Today’s News 11th August 2023

• A NATO Without Limits?
  A NATO Without Limits?

  Authored by Francis P. Sempa via RealClear Wire,

  Jessica Berlin, a policy analyst writing in the Center for European Policy Analysis’ online journal, has proposed a NATO without limits–an expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to all democratic nations.

  “The 21st-century threat landscape,” she contends, “calls for a global alliance capable of mutual defense.”

  “NATO must open its doors,” she writes, “to new members beyond Europe and North America.”

  

  Her proposal is breathtaking in scope: an attack on any democracy is an attack on all democracies. It is a recipe for endless wars on all continents and a reckless extension of America’s nuclear guarantee to all the world’s democracies. It turns John Quincy Adams’ prudent counsel on its head: America goes abroad in search of monsters to destroy and is the champion and vindicator of the freedom and independence of all democracies.

  Berlin’s proposed “New Alliance Treaty Organization” fulfills the vision of Woodrow Wilson who sought to use American power, treasure and blood to make the world “safe for democracy.” It echoes the irresponsible Truman Doctrine which rhetorically committed the United States to “support free peoples around the world who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” It mirrors the reckless pledge of President John F. Kennedy to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” It shares the Utopian vision announced by President George W. Bush that the United States will “extend the benefits of freedom across the globe” and to “bring the hope of democracy . . . to every corner of the world.”

  Berlin is simply the latest exponent of democratism, an ideology that Patrick Buchanan argued would “bleed, bankrupt, and break this republic in endless crusades and interminable wars.” It is a tragedy of history that the ideology of democratism coincided with the rise to power of what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.” That tragedy is written in blood in Southeast Asia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and lesser conflicts. And Berlin envisions the new NATO as not only the army of the world’s democracies but also the armed force that will be used to prevent or stop genocide wherever it occurs. Here, Berlin mimics Samantha Power’s notion that the United States and its European allies have a “responsibility to protect” (R2P) the rest of the world’s people.

  One of history’s greatest statesman Otto von Bismarck once remarked that “it is unworthy of a great state to dispute over something which does not concern its interests.” Bismarck was referring to actual, concrete interests, not interests defined by ideology. The great British geopolitical thinker Sir Halford Mackinder understood that democratic ideals must give way to geopolitical realities. Closer to home, America’s first and greatest president, George Washington, counseled his countrymen to conduct foreign policy without sentiment or emotion, and to “steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world,” and to “safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”

  Jessica Berlin not only wants to make NATO permanent; she wants to expand it to geographical and ideological lengths that even its most ardent supporters and admirers should shy away from.

  Crusaders and ideologues make for dangerous statesmen.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/11/2023 – 02:00

• Trump Coming Back Is Already Spooking Western Elites
  Trump Coming Back Is Already Spooking Western Elites

  Authored by Martin Jay,

  What would 2024 look like with Trump back in the Oval Office for Europeans?

  

  Should western elites and even NATO itself be afraid of Donald Trump returning to the White House in 2024? It’s an entirely valid question given that the elites’ own ‘news’ website in Brussels – Politico – penned a piece recently which argued not only should they be bothered, but they should also prepare themselves for it right now.

  Trump’s return as U.S. president is looking more and more inevitable by the day, driven by the nefarious meddling of the Biden administration and its determination to put him into jail, where they, erroneously, think his bid for the White House ends.

  Even the most obscure French MP which Politico wheeled out to endorse its article accepts this, so what would 2024 look like with Trump back in the Oval Office for Europeans?

  The short answer is an unpleasant one.

  Trump will almost certainly believe that he has learnt his lessons the first time around and that his rants about NATO and EU countries having a free ticket to defending the West against Russian aggression were profoundly on the money, given what has happened in the Ukraine. His policies towards the EU bloc are likely to be much more divisive second time around as he will not only insist on a new deal for EU-NATO countries in the Ukraine war itself, but will go further to use his natural allies in the EU – Poland and Hungary – to beat the back of the Brussels elite and wreck its plans on all its delusional pseudo hegemony. It’s unlikely that he will pull the U.S. out of NATO as John Bolton recently predicted but a new hardball regime will certainly be on the cards which may well relieve him of the task of winding down the Ukraine war directly rather than just saying to the Europeans “if you want to pay for it yourself, by my guess, but we’ve paid enough”.

  This may well send the shivers down the spines of many EU leaders. And it might even get him impeached. But it’s Trump. He won’t mind that at all. The point is that the old cliché about Biden being the grown up who “restored” the transatlantic alliance is just that. A cliché. In reality Biden royally buggered the UK and EU countries by masterminding the meltdown of their economies while U.S. firms cashed in, not only with new tax breaks aimed at eco-friendly firms, but also simply by letting the Europeans oversubscribe themselves to a war which they can never possibly have the means to end. So much for Biden’s “America is back, diplomacy is back” soundbite which was quoted in the early days of his days in office. The harsh reality is that Biden’s view of old Europe was very much from a colonial perspective. They have to pay for their dreams if Uncle Sam is going to make them true.

  So Trump now will come back with the mockery of Europe’s dirt cheap defence arrangement which, in reality, wasn’t cheap at all.

  He will also pull out of the Paris Climate Change Accords pissing off Macron no end as well as give encouragement to the Israelis that their ideas of striking Iran are not completely bonkers (which of course they are).

  But it’s really what Trump has in store for America on its own soil which EU governments should worry about more.

  He will invest more in fossil fuels, undo a lot of Biden’s environmental initiatives, come down hard on wokeism and immigration and impose more tariffs on America’s competitors – both China and the EU – to help American business.

  Yet his second term in office, will not only be about focussing on humiliating Biden with such score-settling, domestically or around the world.

  It will also be about fighting even harder to keep America in the game both with international trade and also its waning dollar economy.

