Today’s News 11th August 2022

• From Davos Without Love – True Detective Or True Conspiracy
  From Davos Without Love – True Detective Or True Conspiracy

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  From the point of ignition
  To the final drive
  The point of the journey
  Is not to arrive
  Anything can happen

  — RUSH, PRIME MOVER

  Sometimes I wake up in the morning and feel like I’ve got the cheat codes to the world, that, like Neo in The Matrix, I can see the code behind the world they parade in front of us.

  

  But, I know, in my heart that this is, itself, just another illusion. It’s just another layer of false reality that forms the core of the conflict in Philip K. Dick’s seminal work that The Matrix borrows heavily from, UBIK.

  I also know that sometimes I come off as some insufferable (and vulgar) know-it-all, but that’s all just part of the quest to sift through the mal-information and get something vaguely resembling but not quite unlike The Truth(tm).

  Mark Wauck is a guy who writes about what I write about a lot. He’s on his own truth journey. It’s a laudable mission. He’s got a great Substack in general called Meaning In History that I recommend.

  He recently posted a two-part review of a recent interview I gave with YouTube channel Not the BBC, which is linked below, called “Tom Luongo’s Theory of Everything.” (Links: Part I and Part II). Seb is also a person on that same journey.

  Mark literally transcribes some of my tracing of recent history, in effect, translating my somewhat chaotic ramblings into a coherent vision of what’s in my head.

  And all I could think of was this moment from Bruce Timm’s excellent Justice League Unlimited where someone finally did my man, The Question, proper justice at DC instead of trying to turn him into something woke and broken.

  Funny story about this ‘cartoon.’ I first ran across it in the before time, when I still had DirecTV doing its predictive programming thing on my household. Mostly I had it to watch the NHL, because, at the time that was my side hustle, writing for AOL’s Fan House and blogging about my eternally frustrating Buffalo Sabres.

  I was working away from home at the time, visiting my life on the weekends. In hindsight it was brutal. And it did nearly irreparable damage to my relationship with my daughter. Thankfully, she forgave me for not being there for the first five years of her life.

  After putting my wife and daughter to bed one night I was flipping through the channels when I came across Mr. No Face spouting Ayn Rand and Aristotle at Lex Luthor and had to suppress not only a fan boy squee but the desire to rush in and wake my wife and have her corroborate what I was seeing.

  

  The Question is the primal detective, more so than Batman or even Sherlock Holmes. He is the man seeing the world for what it is but steadfastly refuses to be sucked into the moral relativism of modernity.

  His creator, Steve Ditko, was a staunch Randian Objectivist, much to his professional and, from what I’ve read, personal detriment. For anyone interested in one of the most controversial figures in comics’, and therefore 20th century pop art’s, history, I recommend highly David Currie’s excellent book, Ditko Shrugged: The Uncompromising Life of the Artist Behind Spiderman and the Rise of Marvel Comics.

  The Question was Ditko’s first attempt to embody these ideas. They got progressively more didactic and less interesting.

  Part of what makes my work what it is is the balance between believing enough in one’s ability to parse information while constantly remaining humble in the face of an overwhelming amount of it trying to distract you and lead you down dead ends and dark alleys.

  And I don’t want to sound like some hopeless egoist here, because I’m not. If I’m wrong I’m wrong.

  I’ve been a real functioning scientist testing failed hypothesis after failed hypothesis in my life. Humility doesn’t come easy, but the Universe is nothing if not consistent in its application of lessons.

  I’m as aware of the potential for my own confirmation bias as I call it out in others.

  If you don’t like it, fight me, Bro!

  I found the titles of Mark’s posts simultaneously amusing, flattering, and burdensome — not necessarily in that order. We all crave some amount of approval for what we do in this life. It’s part of the ‘uneconomic’ return on our time investment that Marxists like to tell themselves doesn’t exist in others to justify their envy-driven evil.

  But it’s not all that drives us. There is a burning need, an obsession if you will, to find a path out of the dark world we live in today. The stories are all around us. The anxiety we all feel is written in them. It’s why the cultural touchstones are so important. The zeitgeist tells us both what we are feeling and what we want.

  That’s what keeps me on target and the give and take from those I’ve inspired inspire me to stay the course, even when it would be so much easier to let up, have a drink and coast. But, there is no coasting in this journey, only recharging.

  In the end, I don’t think there is just one big conspiracy. This isn’t my Geopolitical Unified Field Theory.

  But there is a dominant one that has been in operation for a long time. When opportunities arise thanks to shifts in circumstance, that’s when you see the various players make their moves to regain some of what was previously lost. Until a group is categorically taken out, they will always be there lurking for the next opportunity to validate some long-form narrative of their supposed potency.

  As Hippolyta said so eloquently in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, “Evil does not sleep. It waits.”

  I want to thank Seb for structuring the talk in such a way as to lead me to laying everything out in a kind of coherent order for the listener to parse.

  *  *  *

  Join My Patreon if you fear sleeping

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/11/2022 – 02:00

• Democratic Party Playbook Exposed: The Cloward-Piven Strategy
  Democratic Party Playbook Exposed: The Cloward-Piven Strategy

  Via EconomicNoise.com,

  Cloward and Piven is the Playbook of the Democrat Party. It is the second part of this two-pronged approach:

  1. When you don’t have logic or reason on your side, use power.

  2. If you don’t have enough power, flood the system to acquire more.

  

  Cloward and Piven

  Flooding the system was the Cloward and Piven strategy to bring down this country. Create real or phony problems that “require” government actions that begin the process of shifting freedoms from individuals to the State. (For a more layman’s insight, see here.)

  Rahm Emmanuel, President Obama’s Chief of Staff, said that “no good crisis should ever go to waste.” That implied an opening for more government, a Cloward and Piven (CP) opportunity. (To visualize one asserted implementation of this, involving Acorn, see here.)

  The strategy is not a Democrat monopoly. Republicans use it also, although do not brag about it or depend upon it almost exclusively.

  The process is like rust eroding liberty, slowly and steadily. It replaces freedom with dependency and controls.

  There are two problems with the strategy:

  • It must be slow and steady (boil the frog beginning with unheated water, slowly increasing the temperature [a wonderful metaphor but physically erroneous] so that the frog doesn’t notice until it is too late).

  • It must be stealth, that is citizen “frogs” must not realize what is happening.

  The CP strategy was developed in and for a world very different from today. The Internet changed this world. Conventional media was all that needed to be controlled in the CP world. By controlling this source, government created its own “Pravda.”

  Controlling the  media was possible because it was owned by corporations. It consisted of known and immovable assets, which are easy targets for government. The message was simple: Obey or we will put you out of business! 

  Legal action against government is a “fool’s errand.” They own the courts and have unlimited funds to fight. If threatened, you will comply or they will bankrupt you! Tax issues and anti-trust cases are the bludgeoning weapons of choice. Fighting charges, regardless of how false, is akin to a minor suing his parents. That is why media, other companies and wealthy individuals generally settle government claims for enormous sums of money, but without the admission of guilt. There is no better job than that of blackmailer when you are also the sheriff or the Department of  Justice!

  Why are Things Different

  Then came the internet! While it didn’t stop extortion of corporations, it exposed the media as “captured” propagandists. Bloggers began telling different “truths.” The first reaction was to shut them down. Unfortunately for government, this group is so diverse geographically and otherwise, that traditional threats of “putting you out of business” were meaningless. Asset confiscation threats are meaningless when there are no physical assets. To be a blogger only requires electricity and the internet (and perhaps some intellectual capital to enhance success).

  The only way to shut these sources down is to control the Internet and its content. The first was impossible. The second was tried. Unfortunately for government, silencing free speech is frowned upon in free countries, especially those where Free Speech is the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

  Definitions of speech that didn’t qualify for protection were tried (“hate speech,” “lies,” “dangerous rhetoric,” “racism,” “inciting danger,” etc.) in an effort to obviate the First Amendment. Threats of imprisonment were tried, but the First Amendment was too broad and too sacred for these efforts to succeed. Government then went after the platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). It was the same corrupt strategy employed against traditional media — You impose our “bans” (censorship) or we will put you out of business!

  But, “muscling” these corporate platforms only caused new competitors to sprout. Most were smaller and not asset-heavy. Suppressed views and voices began to move to these venues where free speech was allowed.

  Censorship works, but only where government can exert leverage via harm. It was easy to cow Facebook and Twitter. Ditto for established institutions like public schools, colleges and corporations. These entities had to decide whether they wanted the hassle and threats of being “un-woke.” Most submitted, presumably determining that losing some customers would be less costly than getting into a legal or other battle with Leviathan. Some probably thought this “new inclusiveness” would gain them additional customers.

  The Wrong War

  Generals are always prepared to fight the next war in the same manner they fought the last one. They are rarely prepared to fight the next one if it requires different strategies and tactics. So it appears to be here! Government believed prior tactics and strategies would suffice.

  The prior war was against traditional media with fixed positions and assets. The Internet changed “warfare.” It created media guerrilla war! This new enemy moves quickly and has no assets to threaten or destroy. Take away a bloggers website address and he easily gets a new one.

