet, via Reuters

    The UK-based anti-Assad opposition outlet Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the strikes had targeted military installations where units and members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Tehran-backed factions are based.

    Israel has been attacking Syria with increased frequency over the last several weeks in connection with the Hezbollah war in south Lebanon, despite widespread acknowledgement that Syria is staying out of events related to the Gaza war.

    Many have asked why Assad has stayed relatively quiet in the context of the Gaza war, Hezbollah war, and the Israeli standoff with Iran. One anti-Assad pundit whose name is Hassan Hassan writes the following:

    The regime has used the war to restore an older perception, established first by former President Hafez al-Assad, that it alone has the ability to keep Syria’s border with Israel quiet and secure. Rather than emerging as a new front for the Iranian axis, as many have long feared since the country descended into conflict in 2011, Syria is attempting to settle into its old role, while taking steps to gradually return to the regional fold through significant diplomatic and political overtures aimed at once more normalizing its position.

    He continues by explaining that Syria is willing do endure smaller hits on infrastructure, without responding, if this ensures Assad government survival:

    For Syria, the risks could be substantial and catastrophic if Israel escalates its attacks to include targeting Syria’s top leadership, rather than focusing solely on logistical hubs tied to Iran’s military buildup in the country. The rebels in the north could also take advantage in such a scenario, attacking regime areas after years of near quiet on the front lines, apart from frequent strikes in rebel areas.

    It remains that the biggest al-Qaeda stronghold in the world today is centered in Idlib province in northwest Syria, on the border with Turkey – which has played a major part along with other NATO powers like the United States in propping up the hardline Islamic stronghold.

    These latest Syria strikes happened alongside other offensives elsewhere in the region. The National reports Saturday that “Dozens were killed in separate overnight air strikes launched by the Israeli military on Lebanon, Syria and Gaza as it intensifies its attack on what it claims to be Hamas and Hezbollah positions.”

    “Israel launched 14 air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Friday, shortly after Israel’s military warned residents to leave parts of the area,” the report added, noting that there were an unknown number of casualties.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 14:35

  • Trump Flips Nevada, Nears Sweep Of Swing States
    Trump Flips Nevada, Nears Sweep Of Swing States

    Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

    President-elect Donald Trump has flipped Nevada, nearly three days after he was declared winner of the 2024 race to the White House.

    The race was called at 9:15 p.m. PT on Nov. 8. Trump has now won six of the seven swing states and appears poised to capture them all.

    He is leading in Arizona, the final battleground that has not yet been called.

    With this win, Trump becomes the first Republican to win the Silver State since 2004.

    He lost the 2016 race here to Hillary Clinton by 2.42 percentage points and the 2020 contest to candidate Joe Biden by 2.4 points.

    Republicans had reason to believe Trump’s third time would be the charm after posting a robust in-person early vote lead and registration gains since 2020.

    While Harris has consistently, but narrowly, led in Nevada polls since succeeding Biden as the Democrat’s nominee in July, two of four late surveys showed Trump suddenly surging as a clear favorite.

    An Atlas Intel Nov. 1–2 survey of 782 likely voters had Trump leading by 5.5 percentage points and a Susquehanna Oct. 28–31 poll of 400 likely voters had Trump up by a breakaway 6 percentage points.

    Meanwhile, a NY Times/Siena Oct. 24 to Nov. 2 survey of 1,010 likely voters had Harris up 2-to-3 percentage points and an Emerson Oct. 29 to Oct. 31 poll of 700 likely voters put her up by 1 percent.

    Many media outlets had declared Trump the winner of the battleground state’s six Electoral College votes for days before the AP formally finally did so.

    AP called the race with 96 percent of statewide ballots counted. Trump had 724,498 votes, 50.7 percent, to Harris’s 678,399 votes, or 47.4 percent.

    He led by 3.3 percent, or by 46,099 votes.

    There had been as many as 13,000 mail-in ballots, including more than 11,000 from Clark County, flagged for discrepancies, primarily mismatched signatures. Elections offices had been frantically scrambling to contact affected voters to “cure” or verify those votes by Nov. 9.

    Trump was not only winning Washoe County – which includes Reno and is Nevada’s second-largest voting constituency – by about 1,600 votes but had garnered more than 478,000 votes in Clark County, where 71 percent of the state’s 3.2 million residents and 2.03 million active voters live, and where Democrats need to run up big numbers to win statewide races.