  Trump will have to face a new threat to America which comes as a direct result of Biden’s war – and let’s not forget his corrupt deals – in Ukraine. The emergence of BRICS which will have five new members this year alone and is already taking full control of oil prices with its influence via OPEC Plus. Trump will, in a nutshell, be fighting a new front as a new world order has emerged to challenge U.S. hegemony – or what’s left of it – head on, which means much more than simply dumping the dollar as a reserve currency. BRICS will have its own currency, its own clearing system and at some point, probably, its own defence pact.

  The Donald is going to have a lot on his plate, leaving most EU leaders wondering whether it is better for them that Trump ill-informed and belligerent is better than overwhelmed and panicky in the wake of a new relationship between America and the few partners it has left in the world.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 23:40

• Visualizing The $105 Trillion World Economy In One Chart
  Visualizing The $105 Trillion World Economy In One Chart

  By the end of 2023, the world economy is expected to have a gross domestic product (GDP) of $105 trillion, or $5 trillion higher than the year before, according to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections from its 2023 World Economic Outlook report.

  In nominal terms, that’s a 5.3% increase in global GDP. In inflation-adjusted terms, that would be a 2.8% increase.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao details below, the year started with turmoil for the global economy, with financial markets rocked by the collapse of several mid-sized U.S. banks alongside persistent inflation and tightening monetary conditions in most countries. Nevertheless, some economies have proven to be resilient, and are expected to register growth from 2022.

  

  ℹ️ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the total value of economic output—goods and services—produced within a given time frame by both the private and public sectors. All numbers used in this article, unless otherwise specified, are nominal figures, and do not account for inflation.

   

  Ranking Countries by Economic Size in 2023

  The U.S. is expected to continue being the biggest economy in 2023 with a projected GDP of $26.9 trillion for the year. This is more than the sum of the GDPs of 174 countries ranked from Indonesia (17th) to Tuvalu (191st).

  China stays steady at second place with a projected $19.4 trillion GDP in 2023. Most of the top-five economies remain in the same positions from 2022, with one notable exception.

  India is expected to climb past the UK to become the fifth-largest economy with a projected 2023 GDP of $3.7 trillion.

  Here’s a look at the size of every country’s economy in 2023, according to IMF’s estimates.

