Today’s News 11th April 2023

• French Alps Avalanche Kills Six On Easter Sunday
  French Alps Avalanche Kills Six On Easter Sunday

  So far, six skiers, two of whom were guides, were killed in a massive avalanche caught on video in the French Alps on Easter Sunday. 

  Reuters reported the avalanche occurred in the afternoon at the Armancette glacier, near Mont Blanc in south-eastern France. 

  Rescue teams snowmobiled to the avalanche area. They found six bodies, but according to Emmanuel Coquand, a spokesperson for the local authorities in the region, all searches have been called because there are no other reports of missing persons. 

  

  Coquand declined to comment on the six people killed. However, Reuters said: 

  Local media said two of them were mountain guides and the other four were their clients, all French, including a young woman and man in their 20s and a couple in their 40s.

  According to Jean-Luc Mattel, an official of the nearby Contamines-Montjoie village, the avalanche was caused by a large slab of snow breaking off from the top of the mountain. Reuters said the avalanche was over 500 meters wide. 

  At the time of the incident, there was no avalanche warning for the area. 

  BREAKING: At least six people have died following an avalanche in the French Alps and rescuers have called off the search for any more survivors. https://t.co/nChrR8uib1

  📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/HuDaTYP0tY

  — Sky News (@SkyNews) April 10, 2023

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

  French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted, “Our thoughts are with [the victims] and their families.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 02:45

• David Stockman On Imperial Washington – The New Global Menace
  David Stockman On Imperial Washington – The New Global Menace

  Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

  There is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington —  not Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or the rubble of what remains of Raqqa. Imperial Washington has become a global menace owing to what didn’t happen in 1991 (when the USSR collapsed). At that crucial inflection point, Bush the Elder should have declared “mission accomplished” and parachuted into the great Ramstein Air Base in Germany to begin the demobilization of America’s war machine.

  

  So doing, he could have slashed the Pentagon budget from $600 billion to $250 billion (2015 $); demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; reduced the United States’ standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s.

  Unfortunately, George H. W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even middling intelligence.

  He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who singlehandedly blew the peace when, in the very year the 77-Years’ War ended with the demise of the Soviet Union, he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the gluttonous emir of Kuwait. But that was none of George Bush’s or America’s business.

  Furthermore, George H. W. Bush should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power — even if he eventually denounced them in his doddering old age.

  Alas, upon his death, Bush the Elder was deified, not vilified, by the mainstream press and the bipartisan duopoly. And that tells you all you need to know about why Washington is ensnared in its Forever Wars and is the very reason there is still no peace on earth.

  Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in 1991, Washington opened the gates to an unnecessary confrontation with Islam and nurtured the rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today save for forces unleashed by George H. W. Bush’s petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.

  We will momentarily get to the 52-year-old error that holds that the Persian Gulf is an American lake and that the answer to high oil prices and energy security is the Fifth Fleet.

  Suffice it to say here that the answer to high oil prices everywhere and always is high oil prices —  a truth driven home in spades by the oil busts of 2009, 2015 and 2020, and the fact the real price of oil today (2022 $) is no higher than it was in the mid-1970s.

  But first it is well to remember that in 1991 there was no plausible threat anywhere on the planet to the safety and security of the citizens of Springfield, MA, Lincoln, NE, or Spokane, WA, when the Cold War ended.

  The Warsaw Pact had dissolved into more than a dozen woebegone sovereign statelets; the Soviet Union was now unscrambled into 15 independent and far-flung republics from Belarus to Tajikistan; and the Russian motherland would soon plunge into an economic depression that would leave it with a GDP about the size of Philadelphia.

  And China’s GDP was even smaller and more primitive than Russia’s. Even as Mr. Deng was discovering the People’s Bank of China’s printing press, which would enable it to become a great mercantilist exporter, an incipient Chinese threat to national security was never in the cards.

  The First Gulf war — A Catastrophic Error

  Confronted with the greatest opportunity for global peace in nearly a century, George H. W. Bush did not hesitate: Upon the advice of his retainers, he immediately elected the path of war in the Persian Gulf.

  This endeavor was hatched by Henry Kissinger’s economically illiterate protégés at the National Security Council and Bush’s Texas oilman, Secretary of State James Baker. They falsely claimed that the will-o’-the-wisp of “oil security” was at stake and 500,000 American troops needed to be planted in the sands of Arabia.

  That was a catastrophic error and not only because the presence of “crusader” boots on the purportedly sacred soil of Arabia offended the CIA-recruited and trained mujahideen of Afghanistan, who had become unemployed when the Soviet Union collapsed.

  The CNN-glorified war games in the Gulf during early 1991 also further empowered another group of unemployed crusaders. Namely, the neocon national-security fanatics who had misled Ronald Reagan into a massive military buildup to thwart what they claimed to be an ascendant Soviet Union bent on nuclear-war-winning capabilities and global conquest.

  So when the defense budget went from $134 billion in 1980 to $304 billion in 1989, this unprecedented 130% peacetime rise (+50% in inflation-adjusted dollars) went overwhelmingly to the building of a globe-spanning conventional forces armada that was utterly unneeded in a world with or without the Soviet Union.

  Accordingly, everything on land, sea and air was upgraded and expanded. This included the 600-ship Navy and 12 carrier battle groups; massive upgrades of the fleet of M1 tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles; and endless procurement of cruise missiles, fixed wing planes, rotary aircraft, air-and sea-lift capacity, surveillance and electronic warfare capacity and a black budget so large as to dwarf anything that had gone before.

  In a word, the misguided Reagan defense buildup enabled the invasions and occupations that commenced almost instantly after the Soviet demise. That is to say, the neocon defense buildup of the 1980s fathered the “Forever Wars” of the 1990s and beyond.

  The folly and deceit of the purportedly anti-Soviet defense buildup was evident enough at the time because by the mid-1980s the Evil Empire was already unraveling at the seams economically — and for the simple reason that communism and rigidly centralized command-and-control economics don’t work.

  Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and rest of the neocon gang surrounding Bush the Elder managed to deftly pull a “bait and switch” maneuver of no mean extent. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the Soviet Union at all but the alleged lesson from Washington’s Pyrrhic victory in Kuwait that “regime change” among the assorted tyrannies of the Middle East was in America’s national interest.

  More fatally, the neocons now insisted that the first Gulf War proved regime change could be achieved through a sweeping interventionist menu of coalition diplomacy, security assistance, arms shipments, covert action and open military attack and occupation via the spanking new conventional forces armada that the Reagan Administration had bequeathed.

  What the neocon doctrine of regime change actually did, of course, was to foster the Frankenstein’s monster that ultimately became ISIS.

  Bin Laden would have amputated Saddam’s secularist head if Washington hadn’t done it first, but that’s just the point. The attempt at regime change in March 2003 was one of the most foolish acts of state in American history.

  That the Islamic State was Washington’s Frankenstein’s monster became evident from the moment it rushed upon the scene in mid-2014. But even then the Washington War Party could not resist adding fuel to the fire, whooping up another round of Islamophobia among the American public and forcing the Obama White House into a futile bombing campaign for the third time in a quarter century.

  But the short-lived Islamic State was never a real threat to America’s homeland security.

  The dusty, broken, impoverished towns and villages along the margins of the Euphrates River and in the bombed-out precincts of Anbar Province did not attract thousands of wannabe jihadists from the failed states of the Middle East and the alienated Muslim townships of Europe because the caliphate offered prosperity, salvation or any future at all.

  What recruited them was outrage at the bombs and drones dropped on Sunni communities by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and by the cruise missiles launched from the bowels of the Mediterranean that ripped apart homes, shops, offices and mosques that mostly contained as many innocent civilians as ISIS terrorists.

  The truth is the Islamic State was destined for a short half-life anyway. It had been contained by the Kurds in the North and East and by Turkey with NATO’s second-largest army and air force in the Northwest. And it was further surrounded by the Shiite Crescent in the populated, economically viable regions of lower Syria and Iraq.

  Absent Washington’s misbegotten campaign to unseat Assad in Damascus and demonize his confession-based Iranian ally, there would have been nowhere for the murderous fanatics who had pitched a makeshift capital in Raqqa to go. They would have run out of money, recruits, momentum and public acquiescence in their horrific rule in any event.

  But with the USAF functioning as their recruiting arm and France’s anti-Assad foreign policy helping to foment a final spasm of anarchy in Syria, the gates of hell had been opened wide, unnecessarily.

  In any event, bombing did not defeat ISIS; it just temporarily made more of them.

  Ironically, what did extinguish the Islamic State was the Assad military, the Russian air force invited into Syria by its official government and the ground forces of its Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard allies. It was they who settled an ancient quarrel that had never been any of America’s business.

  But Imperial Washington was so caught up in its myths, lies and hegemonic stupidity that it could not see the obvious. Accordingly, 31 years after the Cold War ended and several years after Syria and friends extinguished the Islamic State, Washington has learned no lessons.

  The American Imperium still stalks the planet for new monsters to destroy — presently in the precincts of Russian-speaking eastern and southern Ukraine that are utterly irrelevant to America’s peace and security.

  *  *  *

  The amount of money the US government spends on foreign aid, wars, the so-called intelligence community, and other aspects of foreign policy is enormous and ever-growing. It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point. It could cause the most significant disaster since the 1930s. Most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video with all the details. Click here to watch it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/11/2023 – 02:00

• Shellenberger: Why Trans Activists Attack Women
  Shellenberger: Why Trans Activists Attack Women

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger, Leighton Woodhouse, and Madeleine Rowley via ‘PUBLIC’ Substack,

  Beware false claims of “genocide”…

  

  Trans activists (left) incited violence against women’s right’s activist Kellie-Jay Keen (center), who was assaulted just minutes later at a New Zealand “Let Women Speak” event last month. Organizers of the “Trans Day of Vengeance” (right) canceled their event after a trans person murdered six people at a Christian school in Nashville.