  Government wins against corporate internet players but loses against the “guerrillas.” Vietnam and Afghanistan showed US military weaknesses in non-conventional wars. Traditional bloggers or start-up sharing sites are guerrillas. Conventional war strategies do not win guerrilla battles!

  Arguably the demented Joe Biden and his Obama staff are to thank for ultimately saving this country. Someone inside that Administration realized the “slow boil” strategy was not convincing the American public fast enough and had to be sped up. They put Cloward and Piven into overdrive! Time was likely not on their side, but escalating the war was a fatal mistake! Marty Bent summarized it nicely:

  They tried to do too much too quickly and people have started to develop pattern recognition on the go that allows them to recognize when the unproductive class is attempting to manipulate their minds.  This pattern recognition is accelerated and enhanced by our ability to communicate directly with each other in real time over the internet.

  Instant communications were not possible when Cloward and Piven designed their strategy. Nor was there a means to present an opposing view. That all changed with the Internet. Now you see why governments around the world want to control the Internet. They can’t and they must not be allowed to change that!

  For all its negatives, the Internet has at least one positive — it obsoleted traditional and controllable sources of information. The fragmentation of the internet makes it impossible to control (unless you wish to go full Communist Korea or China). This country is not ready for that step, at least not yet.

  Thank God for the private sector, technology and the Internet. Together they voided the Cloward and Piven strategy, censorship and a complete government take-over of society.

  So long as the Internet exists in its present form (warts and all), freedom cannot be extinguished. Big guns do not silence big truths! Only big censorship can do that and we must not allow that to happen!

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 23:40

• Repression, Terror, Fear: The Government Wants To Silence The Opposition
  Repression, Terror, Fear: The Government Wants To Silence The Opposition

  Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”

  – President Harry S. Truman

  Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Lockdowns.

  This is not the language of freedom. This is not even the language of law and order.

  

  This is the language of force.

  This is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who speak out against government corruption, misconduct and abuse.

  These overreaching, heavy-handed lessons in how to rule by force have become standard operating procedure for a government that communicates with its citizenry primarily through the language of brutality, intimidation and fear.

  We didn’t know it then, but what happened five years ago in Charlottesville, Va., was a foretaste of what was to come.

  At the time, Charlottesville was at the center of a growing struggle over how to reconcile the right to think and speak freely, especially about controversial ideas, with the push to sanitize the environment of anything—words and images—that might cause offense. That fear of offense prompted the Charlottesville City Council to get rid of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that had graced one of its public parks for 82 years.

  In attempting to err on the side of political correctness by placating one group while muzzling critics of the city’s actions, Charlottesville attracted the unwanted attention of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and the alt-Right, all of whom descended on the little college town with the intention of exercising their First Amendment right to be disagreeable, to assemble, and to protest.

  That’s when everything went haywire.

  When put to the test, Charlottesville did not handle things well at all.

  On August 12, 2017, government officials took what should have been a legitimate exercise in constitutional principles (free speech, assembly and protest) and turned it into a lesson in authoritarianism by manipulating warring factions and engineering events in such a way as to foment unrest, lockdown the city, and justify further power grabs.

  On the day of scheduled protests, police deliberately engineered a situation in which two opposing camps of protesters would confront each other, tensions would bubble over, and things would turn just violent enough to justify allowing the government to shut everything down.

  Despite the fact that 1,000 first responders (including 300 state police troopers and members of the National Guard)—many of whom had been preparing for the downtown rally for months—had been called on to work the event, and police in riot gear surrounded Emancipation Park on three sides, police failed to do their jobs.

  In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.”

  “Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville,” reported ProPublica.

  Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”

  In this way, police who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence failed to do either.

  Indeed, a 220-page post-mortem of the protests and the Charlottesville government’s response by former U.S. attorney Timothy J. Heaphy concluded that “the City of Charlottesville protected neither free expression nor public safety.”

  In other words, the government failed to uphold its constitutional mandates.

  The police failed to carry out their duties as peace officers.

  And the citizens found themselves unable to trust either the police or the government to do its job in respecting their rights and ensuring their safety.

  This is not much different from what is happening on the present-day national scene.

  Indeed, there’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention.

  Civil discontent leads to civil unrest, which leads to protests and counterprotests. Tensions rise, violence escalates, police stand down, and federal armies move in. Meanwhile, despite the protests and the outrage, the government’s abuses continue unabated.

  It’s all part of an elaborate setup by the architects of the police state. The government wants a reason to crack down and lock down and bring in its biggest guns.

  They want us divided. They want us to turn on one another.

  They want us powerless in the face of their artillery and armed forces.

  They want us silent, servile and compliant.

  They certainly do not want us to remember that we have rights, let alone attempting to exercise those rights peaceably and lawfully, whether it’s protesting politically correct efforts to whitewash the past, challenging COVID-19 mandates, questioning election outcomes, or listening to alternate viewpoints—even conspiratorial ones—in order to form our own opinions about the true nature of government.  

  And they definitely do not want us to engage in First Amendment activities that challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

  Why else do you think Wikileaks founder Julian Assange continues to molder in jail for daring to blow the whistle about the U.S. government’s war crimes, while government officials who rape, plunder and kill walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist?

  This is how it begins.

  We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

  In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, “domestic terrorism” has become the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties.

  Of course, “domestic terrorist” is just the latest bull’s eye phrase, to be used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.”

  This unilateral power to muzzle free speech represents a far greater danger than any so-called right- or left-wing extremist might pose. The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

  Watch and see: we are all about to become enemies of the state.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware.

  So what’s the answer?

  For starters, we need to remember that we’ve all got rights, and we need to exercise them.

  Most of all, we need to protect the rights of the people to speak truth to power, whatever that truth might be. Either “we the people” believe in free speech or we don’t.

  Fifty years ago, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas asked:

  “Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet… [A]t the constitutional level, speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive… [A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.”

  In other words, the Constitution does not require Americans to be servile or even civil to government officials. Neither does the Constitution require obedience (although it does insist on nonviolence).

  Somehow, the government keeps overlooking this important element in the equation.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 23:00

• Top NYC Health Official Claims 'Retaliation' After Monkeypox Messaging Dispute
  Top NYC Health Official Claims ‘Retaliation’ After Monkeypox Messaging Dispute

  A veteran top infectious diseases expert at the New York City Health Department says he was reassigned in “retaliation” for butting heads with higher-ups regarding the city’s monkeypox messaging.

  Dr. Don Weiss, director of surveillance, was transferred to another unit after he publicly criticized the department’s advice that gay men should simply ‘avoid kissing’ and ‘cover up their sores’ – as opposed to Weiss’ advice that gay men abstain from or reduce sex for a period of time, the NY Post reports.

  

  “Monkeypox in NYC is a sexually transmitted infection. Not communicating this clearly and often is a public health failure,” Weiss said in a July 18 letter to Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan, which he posted on his website.

  “DOHMH continues to emphasize skin-to-skin contact as the major risk and have now dangerously suggested that sex is not a risk, as long as you don’t kiss and cover your sores. This is completely contrary to the evidence,” he continued.

  According to Weiss, leadership within the health department “is more concerned with stigma avoidance” than “giving people the risk information they need to protect themselves and others. People are suffering.”

  Four days after his post, Weiss received a letter from assistant commissioner Sean McFarlane, notifying him that he’d been reassigned to the division of family and child health, effective Monday. His new title? ““infant and reproductive health medical specialist.”

  His salary remains unchanged.

  Weiss also posted an audio recording of a conversation he had with a health department official who would not tell him who ordered his reassignment.

  Noting that the reassignment came just days after publicly taking issue with department brass over monkeypox guidance, Weiss said, “You are aware under the whistleblower statute that you cannot do any retribution to me for my coming forward with information that I thought was necessary for the public to know?”

  “This could be seen as retribution, especially the timing of it.” -NY Post

  On Thursday, NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett declared monkeypox and imminent public health threat.

  “Based on the ongoing spread of this virus, which has increased rapidly and affected primarily communities that identify as men who have sex with men, and the need for local jurisdictions to administer vaccines, I’ve declared monkeypox an Imminent Threat to Public Health throughout New York State,” she said. “This declaration means that local health departments engaged in response and prevention activities will be able to access additional State reimbursement, after other Federal and State funding sources are maximized, to protect all New Yorkers and ultimately limit the spread of monkeypox in our communities.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 22:40

• Florida Board Of Medicine Moves To Ban Transgender Treatments For Minors
  Florida Board Of Medicine Moves To Ban Transgender Treatments For Minors

  Authored by Jannis Falkenstern via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Florida Board of Medicine voted on Aug. 5 to advance a plan that would ban doctors from providing gender-affirming treatments such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers to youth under the age of 18.

  

  Florida Department of Health Secretary, Dr. Joseph Ladapo acknowledged at the public hearing in Broward County, that there were “strong feelings about the issue,” but argued that current standards of care are a “substantial departure” from the “level of evidence and data surrounding the issue.”