  Rank	Country	GDP (USD)	% of Total
  1	🇺🇸 U.S.	$26,855B	25.54%
  2	🇨🇳 China	$19,374B	18.43%
  3	🇯🇵 Japan	$4,410B	4.19%
  4	🇩🇪 Germany	$4,309B	4.10%
  5	🇮🇳 India	$3,737B	3.55%
  6	🇬🇧 UK	$3,159B	3.00%
  7	🇫🇷 France	$2,923B	2.78%
  8	🇮🇹 Italy	$2,170B	2.06%
  9	🇨🇦 Canada	$2,090B	1.99%
  10	🇧🇷 Brazil	$2,081B	1.98%
  11	🇷🇺 Russia	$2,063B	1.96%
  12	🇰🇷 South Korea	$1,722B	1.64%
  13	🇦🇺 Australia	$1,708B	1.62%
  14	🇲🇽 Mexico	$1,663B	1.58%
  15	🇪🇸 Spain	$1,492B	1.42%
  16	🇮🇩 Indonesia	$1,392B	1.32%
  17	🇳🇱 Netherlands	$1,081B	1.03%
  18	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	$1,062B	1.01%
  19	🇹🇷 Türkiye	$1,029B	0.98%
  20	🇨🇭 Switzerland	$870B	0.83%
  21	🇹🇼 Taiwan	$791B	0.75%
  22	🇵🇱 Poland	$749B	0.71%
  23	🇦🇷 Argentina	$641B	0.61%
  24	🇧🇪 Belgium	$624B	0.59%
  25	🇸🇪 Sweden	$599B	0.57%
  26	🇮🇪 Ireland	$594B	0.57%
  27	🇹🇭 Thailand	$574B	0.55%
  28	🇳🇴 Norway	$554B	0.53%
  29	🇮🇱 Israel	$539B	0.51%
  30	🇸🇬 Singapore	$516B	0.49%
  31	🇦🇹 Austria	$515B	0.49%
  32	🇳🇬 Nigeria	$507B	0.48%
  33	🇦🇪 UAE	$499B	0.47%
  34	🇻🇳 Vietnam	$449B	0.43%
  35	🇲🇾 Malaysia	$447B	0.43%
  36	🇵🇭 Philippines	$441B	0.42%
  37	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	$421B	0.40%
  38	🇩🇰 Denmark	$406B	0.39%
  39	🇿🇦 South Africa	$399B	0.38%
  40	🇪🇬 Egypt	$387B	0.37%
  41	🇭🇰 Hong Kong	$383B	0.36%
  42	🇮🇷 Iran	$368B	0.35%
  43	🇨🇱 Chile	$359B	0.34%
  44	🇷🇴 Romania	$349B	0.33%
  45	🇨🇴 Colombia	$335B	0.32%
  46	🇨🇿 Czech Republic	$330B	0.31%
  47	🇫🇮 Finland	$302B	0.29%
  48	🇵🇪 Peru	$268B	0.26%
  49	🇮🇶 Iraq	$268B	0.25%
  50	🇵🇹 Portugal	$268B	0.25%
  51	🇳🇿 New Zealand	$252B	0.24%
  52	🇰🇿 Kazakhstan	$246B	0.23%
  53	🇬🇷 Greece	$239B	0.23%
  54	🇶🇦 Qatar	$220B	0.21%
  55	🇩🇿 Algeria	$206B	0.20%
  56	🇭🇺 Hungary	$189B	0.18%
  57	🇰🇼 Kuwait	$165B	0.16%
  58	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	$156B	0.15%
  59	🇺🇦 Ukraine	$149B	0.14%
  60	🇲🇦 Morocco	$139B	0.13%
  61	🇸🇰 Slovak Republic	$128B	0.12%
  62	🇪🇨 Ecuador	$121B	0.12%
  63	🇩🇴 Dominican Republic	$121B	0.12%
  64	🇵🇷 Puerto Rico	$121B	0.11%
  65	🇰🇪 Kenya	$118B	0.11%
  66	🇦🇴 Angola	$118B	0.11%
  67	🇴🇲 Oman	$105B	0.10%
  68	🇬🇹 Guatemala	$102B	0.10%
  69	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	$101B	0.10%
  70	🇻🇪 Venezuela	$97B	0.09%
  71	🇺🇿 Uzbekistan	$92B	0.09%
  72	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	$87B	0.08%
  73	🇹🇿 Tanzania	$85B	0.08%
  74	🇹🇲 Turkmenistan	$83B	0.08%
  75	🇭🇷 Croatia	$79B	0.08%
  76	🇱🇹 Lithuania	$78B	0.07%
  77	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	$78B	0.07%
  78	🇺🇾 Uruguay	$77B	0.07%
  79	🇵🇦 Panama	$77B	0.07%
  80	🇨🇮 Côte d’Ivoire	$77B	0.07%
  81	🇷🇸 Serbia	$74B	0.07%
  82	🇧🇾 Belarus	$74B	0.07%
  83	🇦🇿 Azerbaijan	$70B	0.07%
  84	🇨🇩 DRC	$69B	0.07%
  85	🇸🇮 Slovenia	$68B	0.06%
  86	🇬🇭 Ghana	$67B	0.06%
  87	🇲🇲 Myanmar	$64B	0.06%
  88	🇯🇴 Jordan	$52B	0.05%
  89	🇹🇳 Tunisia	$50B	0.05%
  90	🇺🇬 Uganda	$50B	0.05%
  91	🇨🇲 Cameroon	$49B	0.05%
  92	🇱🇻 Latvia	$47B	0.05%
  93	🇸🇩 Sudan	$47B	0.04%
  94	🇱🇾 Libya	$46B	0.04%
  95	🇧🇴 Bolivia	$46B	0.04%
  96	🇧🇭 Bahrain	$45B	0.04%
  97	🇵🇾 Paraguay	$43B	0.04%
  98	🇳🇵 Nepal	$42B	0.04%
  99	🇪🇪 Estonia	$42B	0.04%
  100	🇲🇴 Macao	$36B	0.03%
  101	🇭🇳 Honduras	$34B	0.03%
  102	🇸🇻 El Salvador	$34B	0.03%
  103	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	$33B	0.03%
  104	🇸🇳 Senegal	$31B	0.03%
  105	🇨🇾 Cyprus	$31B	0.03%
  106	🇰🇭 Cambodia	$31B	0.03%
  107	🇿🇼 Zimbabwe	$30B	0.03%
  108	🇿🇲 Zambia	$29B	0.03%
  109	🇮🇸 Iceland	$29B	0.03%
  110	🇧🇦 Bosnia & Herzegovina	$28B	0.03%
  111	🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago	$28B	0.03%
  112	🇬🇪 Georgia	$28B	0.03%
  113	🇭🇹 Haiti	$27B	0.03%
  114	🇦🇲 Armenia	$24B	0.02%
  115	🇬🇳 Guinea	$23B	0.02%
  116	🇧🇫 Burkina Faso	$21B	0.02%
  117	🇲🇱 Mali	$21B	0.02%
  118	🇬🇦 Gabon	$20B	0.02%
  119	🇦🇱 Albania	$20B	0.02%
  120	🇲🇿 Mozambique	$20B	0.02%
  121	🇧🇼 Botswana	$20B	0.02%
  122	🇾🇪 Yemen	$20B	0.02%
  123	🇲🇹 Malta	$19B	0.02%
  124	🇧🇯 Benin	$19B	0.02%
  125	🇵🇸 West Bank & Gaza	$19B	0.02%
  126	🇳🇮 Nicaragua	$17B	0.02%
  127	🇯🇲 Jamaica	$17B	0.02%
  128	🇲🇳 Mongolia	$17B	0.02%
  129	🇳🇪 Niger	$17B	0.02%
  130	🇬🇾 Guyana	$16B	0.02%
  131	🇲🇬 Madagascar	$16B	0.02%
  132	🇲🇩 Moldova	$16B	0.02%
  133	🇧🇳 Brunei Darussalam	$16B	0.01%
  134	🇲🇰 North Macedonia	$15B	0.01%
  135	🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea	$15B	0.01%
  136	🇲🇺 Mauritius	$15B	0.01%
  137	🇧🇸 Bahamas	$14B	0.01%
  138	🇱🇦 Laos	$14B	0.01%
  139	🇳🇦 Namibia	$13B	0.01%
  140	🇷🇼 Rwanda	$13B	0.01%
  141	🇨🇩 Congo	$13B	0.01%
  142	🇹🇯 Tajikistan	$13B	0.01%
  143	🇰🇬 Kyrgyz Republic	$12B	0.01%
  144	🇹🇩 Chad	$12B	0.01%
  145	🇲🇼 Malawi	$11B	0.01%
  146	🇲🇷 Mauritania	$11B	0.01%
  147	🇽🇰 Kosovo	$10B	0.01%
  148	🇹🇬 Togo	$9B	0.01%
  149	🇸🇴 Somalia	$9B	0.01%
  150	🇲🇪 Montenegro	$7B	0.01%
  151	🇸🇸 South Sudan	$7B	0.01%
  152	🇲🇻 Maldives	$7B	0.01%
  153	🇧🇧 Barbados	$6B	0.01%
  154	🇫🇯 Fiji	$5B	0.01%
  155	🇸🇿 Eswatini	$5B	0.00%
  156	🇱🇷 Liberia	$4B	0.00%
  157	🇩🇯 Djibouti	$4B	0.00%
  158	🇦🇩 Andorra	$4B	0.00%
  159	🇦🇼 Aruba	$4B	0.00%
  160	🇸🇱 Sierra Leone	$4B	0.00%
  161	🇸🇷 Suriname	$3B	0.00%
  162	🇧🇮 Burundi	$3B	0.00%
  163	🇧🇿 Belize	$3B	0.00%
  164	🇨🇫 Central African Republic	$3B	0.00%
  165	🇧🇹 Bhutan	$3B	0.00%
  166	🇪🇷 Eritrea	$3B	0.00%
  167	🇱🇸 Lesotho	$3B	0.00%
  168	🇨🇻 Cabo Verde	$2B	0.00%
  169	🇬🇲 Gambia	$2B	0.00%
  170	🇱🇨 Saint Lucia	$2B	0.00%
  171	🇹🇱 East Timor	$2B	0.00%
  172	🇸🇨 Seychelles	$2B	0.00%
  173	🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau	$2B	0.00%
  174	🇦🇬 Antigua & Barbuda	$2B	0.00%
  175	🇸🇲 San Marino	$2B	0.00%
  176	🇸🇧 Solomon Islands	$2B	0.00%
  177	🇰🇲 Comoros	$1B	0.00%
  178	🇬🇩 Grenada	$1B	0.00%
  179	🇻🇺 Vanuatu	$1B	0.00%
  180	🇰🇳 Saint Kitts & Nevis	$1B	0.00%
  181	🇻🇨 Saint Vincent & the Grenadines	$1B	0.00%
  182	🇼🇸 Samoa	$1B	0.00%
  183	🇩🇲 Dominica	$1B	0.00%
  184	🇸🇹 São Tomé & Príncipe	$1B	0.00%
  185	🇹🇴 Tonga	$1B	0.00%
  186	🇫🇲 Micronesia	$0.5B	0.00%
  187	🇲🇭 Marshall Islands	$0.3B	0.00%
  188	🇵🇼 Palau	$0.3B	0.00%
  189	🇰🇮 Kiribati	$0.2B	0.00%
  190	🇳🇷 Nauru	$0.2B	0.00%
  191	🇹🇻 Tuvalu	$0.1B	0.00%