  For years, transgender activists have claimed there is a genocide being waged against transgender people. As evidence, they point to the murders of trans victims. In 2022, at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people were killed in the United States, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

  But 32 trans killings is a decline from 40 in 2020  and 59 in 2021 and researchers do not know if trans people are being killed disproportionately compared to non-trans people.

  There remains a prejudice against trans people. Some trans people are, without question, victims of violence. But there is no “genocide,” nor even strong evidence that the trans people being killed are targeted for being transgender rather than for some other reason. For example, transgender people are disproportionately represented in the sex trade, which is an extremely dangerous criminal enterprise.

  By contrast, we have seen a wave of transgender rights activists attacking women for ideological reasons. Consider recent events. In New Zealand on March 25, a mob of angry trans activists assaulted a British women’s rights advocate, Kellie-Jay Keen, at a “Let Women Speak” rally. In Nashville on March 28, a trans male killed three adults and three children at a Christian school. Last December, a group of women in Oakland protested the potential placement into a women’s prison of a self-identified trans woman who had murdered a lesbian couple and their son. They were assaulted with a bicycle, an umbrella, eggs, and pies.

  And on April 6, a mob of trans activists trapped women’s collegiate swimming champion Riley Gaines in a room for three hours, and somebody punched her in the face. On Instagram, trans student activists denied that Gaines was trapped or anyone hit her. “Nobody put a finger on you white girl,” posted a black trans youth. But Gaines told Public she was hit by “a man wearing a dress.”

  The University Police Department (UPD) at San Francisco State University said, “We are conducting an ongoing investigation into the situation. The disruption occurred after the event’s conclusion, which made it necessary for UPD officers to move the event speaker from the room to a different, safe location.”

  Transgender people should no more be held responsible, as a group, for the actions of a small number of activists, any more than non-trans people should be held responsible for the vast majority of crimes and violence by non-trans people.

  But there’s no doubt that we’ve seen an increase in physical violence by trans activists  — not all of whom are trans themselves — in recent years, and we should try to understand it in the same way we try to understand violence and radicalization by other social groups.

  In 2018, a mentally ill trans female shot six of her coworkers at a Rite Aid distribution Center in Maryland. In 2019, a trans teenager in Denver shot one student dead and injured eight more. In 2022, a natal male identified as a “trans gamer girl” tried to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home. And a trans person killed five people at a Colorado nightclub that same year.

  While Keen and Gaines survived, both women feared for their physical safety and their lives.

  “I genuinely thought if I fell to the floor,” said Keen, “I would never get up again, my children would lose their mother and my husband would lose his wife.” 

  Video from the event shows a trans rights activist punching an elderly woman, who was later identified as being 70 years old, in the face multiple times.

  “It was terrifying for me,” said Gaines.

  In yesterday’s interview, she said she was “pushed and shoved into the podium. I had no idea where the police were or even if the police were there. I was struck twice, hit in the shoulder and face. And this was closed-fist.”

  At that point, Gaines was effectively kidnapped for three hours.

  “This is when a woman came up to me and grabbed me. We were forced into a classroom where I was ultimately barricaded for three hours. They yelled, ‘We deserve to be able to look at you and yell at you and hit you.’”

  There is an obvious double standard at play.

  Said Gaines’ representative, Eli Bremer, “Imagine if it had been a black or trans student kidnapped in that room by white supremacists. Would the campus police have stood by for three hours and let it happen?” Trans activists, noted Gaines, “claim they’re being persecuted… but in my experience this past year, I’ve always been on the receiving end of the violence.”

  Where is this alarming radicalization coming from? Why are a growing number of trans activists attacking women? And what can be done to protect them?

  The Psychopathology of Gender Theology

  There are no doubt individual psychological reasons behind such aggression. Many aggressive trans activists may suffer from co-occurring mental illnesses and gender dysphoria. A friend of the Maryland Rite-Aid trans shooter said they suffered from bipolar disorder and depression, in addition to gender dysphoria.

  

  University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines react after finishing tied for 5th in the 200 Freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18th, 2022 in Atlanta Georgia. (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

  …

  The trans activists at San Francisco State University were similar to other fanatics. They are true believers, like Christian Puritans who persecuted women as supposed witches in colonial American history. They are like the Maoist students of the Cultural Revolution in China, taking control of physical spaces and intimidating the university administrators, who become too cowardly to take control. They are intoxicated by their feeling of power and in that sense, hedonistic.

  …

  A broader change is needed in the culture, led by the media, educational, sporting, and health institutions. We can acknowledge that people who identify as trans may in some instances be victims of discrimination but have also, over the last 10 years been celebrated as much if not more than any other minority, and that the trans movement has embraced a dangerous victimhood mentality, starting with the Big Lie that there is a genocide against them. History shows that such a persecution complex is often pretext for aggression, violence, and totalitarianism.

  *  *  *

  Subscribers can read the full report here

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 23:40

• Visualizing America's Craft Brewery Boom
  Visualizing America’s Craft Brewery Boom

  Beer lovers across the United States celebrated National Beer Day on April 7 to commemorate the end of Prohibition, at least as far as (low-alcohol) beer is concerned.

  

  As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, on that day in 1933, the Cullen-Harrison Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt, legalizing the sale and consumption of beer with an alcohol content of up to 3.2 percent.

  This was the first step towards the repeal of Prohibition, which officially ended on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the 21st Amendment.

  National Beer Day has since become a day to celebrate the rich history and culture of beer in the United States, and is marked with events, festivals, and of course, the consumption of beer.

  America’s rich culture of beer got even richer in recent years, as the number of craft breweries and available beer styles has exploded over the past decade.

  As our latest Racing Bars video shows, the number of small, independent breweries in the country has more than quintupled between 2010 and 2021, after growing by less than 20 percent in the previous decade.

  According to the Brewers Association, the U.S. beer landscape included more than 9,000 craft breweries in 2021, representing a great counterweight to brewing conglomerates that command an ever-growing share of the global beer market.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 23:20

• Sky News Australia Removes Itself From 'Spy Network' TikTok
  Sky News Australia Removes Itself From ‘Spy Network’ TikTok

  Authored by Nina Nguyen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Right-leaning news channel Sky News Australia has announced that it would discontinue publishing to the popular Chinese app TikTok in an effort to protect its reporters and audiences from security risks.

  

  Sky called TikTok a “spy network masquerading as a social media platform,” saying the risks of being on TikTok are “far too great for any serious news publisher to ignore” while the gains are “negligible at best.”

  The media also criticised other outlets and journalists who reported the platform’s use as a tool for soft power and foreign interference, then later jumped on TikTok themselves. Sky News described TikTok as a “vanity exercise” for media companies who deemed “arbitrary viewership figures” more important than the fact that they “cannot be monetised in any meaningful way.”

  The News Corp-owned media agency is one of the first major outlets in Australia to have publicly boycotted TikTok, which has been under heavy scrutiny in the past months for its close ties to the Chinese regime.

  “Australians will lose absolutely nothing of substance if media organisations make the right decision and withdraw from this platform. And news organisations will equally suffer little loss,” wrote Sky News Australia digital editor Jack Houghton on Monday.

  “While money is not a consideration in our decision, it is also worth noting that apart from the security issues, TikTok is the only developed social media platform to not have a proper commercialisation strategy for content creators.”

  The move comes after the U.K state-owned media BBC and a Danish public broadcaster issued guidance for its staff to remove TikTok from company phones. The BBC continued to publish content on the Chinese social media app.

  TikTok Surveilled U.S. Journalists

  Previous reports have revealed that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has illegally tracked journalists using the platform by obtaining their IP addresses and other user data.

  In December 2022, Forbes reported that China-based employees at ByteDance were using TikTok to track their journalists’ physical locations in October. The publication described the effort as a “covert surveillance campaign” designed to counter and suppress leaks from the company.

  ByteDance reportedly fired its chief internal auditor, Chris Lepitak, who was responsible for the team which led the campaign. China-based Song Ye, who Lepitak reported to and who answered directly to ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang, resigned over the issue.

  The ByteDance probe, known internally as Project Raven, was reportedly launched in response to a Buzzfeed story that found that China-based ByteDance employees repeatedly accessed U.S. user data from TikTok.

  “Project Raven involved the company’s Chief Security and Privacy Office, was known to TikTok’s Head of Global Legal Compliance, and was approved by ByteDance employees in China,” the Forbes report said.

  “The team that oversaw the surveillance campaign was ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department, a Beijing-based unit primarily responsible for conducting investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees.”

  Australian Government Banned TikTok From Government Devices

  Sky News’s decision to boycott TikTok followed the decision by Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus to ban TikTok from all government-issued devices, citing national security risks.

  Dreyfus said in a statement that the ban would come into effect “as soon as practicable.” He said exemptions would be granted on a case-by-case basis.

  “After receiving advice from intelligence and security agencies, today I authorised the secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department to issue a mandatory direction under the Protective Security Policy Framework to prohibit the TikTok app on devices issued by Commonwealth departments and agencies,” Dreyfus said.

  “The direction will come into effect as soon as practicable.”

  However, he noted that possible exemptions will be granted on a “case-by-case basis and with appropriate security mitigations in place.”

  Andrew Thornebrooke and Victoria Kelly Clark contributed to this article.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 23:00

• Rutgers University Faculty Workers Strike For First Time In 257-Year History
  Rutgers University Faculty Workers Strike For First Time In 257-Year History

  For the first time in its 257-year history, academic workers at Rutgers University, including faculty and postdoctoral associates, intend to strike at the institution’s three campuses – New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark. This decision comes after a Sunday vote approving the labor action, following almost a year of unsuccessful negotiations with the university to raise salaries in line with inflation. 