  “It is very clear that the effectiveness is completely uncertain,” Ladapo said. “I mean, maybe it is effective, but the scientific studies that have been published today do not support that.”

  Ladapo agreed that findings could change in future, but said that it was unlikely, “considering what I’ve reviewed.”

  Ladapo said minors experiencing gender dysphoria should instead receive counseling to address their concerns. He sent a letter to the board expressing his opinion before the hearing.

  A pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Quentin Van Meter served as an expert for the state and warned the board that a growing number of children are seeking these treatments of gender reassignment.

  “This is a giant experiment on United States children,” Van Meter warned the board.

  Speaking to the board, Van Meter said that Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom have “halted treatment” for transgender youths.

  “They found that there was far more harm than any benefit in allowing these children to receive any kind of medical intervention,” Van Meter said. “There are approximately 127,000 children throughout the U.S. that are receiving gender-affirming treatment.”

  Michael Haller, a professor and chief of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Florida, disagreed with Van Meter’s assessment and said that fewer children are receiving gender-affirming treatments than the public has “been led to believe” and the “numbers are not growing.”

  The Florida Department of Health filed a petition in July that asked for the medical board to initiate a rule-making process on gender reassignment therapies. In addition, the Board of Medicine propelled the state Agency for Health Care Administration to prevent the Medicaid program from covering the treatments for gender dysphoria for adolescents and adults.

  Gender dysphoria, as defined by the federal government, is a “significant distress that a person may feel when sex or gender assigned at birth is not the same as their identity.”

  David Diamond, the board chairman, said other countries have changed their approach to the treatment of gender dysphoria.

  “Do you have any sense what the scientific underpinning may be? Why they have modified their opinions, or is it your contention it was not a scientific decision but rather based upon other factors?” Diamond asked Haller.

  “I think it’s impossible to fully separate the political decision-making from the science, ” Haller replied.

  Haller’s colleague Kristin Dayton, also a pediatric endocrinologist who specializes in gender dysphoria, called the board’s plan “redundant” because standards of care already exist.

  Haller then injected that he didn’t “trust” the state to advance its own plan.

  “If the redundancy were such that it was in line with the general practices and data, then I think it would be adequate; but it’s clear that is not the intent of the state,” Haller said. “They have provided you with a recommendation for a rule that is contrary to what almost all reasonable providers of gender-affirming care and gender care, in general, would say is the standard of care.”

  If the guidelines are finalized, Florida would be the only state where a medical board has barred transgender treatment for adolescents, according to Meredithe McNamara, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine.

  McNamara said in a Tweet that she has “never heard of” a state medical board prohibiting such care.

  “Standards of health care don’t come from states, don’t come from government,” she posted. “They come from clinical research that gets reviewed and vetted and discussed in relevant groups of experts and published and spread widely and adopted by people everywhere.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 22:20

• Northern Mexico Runs Out Of Water, May Impact Beer Production
  Northern Mexico Runs Out Of Water, May Impact Beer Production

  Extreme drought in northern Mexico has sparked a water crisis. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador addressed the beer industry in the region to shift production elsewhere because of sustainability factors, reported Bloomberg. 

  The water crisis is particularly critical in Monterrey, one of Mexico’s most important economic hubs and home to some of the largest beermakers in the world, such as Heineken NV. 

  Some neighborhoods in Monterrey have been without water for nearly three months, and Heineken’s facility has suffered as waterways dry up. Residents have protested commercial districts due to their oversized demand for local water. 

  Monterrey Mexico is having a water crisis. Protestors blocked traffic. Looks like America will need more warehouses. International supply chains are not predictable. pic.twitter.com/olKErrFRpP

  — Daniel Spenrath (@Daniel_Spenrath) June 24, 2022

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

  Lopez Obrador said the government would support a transition of the beer industry from the northern part of the country to the south or southeast, where water supplies are more abundant.

  “This is not to say we won’t produce any more beer, it’s to say that we won’t produce beer in the north — that’s over,” the president said Monday at a daily press conference. “If they want to keep producing beer, increasing production, then all the support for the south or southeast.”

  Lopez Obrador said Constellation Brands is the perfect example of how his administration directed the brewer to halt the construction of a beer plant in the border city of Mexicali because of water shortages. He said the company had planned a new brewery in the southeastern state of Veracruz, though local news outlet El Financiero said construction permits are still pending. 

  Constellation is a top brewer in Mexico and has a portfolio that includes Corona Extra, Corona Light, Modelo Especial, Modelo Negra, and Pacifico, among others. 

  

  The water crisis in Monterrey is so severe that Heineken offered 20% of its water rights to the drought-stricken town and even offered to donate a well to support the municipality. Lopez Obrador called on beermaking companies to assist cities with water shortages. 

  There have yet to be significant reports of beer production disruptions. It’s essential to note Mexico is responsible for 76% of all the beer imported by the US last year, according to Commerce Department figures cited by the Beer Institute. If production upsets emerge, American beer drinkers could be in for a surprise of soaring prices, tight supplies, and an even worst-case scenario: A beer shortage. 

  “You can’t give permits in places where there’s no water,” said the president. “So, we’re going to intervene and that’s what the state is for.”

  Besides Heineken and Constellation, Grupo Modelo, owned by Ab InBev, is another larger brewer in the northern part of the country. 

  While Lopez Obrador has only encouraged beermakers to shift production south, what could come next are water restrictions that would limit production and could create a beer shortage in the US. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 22:00

• Senators Introduce Bill To Stop CCP From Buying US Farmland
  Senators Introduce Bill To Stop CCP From Buying US Farmland

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Two Senate Republicans have introduced a proposal to stop the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from purchasing farmland in the United States, arguing that the communist regime’s acquisitions on American soil pose a threat to national security.

  

  In introducing the bill dubbed the Securing America’s Land From Foreign Interference Act, Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) cited a 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) saying that foreign individuals and entities held an interest in nearly 37.6 million acres of U.S. agricultural land.

  While some 14 states have restrictions against foreign ownership of land, there are no federal restraints regarding private U.S. agricultural land that can be foreign-owned, they said.

  “Chinese investments in American farmland put our food security at risk and provide opportunities for Chinese espionage against our military bases and critical infrastructure. Instead of allowing these purchases, the U.S. government must bar the Communist Party from purchasing our land,” Cotton said in a statement last week.

  Allowing the CCP to purchase U.S. farmland, Tuberville said, is tantamount to “giving our top adversary a foot in the door to purchase land in the United States and undermine our national security.”

  “I hope my colleagues will recognize the importance of our bill and join the effort to prohibit Chinese Communist Party involvement in America’s agriculture industry,” he said.

  The senators noted that because U.S. farmers are rapidly aging, with about a third being over the age of 65, millions of acres of American farmland may be up for sale in the near future.

  Earlier this year, a CCP-linked agribusiness raised national security concerns with its purchase of farmland in North Dakota that’s close to a U.S. military base.

  “This property is approximately 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base, which has led to concern that Fufeng operations could provide cover for PRC [the People’s Republic of China] surveillance or interference with the missions located at that installation, given Fufeng Group’s reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” several senators wrote in a July 14 letter addressed to several Biden administration officials.

  Data

  “Chinese investors’ holdings of U.S. agricultural land surged from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres in 2020,” Cotton’s statement added.

  Meanwhile, in the House, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) introduced legislation in late June that would bar the purchase of agricultural land—including ranches—by officials affiliated with the CCP.

  “If we begin to cede the responsibility for our food supply chain to an adversarial foreign nation, we could be forced into exporting food that is grown within our own borders and meant for our own use,” Newhouse wrote in a statement at the time.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 21:40

• Florida Man With Concealed Firearm Kills Gunman Who Threatened To "Shoot Up The Crowd"
  Florida Man With Concealed Firearm Kills Gunman Who Threatened To “Shoot Up The Crowd”

  Instead of waiting for the police, a law-abiding citizen with a concealed carry license (also known as a ‘good guy with a gun’) took matters into his own hands and acted quickly, drawing his weapon and killing a gunman who was about to “shoot up the crowd” at a party in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday night.

  Local news CBS12 said a fight broke out between 20 people at a family gathering on Division Avenue and 4th Street in West Palm Beach. At that moment, a 22-year-old male retrieved a short-barreled shotgun from his car and threatened to “shoot up the crowd.”

  West Palm Beach Police said the man refused to drop the weapon after yelling out mass shooting threats, and that was when a 32-year-old man with a concealed weapon license fired his pistol, hitting the armed suspect. 

  The law-abiding citizen immediately called 911 late Sunday night after he shot the crazed gunman. Detectives said the 22-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene.

  Instances such as this where a good guy with a gun neutralizes an armed person threatening to kill others tend to be ignored by liberal mainstream media because it goes against the left’s narrative of more gun control. 