  Note: Projections for Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Syria are missing from IMF’s database for 2023.

  Here are the largest economies for each region of the world.

  • Africa: Nigeria ($506.6 billion)

  • Asia: China ($19.4 trillion)

  • Europe: Germany ($4.3 trillion)

  • Middle East: Saudi Arabia ($1.1 trillion)

  • North & Central America: U.S. ($26.9 trillion)

  • Oceania: Australia ($1.7 trillion)

  • South America: Brazil ($2.1 trillion)

  Ranked: 2023’s Shrinking Economies

  In fact, 29 economies are projected to shrink from their 2022 sizes, leading to nearly $500 billion in lost output.

  

  Russia will see the biggest decline, with a projected $150 billion contraction this year. This is equal to about one-third of total decline of all 29 countries with shrinking economies.

  Egypt (-$88 billion) and Canada (-$50 billion) combined make up another one-third of lost output.

  In Egypt’s case, the drop can be partly explained by the country’s currency (Egyptian pound), which has dropped in value against the U.S. dollar by about 50% since mid-2022.

  Russia and Canada are some of the world’s largest oil producers and the oil price has fallen since 2022. A further complication for Russia is that the country has been forced to sell oil at a steep discount because of Western sanctions.

  Here are the projected changes in GDP for all countries facing year-over-year declines:

  Country	Region	2022–23 Change (USD)	2022–23 Change (%)
  🇷🇺 Russia	Europe	-$152.65B	-6.9%
  🇪🇬 Egypt	Africa	-$88.12B	-18.5%
  🇨🇦 Canada	North America	-$50.17B	-2.3%
  🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	Middle East	-$46.25B	-4.2%
  🇧🇩 Bangladesh	Asia	-$39.69B	-8.6%
  🇳🇴 Norway	Europe	-$25.16B	-4.3%
  🇰🇼 Kuwait	Middle East	-$19.85B	-10.8%
  🇴🇲 Oman	Middle East	-$9.77B	-8.5%
  🇨🇴 Colombia	South America	-$9.25B	-2.7%
  🇦🇪 UAE	Middle East	-$8.56B	-1.7%
  🇿🇦 South Africa	Africa	-$6.69B	-1.6%
  🇬🇭 Ghana	Africa	-$6.22B	-8.5%
  🇶🇦 Qatar	Middle East	-$5.91B	-2.6%
  🇦🇴 Angola	Africa	-$3.54B	-2.9%
  🇿🇼 Zimbabwe	Africa	-$3.09B	-9.4%
  🇺🇦 Ukraine	Europe	-$2.79B	-1.8%
  🇸🇩 Sudan	Africa	-$2.72B	-5.5%
  🇮🇶 Iraq	Middle East	-$2.47B	-0.9%
  🇹🇱 East Timor	Asia	-$1.67B	-45.7%
  🇬🇦 Gabon	Africa	-$1.60B	-7.3%
  🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea	Africa	-$1.35B	-8.2%
  🇲🇼 Malawi	Africa	-$1.24B	-9.9%
  🇱🇦 Laos	Asia	-$1.21B	-7.9%
  🇧🇳 Brunei	Asia	-$1.13B	-6.8%
  🇾🇪 Yemen	Middle East	-$1.12B	-5.4%
  🇸🇸 South Sudan	Africa	-$0.86B	-10.9%
  🇧🇮 Burundi	Africa	-$0.66B	-16.9%
  🇸🇱 Sierra Leone	Africa	-$0.42B	-10.6%
  🇸🇷 Suriname	South America	-$0.05B	-1.4%

  The presence of Saudi Arabia, Norway, Kuwait, and Oman in the top 10 biggest GDP contractions further highlights the potential impact on GDP for oil-producing countries, according to the IMF’s projections.