  “We have bargained and bargained and bargained and bargained and bargained, and we are not getting anywhere, and we need to do something more,” said Rebecca Givan, president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT. “We will take this momentous step.”

  Rutgers AAUP-AFT represents 8,000 workers across the three campuses that failed to agree with the school administration for a new contract that would boost pay, provide job security, and implement race and gender equity initiatives, among other demands.

  “It’s not for lack of trying that we now have to have a strike,” said Catherine Monteleone, a professor of medicine and the president of AAUP-BHSNJ.

  On Sunday, the university’s president, Jonathan Holloway, released a statement calling the labor action “deeply disappointing.” He said a mediator was appointed to help both sides reach a deal as soon as possible. 

  Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted that both sides are expected to meet with him today for “productive dialogue.”

  Rutgers University is one of the nation’s premier institutions of higher learning. I am calling the University and union bargaining committees to meet in my office tomorrow to have a productive dialogue. pic.twitter.com/KTDmpm3LKD

  — Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 10, 2023

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  Rutgers stressed, “More than 67,000 students are unaffected by the strike and may continue their academic progress.” 

  On strike! #Rutgers #RUStrike pic.twitter.com/2ht3AoGbT8

  — Michael Reagan (@reaganrevoltion) April 10, 2023

  Looks like the ‘woke’ academic workers are hitting the streets of the university. 

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

  Rutgers On Strike. pic.twitter.com/UkJHAvqv82

  — Colm Atkins in On Strike (@_colm_) April 10, 2023

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

  The decision by Rutgers unions to strike comes as a rising trend of labor actions at US universities, according to a labor action tracker from Cornell University. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 22:40

• Escobar: The Pentagon Leak Charade
  Escobar: The Pentagon Leak Charade

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  The leaked intel might be advantageous to Russia were this not to be misdirection: and the possibility is quite real…

  

  The script reads like a spoof straight out of legendary Mad magazine 1960’s cartoon “Spy vs. Spy”: Secret Pentagon Documents Fall in the Hands of Malign Russia. Well, actually in the hands of millions accessing Twitter and Telegram.

  So here, at face value, we have a major leak essentially detailing Pentagon planning for the next stage of the NATO vs. Russia proxy war in Ukraine: the interminably debated Spring “counter-offensive” that may, or may not, start in mid-April, as well as war plans shared with FVEY – the Five Eyes.

  The leaked intel might – and the operative word is “might” – be advantageous to Russia were this not to be misdirection: and the possibility is quite real.

  The inestimable Ray McGovern, who knows one or two things about the CIA, noted whether the Pentagon is “falsifying kill-ratio to gild Easter lilies in Kyiv? Recent leak of an apparently official NATO document shows 71,500 Ukrainians KIA and only 16,000 to 17,500 Russians, a far cry from earlier Pentagon ‘estimates’. All sounds so Vietnam-déjà vu!”

  So this may be Vietnam all over again – never count on the Pentagon learning from their mistakes – but could be something way more alarming, according to a top Beltway intel source, retired: “Our interpretation of this breach is that intel sources in the United States have released critical intel data in order to avoid a nuclear war with Russia.”

  As it stands, the only certainty is that the spin war has gone berserk. So the leaker may have been a – disgruntled – U.S. insider. No, wait: the whole thing may be fake, as the Pentagon insists. In spin speak, that would be an attempt to “spread false information that could harm the U.S.”.

  Tweaked or not, the “secret” Pentagon comparative war dead ratio between Russians and Ukrainians still does not make sense. The numbers appear to reflect Bakhmut/Artemovsk casualties, where Russian casualty ratios were highest. Yet reliable on the ground Russian military correspondents assure the ratio is really 10 to 1, with the Russians employing the snail technique combined with a formidable artillery mincing machine.

  “Stupefying” incompetence

  The undisputable conclusion out of the – real or fake – Pentagon leaks is that the U.S. is in a state of war against Russia. And that is serious enough.

  Washington has been feeding information non-stop on command posts, ammunition depots and key nodes in the Russian military lines. It’s such real-time intel that has allowed Kiev to target Russian forces, kill senior generals and force ammunition depots to be moved farther from the Russian front lines.

  Anything Pentagon/NATO stenographers say about Kiev playing the proverbial “decisive role” in planning and executing these strikes is a lie. The U.S. exercizes total, absolute control of the Ukraine war on a central command basis. Including from that “secret” underground bunker near Lviv which recently received a business card from Mr. Khinzal and has gone to meet its maker – along with over 200 NATO high-level operatives.

  Fake or not fake, we also have confirmation that the Pentagon has direct access to communications of the Russian Ministry of Defense. And that the Americans listen to everyone and his neighbor: the sweaty T-shirt actor in Kiev, all the Five Eyes allies, and the Mossad.

  As for the notion that Kiev has changed its counter-offensive “military plans” because of the Pentagon leaks, everyone should feel free to control the pitch of their roaring laughter.

  The Russian non-response response to all this hoopla could be seen as a classic of misdirection. Responding to the U.S. de facto engaged in an undeclared war against Russia, much hotter than Hybrid, President Putin said that Russia is interested in “peaceful coexistence with the U.S. and establishing a balance of interests” given their status as the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.

  Well, no one can possibly imagine Stalin saying that Russia was interested in peaceful coexistence with Nazi Germany in July, 1941 as the Wehrmacht was rushing towards Moscow, Leningrad and the Caucusus oil.

  From the point of view of valuable military information, the indispensable Andrei Martyanov summed it all up: these “documents” contain none, apart from confirming that the Pentagon is absolutely clueless on the SMO: why is it happening, what is the modus operandi and what it plans to achieve.

  Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov did cut to the chase: “We don’t have the slightest doubt about direct or indirect involvement of the U.S. and NATO (…) it cannot influence the final outcome of the special operation.”

  As Martyanov stresses, Russia maneuvers an extremely advanced ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) complex, including human intel on the ground, electronic warfare and satellite constellations: “In terms of war correlates and combat statistics – I wouldn’t touch anything coming from Pentagon with a long stick.”

  There are indeed several serious issues with the Pentagon “top secret” intel. It oozes the impression it was redacted based on open data, and not actual intel. And all that packaged by some quite shoddy work.

  For instance, the insistence to “re-equip” Ukrainian air defense with missiles is not supported by data on where such missiles will be coming from. The name of the NASAMS – the middle range, ground based air defense system co-developed by Raytheon – is misspelled.

  In official NATO documents, weapons from the USSR and from Russia are indicated in NATO codification. There is no style uniformity: it’s a messy mix of official code designations and transliterations from Russian into English.

  So no wonder the impression is solidified that the U.S. Army Command in Europe (EUCOM) got their “intel” from open sources, and is absolutely clueless on how many weapons, how much equipment and how many people the Ukrainians actually have.

  And that explains what’s going on in Artemovsk – with the Russians taking all the time in the world to calibrate their strategic defense, and after the orderly abandon of Kherson, lure the Ukrainians into a non-stop slaughterhouse. Martyanov qualifies U.S./NATO incompetence to see it coming as “stupefying.”

  A do-or-die war to control Eurasia

  Once again: the most important consequence of the Pentagon leaks is to establish that the U.S., de facto and de jure, is at war against Russia – whatever may be the spin by that Norwegian piece of dead wood in Brussels. Russia will establish a war crimes tribunal for Ukraine, so sooner rather than later, selected collective West luminaries better take refuge in their New Zealand bunkers.

  It’s also crucial to always keep in mind Ukraine is a mere pawn in their game for not losing world power, against China, Russia and potentially Germany.

  The initial psycho Straussian neocon goal was to cut off Germany from Russia using “Liver Sausage” Chancellor Scholz, who was briefed in advance on the terror attack on the Nord Streams.

  Scholz was also involved in the CIA misdirection scam, channeling the blame for the terror attack on some obscure Ukrainian “dissident” and a bumbling yacht – as brilliantly covered by Seymour Hersh.

  The next step is to cut off Ukraine from Russia – “reconquering” Crimea, the focus of the current P.R. blitzkrieg, and Donbass, thus originating a cataclysmic psychological upheaval in Russia leading to a Putin regime change.

  Then the Straussians would finally command Russia’s massive natural resources – and block them from China by land and by sea via the U.S. Fleet.

  That’s not exactly clever – but Straussian neocons do revel in their own intellectually shallow pond. Cue to that insufferable idiot Admiral John Kirby saying there can be no negotiations with Russia until they leave Ukraine, abandoning Donbass and Crimea.

  So the (show) war in Ukraine must go on, to the last Ukrainian, or all these elaborate plans will irretrievably bite the dust. This is a do-or-die war against Russia-China for the control of Eurasia. Will that imply more Pentagon leaks? Bring them on.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 22:20

• Why Did Alex Soros Visit The Biden White House 14 Times?
  Why Did Alex Soros Visit The Biden White House 14 Times?

  The son of pro-crime billionaire George Soros, Alex, is raising eyebrows over more than a dozen White House meetings since October 2021, where he met with multiple officials including then-Chief of Staff, Ron Klain and several national security officials.

  

  According to White House visitor logs reviewed by Fox News (and first reported by the NY Post), the 38-year-old Alex Soros visited the White House over 14 times.

  His latest trips include visiting Dec. 1 with then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s advisor Nina Srivastava, who also worked on Biden’s presidential campaign, the logs show.

  Later that evening. the younger Soros was one of 330 people who attended a lavish state dinner on the White House South Lawn hosted by the president and First Lady Jill Biden honoring French President Emmanuel Macron and Macron’s wife, Brigitte.

  A day later, Alexander Soros — who chairs the powerful, liberal grant-making network Open Society Foundations founded by his dad — met with both Advisor to the Counselor of President Mariana Adame and Deputy National Security Advisor Jonathan Finer, records show. -NY Post

  “[It’s] notable that almost all, with the exception of Ron Klain, who had the president’s ear, obviously were involved in national security,” said Matt Palumbo, author of “The Man Behind the Curtain”‘ during a Monday appearance on “Fox & Friends First.”