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

    That doesn’t appear to have happened in 2024. While Harris was leading in Clark County with 504,828 votes late afternoon Nov. 8, that was only 26,000 more than what Trump had received in the blue county, significantly below the threshold needed to overcome GOP votes across the state.

    Interestingly, in both these cases – Arizona and Nevada – the incumbent Democrat Senators are leading despite President Trump’s lead in the presidential race:

    Jacky Rosen (D) has been declared the winner over Veteran Sam Brown. Rosen got around the same number of votes as Kamala…

    But, In Arizona, Kari Lake (R) is holding it close still. BUT notice that the Dem senator has received far more votes than Kamala did…

    Lake and campaign officials have been expressing confidence that Lake, who lost the 2022 gubernatorial election, will ultimately win the Arizona Senate race. They’ve been urging people to cure ballots, meaning fix mistakes on ballots so their votes are counted.

    Under Arizona law, voters have five days after Election Day to fix issues with their ballots.

    “There are lawyers and trained observers monitoring tabulation of ballots, duplicating, and adjudication until we are done. I’m in constant touch with Kari’s lawyers and supporters about this and we are watching every ballot drop,” Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who leads an election integrity team for state and national Republicans, said on the social media platform X.

    As of the current projections, Republicans will have 53 Senate seats in the next Congress, compared to 45 for Democrats or nominal independents who caucus with the Democrats.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 14:00

  • "Show No Mercy": Trump's Campaign Pledge To Annihilate Mexican Cartels Goes Viral
    “Show No Mercy”: Trump’s Campaign Pledge To Annihilate Mexican Cartels Goes Viral

    Now, as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, Mexican cartels, Chinese chemical companies, money laundering networks across North America, and US-based drug dealers are on notice that the boom times under the Biden-Harris regime’s open southern border policies will soon be coming to an end. 

    If Trump follows through with his 2023 campaign promise to “wage war” against Mexican drug cartels, then Americans could expect an end to the horrific 100,000 US drug death overdose crisis per year caused by fentanyl and other drugs – much of which starts as precursor chemicals shipped from China, cooked into fentanyl by Mexican cartels, then flooded in the Lower 48. 

    Here’s Trump’s action plan to destroy the cartels:

    • Restore all Trump border policies and fully secure border

    • Deploy all necessary military assets, including the U.S. Navy, to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels, to ensure they cannot use our region’s waters to traffic illicit drugs to the U.S.

    • Order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations

    • Designate the major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations

    • Cut off the cartels’ access to the global financial system

    • Get full cooperation of neighboring governments to dismantle the cartels, or else fully expose the bribes and corruption that protect these criminal networks

    • Ask Congress to ensure drug smugglers and traffickers can receive the Death Penalty

    Trump’s team released this video in December 2023 titled “President Donald J. Trump Declares War on Cartels.” 

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

    Now the question arises: Does the Trump-Vance team still hold these strong cartel-busting views after announcing them nearly a year ago?

    Absolutely… 

    Here’s JD Vance on the campaign trail in late October: “On behalf of every American who has lost a loved one due to this border crisis, we’re going to kick some cartel ass when President Donald J. Trump takes office.”

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

    Not too long ago, Trump announced financial armageddon for Mexican cartels: “I’m announcing that for the first time under my administration, we are seizing the assets of the criminal gangs and drug cartels and we will use those assets to create a compensation fund to provide restitution for the victims of migrant crime.” 

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

    At the Republican National Convention, Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement between 2017 and 2018, told Mexican cartels: “You’re done.” 

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

    Americans are desperately hoping for closed borders and a resolution to this drug death chaos and illegal alien invasion. Trump’s historic election sweep shows just that. Now get to work, Mr. President.

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

    In our view, the Trump team next year could start by disrupting the financial networks – or command and control centers – of cartels. Trump already mentioned seizing assets, but what’s rarely mentioned is the possibility of sanctioning Mexican banks.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 13:25

  • Taiwan Receives Its First Batch Of HIMARS Rocket Systems From US
    Taiwan Receives Its First Batch Of HIMARS Rocket Systems From US

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the island received its first batch of US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which it first ordered in 2020.

    The HIMARS is a truck-mounted mobile rocket launch system that can fire a variety of munitions, including the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which Taiwan has purchased. The ATACMS have a range of about 186 miles.

    HIMARS training course graduates at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Fort Sill Facebook photo

    The US approval of a sale to Taiwan for HIMARS and ATACMS in 2020 was significant since it marked the first time the US offered weapons that could reach mainland China. The sale also included AGM-84H cruise missiles, which have a range of 168 miles and can be fired by Taiwan’s F-16 fighter jets.