  More recently, producers have been cutting supply in an effort to boost prices, but concerns of slowing global oil demand in the wake of a subdued Chinese economy (the world’s second-largest oil consumer), have kept oil prices lower than in 2022 regardless.

  The Footnote on GDP Forecasts

  While organizations like the IMF have gotten fairly good at GDP forecasting, it’s still worth remembering that these are projections and assumptions made at the beginning of the year that may not hold true by the end of 2023.

  For example, JP Morgan has already changed their forecast for China’s 2023 real GDP growth six times in as many months after expectations of broad-based pandemic-recovery spending did not materialize in the country.

  The key takeaway from IMF’s projections for 2023 GDP growth rests on how well countries restrict inflation without stifling growth, all amidst tense liquidity conditions.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 23:20

• Snyder: Is America Doomed?
  Snyder: Is America Doomed?

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  Is time running out for America? 

  Throughout human history, great civilizations have risen and fell, and many believe that the U.S. will be no exception.  At this point, we have already drifted so far from our core values that our founders would not even be able to recognize the Republic that they once established if they were alive today. 

  Of course most Americans realize that something has gone horribly wrong, but most of them also believe that sending the right people to Washington is the answer.  But is that really the solution to what ails us?

  

  According to a brand new Rasmussen poll that was just released, 40 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that Joe Biden must win the next presidential election “or the United States is doomed”…

  Per the poll, 40% of likely US voters agree with the statement, “Joe Biden must be re-elected president next year, or the United States is doomed,” which includes 25% who strongly agree. 53% are in disagreement, which includes 43% who strongly disagree.

  That is nuts.

  Nearly half the country literally believes that our nation is “doomed” if Joe Biden does not win in 2024.

  The same poll also found that 45 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that Donald Trump must win the next presidential election “or the United States is doomed”…

  45% agree with the statement, “Donald Trump must be re-elected president next year or the United States is doomed,” which includes 26% who strongly agree. 53% disagree, which includes 44% who strongly disagree.

  I am assuming that there is no overlap between those two groups.

  If that is true, that means that 85 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that our nation is “doomed” if the candidate that they are supporting does not win the next presidential election.

  I have never seen numbers like this before.

  The stakes in 2024 are incredibly high, and the side that loses is going to be absolutely devastated.

  Over the next year there will be endless campaigning as the upcoming election approaches, but meanwhile our society is being ripped to shreds right in front of our eyes.

  In Chicago, predators literally roam the streets in their vehicles in the middle of the day looking for someone to attack.

  When a suitable target is identified, brutal violence often ensues.

  Welcome to Chicago.

  Mayor Brandon Johnson will claim these criminals are misunderstood youth. pic.twitter.com/1UyTdyLZ2m

  — Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) August 7, 2023

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  In the old days, thieves would at least wait until the cover of night to go out and do their thing.

  But now there is very little fear of the police.

  There are more than 1,000 identifiable gangs in the city of Chicago today, and mafia-style killings have become quite common…

  Three suspects shot and killed a man whom they also reportedly hit with a car at a gas station in Chicago in a brazen daytime shooting.

  A small memorial was left by family members for 31-year-old Anton Benoit after he was shot and killed in a gang-style shooting at a Shell gas station in Chatham, a neighborhood in Chicago. Chatham is located on the south side and has a population of approximately 32,000.

  I don’t want to just pick on Chicago, and so let’s talk about major cities on the west coast for a bit.

  This week, a video posted by a San Francisco woman named Hanna Ayla went viral, because it accurately conveyed emotions that so many other San Francisco residents are feeling right now…

  “I was just getting groceries and I live in San Francisco, and I never really feel fully safe. If you live in San Francisco, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. And I just got groceries, I’m walking out of the store, and this guy is walking past me and says, ‘Move you stupid b****,’ and he spits in my face!” she said.

  “Spits all over my face,” she repeats.

  “And I say, ‘Excuse me, did you just spit in my face?’ And he says, ‘Move or I’ll rape you.’ There’s also people everywhere and everyone’s just walking by because they’re like, I can’t handle something else in San Francisco, it’s always something else!” Ayla continued.

  “I don’t even know why I’m posting this,” she concluded. “If you live in San Francisco, do you feel this way all the time? I don’t feel safe. Ever. I literally never feel safe. It’s better when it’s daytime, but nighttime? No. Not leaving my house.”

  This is what it’s like living in blue cities. And if you voted for this, you get what you vote for. pic.twitter.com/RRbxumet5N

  — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 7, 2023

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  I don’t think that anyone that lives in San Francisco truly feels safe at this point.

  Crime is completely out of control, but many would argue that conditions in Oakland are even worse.

  In fact, a 48-year-old woman that has lived there her entire life says that she is being forced to move because she has become “too scared” to go outside of her own home…

  A lifelong Oakland resident has made the heartbreaking decision to move out of the city after soaring crime rates left her ‘too scared’ to go outside.

  Kristin Cook, 48, spoke for many in Oakland as she sobbed: ‘I can’t take it anymore. I got to the point I was too scared to leave my house.’

  ‘The fact that I am being pushed out because I emotionally can’t take it anymore is horrible,’ she added.

  Burglary rates in the city are 41 percent up on last year and robberies have increased more than 20 percent, according to police data. Rape offenses are also up 12 percent.

  Our cities have degenerated into crime-ridden hellholes, and our country does not have a future if we stay on this path.

  But instead of working to fix our cities, Joe Biden continues to send giant mountains of money overseas.

  For example, it is being reported that Biden has actually given more than two billion dollars to the Taliban during the past two years…

  A report by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) notes that the Biden administration has given $2.35 billion to Afghanistan over the past two years, despite the fact that it is now ruled by the Taliban again following the disastrous U.S. withdrawal in 2021.