  

  “Ukraine is a country where the Soros family has unfortunately boasted a lot of influence. There is tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown around there. So I think that will be something worth circling back on in coming months or years.”

  Despite George Soros’ notorious sway among political circles, Palumbo said the younger Soros could someday boast even more power, noting Alex has been flaunting his influence on social media with pictures of himself alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama. -Fox News

  “He’s standing on $11 million of his own money. Now, that may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to his father. And it is, but it’s not going to be that way forever,” Palumbo continued.

  

  “The way I would put it is George Soros, over his career, has spent around $20 billion, his Open Society Foundation, which is the vehicle by which he makes this spending, has around $20 billion on its balance sheet. So when Alex takes over, he has a war chest that is basically able to, I would say, at a minimum, double the amount of damage his father is going to do and probably more.”

  George Soros’ son set to take over his dad’s war chest…

  He could do even more damage…

  The Democrat party is basically the progressive party of George Soros now, but Alex has been to The White House 14 times since 2021 pic.twitter.com/OcLcex6fPb

  — Red Voice Media (@redvoicenews) April 10, 2023

  “The Soros agenda is one of death and destruction in the name of open borders and ending Western Civilization. The Biden administration and rogue prosecutor movement may be [its] most damaging purchase in America to date,” said Mike Howell, the director of the Heritage Foundation‘s Oversight Project (via PJ Media).

  And according to Judicial Watch‘s Tom Fitton, Alex Soros’ White House visits showed “an outsize policy influence in the Biden administration.”

  “Don’t be distracted by Alex’s name in the visitor log; it’s a George Soros rep they’re looking to meet with at the Biden White House,” Fitton continued, adding “He’s still calling the shots, it’s his money, his foundations.”

  Meetings, via The Post;

  • 12/2/2022: Mariana Adame, Advisor to the Counselor Steve Ricchetti
  • 12/2/2022: Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
  • 12/1/2022: State Dinner on South Lawn for French President Emmanuel Macron attended by President Biden
  • 12/1/2022: Nina Srivastava, adviser to then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain
  • 10/14/2022: Mariana Adame, Advisor to the Counselor Steve Ricchetti (x2)
  • 10/6/2022: Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
  • 10/6/2022: Kimberly Lang, Executive Assistant to the National Security Advisor
  • 9/15/2022: Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
  • 9/14/2022: Nina Srivastava, adviser to then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain (x2)
  • 4/22/2022: Madeline Strasser, adviser to then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain
  • 12/15/2021: Jon Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
  • 10/29/2021: Madeline Strasser, adviser to then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain

  

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 22:00

• Watch: Bud Light VP Explains Plan To Become King Of 'Woke' Beers
  Watch: Bud Light VP Explains Plan To Become King Of ‘Woke’ Beers

  Just before Bud Light became entangled in the trans-TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney controversy, the beer company’s Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid discussed in an interview the need to shift away from the “out of touch” frat party image to one of “inclusivity.”

  Heinerscheid, a middle-aged, upper income highly-educated white woman, was interviewed on the podcast “Make Yourself At Home” on March 23. 

  “I’m a businesswoman, I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light,'” she said.

  Heinerscheid stressed a need to “evolve and elevate” the Bud Light brand away from the “fraternity/out of touch humor” brand of the younger generation. She expanded on that idea:

  “What does evolve and elevate mean? It means inclusivity… It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different. And appeals to women and to men. And representation is sort of the heart of revolution.”

  Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s VP of Marketing, doubles down on her extreme woke strategy to promote the “declining” American beer brand to “young people”, while smearing her former customers as “fratty and out of touch”.

  How’s that working out for you, lady? @budlight pic.twitter.com/zNYKbMnZnu

  — Old Row (@OldRowOfficial) April 9, 2023

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  About a week later, likely directed by Heinerscheid and or her office, trans-TikTok influencer Mulvaney, celebrating “365 Days of Girlhood,” released a short video about promoting Bud Light. The promotion garnered tremendous backlash as “Boycott Bud Light” trended on Twitter for days. 

  

  And perhaps she’s just implementing ‘woke’ advertising to boost Bud Light’s Corporate Equality Index — social credit score. 

  If Heinerscheid learned anything from the Wharton School of Business, it appears to be how to destroy an iconic brand with woke ideology. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:58

• Los Angeles Replaces One State Of Emergency With Another
  Los Angeles Replaces One State Of Emergency With Another

  Authored by James Breslo via The Epoch Times,

  On March 31, a full three years after first implemented, Los Angeles’ COVID-19 state of emergency finally expired.

  

  Officials had used their emergency powers to regulate virtually every aspect of life in L.A.

  They closed beaches, parks, and hiking trails. They closed businesses they deemed not to be essential. Churches were closed, but not liquor stores. They closed schools and required that children wear masks upon reopening. They banned family gatherings and funerals, and prevented people from being next to their loved ones in hospitals as they took their last breath.

  Thank God it is now over, but many of the measures put in place are now permanent.

  Leftists used the mandates to implement policies which would never have been possible otherwise, like universal mail-in balloting, eviction moratoriums, expanded health and welfare benefits, and even student loan debt forgiveness. Many vaccine and masking requirements remain in place.

  So, it should be no surprise that the left has made sure that the COVID-19 state of emergency is replaced with a new one. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency in December over the homeless crisis. She compared the declaration to the one L.A. declared after the massive 6.7 earthquake in 1994.

  

  A homeless encampment lines a street in the Skid Row community in Los Angeles on Dec. 14, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

  Emergency declarations after earthquakes and hurricanes are what Americans are used to. They typically remain in place for a number of weeks. But this declaration was clearly inspired by the COVID-19 state of emergency and similarly is likely to be in place for years to come.

  What will come this time? Will residents be ordered to take homeless people into their homes? Will parks and beaches be closed to the public to allow for encampments? Will hotels be ordered to make rooms available for the homeless?

  During the recent city elections, polls showed that homelessness was the number one issue concerning voters. It polled higher than the economy, gas prices, inflation, and crime. This is because homelessness in L.A. is on a level like no other city in the United States. Los Angeles has about 42,000 homeless people, second only to New York City (but more per capita), and several times that of the next closest city.

  The problem is out in the open for all to see. Huge tent encampments are all over the city, including L.A.’s beaches, parks, and sidewalks. It is a humanitarian crisis for those living on the streets, and a quality-of-life crisis for ordinary Angelenos trying to live a normal, safe, and healthy life.

  Residents encounter the homeless, most with mental health or addiction issues, on a daily basis. They cannot take their family to their local park or beach without being prepared for uncomfortable encounters. Crime is way up in the city due in part to the homeless explosion.

  The problem was created when Los Angeles stopped enforcing its no camping laws. This allowed the encampments to be set up and grow, with tents filled with belongings popping up everywhere. The solution is obvious: start enforcing the law again.

  Cities around L.A. which have been enforcing no camping laws have no homeless problem. This is the case even in cities with no affordable housing, like Manhattan Beach which is one of the most expensive zip codes in the state. Clearly it is an enforcement issue. You allow it, they will come. Just like the U.S. border: if you enforce the border laws, you do not get illegal immigrants. If you do not, you get them in droves.

  

  A homeless individual in Los Angeles, Calif., on Jan 27, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  Los Angeles based its refusal to ban encampments on a 2018 court decision. In Martin v. Boise, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prosecuting people for sleeping in public amounted to cruel and unusual punishment when no shelter beds are available. But the ruling only applies to sleeping at night. Nothing in the ruling prohibits banning encampments during the day. If police were permitted to enforce the day ban, the encampments would go away. Without a tent, the homeless can no longer set up a home in the public space. It is not nearly as comfortable to live a homeless lifestyle if you are not able to maintain a tent with a sofa and all your belongings in it. Other cities figured this out, but L.A. has chosen not to.

  Instead, the city’s new mayor, in announcing the state of emergency, focused primarily on addressing the “affordable housing crisis.” That is because Bass and her fellow city leaders are less interested in solving the homeless problem than they are in using it to implement all kinds of progressive dream policies. Yes, L.A. has a shortage of affordable housing on the beach. But there is no shortage of affordable housing if you look 45 minutes from the beach, which is what rational people do.

  This allows the city’s leftists to implement policies like rent control, eviction moratoriums, affordable housing projects, free housing projects, and housing vouchers. Los Angeles spends $1.2 billion per year on housing solutions, building units for as much as $848,000 each.

  They call enforcing camping bans inhumane. Where will they go if we enforce it? The answer is, to a shelter. L.A. has lots of them. They are not full, because most of the homeless have one reason or another for preferring a tent. If the shelters do become full, it is very cheap to create more compared to the cost of building permanent housing as the city is currently pursuing.

  Alternatively, they may connect with friends or family. There are many stories of parents finding lost children when the homeless finally leave the streets.

  They could also go to rehab or a mental health facility. Or, if they choose none of the above and continue illegal camping, they could wind up in jail. That is not the worst place to be. Many homeless get sober and turn things around while in jail.

  All of this is far more compassionate than leaving them on the streets to be used as political pawns in order to help implement socialism.

  By not enforcing the ban they have made Los Angeles the mecca for homeless. They move from the cities which enforce camping bans to L.A., where they are allowed to camp. The city’s residents are then asked to solve the problem by building permanent housing for them. This is all part of the leftist’s plan.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:40

• US Is Spying On Zelensky: Here's What's Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files
  US Is Spying On Zelensky: Here’s What’s Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files

  The highly classified Pentagon documents which were leaked online in recent weeks, but which began being confirmed and reported as authentic by The New York Times and others only in the past few days, contain some embarrassing revelations. This has sent DOJ and US intelligence officials scrambling to discover the source of the leaks.