  In the last several months, we have documented multiple acts of bravery from law-abiding citizens with concealed carry licenses who acted swiftly to neutralize threats: 

  • “Law-Abiding West Virginian Woman With Concealed Firearm Stops A Mass Shooting” 
  • “Mass Shooter At Indiana Mall Killed By Armed “Good Samaritan” Civilian”

  It’s clear the left-wing media cherrypicks gun-related stories by focusing solely on mass shootings neglecting reports that show how law-abiding citizens with guns have saved lives. 

  Watch the local media report via CBS12.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 21:20

• The Smartphone's Role In Dumbing-Down America
  The Smartphone’s Role In Dumbing-Down America

  Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

  The smartphone has begun to play a huge role In dumbing down America. Rather than being a source to move us forward, it has become an albatross around the necks of many weak-minded souls that depend on them. People turn to these devices for all kinds of unneeded updates including performing simple math problems so they don’t have to think. 

  

  Originated in 1933, the term “dumbing down” was movie-business slang, used by screenplay writers, meaning: “to revise to appeal to those of little education or intelligence.” For those with little drive or purpose, the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy find great comfort in the constant flow of dribble a cell phone can provide. In short, dumbing down is the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content in education, literature, cinema, news, video games, and culture.

  It should be noted this is being written just as the world is on the cusp of being offered a whole new recipe that may lead to more social dysfunction. That comes in the form of “virtual reality” which offers an even stronger form of escapism that may result in damaging the ability of people to relate to each other in the real world. Especially worrisome is the effect it might have on children that experience and embrace it. Their ability to separate this fake virtual world from reality could become impaired.

  A great deal of the problems with smartphones are rooted in the idea everyone deserves one. Yes, I said deserves, not needs. Smartphones are now considered by many people as an extension of their being. A government program started years ago has mushroomed in size and transfers a huge amount of wealth down the social ladder. Years ago I wrote an article that outlined a government program supplying free phones to people with low incomes or that have been declared needy. At that time these phones have become known as “Obama Phones.” Below I give some of the details about the program including who qualifies. If you want to be popular with the voters give them free stuff and let them know that they should not bite the hand that feeds them.

  

  The term “Obama phone” is not a myth as an online search rapidly confirms. This popular government program explains why we see so many people that would appear to not have a dime in their pockets walking along or driving down the street talking on a cell phone. What exactly is the free Obama phone? It is a program that is meant to help the financially unstable who cannot afford access to a cell phone. It seems that communication should not be limited to people based on what they can afford. The Lifeline program started decades ago to help low-income families have access to landlines has been expanded. Over the years the cost of cell phones and cellular service has decreased and the program has been extended to cover cell phones.

  So who qualifies? It appears little has changed over the years, it seems that if you or members of your household are, receiving the following benefits you automatically qualify for the Lifeline program. The best way to know if you qualify is by filling out an application for a Lifeline provider in your state. Those interested in the program must have an income of less than 135% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines or about $22,350 per year for a family of four.

  • Food Stamps or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

  • Medicaid

  • Supplemental Security Income – commonly known as SSI

  • Health Benefit Coverage under Child Health Insurance Plan (CHIP)

  • The National School Lunch Program’s Free Lunch Program.

  • Low-Income Energy Assistance Program – LIHEAP

  • Federal Public Housing Assistance ( Section 8 )

  • If you are a low-income Eligible Resident of Tribal Lands

  • Temporary Assistance to Needy Families – TANF

  Lifeline is a government-sponsored program, but who is paying for it? Some people claim that the government is using taxpayers’ money to run this program, however, the claim is false. The clever clowns we have sent to Washington found a backhanded under-the-table sort of way to make it appear it is not taxpayer money. Universal Service Fund (USF) which is administered by the Federal Communication Commission along with the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC), pays for the Lifeline phone assistance program. The Universal Service Fund (USF) was created back in 1997 by Federal Communication Commission to achieve the goals set by Congress under the Telecommunication Act of 1996. According to the Act, service providers are obliged to contribute a portion of their interstate and international telecommunications revenues. In short, paying phone customers are paying for it.

  It is written that if you are one of those people who have lost their jobs due to the recession, then probably you’re having a hard time with your daily expenses. On top of that, paying telephone bills is just another pressure. You can get rid of this burden by applying to the “Lifeline Assistance Program” run by the government. To get a phone contact the provider of this service. The government has approved many companies at the national and regional levels to provide this service to eligible people.
   Just how much might one of these free government cell phones change your life?

  • An employer can more easily reach you with a job offer if you have a free government cell phone.
  • You can stay in touch with your doctor and other emergency medical professionals more easily with a free government cell phone.
  • A free government cell phone can help you keep in touch with family and other loved ones.

  And the good news is that while a government-assisted cell phone provides you with up to 250 monthly minutes to go with your free cell phone. While that’s a generous contribution from the government, it’s barely enough airtime to last many people a month. But good news is they can easily buy more minutes for the phone from each of the major Lifeline cell phone companies. You can see this is what has happened when it has gotten to the point where people carry their phone in their hand as they go about their business. Apparently, if you use a promotion code, you can get some very good deals.

  

  Smartphone Have Become A Major Distraction

  A great deal of attention has been given to some of the ideas and visions the World Economic Forum has floated. A powerful and very visible glimpse was contained in the public relations video entitled: “8 Predictions for the World in 2030. Its 2030 agenda promotes the idea that  by 2030, “You will own nothing. And you’ll be happy.” Smartphones dovetail with edging the general population towards such an existence. With the government transferring the costs for millions of customers to those that pay full price, another face of corporate welfare is exposed.

  

  Over The Years This Addiction Has Only Grown Stronger

  Interestingly while many people admit they are addicted to these phones that seem to offer a form of escapism from the real world, some users are moving back to dumbphones. A video by ColdFusion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02mIRnPJm6g), an Australian-based online media company, looks into this “Anti-Smartphone Revolution.” It points out how the dumbphone or what is sometimes called a brick is far less intrusive in our lives. Surprisingly, it is those users between the age of 25-35 that are leading this charge.

  

  Are Smartphones Making Children Slaves To Big Tech?

  We should never underestimate the role of the smartphone in dumbing down America. We can only hope people will begin to take a closer look at these society-changing devices. When a phone will provide the answer to simple math problems many people no longer feel compelled to learn or memorize the things which give us perspective and help us to understand the world around us. It has become apparent, that smartphones change more than society. They change people, too. Being able to push a few buttons does not necessarily make you smarter.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 21:00

• Dozens Of Whole Foods Stores Allow Customers To Pay With Palm Print Biometric Data
  Dozens Of Whole Foods Stores Allow Customers To Pay With Palm Print Biometric Data

  Amazon’s palm-reading payment technology will expand to dozens of Whole Foods locations across California. Shoppers will be able to pay for groceries by scanning the palm of their hand at checkout devices instead of using cash or card, as this is more evidence of the emergence of a cashless society. 

  The Verge reported that 65 Whole Foods stores in California would soon get the new payment technology. This is the most extensive rollout by the e-commerce giant since announcing the payment system in 2020. 

  

  “Customers can set up Amazon One by registering their palm print using a kiosk or at a point-of-sale station at participating stores. To register, you need to provide a payment card and phone number, agree to Amazon’s terms of service, and share an image of your palms. Once completed, you can take items to checkout and not have to take out your wallet — or even your phone. A hover of your hand over the device is all that’s needed to pay and leave,” The Verge said. 

  Amazon One has been pilot tested at Whole Foods stores in Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, and New York. Amazon said customers had found the new payment system more convenient to checkout, though privacy concerns emerged last year by a group of lawmakers who raised questions about the megacorporation collecting biometric data of its customers.

  A group of senators in 2021 sent Amazon CEO Andy Jassy a letter for more details about how it scans palm prints. 

  Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Jon Ossoff (D-GA) asked Jassy if Amazon plans to expand its biometric payment system and if the data collected will allow the company to increase the effectiveness of targeted ads.  

  “Amazon’s expansion of biometric data collection through Amazon One raises serious questions about Amazon’s plans for this data and its respect for user privacy, including about how Amazon may use the data for advertising and tracking purposes,” the senators wrote in the letter.

   Amazon One appears to be ushering in a cashless society where a customer’s body is becoming a transactional tool. 

  Amazon has successfully provided customers with a convenient lifestyle through high-tech devices (think of Alexa smart speakers and Ring smart cameras), but the only tradeoff is the company harvests user data for advertisement purposes. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 20:40

• Judge Orders DOJ To Respond To Requests To Unseal FBI’s Trump Warrant
  Judge Orders DOJ To Respond To Requests To Unseal FBI’s Trump Warrant

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  The Justice Department has to respond to motions to unseal a warrant that triggered the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, according to a magistrate judge who reportedly approved the search.

  Judicial Watch and the Albany Times Union newspaper filed a motion to unseal the document earlier this week, which was granted by a judge in the case.

  “On or before 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on August 15, 2022, the Government shall file a Response to the Motion to Unseal,” wrote Judge Bruce Reinhart on Wednesday afternoon, referring to the Department of Justice.

  “The response may be filed ex parte and under seal as necessary to avoid disclosing matters already under seal. In that event, the Government shall file a redacted Response in the public record. If it chooses, the Government may file a consolidated Response to all Motions to Seal,” he wrote.