  The Washington Free Beacon shared details of the findings Tuesday, noting that the funds could be propping up the Taliban’s terrorist government.

  Of course two billion dollars is just a drop in the bucket compared to what Biden has given to Ukraine.

  Meanwhile, our own country is in absolutely horrible shape.

  I write a lot about our rapidly growing economic problems, but the moral decay that is eating away at the foundations of our culture is an even bigger crisis.

  We can see this moral decay in major cities from coast to coast, and we can also see it in rural areas.  Here is just one example…

  A woman in Texas has been placed under arrest after dozens of dead horses and dogs were discovered at a ranch reportedly under her control.

  Animal cruelty had been suspected at a ranch in Westminster, Texas, about 50 miles northeast of Dallas, for some time. Dating back to 2019, police had received reports of alleged animal cruelty at the property at least 15 times.

  Recently, police had received yet another report regarding animal maltreatment. Landscapers who had been doing work at the ranch called authorities to claim that they had seen the decaying remains of several animals.

  Reading that probably made you very angry.

  And it should.

  If the police had taken previous reports of animal cruelty seriously, a lot of those deaths could have been prevented.

  But it isn’t just a few crazed nuts like that woman that are our problem.

  The truth is that our entire society is deeply sick.  It is being reported that Pornhub is visited 115 million times a day, and many of those visitors are young adults and children…

  Pornhub, the YouTube of pornography, gets more global users than Amazon or Netflix. In 2019, the last year Pornhub released its data, the site was visited 42 billion times, or 115 million times each day.

  To put those numbers in perspective, there are only 331 million people living in the United States.

  And please keep in mind that we are just talking about one website.  There are thousands of other websites that are also preying on our young people.

  I get extremely passionate about these issues, because the future of our country is literally hanging in the balance.

  For decades, extreme leftists have been rapidly advancing their agenda, and that has brought us to where we are today.

  Just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us, and if we don’t find a way to turn things around America really is doomed.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 23:00

• DeSantis Fires Another 'Soros' Prosecutor Over 'Needless Pain, Suffering, And Death'
  DeSantis Fires Another ‘Soros’ Prosecutor Over ‘Needless Pain, Suffering, And Death’

  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday suspended the top prosecutor in Orlando who refused to enforce the law against criminals which went on to commit more crimes, including murder.

  

  “Prosecutors have a duty to faithfully enforce the law. One’s political agenda cannot trump this solemn duty. Refusing to faithfully enforce the laws of Florida puts our communities in danger and victimizes innocent Floridians,” DeSantis said.

  Monique Worrell, Florida state attorney for the 9th Judicial Circuit, failed to prosecute 43% of arrests – releasing 16,243 defendants without prosecution, according to state AG Ashley Moody.

  “Ms. Worrell is dismissing during the same period nearly four times the number of defendants as are being dismissed or not charged in Palm Beach County,” she said, adding “It is not normal for a prosecutor to come out repeatedly after we have seen tragedy strike and insinuate, ‘It’s not my fault.’ I submit to you this was, in a way, to distract from where fault should have lay.”

  Even violent felonies were only prosecuted 41% of the time, according to Moody.

  DOCUMENTS: Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office lists rationale for suspending Soros-backed Democratic State Attorney Monique Worrell

  “The practices and policies of her office have allowed murderers, other violent offenders, and dangerous drug traffickers to receive extremely reduced… pic.twitter.com/keJzzp4AGo

  — Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) August 9, 2023

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  “If she were allowed to continue in this office, her failure would continue to cause needless pain, suffering, and death,” Moody said of Worrell – speaking in tones of ‘intense but controlled anger,’ according to the Epoch Times.

  #BREAKING: Gov. Ron DeSantis suspends Democratic State Attorney Monique Worrell, effective immediately, citing lack of mandatory minimum sentencings for various crimes, neglect of duty, and abusing discretion pic.twitter.com/O0Pe1UbTVH

  — Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) August 9, 2023

  In many cases, Ms. Worrell’s choice not to prosecute turned lethal, Gov. DeSantis noted.

  A 17-year-old in Ms. Worrell’s circuit was arrested for criminal possession of a firearm, he said. She let him go, and he shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend.

  Another criminal was arrested for sex abuse of a minor, the governor said. After getting let out on bond by Ms. Worrell, he shot and killed two police officers, he said. -Epoch Times

  “I have no doubt that today’s decision is not only consistent with the Constitution and laws of Florida, that we have a right to act. We had a duty to act to protect the public from this dereliction of duty,” said DeSantis.

  Responding to the removal, Florida Sheriff Grady Judd said that criminals are incentivized by their chances of success, and think “I’ll just shoot them because, heck, after all, I probably won’t go to jail.”

  “When it comes to law and order, Gov. @RonDeSantis is not playing…His actions today, without question, saved the lives of citizens in Central Florida.”

  — Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey praises DeSantis’ suspension of State Attorney Monique Worrell pic.twitter.com/Yn8xnF71Sw

  — DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) August 9, 2023

  In response to her removal, Worrell defended her record by calling her approach “unconventional” and “doing things differently.” 

  JUST IN: Suspended State Attorney Monique Worrell calls Gov. Ron DeSantis a “dictator”

  “This is an outrage […] There used to be a very high standard for the removal of elected officials.”

  “Under this tyranny, elected officials can be removed simply for political purposes.”… pic.twitter.com/SuzrbreZpu

  — Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) August 9, 2023

  Of note, Worrell received election funding from billionaire George Soros. 

  Soros arbitraged politics. He figured out that spending small amounts of money in many obscure, but influential, races is far more effective than money spent on major contests.

  The mistake people make is thinking that he did it for the good of humanity. He hates humanity.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2023

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

  Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), a former governor of Florida, supported DeSantis’ decision.