  CNN is confirming Monday based on one of the documents which appeared online that the US has been spying on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – a disclosure which has caused officials in Kiev to be “deeply frustrated”.

  

  “One document reveals that the US has been spying on Zelensky,” CNN reports. “That is unsurprising, said the source close to Zelensky, but Ukrainian officials are deeply frustrated about the leak.”

  The US intelligence document suggests that American officials have been worried about possible Zelensky decision-making to strike deep into Russian territory, which would escalate the war and potentially bring Russian and NATO into direct clashes:

  The US intelligence report, which is sourced to signals intelligence, says that Zelensky in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast” using unmanned aerial vehicles, since Ukraine does not have long-range weapons capable of reaching that far.

  An additional possibility is that the US intelligence community might be monitoring the Ukrainian presidency’s office as part of efforts to oversee and account for how the tens of billions in aid sent to Kiev is being utilized. 

  The Washington Post details that “many of the documents seem to have been prepared over the winter for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, but they were available to other U.S. personnel and contract employees with the requisite security clearances.”

  Leaked document has a legend of US/NATO special forces in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/Po0pRJ6gMx

  — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 7, 2023

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  Here are 14 more major revelations contained within the leaked intel document trove based on various media sources: 

  • Locations of CIA recruitment efforts focused on human agents which have access to closed-door conversations of world leaders
  • Russia’s Wagner Group tried to obtain weapons from a NATO member: Turkey. Also, some of the internal future plans of Wagner are apparently known to US intelligence
  • Details of sensitive satellite technology used to track Russian forces, namely the “LAPIS time-series video” – described as an advanced satellite system, which up until now has been a closely guarded secret
  • Ukraine battlefield assessments prepared by the Pentagon
  • The Guardian: “One slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain, and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”
  • Descriptions of intelligence collection activities by the CIA, NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement agencies and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
  • One Feb. 23 review of the battlefield situation in Ukraine’s Donbas forecasts a “grinding campaign of attrition” by Russia that “is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Moscow’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023.”
  • WaPo: “The U.S. intelligence community has penetrated the Russian military and its commanders so deeply that it can warn Ukraine in advance of attacks and reliably assess the strengths and weaknesses of Russian forces.”
  • WaPo: “A single page in the leaked trove reveals that the U.S. intelligence community knew the Russian Ministry of Defense had transmitted plans to strike Ukrainian troop positions in two locations on a certain date in February and that Russian military planners were preparing strikes on a dozen energy facilities and an equal number of bridges in Ukraine.”
  • WaPo: A summary of analysis from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review, a daily publication for senior policymakers, says that Beijing is likely to view attacks by Ukraine deep inside Russian territory as “an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor,” and that China could increase its support to Russia if it felt the attacks were “significant.”
  • Ukraine’s robust Soviet-era air defenses — which have thus far minimized the participation of Russian aircraft – could run out of ammunition in next several weeks.  
  • A purported CIA intelligence update — claims Israel’s Mossad supported protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Supreme Court reform scheme. 
  • One report says internal discussions show that South Korean officials are wary of requests to hand over artillery shells to the United States to replenish American stockpiles, out of concern they’d end up in Ukraine.
  • Another report says that Ukrainian Air Defense is in peril if it’s not reinforced by Western allies

  Meanwhile, the expanding breadth of subject matter has many suggesting a US source is responsible. It’s being called “a nightmare for the Five Eyes” – and could damage intelligence-sharing relationships between the US and its partner countries.

  One aspect of the Pentagon leak not being discussed on state TV is the indication of how deeply Russia’s security and intel services have been penetrated by the US

  But former spook Leonid Reshetnikov brought it up today, prompting Olga Skabeyeva to change subject very unsubtly pic.twitter.com/zbiupkuoA9

  — Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) April 10, 2023

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  The breach could also prove embarrassing for Russia as it deals with the claims that US intelligence has deeply penetrated some key areas of government, such as the Defense Ministry.

  “The focus now is on this being a U.S. leak, as many of the documents were only in U.S. hands,” former Pentagon official Michael Mulroy told Reuters. As opposed to electronic downloads, it appears most or all of these leaks are in the form of photographs of paper documents. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:22

• Three Hunter Biden Paintings On Display At SoHo Gallery For $85,000 Each
  Three Hunter Biden Paintings On Display At SoHo Gallery For $85,000 Each

  While President Donald Trump is indicted and arrested related to $130,000 in alleged hush money he paid Stormy Daniels more than half a decade ago, Hunter Biden is roaming the streets of Manhattan selling his art for a cool $85,000 per piece.

  A group exhibition called “Bridging the Abstract,” a show at Georges Bergès Gallery in SoHo, is displaying three pieces of Biden’s that are priced at $85,000 each, CNN reported last week. 

  And despite the growing number of investigations into Biden’s conduct, led by the Republican majority House of Representatives, his gallerist and friend, Georges Bergès, has defended showing and selling his art.

  “It’s been challenges unique to him that no other galleries would have with an artist, so you almost have to be passionate about this to continue … really believe in him as an artist on many, many different levels,” he told CNN. 

  When asked about the hefty price tags on the pieces, Berges responded: “You could buy a politician for a lot less than that.”

  Well, there you have it. Case closed, right?

  

  CNN reports that there is a sales arrangement in place for the artwork between Berges and Biden that keeps the purchaser of the artwork anonymous to both Biden and the public. The report continued with this air tight compliance plan the gallery has put in place:

  If there was any unusual behavior – such as the offer price being too high or a collector who doesn’t appear interested in the work – the gallery is expected to turn down the offer, the sources said. However, there was no clear enforcement mechanism for the standards agreed upon by the gallery and the prospective purchasers.

  No specifics were given on what constitutes “unusual behavior”, or a “price being too high”. It wasn’t made clear who determines those variables and what plan is put into place for such instances.

  A spokesperson for Biden told CNN: “There is no reason for Mr. Biden’s legal team to be notified of what is standard practice for galleries representing artists – selling their art. The gallery sets the pricing and handles all sales based upon the highest ethical standards of the industry.”

  Last month, Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer of the House Oversight committee, requested more information: “Mr. Bergès has refused to provide any information regarding who is buying Mr. Biden’s art. He has chosen to obstruct in an apparent effort to shield Mr. Biden and/or the purchasers’ of Mr. Biden’s art from congressional oversight.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:20

• The Performance Of A Lifetime
  The Performance Of A Lifetime

  Authored by Jean Hatchet via TheCritic.co.uk,

  Dylan Mulvaney’s mimicry of women is absurd…

  

  If a man seeks to humiliate a woman he encounters, nothing is easier than reducing her appearance to a mere caricature. Men do this directly in front of the woman they are targeting: lifting their voice to a squeak, exaggerating hand gestures, pushing out pretend breasts, wiggling their bum, pouting and fiddling with their hair. Most of these men confine the taunt to the woman in front of them, and the woman often feels and displays a righteous rage. However, when it comes to Dylan Mulvaney, the Tik Tok user who has become famous for his grotesque parody of women, women are not supposed to react critically. They are seen as cruel or “transphobic” if they express annoyance at being so grossly insulted. 

  In March 2022 Dylan Mulvaney saw a way to take his barely-concealed disdain for women up a level, with predictable success. After his career as a musical actor had stalled due to the Covid pandemic, with people finding solace daily on Tik Tok, wily Dylan invented a new role that guaranteed his future wealth and success. He announced he was embarking on a journey of “being a girl” and began a series of videos documenting this ludicrous notion. 

  Shortly before this year-long, very public “transition”, Mulvaney performed a pilot video for his current lucrative act. In it he told the viewer that he “had trouble finding roles” so a friend had invented one for him, a “femme character”. His character wears a pink dress and pearls, white gloves and ankle socks. At this point Mulvaney must have been delighted to glimpse a potential new career path. It was a very savvy move for him to extend and develop this caricature of a 1950s woman. Now, just over a year later, Dylan Mulvaney has highly paid “partnerships” with a number of companies including Budweiser, Kate Spade and — during the past week, to great objection — the Sportwear giant Nike. 

  In an inflammatory paid partnership video with Nike, an inanely grinning, barefoot Mulvaney wears a Nike sports bra and leggings. He performs a series of ridiculous moves including comedic side stretches, a theatrical run kicking his heels up nonsensically and failed chorus-line high kicks. He almost runs backwards into a hedge at one point and pulls a comedy expression of shock. It all looks ridiculous and slapstick. It mocks women by suggesting they exercise trivially and ineffectively, but smiling throughout. 

  The media seems unwilling to focus on the actual reasons many women are angry about this. It has focused instead on stating that objections to the sponsorship are because Dylan is trans. This is not why women are outraged. When a man “performs woman” in front of women to such a humiliating degree, when he waggles and jiggles and implies that weakness and silliness are inherent to being a woman who plays sport, women appropriately see this for the deliberately constructed misogyny it is. Ria Chapman, a London PE teacher, told me why she finds this act so irritating and offensive:

  “Girls are still routinely bullied and mocked for being sporty and or breaking stereotypes, their achievements and ambitions not being celebrated and valued like those of their male peers. For a sports company the size of Nike to use a male performing a parody of what he believes women behave like during sport only adds to the ammunition that boys will use to put girls down.”

  Utilising female stereotypes is the foundation of Mulvaney’s role. On his “Day 1 of being a girl” video debut, he said:

  “I’ve already cried three times, written a scathing email I didn’t send, ordered dresses online that I couldn’t afford and when someone asked me how I was, I said “I’m fine” but I wasn’t fine. How did I do, ladies?”

  All of this encapsulates the stereotype of women as emotionally fragile, frivolous spendthrifts, imprudent around clothes and financially inept. In the stereotype Dylan performs, women routinely suppress our emotions and focus on being polite at all times. It is an archaic depiction of requisite female behaviour which was seared into women’s consciousness over decades in the past. This view of “girlhood” took further decades for feminist women to dismantle. Dylan Mulvaney is building it back up before our eyes and we refuse to stay quiet about it. 