  Neither the FBI nor Justice Department has issued public comments about the raid, which was first confirmed by Trump on Monday evening.

  The FBI declined to comment when contacted by The Epoch Times, and the Justice Department has not responded to several requests for comment.

  As for the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden was not aware of the raid before Trump’s announcement. Her claim was refuted by Trump on his social media platform, Truth Social.

  “What I can tell you definitively and for sure, he was not aware of this,” Jean-Pierre said of Biden. “Nobody at the White House was. Nobody was given a heads up and we did not know about what happened yesterday.”

  Requests

  On Wednesday, the Times Union’s managing editor, Brendan J. Lyons, wrote to Reinhart to ask for the warrant to be unsealed.

  “Given that the search warrant(s) have been executed, and the target of that search has full knowledge of what occurred, there is no impediment to any ongoing investigation from the disclosure of the search warrant order or the returns. As such, these records should be unsealed,” the letter to the Florida judge reads.

  

  Judicial Watch asked for the warrant as part of an investigation into “the potential politicization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice and whether the FBI and the Justice Department are abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President [Joe] Biden.”

  “If the Court were to unseal the materials, Judicial Watch would obtain the materials, analyze them, and make them available to the public,” the letter said. “Unsealing the records therefore would further Judicial Watch’s mission of educating the public.”

  It comes as Eric Trump, a son of the former president, told the Daily Mail that a Trump attorney at Mar-a-Lago, Christina Bobb, asked FBI agents Monday about seeing a warrant.

  “They would not give her the search warrant,” he told the outlet, referring to Bobb. “So they showed it to her from about 10 feet away. They would not give her a copy of the search warrant.”

  Top Republicans, meanwhile, demanded an investigation into the raid and argued that it was politically motivated to wound the GOP ahead of the 2022 midterms. Some have said the Justice Department immediately needs to release documents pertaining to the raid.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 20:20

• Visualizing All The Latest Major Layoffs At US Corporations
  Visualizing All The Latest Major Layoffs At US Corporations

  Hiring freezes and layoffs are becoming more common in 2022, as U.S. businesses look to slash costs ahead of a possible recession.

  Understandably, this has a lot of people worried. In June 2022, Insight Global found that 78% of American workers fear they will lose their job in the next recession. Additionally, 56% said they aren’t financially prepared, and 54% said they would take a pay cut to avoid being laid off.

  In this infographic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes major layoffs announced in 2022 by publicly-traded U.S. corporations.

  

  Note: Due to gaps in reporting, as well as the very large number of U.S. corporations, this list may not be comprehensive.

  An Emerging Trend

  Layoffs have surged considerably since April of this year. See the table below for high-profile instances of mass layoffs.

  

   

  Here’s a brief rundown of these layoffs, sorted by industry.

   

  Automotive

  Ford has announced the biggest round of layoffs this year, totalling roughly 8,000 salaried employees. Many of these jobs are in Ford’s legacy combustion engine business. According to CEO Jim Farley, these cuts are necessary to fund the company’s transition to EVs.

  We absolutely have too many people in some places, no doubt about it.

  – JIM FARLEY, CEO, FORD

  Speaking of EVs, Rivian laid off 840 employees in July, amounting to 6% of its total workforce. The EV startup pointed to inflation, rising interest rates, and increasing commodity prices as factors. The firm’s more established competitor, Tesla, cut 200 jobs from its autopilot division in the month prior.

  Last but not least is online used car retailer, Carvana, which cut 2,500 jobs in May. The company experienced rapid growth during the pandemic, but has since fallen out of grace. Year-to-date, the company’s shares are down more than 80%.

  Financial Services

  Fearing an impending recession, Coinbase has shed 1,100 employees, or 18% of its total workforce. Interestingly, Coinbase does not have a physical headquarters, meaning the entire company operates remotely.

  A recession could lead to another crypto winter, and could last for an extended period. In past crypto winters, trading revenue declined significantly.

  – BRIAN ARMSTRONG, CEO, COINBASE

  Around the same time, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced it would fire hundreds of home-lending employees. While an exact number isn’t available, we’ve estimated this to be around 500 jobs, based on the original Bloomberg article. Wells Fargo, another major U.S. bank, has also cut 197 jobs from its home mortgage division.

  The primary reason for these cuts is rising mortgage rates, which are negatively impacting the demand for homes.

  Technology

  Within tech, Meta and Twitter are two of the most high profile companies to begin making layoffs. In Meta’s case, 350 custodial staff have been let go due to reduced usage of the company’s offices.

  Many more cuts are expected, however, as Facebook recently reported its first revenue decline in 10 years. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear he expects the company to do more with fewer resources, and managers have been encouraged to report “low performers” for “failing the company”.

  Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here.

  – MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, META

  Also in July, Twitter laid off 30% of its talent acquisition team. An exact number was not available, but the team was estimated to have less than 100 employees. The company has also enacted a hiring freeze as it stumbles through a botched acquisition by Elon Musk.

  More Layoffs to Come…

  Layoffs are expected to continue throughout the rest of this year, as metrics like consumer sentiment enter a decline. Rising interest rates, which make it more expensive for businesses to borrow money, are also having a negative impact on growth.

  In fact just a few days ago, trading platform Robinhood announced it was letting go 23% of its staff. After accounting for its previous layoffs in April (9% of the workforce), it’s fair to estimate that this latest round will impact nearly 800 people.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 20:00

• "Completely Unprecedented" Martin Armstrong Warns Trump Raid Is "Deathblow To Democracy"
  “Completely Unprecedented” Martin Armstrong Warns Trump Raid Is “Deathblow To Democracy”

  Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

  Last month, legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong said the time to prepare is now for the chaos that is coming in 2023. 

  

  The destabilization of America has been kicked into high gear early with the FBI raid on President Trump’s Florida home this week.  Armstrong explains,

  “This really is unprecedented…

  In the United States, we are supposed to have civilized transfer of power.  That’s all coming to an end.  I am not being dramatic here.  From a legal perspective, this is completely unprecedented.  The danger of this is once they have done this, if the Republicans are ever allowed to get back into power, they would only end up doing the same thing to the Democrats…

  It’s striking a real deathblow to the very idea of a democracy.  We are not, at least we were not until today, someplace like Guatemala where you throw the opposition in jail, kill them or whatever you do.  This is what’s going on.  They are so afraid of Trump running in 2024 that this is just over the top.  Once they did this, there is no end.”

  Armstrong says the Democrats are in “dire straits” at the polls–and they know it.  Armstrong thinks the Trump raid by the FBI is an act of desperation, and it will “backfire,” but that’s not the only play in the Democrat playbook for the midterms in November.  Armstrong says,

  “I have been warned that the Democrats have been maneuvering, and the reason they are allowing all the illegal aliens to come in is they intend to allow them to vote.  You already had the Justice Department go after one state that said you had to prove you are an American to vote, and they filed a suit against them saying that they violated their civil rights.  At that stage of the game, hey, all of Europe, Australia, everybody should just send in a vote.”

  Armstrong’s says forget what the mainstream polls are saying about voter support for Democrats and Joe Biden because the real numbers are much lower than the public is told.  Armstrong’s “Socrates” computer program shows Joe Biden has just 12% of support in America.  Maybe this is why Democrats are desperate and realize they have to cheat and break the law to stay in power.  It’s not going to get any better, and the entire world is in the same sinking boat.  Armstrong says,

  “We basically are sitting here in the middle of the collapse of Western civilization.  It’s socialism that is collapsing because these people have done nothing but borrow money to bribe them to vote for them…

  There is no way to pay it back, and they had no intention of paying it back…

  Europe is, just forget it.  You have emerging markets collapsing around the world because to sell their debt, they had to put it into dollars.  Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Pakistan, Argentina are falling apart on a global scale.”

  Armstrong thinks the dollar will be strong for now and not to expect a collapse in the USA anytime soon because America will be the last man standing. 

  That said, Armstrong does see the possibility of a “stock market collapse in September.” 

  Armstrong is also “worried about civil war or extreme civil unrest in 2023 in America.” 

  Armstrong is seeing a “world war coming in 2024 or after.”

  Armstrong also said, “My computer warns that there may not even be an election in America in 2024.  It’s reaching that critical period.  So, this raid on Trump is like throwing down the gauntlet.  Everything is gone.”

  There is much more in the nearly 53-minute interview.

  Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong, cycle expert and author of the upcoming new book “The Plot to Seize Russia, Manufacturing World War III” for 8.9.22.

   

  To Donate to USAWatchdog.com, Click Here

  There is some free information, analysis and articles on ArmstrongEconomics.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 19:40

• Ring Cameras Amassing Info On Users…And Their Neighbors
  Ring Cameras Amassing Info On Users…And Their Neighbors

  About 18% of Americans now own a video doorbell. That means a significant and growing slice of American neighborhoods are under a form of intermittent surveillance. If the surveillance video and associated data were the exclusive property of individual homeowners, it might not be of much concern. 