  “This is the right move,” Scott posted to X. “Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies are eroding our communities and families’ ability to feel safe. In February, I called on SA Monique Worrell to deliver the justice and accountability needed for the families affected by shootings in her district and said her suspension would be fully justified. She failed to do her job. Families deserve better.“

  Worrell is the second Soros-funded state attorney removed by DeeSantis in the past 12 months, after suspending Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren for violating his oath of office and holding himself “above the law” in what DeSantis described as a “very very troubling record.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 22:40

• 'He Was Alive': Tormented Chinese Doctor Recounts Harvesting Organs In Back Of Van
  ‘He Was Alive’: Tormented Chinese Doctor Recounts Harvesting Organs In Back Of Van

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

  

  Stepping into the van guarded by armed soldiers with five surgeons and nurses, Zheng Zhi didn’t know he was entering into a world that would haunt him for the next quarter of a century.

  Dr. Zheng, then a resident doctor at one of China’s largest military hospitals, knew little more than they were on a “secret military mission” near a military prison located around the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian.

  A light blue fabric covered the four sides of the vehicle, shielding it from any curious glances.

  When the door opened, four burly soldiers carried in a man whose limbs were bound with thin ropes that had cut deeply into his flesh. The man was no more than 18 years old; his organs, the surgical crew had been told the day before, were “healthy, fresh.”

  A doctor instructed Dr. Zheng to “step on” the man’s legs and “don’t let him move.” He pressed the man’s legs down with his hands and to his shock, they were warm to the touch. Blood was now flowing from the man’s throat.

  He watched a doctor slice open the man’s stomach and two others reach in to remove a kidney each. The man’s legs twitched and his throat moved—although no sound came out.

  “Cut his artery and veins, quick!” a doctor told Dr. Zheng. As he did so, so much blood gushed out that it splashed all over Dr. Zheng’s gown and gloves. That was when he got the order to extract the man’s eyes.

  Dr. Zheng looked at the man’s face. Staring back at him was a pair of wide-open eyes.

  “It was horrifying beyond words. He was looking right at me. His eyelids were moving. He was alive,” Dr. Zheng recounted to The Epoch Times in July, the first time he agreed to use his real name to recount his story.

  

  But, in the van in 1994, little did he know he was party to what would soon become an industrialized killing apparatus set up to extract organs from prisoners of conscience and sell them on demand.

  In the van, he told the other doctors, “I can’t do this.” He felt his brain empty out as he sat there, shaky, sweating, and paralyzed.

  The doctor across from him immediately pressed the man’s head to the floor of the van. With two fingers pressed on the eyelids and a hemostat in another hand, the doctor clamped out each of the man’s eyes.

  The body, now motionless, was placed in a black plastic bag and taken away by soldiers waiting outside. The van sped back to the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Region, where Dr. Zheng did his residency. The nurses quickly gathered up the bloodied medical equipment.

  Lights were on in two operation rooms when they reached the hospital. Another team of doctors was waiting to begin the organ transplantations.

  Dr. Zheng was too sickened to be useful, even though the department director wanted him to get his hand in at the operating table. He sat watching from a few yards away as the surgery progressed. When the transplant operations were complete, the medical staff went into an upscale restaurant and feasted in silence, although Dr. Zheng said he couldn’t take a bite. After the meal, he took leave, developing a high fever at the same time.

  That pair of eyes—desperate, fearful, and pained—has since tormented Dr. Zheng day and night.

  “Under the light lay a young life, a fellow human being, whose organs were being harvested while he was alive,” he said.

  

  Billion Dollar Industry

  The horror Dr. Zheng witnessed in the van, and afterward at the hospital, took place in 1994, when the Chinese regime’s mass-scale, state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting was still in its infancy.

  It soon ballooned into a billion-dollar industry, using prisoners of conscience, particularly adherents of the persecuted faith group Falun Gong, to fuel its rise. In the same city as the hospital was the Sujiatun concentration camp, which multiple whistleblowers revealed as a mass killing ground of imprisoned Falun Gong adherents for their organs since the persecution began in 1999. While the Sujiatun underground facility was abandoned after being exposed internationally, an untold number of other such camps exist in China.

  Dr. Zheng is one of several witnesses who have come forward to The Epoch Times since 2006 to expose the regime’s grisly practice.

  Since then, a multitude of independent reports have provided information on the severity and scale of the practice.

  In 2019, a London-based independent tribunal concluded that China’s ruling regime killed prisoners of conscience for their organs “on a significant scale,” and that Falun Gong practitioners are the primary victims.

  U.S. lawmakers have taken steps to prevent Americans from embarking on “transplant tourism” to China, and thus becoming complicit.

  Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) is pushing for the passage of his Falun Gong Protection Act, which would sanction persecutors of Falun Gong. The bill would also ban cooperation with communist China in the organ transplantation field.

  The bipartisan Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, which seeks to punish enablers of the abuse, passed overwhelmingly in the House in March.

  In June, Texas adopted the country’s first law to counter the issue, banning health insurers from financing organ transplant surgeries linked to China.

  ‘A Fresh One’

  Fear still had a grip on Dr. Zheng as he slowly recounted his story for the first time in 2015, using an alias. During the hours-long interview, he struggled to utter a complete sentence; sometimes with his two hands held tightly to the edge of the table in front of him, other times fidgeting, standing up, and sitting down. His facial expression was contorted as he kept repeating that it was “too horrifying.” Tears filled Dr. Zheng’s eyes as he described in a trembling voice the removal of the young man’s eyes.

  During his residency at the hospital, Dr. Zheng was favored by his superiors, thanks to his father’s influence in the local communist power circle. A skilled doctor in traditional Chinese medicine, his father was sought by local officials. Some of the top military leaders were frequent guests at his family’s dining table. Knowing this, doctors treated Dr. Zheng deferentially, frequently allowing him to participate in surgeries when other interns couldn’t.