  In other videos Mulvaney is seen running feebly through a forest and falling down in high heels, the suggestion being that women are unstable, weak and pathetic characters frightened of flies. This barely disguised message pervades many of his videos. In another he is referring to his “boobies” as his “gal pals” and advertising the shea butter he will rub into them. He refers beneath this video to “taking care of my new girls this season”. This is all deeply offensive to women. Breasts are part of our sexed bodies, not a cute pet or an accessory like a new handbag. 

  Along with these grotesque parodies of womanhood, he promotes products with zero shame, grifting whilst gurning and gaslighting women. Shortly before he began this career-saving venture of “being a girl”, Mulvaney can be found mocking a female cheerleader in a sketch where he pretends to break his leg. He has honed and perfected these earlier attempts to portray women as weak and stupid, and he deflected attention from them by declaring himself a woman. Gender identity is once again the smokescreen for misogyny, and negative criticism leads to an award-worthy performance of his being hurt and bullied. Mulvaney simply reverses the victim and offender. Women are bullies, he is the target. Many women recognise this pattern from relationships with abusive men. 

  The insult for women comes not from the fact that Mulvaney is given vast sums of money or attention, but that he is given it whilst performing an insulting version of what a woman is or how she experiences the world from birth. Mulvaney has avoided the many perils of “being a girl”, because he was safely behind the shield of being a boy — and a wealthy one at that. Mulvaney has a very privileged background of successful financier male ancestors. Nothing says patriarchy more clearly than a man being offered huge sums of money by companies to pretend to be a woman, whilst actual women sit at home fretting how to feed their children during an economic crisis. A man “womanning” is feted, whilst a woman at times barely survives the experience. 

  As the final part of his “365 days of girlhood”, Mulvaney undergoes very expensive facial feminisation surgery. This is suggested as the very epitome of ensuring he is seen as female. Conveniently little mention is made of the penis he retains. Shaved forehead bones might whisper and suggest “woman” more effectively, but a penis roars “man” at a deafening pitch. 

  The elaborate “reveal” video is highly produced, and none of the earlier amateur style is evident. Dylan really has come a long way in a year. Whilst he is still no further towards being a woman, I don’t believe that was really the aim. On the contrary, the heights he sought were to become famous, powerful and wealthy. He has had chats with the President, and Drew Barrymore knelt at his feet and cooed adoringly. Wearing “woman” as a costume works for him in a way it works for few women for whom it is a reality. 

  By contrast women having plastic surgery often do it in the knowledge that without it they would be invisible and, past a certain age, ignored and dismissed. Women don’t seek to become, but to remain women when they undertake anti-ageing procedures. Victoria Smith writes succinctly in her new book Hags:

  “You are not hated because you are an older woman — for that would be wrong and regressive — but because you have failed to remain a young one.”

  One of the most galling aspects of Mulvaney’s act is the passive-aggressive suggestion in some videos that women are hateful, spite-filled creatures who simply won’t allow him to be the woman he claims he is. When women objected to a potential sponsorship with Tampax, Mulvaney claimed he was the victim of women bullying him:

  “It feels like high school and feels like you want me to endure the pain and trauma you had as a girl.”

  In a sinister ending to this video, Mulvaney says he is “nervous for you” and suggests ominously that women will be punished in the future for their “transphobia”. It is an emotionally manipulative attempt to protect lucrative sponsorship and secure his brand from appropriate scrutiny. 

  Mulvaney breezes through his videos with a permanent rictus grin. The subconscious irritation women feel at this stems from the very real experience of our female socialisation. From the time we are commanded to smile as toddlers and for the million times afterwards, women are aware that our “smile” is an expectation, a command and a danger. If we forget to smile, men who are complete strangers will remind us. If we refuse, we may regret it. If a woman stops smiling, she can be accused of having “resting bitch face”, and she has failed in her duty to please and humour men. When Mulvaney performs this forced joy apparently emanating from “being a girl”, women feel the lie through to our bones, because we have lived with the reality. 

  Women aren’t any of this performed “girlhood” of Mulvaney’s. We don’t like being reduced to it.

  We object when large companies pay hefty sums of money to the man treading on our heads to tell them what it’s like to be a woman. 

  Dylan Mulvaney is an actor and a competent manipulator of the media. Large companies should take note that women will not be mocked by a man or the companies that support him. Learn who we are, or learn how to cope without our cash. 

  Just don’t do it. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 21:00

• California To Front 20% Down Payments With 0% Interest For Homebuyers With Incomes Up To $211,000
  California To Front 20% Down Payments With 0% Interest For Homebuyers With Incomes Up To $211,000

  California homebuyers making up to $211,000 annually will be able to receive a 20% down payment, and all closing costs, at a 0% interest rate.

  While the state has long-offered homebuyer assistance through the state’s Housing Finance Agency (Cal HFA), a new program, the California Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan program will give the state a proportionate interest in the property they’re helping with, according to KPBS.

  “It’s available to low- and moderate-income. So the upper income limit is $211,000,” said Ellen Martin, president of the Cal HFA.

  According to Scott Evans, EVP of Cross Country Mortgage, “The state of California can give up to 20% for a down payment and closing costs. It’s a 0% interest rate. The payments are deferred for the entire life of the loan,” adding “When you sell the property or refinance the loan, they take up to 20% of the appreciation. The homeowner gets to keep 80%.”

  According to Evans, another consideration are tax breaks which become available to homeowners, which can be ‘significant enough to help offset the cost of mortgage payments’ (and which of course assumes the homeowner makes enough to pay taxes in the first place).

  

  In theory, when someone sells a home financed with the HFA’s assistance, any profits made by the state will go back into the program, which will in turn fund new 0% loans.

  That said, it’s not an unlimited offer – as there is only $300 million available right now. With thousands of Californians anticipated to apply, it may not last long.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 20:40

• Taibbi Still An Establishment Outsider For The Crime Of Actual Journalism
  Taibbi Still An Establishment Outsider For The Crime Of Actual Journalism

  Authored by Charlie Tidmarsh via RealClear Wire,

  If you happened to be in Manhattan’s Financial District on December 12, 2011, you would have witnessed a herd of giant squid floating toward West Street. The papier-mâché puppets, complete with white canvas tentacles and bulbous, golden heads, and upheld by a half-dozen or so Occupy Wall Street protestors, served as the dramatic final act in one of the more dramatic days of the Occupy movement, which grew into the New Year and around the world. Accompanying each squid were hand-painted signs that read variations on the slogan “Goldman Sachs CONSUMES” held up by a coterie of activists marching to the investment bank’s headquarters.

  

  The squids were a reference to a 2009 Rolling Stone piece by journalist Matt Taibbi entitled “The Great American Bubble Machine.” The essay eviscerates Goldman and its alumni network of Fed chairs and Treasury secretaries as the architects of “every major market manipulation since the Great Depression.” Describing them collectively as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,” Taibbi rattles off a damning trail of hundreds of millions in bailout tax dollars that had been dispensed to and from Goldmanites under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. In 2023, it’s hard to imagine a two-year-old piece of magazine writing inspiring the iconography of a street protest; harder still to imagine a political reporter referring to John Thain as Merrill Lynch’s “asshole chief” in print. Taibbi’s brash and prolific writing secured him darling status on the reenergized American Left.

  Taibbi’s career has been long and varied. He began in his twenties as an expat reporter in Eastern Europe during the waning years of the Soviet Union, first in Uzbekistan and then in Moscow, where he was a founding editor of The eXile with Mark Ames. The two American drifters pumped out a tabloid that was as critical of post-Soviet kleptocratic dysfunction as it was crass and boozy. Pieces by Taibbi—about IMF policy in Russia or Putin’s early salvos in the Chechen War—would run alongside Ames’s ribald stories of Moscow nightlife. Taibbi came to be feared and respected in equal measure by the many American bureau chiefs in Moscow at whom he often aimed his scorn, and by 2005, back in the states, he was hired as a contributing political editor at Rolling Stone.

  Now, nearly two decades and ten books later, Taibbi has no editorial home but his own Substack newsletter, Racket News (formerly TK News), one of the highest-grossing publications on the platform. This new independence indicates a news media ecosystem that’s shifted beneath Taibbi’s feet. The same progressive corners that once idolized him as their generation’s Hunter S. Thompson, a gifted stylist sharing their rage at the banality of American political corruption, now tend to mutter his name dismissively alongside Glenn Greenwald’s—onetime investigative wunderkinds who’ve since lapsed into paranoid screeds against wokeness and cancel culture. “Now I just don’t know what the hell he’s going on and on about,” progressive journalist Doug Henwood said of him, speaking to Ross Barkan for a 2021 profile of Taibbi. “He’s obsessed with stupid shit.”

  After winning the 2008 National Magazine Award for his work in Rolling Stone, Taibbi began edging away from traditional news media outlets, and his massive public profile diminished. Between 2010 and 2020, he wrote four books and numerous essays about cancel culture, identity politics, and the media. Then, on December 2, 2022, he published a thread on Twitter entitled “1. THE TWITTER FILES,” which presented a collection of dozens of internal Twitter documents and emails pertaining to the company’s decision, in November 2020, to suppress the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story. The thread erupted on the platform, soon amassing millions of unique engagements and a quarter of a million likes.

  The Twitter Files series currently has 19 installments. Taibbi has published over half of them himself, each framed around a theme but all revealing email correspondences between various government actors and the employees at Twitter, under Jack Dorsey’s ownership, who were responsible for making decisions about content moderation and account discipline. The FBI, for one, was in the habit of sending the company lists of accounts that it requested be banned, suspended, or otherwise actioned, typically on the grounds that said accounts were meddling Russian bots or state-sponsored propagandists. We now know that the FBI’s estimation of Russia’s presence on Twitter was inflated, and that many of the accounts it targeted belonged to ordinary civilians tweeting about politics. Congressman Adam Schiff and his staff appear numerous times in the emails, regularly passing along moderation requests. One particularly damning recent document shows a revision to Twitter’s internal moderation guidance that appears to cede ultimate moderation authority to “the U.S. intelligence community.”