  However, that’s not the case. For example, Ring, the company behind the top-selling brand, maintains a vast database on its users and their cameras. Ring is an Amazon subsidiary, thanks to the tech giant’s 2018 purchase of the company for over $1 billion.

  Ring says it doesn’t sell its customers data, but sometimes it gives it away for free — to the police. In the first half of 2022 alone, Ring fielded more than 3,500 requests from law enforcement agencies. 

  Ring keeps plenty of info that you’d expect them to have. According to Wired magazine:

  Ring gets your name, phone number, email and postal address, and any other information you provide to it—such as payment information or your social media handles if you link your Ring account to Facebook, for instance. The company also gets information about your Wi-Fi network and its signal strength, and it knows you named your camera “Secret CIA Watchpoint,” as well as all the other technical changes you make to your cameras or doorbells.

  But that’s not all. In 2020, the BBC reported that Ring keeps data on every motion detected by its cameras, including the exact time “down to the millisecond.” The event database also tracks doorbell rings — and how many rings — as well as on-demand actions by the Ring doorbell’s owner, such as requesting live video or speaking through the speaker. 

  

  BBC also found Ring’s database tracked interactions with the company’s apps — every time it’s opened, various types of screen-taps, and instances where the owner zoomed in on video footage. Over time, scrutiny of all this data can provide insights into whether you’re home or not.

  If you subscribe to the Ring Protect Plan — which archives 6 months of video and audio — Ring may even keep the video you’ve personally deleted, according to a Wired analysis of the company’s privacy policy. 

  Maybe you’ve opted against buying a Ring doorbell out of privacy concerns. That’s fine, but don’t forget that your neighbor’s Ring camera may be watching you — or even listening to you. Tests have found Ring cameras can record audio from 20 feet away. If you’re strolling by a Ring-equipped house and talking to someone, you and your conversation could be in Ring’s database. The same is true if you’re on your own property and you’re close enough to a neighbor’s camera and microphone. 

  This isn’t just a question of whether you trust Amazon and Ring not to misuse your video, audio and associated data. There’s always the chance that your info could be hacked by common criminals — or the ones who work for the government.

  Speaking of the latter, earlier this year, Amazon was awarded a $10 billion renewal of a secret NSA contract.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 19:20

• A History Lesson For President Joe Biden
  A History Lesson For President Joe Biden

  Authored by Vance Ginn & John Hendrickson via RealClear Policy,

  A nation emerging from a significant pandemic and an economic downturn awaited President Joe Biden in early 2021. President Warren G. Harding inherited a similar situation after winning the 1920 election in a landslide. But Harding overcame it by getting government out of the way. The economy recovered quickly—whereas Biden enacted bad progressive policies that have resulted in a double-dip recession with 40-year high inflation.

  

  Biden should learn from Harding and his successor President Calvin Coolidge to correct government failures and allow markets to heal so that we can enjoy abundant economic prosperity again.

  In the aftermath of the Great War, the U.S. suffered a severe economic downturn. The late economist Milton Friedman described this as one of the most “severe on record.” The depression of 1920-1921 is often forgotten because it was short-lived, but it offers policy lessons that can be applied to our current situation.

  Prior to and during the Great War, President Woodrow Wilson led a massive expansion of the federal government, which included the creation of the Federal Reserve and personal income tax system. After the war, markets corrected from those government failures throughout the economy triggering a steep economic downturn.

  The business and agriculture sectors were hit particularly hard by the depression of 1920-1921, which led to bankruptcies and farm foreclosures. Unemployment was estimated to be about 12% and the nation was hit buffered from deflation. Americans were hurting.

  During the presidential campaign of 1920, then-Sen. Warren G. Harding pledged a “return to normalcy” against Wilson’s progressivism. During the campaign, Harding argued that the nation needed to return to sound money, less spending, lower taxes, less debt, and limited government.

  This was the fiscal policy blueprint of the “normalcy” agenda. Harding understood that to revive business confidence and lower high income tax burdens, the federal government must get its fiscal house in order.

  In 1921, Congress passed the Budget and Accounting Act, which under the leadership of Bureau of the Budget Director Charles Dawes and later his successor, Herbert Lord, worked to reduce federal spending. Dawes would compare the task of cutting spending to having a “toothpick with which to tunnel Pike’s Peak.”

  Harding also understood that to lower the high tax rate, spending had to be addressed first. “The present administration is committed to a period of economy in government…There is not a menace in the world today like that of growing public indebtedness and mounting public expenditures…We want to reverse things,” explained Harding.

  Reducing spending was not easy.

  As an example, Harding vetoed a popular bonus for veterans of the Great War. Overall, Harding’s commitment to economy in government resulted in an estimated 50% reduction in federal spending. Harding also relied on Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who also shared his views regarding limiting spending.

  Mellon would serve as the lead architect for Harding’s tax reform policies. The top income tax rate was over 70% and Mellon’s goal was to lower the rate. Through a series of tax reforms, the high rate would eventually be cut to 25% during the Coolidge administration.

  Harding and Coolidge’s fiscal conservatism of lowering spending and tax rates and paying down the national debt resulted in a quick economic recovery. The Federal Reserve also tightened the money supply. The late historian Paul Johnson wrote “Harding had done nothing except cut government expenditure, the last time a major industrial power treated a recession by classic laissez-faire methods…”

  After the death of Harding in August 1923, Coolidge continued and strengthened the economic policies of Harding. President Coolidge, along with Secretary Mellon, continued to lower spending and tax rates. The federal budget was $3.14 billion in 1923. By 1928, when Coolidge left, the budget was $2.96 billion.

  Altogether, spending and taxes were cut in about half during the 1920s, leading to faster real economic growth and productivity that contributed to budget surpluses throughout the decade. The decade had started in depression and by 1923 the national economy was booming with low unemployment.

  And that continued throughout much of the decade. This would have continued but government expanded again. In particular, the Hoover administration ran deficits and raised taxes and the Federal Reserve had too loose and then too tight money supply. This led to the Great Depression—a phenomenon that was avoidable and was exacerbated by President Roosevelt’s large expansion of government.

  It’s unlikely that President Biden will follow the pro-growth economic policies of Harding and Coolidge, nor will the Fed tighten the money supply enough to reduce inflation.

  President Biden’s philosophy of woke progressivism is bankrupting our country. The latest example is the recently passed “Inflation Reduction Act” that will lead to higher taxes, more inflation, and a deeper recession.

  Congress instead should have adopted more of the pro-growth policies practiced by Harding and Coolidge.

  Vance Ginn, Ph.D., is chief economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and is the former associate director for economic policy at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, 2019-20. John Hendrickson is the Policy Director at Iowans for Tax Relief Foundation.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 19:00

• Inflation: A Play In Three Acts
  Inflation: A Play In Three Acts

  By Simon White, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and reporter

  Today’s drop in inflation potentially sets the stage for less tightening – or even easing – in the medium term, leading to a resurgence in inflation later in the cycle, eventually requiring a significant re-tightening of monetary conditions. Even if today’s fall in consumer-price inflation means we are over the peak, and it continues to slow, we are still probably only in the first act of a three act play.

  The 1970s are an imperfect analogy, but they have one crucial aspect in common with today: the monetization of large fiscal deficits. Runaway inflation is almost always preceded by large government borrowing financed by the central bank.

  Both the late 1960s and the last few years saw rising fiscal deficits facilitated by a central bank that thought it had more room to ease than it really did, as was the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s; or one that decided to ignore rising inflation altogether, as the Fed did with its recent maximum-employment/average-inflation-targeting framework.

  Once the conditions for high inflation are there, the economy is at the mercy of “events”, whether that be the Arab Oil Embargo in the early 1970s, or the pandemic and the Ukraine war in the current period.

  We are now in Act I, where inflation is high and rising. We will soon enter Act II, where a respite in inflation hoodwinks the Fed into believing it can take its foot off the tightening pedal prematurely. This sets the stage for Act III, where price growth stops falling, and takes off again, this time making new highs.

  

  But what’s maybe happening under the surface here? A way to think about this is to quantitatively break up inflation into cyclical and structural components.

  Cyclical price pressures should soon start to ease, taking the headline number down. But, as the chart below shows, the estimate for structural inflation is very high, making up almost half the headline number.

  

  If almost half of current inflation proves harder to shake, the cyclical-driven fall in the headline number would only be cosmetically positive. Once the cyclical components start contributing positively again, they would reinforce the stickier, structural inflation, potentially leading CPI to new highs.

  This would be Act III, and we know from the Volcker era how that has to end.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 18:40

• The Geopolitics Of Inflation
  The Geopolitics Of Inflation

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via DailyReckoning.com,

  Though it’s difficult to be confident of anything in the current flux we’re experiencing, I am pretty confident of three things:

  1) Price is set on the margins.

  2) Currencies are the foundation of every economy.

  3) The financial forecasts issued to calm the public do not reflect operative geopolitical goals.

  Let’s break this down. Every national government has “global interests.” Governments naturally do whatever they can to boost dynamics favorable to the state and nation, and obstruct or hinder dynamics injurious to the state or nation.