    Taiwan ordered 11 of the HIMARS systems in 2020 and ordered another 18 in 2022. The island’s Defense Ministry said the first 11 have arrived, and Taiwanese troops are reportedly undergoing training to use them. 

    The US has deployed troops to Taiwan for training in recent years, including on the outer islands of Kinmen, which are just a few miles off mainland China’s coast.

    Taiwanese troops were recently in the US training on HIMARS at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that at least 17 soldiers from Taiwan completed training on the HIMARS in August, and Fort Sill’s Facebook page shared a photo of the Taiwanese troops.

    The US has continued to increase military support for Taiwan despite constant warnings from China that the island is the “first red line” in US-China relations that must not be crossed.

    The US has always sold weapons to Taiwan since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 as part of a normalization deal with China. Last year, the US started providing US-funded military aid, marking a significant escalation in US support for the island.

    ABC/GFX

    In September, President Biden approved a $567 million arms package for Taiwan using the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows him to ship weapons straight from US military stockpiles.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 12:50

  • Trump's Election Victory Proves That The Hollywood Elite No Longer Matter
    Trump’s Election Victory Proves That The Hollywood Elite No Longer Matter

    Kamala Harris is toast.  The political spin has been crushed underfoot.  The polls were wrong (again) and the presidential race wasn’t even close.  But Harris’ defeat is only a symbol of something much bigger; the national repudiation of an elitist system that has long thrived on the public worship of false idols.

    The narrative throughout the Joe Biden campaign was that the old ghoul was “sharp as a tack”.  That fantasy was quickly exposed to the masses in a single election debate.  The Harris campaign narrative was that Democrats are the “party of joy”, and they tried real hard to sell this illusion using a horde of celebrities and legacy media talking heads as a foil. 

    It’s difficult to artificially generate joy.  But beyond that, the era of the celebrity endorsement is long gone.  Americans don’t care anymore and this seems to be confounding the progressive media.  According to them Harris ran a “flawless campaign”.  Joy Reid argued that with the number of celebrity endorsements Harris received her victory should have been assured.

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

    Kamala even had the cast of The Avengers on her side.  The problem is that The Avengers and Harris never presented a valid economic policy plan, which is what the public really cares about.

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

    Though one could argue that the Trump campaign also highlighted their celebrity endorsements (or that Trump’s TV stardom years ago is an example of celebrity power), the difference is that actors and pop stars were central to Kamala’s presidential run while they were a side note for Trump.  He didn’t need Hollywood to rally for him. 

    There is an assumption by media pundits that movie star endorsements are somehow organic; but actors and singers can be bought.  Rumors abound that both Biden and Harris were paying big money to social media influencers in the early days of the election cycle and it’s a fair bet that they were doing the same thing with celebrity mascots. 

    How much Harris campaign money was flowing into the pockets of these people?  Recent reports indicate that the Biden/Harris camp generated double the amount of donations that Trump received, yet she spent so much bread her campaign is now allegedly $20 million in debt.  If this is true then it highlights the incredible expense involved in creating fake joy, as well as the pointlessness of the Hollywood cult.

    In other words, they can’t buy hype anymore. 

    Cash might have been a big motivator for celebrities to jump on the Kamala bandwagon, but there’s also the issue of impending investigations into Hollywood’s degeneracy and pedophilia.  With Trump in office there will be increasing public demands for the release of the Esptein client lists as well as the exposure of the alleged Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs tapes.  Trump is likely to oblige.

    Finally, the residents of Tinsel Town are notorious for living within a bubble of ideological delusion.  It’s true that decades ago celebrities had far more influence on the opinions of the general public, and perhaps they think they’re still living in that “golden” era.  It’s simply not the case, as the latest election proves.  The realization is hitting them like a ton of bricks.

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    Narcissists cannot handle the revelation that they are irrelevant, and so they quickly become unhinged.

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

    The political left roots itself in the idea that they are the core of culture and they pride themselves on being the gatekeepers for what the public sees and hears.  They have long sought to dominate popular media through subversion and they’ll often brag about their success in infiltrating every corner of the entertainment industry.  But does any of this matter anymore?  Ricky Gervais answers this question in brilliant parody.

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

    The alternative media today is dominating the establishment media.  Celebrities, once living behind a carefully crafted marketing image, are now exposed on social media as the dunces they really are.  Trump’s latest victory in the face of the La La Land army might just herald the total destruction of the old Hollywood regime.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/09/2024 – 12:15

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