  Taibbi and the Files have been met, in the press, not with journalistic curiosity but scorn, apathy, and silence. The Nation referred to Taibbi and Bari Weiss as Elon Musk’s “pet journalists” in a piece that goes on to dismiss the investigations’ findings as “garden-variety content moderation, notable mostly for its staidness and bureaucratic jargon.” The only large outlet giving the story much coverage is the New York Post. The New York Times gave a skeptical review of the first document trove back in early December and has instead focused most of its Twitter coverage on Musk’s supposed blunders.

  It became harder to ignore the Twitter Files on March 9, when Taibbi and his co-reporter Michael Shellenberger sat down in front of the House Judiciary Committee for four hours of hearings convened by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. In her opening statement, Ranking Member Stacey E. Plaskett (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) introduced Taibbi as a “so-called journalist,” and referred to the two witnesses—both registered Democrats—as “biased talking heads.” Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Florida) offered a particularly scorched-earth line of questioning that focused entirely on Taibbi’s credibility and accused him of profiteering from “cherry-picked” evidence selected for him by Musk. The hearings, by and large, resembled much of the online vitriol that Taibbi has received from liberal corners since the first installment was published: a lot of deflection, distraction, accusation, and rage, and very little engagement with the specific, and grave, revelations about how our government illegally intervenes in public discourse.

  A quick scroll through Taibbi’s Twitter page today shows a man tirelessly committed to fighting back against an onslaught of these dismissals and allegations of bad faith. “I think there’s a clue,” one user said, “in the fact that Taibbi and Greenwald both work for the same Republican benefactors and are extremely well compensated for doing so.” When the Twitter Files revealed that Hamilton 68—an online dashboard dedicated to identifying and stifling supposed state-sponsored Russian propaganda on Twitter—was almost entirely fraudulent, Taibbi was accused of stumping for Vladimir Putin.

  Last week, Taibbi appeared on MSNBC opposite host Mehdi Hasan, a contentious segment anticipated by a series of clashes the two had on Twitter since the publication of the first Files installment. The spar ran for nearly 20 minutes and focused on a select few errors Hasan and others had observed in Taibbi’s Twitter reporting; specifically, that his figure of 22 million Tweets flagged as misinformation in advance of the 2020 election was dramatically exaggerated, and that he confused the CISA (The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency, a government body) with the non-profit Center for Internet Security, or CIS. These were true errors, and Taibbi appeared to be learning of them live on air. However, they pertain to individual sections of individual installments, and Hasan, like so many other gleeful detractors, appeared uninterested in the larger and more rigorously reported sections of the Twitter Files. In the hours after, gossipy headlines and Tweets began cropping up—“MSNBC Host Makes Matt Taibbi Squirm” —that, given the breadth of the Twitter Files’ revelations and the relative narrowness of its detractors’ focus, read as little more than desperate attempts to sandbag Taibbi and his team out of spite, or even self defense. 

  How does an unapologetic lampooner of Russian oligarchy, big bank malfeasance, government corruption, and systemic police violence become an enemy of the Left? One answer: his targets aren’t as clearly defined as they were back in 2009 or 1996. “The real story emerging in the Twitter Files,” wrote Taibbi in February, “is about a ballooning federal censorship bureaucracy that’s not aimed at either the left or the right per se, but at the whole population of outsiders, who are being systematically defined as threats.” During Occupy Wall Street, those outsiders were the 99%, rallying in global solidarity against the 1%; in the Twitter Files, the outsiders appear to be anyone with the temerity to question just how much influence we want the government to have over our public discourse.

  The coalition of investigators that Taibbi has assembled, including Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and Leighton Woodhouse, call this bureaucracy the Censorship-Industrial Complex, and implicate in this coordinated effort a number of sitting U.S. representatives (most, but not all, Democrats) and government agencies. In effect, what we watched on March 9 was an entrenched censorship apparatus attempting to ward off a threat. Or, in Congressman Dan Bishop’s words during the hearings, referring to his colleagues across the aisle: “That hostility shows you what we’re up against. . . . And you’re seeing the Left move to crush you and anybody else who tries to expose this.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 20:20

• Syria Episode Shows How Contractors Still Used To Fight America's Wars
  Syria Episode Shows How Contractors Still Used To Fight America’s Wars

  It’s become increasingly apparent that official data on US military personnel deployed in so-called war zones overseas may be understating the actual number. Likewise, active duty military casualties account for only a portion of the American deaths suffered in Washington’s various overseas crusades in the last 20 years.

  The principal mechanism for that statistical deception is the Pentagon’s growing use of “civilian contractors,” like the one killed in a drone strike targeting US military on a coalition base in eastern Syria last week.

  

  According to the Congressional Research Service in January, at the end of 2022 there were approximately 22,000 contractor personnel working for the DoD throughout Central Command’s area of responsibility, with a reported 7,908 contractors located in Iraq and Syria. 

  When most people hear that term used, they assume that the individuals involved are support personnel providing food, transportation, and other services to the military. This is true.

  But in many cases the contractors are substituting for armed security — mercenaries if you will — and they can suffer casualties at a rate similar to troops who are officially members of the U.S. armed forces. 

  In 2017, U.S. Army General John Nicholson, then Commander of the NATO Resolute Support Mission and United States Forces – Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon had to “substitute contractors for soldiers in order to meet the force manning levels” in Afghanistan. 

  As of October 2018, there were over 25,000 contractors in Afghanistan. Of them, 4,172 were private security contractors in Afghanistan, with 2,397 categorized as armed private security contractors.

  The peak of contractor use, of course, was during the Global War on Terror, when the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, said in its final report in 2011 that there was an “unhealthy over-reliance” on military contractors by DoD, Department of State, and USAID.

  Read the rest of the report at Responsible Statecraft…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 20:00

• FBI Dossier Says Using Terms Like "Based" And "Chad" Is A Sign Of Extremism
  FBI Dossier Says Using Terms Like “Based” And “Chad” Is A Sign Of Extremism

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  An FBI dossier says that signs of ‘online extremism’ include terms such as “based,” “Chad” and “Stacy,” the use of which could end up putting someone on a watchlist.

  

  Doesn’t take much these days, does it?

  The glossary was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

  Using terms like “looksmaxxing”, “Chad”, and “Stacy” will get you on an @FBI list for “Involuntary Celibate Violent Extremism.” pic.twitter.com/VoIegyoUby

  — Oversight Project (@OversightPR) April 3, 2023

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

  Words or phrases that fit the definition of “Involuntary Celibate Violent Extremism” or “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism,” according to the FBI, include the following;

  • Based (to mean something that is agreeable or cool and generally considered to be anti-woke), but according to the FBI a sign that someone has been converted to ‘racist ideology’.

  • Red Pill (taken from the Matrix movies meaning someone uncovering hidden truths), but according to the FBI indicating someone who has adopted racist, anti-Semitic, or fascist beliefs.

  • Chad (an attractive, strong male who is successful with women), but according to the FBI a “race -specific term used to describe the idealized version of a male.”

  • Stacy (a confident, sexually attractive female), but according to the FBI an extremist misogynistic term used by incels.

  • Looksmaxxing (defined by the FBI as the “process of self-improvement with the intent to become more attractive), which is apparently another sign of ‘extremism’, although the federal agency doesn’t explain why.

  The belief “that society is corrupt, and that the believer is a victim of this corruption,” is also a sign that someone has entered a dark, dangerous rabbit hole, according to the FBI.

  Given the wave of violence carried out by supporters of far-left groups such as Antifa and BLM over recent years, one would expect the FBI to have carried out a similar investigation into rhetoric used by those groups.

  However, they appear to be more concerned about right-winders using naughty words to express agreement with each other.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

   In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behind the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 19:40

• "A Parting Gift To Xi": Western Allies Furious At Macron's Call To Stay Out Of Taiwan Crisis
  “A Parting Gift To Xi”: Western Allies Furious At Macron’s Call To Stay Out Of Taiwan Crisis

  Both the content and timing of French President Emanuel Macron’s statements to the press coming off his China trip wherein he urged Europe to step aside from US-China quarrels over Taiwan is driving anger among some Western officials and pundits. As we highlighted yesterday, the statements were widely seen as very ‘China-friendly’, causing fury especially in Washington at a moment Chinese PLA jets and warships have again conducted encircling drills threatening the democratic-run island.

  Macron’s articulating a concept of strategic autonomy for Europe was ‘enthusiastically endorsed’ by Xi and the CCP, who have been focusing on the notion that the West is in decline while China rises, and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will accelerate this trend. “The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” said Macron. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

  

  Some pundits were quick to call Macron’s remarks “spineless and naive” – while others pointed out that what was articulated has always fundamentally been the French position.

  One analyst who pointed out the many ways Macron’s positions will be taken as a slap in the face and distancing from core US-allied policies is Eurasia Group’s Mujtaba Rahman. The below is Rahman’s Twitter thread reacting to the fresh interview statements of Macron [emphasis ours]…

  * * *

  Emmanuel has angered many people (again) by urging Europe to stand aside from US-China quarrels over Taiwan. “We don’t want to get involved in bloc v bloc logic,” he said. The EU should eventually aim to become a “3rd bloc”, strategically independent of BOTH China & US. But his timing is poor. To make these remarks as Chinese military exercises encircled Taiwain – and just after his state visit to China – was a mistake. It will be interpreted as appeasement of Beijing and a green light to Chinese aggression.

  The remarks were made to selected journalists on the Presidential plane. Most of the angry reactions – especially in the US – have been to the truncated (but accurate) version published by Politico. The full interview in Les Echos is more nuanced – but will doubtless still anger many people.