  As a general rule, nations have relatively few levers they can pull to influence global finance, trade, growth, currencies or the geopolitical balance of power.

  One such lever is the interest the state pays on its sovereign bonds.

  

  Leverage

  If a central bank/state increases the interest it pays on its bonds, that attracts capital seeking higher return (presuming the bond is perceived as safe from default). This inflow of capital strengthens demand for its currency, because the bonds are denominated in the state’s currency.

  As the currency strengthens vis-à-vis other currencies, it buys more goods and services. Imports become cheaper and the nation’s exports become more costly to those using other currencies.

  Another lever is to reduce the exports of commodities, especially essential commodities like energy and grains. If this reduction reduces the global supply, the price leaps.

  If allies get the exports and enemies don’t, this punishes enemies and rewards allies.

  A third lever is to limit imports.

  A consumer nation can limit imports from specific exporters, or make do with domestic supplies or only buy from allies.

  A fourth lever is to meet with allies and reach an agreement about finance and commodities to stave off imbalances that threaten the stability of the alliance.

  An example of this is the 1985 Plaza Accord that weakened the U.S. dollar at the expense of the Japanese yen and European currencies. The strong dollar was crushing U.S. exports and generating destabilizing trade deficits in the U.S.

  Each of these levers has geopolitical consequences.

  It’s All Connected

  Financial actions such as raising interest rates are presented as purely financial, but their geopolitical consequences are not lost on the nation’s political/military leadership.

  Boosting or trimming exports of commodities can be presented as financial as well, even when the real purpose is geopolitical.

  In other words, events which are presented as solely financial can also serve geopolitical aims beneath the domestic-centric rah-rah.

  Consider how the price of oil contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  In the mid-to-late 1980s, the price of oil fell and stayed relatively low for years.

  In 1986, oil fell under $10/barrel. Adjusted for inflation, this was lower than prices paid in the late 1950s.

  Although this ample oil supply was fundamentally a result of super-major oil fields discovered in the 1960s and 1970s coming online, it had a geopolitical consequence few fully appreciate: It pushed the Soviet Union over the fiscal cliff into collapse.

  No Coincidence, Comrade

  Oil and natural gas exports were the primary source of the Soviets’ hard cash it needed to buy goods and commodities from other nations.

  Once the oil revenues dried up, the Soviet Union was no longer financially viable.

  Was this lengthy “glut” of oil just good luck for the U.S., or was a policy agreement with Saudi Arabia and other oil exporters that “nudged” the price lower also a factor?

  What do you reckon — pure luck or luck “nudged” to achieve a geopolitical goal? Given the high stakes and the vulnerability of the USSR to low oil prices, is it plausible that it was entirely happy happenstance?

  In the 37 years since the Plaza Accord, the U.S. has endeavored to keep the dollar relatively weak for a number of reasons: to limit trade deficits and avoid putting undue pressure on emerging countries with debts denominated in USD and nations that imported commodities priced in USD, which is virtually all commodities.

  This weak-dollar policy has changed, with profound implications. The soaring USD is adding a currency “surcharge” on top of rising prices for commodities such as oil and grain.

  A Double-Whammy of Inflation

  Take Japan as an example: The yen has weakened 20% against the USD. This means every commodity priced in USD is 20% higher in price for those using yen.

  Add the increase in cost due to global scarcities and that’s a double-whammy hit of inflation.

  These sharp increases in inflation/price of essentials are recessionary as demand craters. People simply don’t have enough earnings to pay higher costs for essentials and maintain their discretionary spending on goods and services.

  Recall that price is set on the margins. If supply of oil falls 5 million barrels per day (BPD), price rises. But if demand falls 10 million BPD, the price of oil plummets.

  As the price of oil falls, oil exporters receive much less money, and so they compensate by pumping more oil. This serves to further depress prices.

  Who would benefit from a rising U.S. dollar and a global recession, and who would be hurt? The U.S. would benefit from a higher USD because that lowers the cost of all imports. Everyone else using weaker currencies would pay more for imported commodities.

  As demand for oil falls, the price plummets. That helps consumer nations and hurts oil exporters.

  Is China the Target?

  As the USD rises, it drags every currency pegged to the USD higher with it, making their exports more expensive. That would pressure China’s exports, forcing China to adjust its currency peg, reducing the purchasing power of everyone using yuan/RMB.

  Is the looming global recession merely “bad luck” or could an unavoidable global recession be “nudged” to serve geopolitical aims?

  The forces that have been unleashed (higher interest rates, scarcities, strong dollar) will take time to work through the global economy. The USD may drop and oil may rise over the next few months, but where will global demand and oil be in a year?

  What Really Matters

  Many people expect the dollar to weaken and the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates back to zero once the recession becomes undeniable.

  I am not so sure. A case can be made that interest rates have completed a 40-year cycle of decline and are now in a secular cycle higher.

  A case can also be made that the weak-dollar policy has ended and the dollar will move higher, accelerating the financial and geopolitical consequences described above.

  A strong currency exports inflation to those nations which do not issue the currency. Luck, coincidence or “nudge”?

  Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe what matters is that it’s happening.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 18:20

• Some More Good Inflation News: Owner-Equivalent Rents Are About To Peak
  Some More Good Inflation News: Owner-Equivalent Rents Are About To Peak

  It was seven months ago today, when looking at the latest real-time rent data from the likes of Apartment List and Zillow, we highlighted to readers that the surge in rents has finally peaked as the annual rate of rental increases had capped out at 18% and when Owner-Equivalent Rent – the broadest and most closely watched housing/shelter/rent series in the CPI – was just starting to move higher. This was notable not only because this was around the time the Fed finally realized inflation was not transitory, but also because with its traditional 4-7 month delay, it meant that shelter inflation had already peaked (on an annual basis) and its rate of Y/Y growth was now declining; it also meant that it would take readers of the CPI report – such as the Fed – about 4-7 months to figure out what our readers already knew in January.

  

  Incidentally, this same real-time rental data is what prompted us to correctly warn one year ago (when “team transitory” still ruled supreme), that rental hyperinflation had arrived bringing with it “soaring prices, competition and desperation.”

  

  Well, fast forward to today when the red-hot OER component of CPI, while still red-hot, came in just fractionally below expectations…

  

  … but what is more important is that as the latest Apartment List data shows, the rapid pace of annual increases is now slowing rapidly, and at this pace, the CPI shelter data – which is arguably the stickiest of all and is again delayed 4 to 7 months – will peak some time in September or October.

  

  Courtesy of Apartment List, here are some more observations on the latest real-time trends in the rental market:

  Our national index rose by 1.1 percent over the course of July, a slightly slower rate of growth than we observed last month. So far this year, rents are growing more slowly than they did in 2021, but faster than they did in the years immediately preceding the pandemic. Over the first seven months of 2022, rents have increased by a total of 6.7 percent, compared to an increase of 12.0 percent over the same months of 2021. Year-over-year rent growth currently stands at 12.3 percent, but has been trending down since the start of the year from a peak of 18 percent.

  On the supply side, our national vacancy index held steady at 5 percent this month. Our vacancy index has been gradually easing from a low of 4.1 percent last fall, but that easing now appears to be leveling off at a rate that remains well below the pre-pandemic norm. This may be at least partially attributable to spiking mortgage rates, which can contribute to tightness in the rental market by sidelining potential first-time homebuyers from the for-sale market and keeping these households in rental units for longer. Rents increased this month in 87 of the nation’s 100 largest cities. The Miami metro has seen the nation’s fastest rent growth over the past year, but elsewhere in the Sun Belt, the booming Phoenix and Las Vegas markets have shown signs of cooling in recent months.

  Month-over-month rent growth cools slightly with 1.1% increase; rents up 12.3% year-over-year

  The national median rent increased by a record-setting 17.6 percent over the course of 2021. This rapid growth in rent prices is a key contributor to overall inflation, which is currently rising at its fastest pace in 40 years.1 With inflation top-of-mind for policymakers and everyday Americans alike, our rent index is particularly relevant, since movements in market rents lead movements in average rents paid. As a result, our index can signal what is likely ahead for the housing component of the official inflation estimates produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thankfully for the country’s renters, our index shows that rent growth in 2022 has cooled from last summer’s peaks. At the same time, however, rents are continuing to rise faster than they did in pre-pandemic years.

  

  In the seven months of this year, our national rent index has increased by 6.7 percent, well below last year’s 12.0 percent increase over the same months. However, this year’s pace is also still notably faster than that of the years prior to 2021. For comparison, rent growth from January to July totalled 4.0 percent in 2017, 4.5 percent in 2018, 4.1 percent in 2019, and -0.4 percent in 2020. Rent growth is pacing well behind last summer’s scorching pace, but ahead of the pre-pandemic norm, as can also be seen in the following chart of month-over-month growth from 2018 to present.