  .@EmmanuelMacron has angered many people (again) by urging Europe to stand aside from US-China quarrels over Taiwan. “We don’t want to get involved in bloc v bloc logic,” he said. The EU should eventually aim to become a “3rd bloc”, strategically independent of BOTH China & US 1/

  — Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) April 10, 2023

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

  Macron presents his three day state visit to China as part of a long game in which Europe – if it wishes to retain its prosperity and independence – must assert its strategic and economic independence from BOTH China and the US. He claims that he has won the “ideological battle” for this idea – “European strategic autonomy – which was mocked when he first floated it six years’ ago. (Has he won? In some respects maybe. Not all).

  He says that Europe will always have many values in common with the US but cannot rely on Washington to preserve Europe’s long-term interests. The top US priority is the US. The number 2 US priority is China. If EU countries follow the US on all things, they will become “vassals”, Macron said.  “We don’t want to be drawn into a bloc v bloc logic…We must instead ‘de-risk’ our model by not depending on others while preserving where possible a considerable unity in our values.”

  On Taiwan… Macron said Europeans should avoid being “followers” and fall in with an American “rhythm and a Chinese over-reaction”. “The risk is that this strategy is self-fulfilling …We Europeans should wake up. It’s not our priority to adapt to other people’s agendas…”

  “If the (US and Chinese) confrontation accelerates, we will not have the time or means to develop our strategic autonomy  and we will become vassals instead of the third pole (of global power) that we could become in a few years.”

  On China, Russia and Ukraine… Macron rejected suggestions that his six hours of talks with President Xi had made no progress. “The Chinese think, as we do, that we are in a military phase, not a time for negotiations,” he said. “But we were able to consolidate common approaches… on respect for the UN charter and on use of nuclear weapons… on desire for a negotiated and lasting peace. I believe our dialogue tempered the suggestions you hear that there is Chinese indulgence towards Russia.”

  In the video Macron says: “I feel at ease with [Xi], including on substance. There’s a mutual attraction between France and China, a fascination, a friendship, a singular journey.

  We need to work to avoid any escalation and at the same time preserve and reinvent an… https://t.co/FS7g0HB2Y0

  — Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 10, 2023

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

  At several places, Macron appears to equate US & Chinese threats to future EU independence. He especially emphasized the dangers to EU of the IRA (inflation reduction act) & “extra-territoriality of the dollar” – US attempts to enforce financial laws outside its territory. Asked if Joe Biden is a politer version of Donald Trump, Macron praised Biden’s attachments to democracy, diplomacy and Europe. But he said Biden was enmeshed in the “bi-partisan logic which puts America as the number 1 priority, China as No 2 and the rest as less important.”

  Macron’s interview is being interpreted as a parting gift to Xi – another doomed attempt (after Putin) to sweet-talk an autocrat. He may also have hoped that “doing a De Gaulle or a Chirac” would improve his popularity in France – although the arguments are all ones that he has made before. More likely, it was just Macron being Macron, thinking ahead in an interesting way but not measuring the immediate political impact of his words.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 19:20

• Collapsed Complexity Predicts Heart Attacks And Market Reversals
  Collapsed Complexity Predicts Heart Attacks And Market Reversals

  By Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research

  Executive Summary

  • The world we inhabit, physiologic systems, and even the healthy functioning of markets are all founded on complexity.

  • The complexity arises from the number of crucial interacting drivers that are driving the system.

  • When this complexity collapses, it is warning that some of the crucial drivers are not working sympathetically.

  • Therefore, the collapsed complexity of a heartbeat is a warning of cardiac risk.

  • In the financial markets, the collapsed complexity of price action is an excellent predictor of market turning-points – rebounds after depression, and reversals after euphoria.

  • Right now, some rebound candidates are USD/CZK, TSN and CVS.

  • And some reversal candidates are Gold and GE.

  The world we inhabit, physiologic systems, and even the healthy functioning of markets are all founded on complexity. So, when this complexity collapses, it is a warning of impending tail-events, heart attacks, and reversals in the markets. But what is complexity, and how do we know when it has collapsed?

  Measuring Complexity, And Its Collapse

  Intuitively, the complexity of any structure can be measured by the length of its shortest description. This intuition was codified as long ago as the 14th century in the principle of Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is the shortest one. Hence, if the shortest description is long, it indicates complexity. But if it is short, it indicates a lack of complexity. Consider the following three patterns of daily returns:

  -4, 1, -2, 0, 5, 4, 1, 5, -2, -3, 1, 4, -1, 1, 5, 1

  1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, -1

  1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

  The first pattern we cannot describe in any shorter way than writing out the string in full. The shortest description is long,  signifying complexity.

  The second pattern we can describe as ‘14 1s, then 3, then -1.’ A much shorter description, signifying low complexity.

  The third pattern we can describe as just ‘16 1s’. The shortest possible description, signifying no complexity.

  Can we go one step further and formalize this complexity more precisely? The answer is yes. The so-called ‘fractal  structure’ or ‘fractal dimension’ of a structure or pattern is the mathematical measure of its complexity, with 1 indicating no complexity and a number higher than 1 indicating increasing complexity (Box 1).

  

  The first pattern has a fractal dimension of 1.34, confirming its complexity. The second pattern has a fractal dimension of 1.04, confirming its low complexity. And the third pattern has the lowest possible fractal dimension of 1, confirming it has no complexity.

  What do these dimensions 1.34, 1.04, and 1 represent? The answer is they measure how much extra information you see by looking at the whole pattern through a magnifying glass. In the first pattern, zooming in on the differing daily returns  provides 1.34 times more information. Thereby, it exhibits some complexity. By contrast, in the third pattern, zooming in on the 16 consecutive ‘1s’ provides no extra information. It exhibits no complexity (A fractal dimension is a scaling rule comparing how a pattern’s detail changes with the scale at which it is considered. This is what we mean by complexity).

  Collapsed Complexity Predicts Heart Attacks

  If all this sounds like abstract mathematics, think again. It is a matter of life or death. A collapsed complexity of your heartbeat is a warning sign of an impending heart attack. Medical researchers point out “the output of healthy physiologic systems reveals complexity, as measured by a high fractal dimension. This complexity appears to degrade with ageing and disease. Further, this collapse in complexity may be quantified, with applications for diagnosis and prognosis.”

  What is the source of this complexity? The answer is that it arises from the number of distinguishable interacting drivers that are driving a system. A healthy heartbeat exhibits high complexity – a high fractal dimension – because the heartbeat is the output of many interacting parts of the heart working sympathetically. The result is complexity (Figure 1).

  

  Unfortunately, when this complexity collapses, it is warning that some of the crucial drivers are not working sympathetically, and therefore presages cardiac risk (Figure 2).

  

  For subjects at high risk of sudden death, fractal organization breaks down. Application of fractal analysis may provide new approaches to assessing cardiac risk and forecasting sudden cardiac death, as well as to monitoring the ageing process.

  So, the best piece of advice you get from me may not be investment advice. It may be medical advice. Get a fractal analysis of your heartbeat.

  Collapsed Complexity Predicts Market Reversals

  Just as the output of healthy physiologic systems reveals complexity, so does the output of healthy financial markets. And just as physiologic complexity arises from the sympathetic output of interacting parts, so does financial market complexity. But what are the interacting parts in the financial markets?

  The interacting parts in the financial market are the different investment time-horizons.

  A healthy market exhibits high complexity – a high fractal dimension – because the price action is the output of more than one investment time-horizon working sympathetically. This creates the price action’s complexity. Hence, when complexity and the fractal dimension collapse, it is a red flag that the time-horizons are no longer working sympathetically, and therefore presages a potential price rebound or reversal.

  Essentially, a fractal dimension of a price action quantifies the relative contribution of the longer-term investor versus the shorter-term investor in driving that price action. For example, the 130-day fractal dimension compares the contribution of the 130-day investment horizon relative to the 1-day investment horizon in driving the 130-day price action. The lower the fractal dimension and complexity, the lower the contribution from the longer-term investor.

  It follows that when the fractal dimension has collapsed to its lower bound, the longer-term investor is no longer driving the price action. It has become a pure short-term momentum market, characterised by a complete loss of complexity.

  So just as fractal organization breaks down for the heart ahead of a sudden cardiac event, fractal organization also breaks down for investments ahead of a sudden reversal.

  This is because if the short-term momentum is upwards and a shorter-term investor wishes to get off the trend, there are no more shorter-term investors left to sell to. The buyer must be a longer-term investor, who will buy only at a value-based lower price, catalyzing a price reversal.

  Of course, there is the alternative possibility that the longer-term investor joins the mania (or depression), continuing the momentum market. But this is both theoretically and empirically a lower likelihood outcome.

  Therefore, the collapsed complexity of price action is an excellent predictor of market turning-points – rebounds after depression, and reversals after euphoria.

  Using this approach, recent successes include pinpointing the sharp rebounds in USD/HUF (Chart 1) and USD/SGD (Chart 2). And pinpointing the sharp reversal in Rio Tinto after the ‘China reopening’ induced euphoria (Chart 3). In fact, the approach has generated a 77 percent success rate over the past six months and a 68 percent success rate over the past year.

  

  

  A full and evolving list of current investments exhibiting collapsed complexity – and therefore vulnerable to reversal or rebound – is available on our website: BCA Research – Counterpoint.

  Right now, some rebound candidates are USD/CZK, TSN and CVS (Charts 4-6).

  

  

  And some reversal candidates are Gold and GE (Charts 7-8).

  

  Out of these, our chosen structured trade is to go long USD/CZK, setting a profit-target and symmetrical stop-loss of 5 percent.

  But I will finish by repeating the much more important message. Get a fractal analysis of your heartbeat. It might save your life.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/10/2023 – 19:00

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