  

  Our national rent index increased by 1.1 percent month-over-month in July, representing a slight cooldown from last month’s 1.4 percent increase. In July 2021, our national rent index logged record-setting month-over-month growth of 2.7 percent, more than doubling this month’s increase. In contrast, from 2017 to 2019, month-over-month growth in July averaged 0.6 percent, just over half of this month’s increase. Over the past 12 months as a whole, rent prices have spiked by a staggering 12.3 percent nationally. That said, our year-over-year growth estimate has been gradually cooling in recent months after peaking at 18 percent last December, as monthly growth comes in slower than last year’s pace. This month’s slowing rate of growth is consistent with the timing of seasonal trends that we have observed in the past, and it is likely that growth will cool further in the coming months, as the fall and winter tend to bring a slowdown in rental market activity.

  More here

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 18:00

• "Coup" Means Whatever The Regime Wants It To Mean
  “Coup” Means Whatever The Regime Wants It To Mean

  Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

  In the immediate aftermath of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, many pundits and politicians were eager to describe the events of that day as a coup d’etat in which the nation was “this close” to having some sort of junta void the 2020 election and take power in Washington. 

  The headlines at the time were unambiguous in their assertions that the riot was a coup or attempted coup. For example, the riot was “A Very American Coup” according to a headline at the New Republic. “This Is a Coup” insists a writer at Foreign Policy. The Atlantic presented photos purported to be “Scenes from an American Coup.” 

  This general tactic has not changed since then. Just this month, for example, Vanity Fair referred to the January 6 riots as “Trump’s attempted coup” Last month, Vox called it “Trump’s cuckoo coup.” Moreover, anti-Trump politicians have repeatedly referred to the riot as a coup, and “attempted coup” has become the standard term of choice for the January 6 panel. 

  At the time, it was obvious that if the riot was a coup at all, it failed utterly. Thus, the debate is now over whether or not it was an attempted coup. On January 8, 2021, I argued the riot was not an attempted coup. Now, 18 months later, after months of “investigation” and testimony to the January 6 committee, we’ve learned new details about the events that occurred that day. And now I can say with even more confidence: the January 6 riot was not an attempted coup. 

  

  It was not an attempted coup because it simply wasn’t the sort of event that historians and political scientists—the people who actually study coups—generally define as a coup. Even the Justice Department admits that virtually all of the rioters were, at most, guilty only of crimes such as trespassing and disorderly conduct. Among the tiny minority of those charged with actual conspiracy—11 people— they lacked any sort of institutional backing or support that is necessary for a coup attempt to take place. 

  Nor is this just some meaningless debate over semantics. Words matters and definitions matter. This should be abundantly clear to anyone in our current age of debates over what terms like “recession” or “vaccine” or “woman” mean. In fact, the use of term “coup” has been thoroughly weaponized in that outside academic circles it is employed largely as a pejorative to discredit political acts designed to register discontent with a ruling regime or to oppose a ruling coalition. For many, the term coup is now used increasingly to describe political acts one doesn’t like. But if the term “coup” ultimately means “political thing those bad guys did” then it ceases to have any precise meaning at all. But, the use of the term in this way does explain why so many pundits and politicians routinely use the term to label their opponents coup plotters. It’s basically name calling, and really only tells us about the user’s political leanings. 

  What Is a Coup?

  In their article for the Journal of Peace Research, “Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset,” authors Jonathan M. Powell and Clayton L. Thyne provide a definition: 

  A coup attempt includes illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive.

  Although the terms “military” and “coup” are routinely employed together, Powell and Thyne emphasize military involvement at early stages is not necessary:

  [Other definitions] more broadly allow non-military elites, civilian groups, and even mercenaries to be included as coup perpetrators. This broad definition includes four sources, including [a definition stating that coup] perpetrators need only be ‘organized factions’. We take a middle ground. Coups may be undertaken by any elite who is part of the state apparatus. These can include non-civilian members of the military and security services, or civilian members of government.

  Moreover, it is not necessary that violence actually be used. The presence of a threat issued by some organized group of elites is sufficient. 

  This definition is helpful because there are many types of political actions that are not coups, even if the intended outcome is a change in the ruling regime. The definition offered by Powell and Thyne is useful because it avoids “conflating coups with other forms of anti-regime activity, which is the primary problem with broader approaches.”

  For example, popular uprisings that force ruling executives from power are not generally coups. Intervention by a foreign regime is not a coup. Civil wars initiated by non-elites or other outsiders are not coups. 

  Why the Jan 6 Riot Was Not a Coup

  In the case of the January 6 riot, the rioters had no institutional backing, no promises of help from elites, and no reason to assume they had access to any coercive tools necessary to seize and hold control of a state’s executive apparatus. Nor was Donald Trump even in a position to promise such things. As noted by Elaine Kamarck at the Brookings Institution: 

  we now know that Trump did not even have the support of his own family and friends nor his handpicked White House staff. To pursue his plans, he had to rely on a close group of advisors known as “the clown show” led by Rudi Giuliani, a pillow manufacturer, and a dot-com millionaire—none of whom was in government and none of whom controlled the most important “assets” (guns, tanks, planes etc.) needed to take over a government. In contrast to most successful coups in history, Trump had no faction of the military, no faction of the National Guard, and no faction of the District of Colombia Metropolitan Police at his disposal.

  In other words, the rioters had no avenue to calling upon any faction of the state or group of elites to secure backing. Kamarck continues: 

  As we learned in some of the most recent hearings, it was Vice President Mike Pence who was in contact with the military and the police, and most importantly, the military and the police were taking orders from Pence not Trump, the commander in chief! 

  Given that Trump didn’t attempt to actually attempt to secure any government agency to secure power for himself, we can guess Trump knew no branch of the federal government was about to step in to illegally secure an extension to his tenure as president. We can never know for sure what Trump was really thinking on that day, but even if Trump sought to encourage a group of protestors to somehow put pressure on Congress—even if by violent means—that’s not a coup. It’s a popular uprising. 

  The Bolivian “Coup”: The Anti-Morales Protestors in Bolivia 

  The protests that followed the 2019 elections in Bolivia provide an interestingly similar case to the January 6 riot and demonstrate that it’s often quite debatable as to what constitutes a coup. 

  As the Bolivian election neared its end on October 24, sitting president Evo Morales began to claim victory. Numerous opponents, however, claimed Morales’s supporters had engaged in electoral fraud. Both sides refused to accept the results of the election, and protests and riots soon erupted across the nation. Morales and his supporters accused the opposition of staging a coup. The opposition accused Morales of the same. Or, more precisely, they accused Morales of attempting an “autocoup”—autogolpe in Spanish—in which Morales was attempting to hold on to power via illegal means. 

  Ultimately, Morales ended up resigning after he failed to maintain control over the police and military. High ranking officials from those institutions “recommended” Morales resign, and Morales did so soon after. Morales went into exile and Mexico and the opposition became the de facto governing coalition in Bolivia. 

  There remains no agreement, however, as to whether or not the actions of either side in Brazil constituted a coup (or autocoup.) Morales’s supporters—mostly leftists—refer to the political crisis following the election as a coup. Those who are convinced Morales did indeed lose the election refer to his efforts as an autocoup. But many also refer to the events as a popular uprising. 

  For many, the situation in Bolivia in 2019 remains ambiguous, and we can see how it shares many elements in common with the events surrounding the January 6 riot at the Capitol. It began with claims of election fraud, and ended with a group of protestors attempting to pressure congress to change the outcome. This is not fundamentally different from the popular uprisings in Bolivia, except that in the US the outcome was never really dubious. There was never really any doubt as to whether the Pentagon would he helping Trump push through an autocoup. Trump never had any real reason to believe he could hold on to power, even with 900 mostly unarmed protestors trespassing in the Capitol. 

  “Coup” Now Means “Thing I Don’t Like”

  The Bolivia situation also helps to illustrate how the term “coup” is used selectively for political effect. The fact that Morales’s leftist supporters are generally those who favor the use of the term to describe Morales’s removal from office is no coincidence. Those who support one side say it’s a coup, while the other side does not. 

  We see the same dynamic at work in the US, and we should not be surprised that the media has rushed to apply the term to the riot. This phenomenon was examined in a November 2019 article titled “Coup with Adjectives: Conceptual Stretching or Innovation in Comparative Research?,” by Leiv Marsteintredet and Andres Malamud. The authors note that as the incidence of real coups has declined, the word has become more commonly applied to political events that are generally not coups. But, as the authors note, this is no mere issue of splitting hairs, explaining that “The choice of how to conceptualize a coup is not to be taken lightly since it carries normative, analytical, and political implications.”

  Increasingly, the term really means “this is a thing I don’t like.” It’s clear the January 6 panel in Congress, and countless anti-Trump pundits use the term in this way to express disapproval and also to justify regime crackdowns against pro-Trump opponents of the regime. It’s easier to justify harsh prison sentences for a disorganized group of vandals if their acts can be framed as a nearly successful coup and therefore a threat to “our democracy.” Moreover, if the situation were reversed, and if protestors invaded the Capitol to support a leftwing, pro-regime candidate, we can be sure that the vocabulary used to describe the event in the mainstream press would be quite different. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/10/2022 – 17:40

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