  

  Soon after the organ extraction in the back of the van, Dr. Zheng left the hospital. He became a pediatrician and internist in the city of Liaoyang, some four hours drive north of Dalian. But that sense of horror only deepened over time as he glimpsed more from behind the scenes.

  In 2002, Dr. Zheng accompanied a military official for his medical checkup, at the hospital where he once interned. The doctor told the official that he needed a new kidney to live.

  “[We’ll] pick a top-quality one for you,” another military officer told his superior in the hallway. “A fresh one, from Falun Gong practitioners.”

  That was the first time Dr. Zheng heard that Falun Gong adherents were a specific organ source.

  On the way home, the official asked Dr. Zheng whether he should get a kidney transplant.

  “Don’t do it,” Dr. Zheng replied. “Isn’t that committing a murder?”

  It was through that official that Dr. Zheng learned how widespread forced organ harvesting was in China.

  “Armed police and officials above division ranks all know about it, and it’s pretty much known throughout the military. It’s nothing novel,” Dr. Zheng told The Epoch Times.

  To make more money, he said, the military had opened many “green passages,” or fast lanes at airports, to quickly transport fresh human organs across the country. The infectious disease units at military hospitals had all become “dens” for forced organ harvesting, he said.

  “In about one to two weeks—a month at the longest—a match would be found.”

  The official whose kidney was failing opted not to get a transplant. He lived three more years relying on dialysis and died in 2005.

  Another acquaintance, an aide to officials at the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, the core of elite Chinese leadership, told Dr. Zheng something even more shocking.

  In the conversation, Dr. Zheng remarked that the persecution of Falun Gong in northeastern China was quite severe.

  The acquaintance made no immediate response, but before they parted, he turned and looked straight at Dr. Zheng.

  “In Hubei Province’s Wuhan City, under the back garden of the Hubei Province Public Security Bureau, it’s full of detained Falun Gong practitioners. Some are underaged kids,” he said, stopping at every word.

  “I’ve been there,” he added after a pause. They didn’t discuss it further, but the implication that this was a mass source of organs weighed heavily on Dr. Zheng.

  

  Making a Choice

  What the acquaintance said gave Dr. Zheng a “sense of mission” to expose the matter on the international stage, prompting his eventual escape to Thailand in 2005.

  He obtained refugee status while in Thailand and moved to Canada in 2007.

  In 2015, when he told his story for the first time to The Epoch Times, he said he felt so helpless that he wasn’t sure whether to lean on the reporter or the table.

  “I felt that I was giving out my life and everything that I have,” he told The Epoch Times in late July, recalling the previous interview.

  “There’s no way to describe how I felt at the time,” he said.

  “Every word, every sentence I spoke was no different from a choice of life and death. I didn’t know what I’d be bringing to myself.”

  During the eight years once he got to Canada, Dr. Zheng said he had been looking for the right media outlet to tell his story to. Should he make the wrong choice, not only would he get himself into trouble, the issue wouldn’t get the spotlight it deserved.

  To say he wasn’t worried about possible retaliation from Beijing was unrealistic, “ordinary people can’t imagine how evil the CCP is,” he said—but the issue was bigger than himself.

  “Slaughtering Chinese people and stealing their organs for profit, this is a crime with no bounds,” Dr. Zheng said. As someone living in a free country with a “basic conscience, I have no reason to stay silent.”

  He said that he has carefully preserved his records. When the Chinese Communist Party falls and faces judgment, he will come on the witness stand, he said, adding that he has no doubt “justice will prevail over evil.”

  Yi Ling contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 22:20

• It Was Pelosi: Former Capitol Police Chief Reveals 'Set Up' Behind January 6
  It Was Pelosi: Former Capitol Police Chief Reveals ‘Set Up’ Behind January 6

  Tucker Carlson released a bombshell interview with former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund on Wednesday, during which Sund explains what happened on January 6, 2021 in great detail.

  

  Carlson and Sund had notably recorded an entire interview on Fox News, which never aired.

  Perhaps most damning is Sund’s claim that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refused to authorize the deployment of the National Guard at the Capitol despite Sund’s pleas, and that federal agencies withheld information and warning signs of potential dangers prior to the riot.

  “It doesn’t seem like people really want to get to the bottom of it,” said Sund, adding “It really doesn’t. And it just gets worse. It gets worse from there.”

  Sund got approval to bring in the National Guard at 2:09 p.m. Before his approval, he alleged that he begged several generals, including General Michael Flynn, to bring the National Guard. The officials told Sund they did “not like the optics of the National Guard” as he allegedly begged for their assistance to intervene in the violence. –Daily Caller

  “This sounds like a set up to me,” Carlson said, adding “I’m sorry, it does.”

  To which Sund replied:

  “It gets better. So I beg and beg and he goes ‘well, I’m gonna walk down the hall and we’ll talk to the Secretary of Defense or whoever he’s gonna talk to. Right then I get a notification, oh, I’m still on the call, we have the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. And I said we have shots firing, I still remember yelling over the phone. We have shots firing on the U.S. Capitol, is that urgent enough for you now?“

  According to Sund, the National Guard didn’t show up until 6 p.m., hours after the fatal shooting of Babbitt. He also claimed that the Pentagon deployed resources to the homes of generals, but not the Capitol.

  Watch:

  Ep. 15 Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund reveals what really happened on January 6th. Our Fox News interview with him never aired, so we invited him back. pic.twitter.com/opDlu4QGlp

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 10, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 22:00

• "Failed Leadership" – Oakland, CA Faces "State Of Emergency" As Consequence-Free Crime Soars
  “Failed Leadership” – Oakland, CA Faces “State Of Emergency” As Consequence-Free Crime Soars

  Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Rising incidents of crime in Oakland, California, are affecting quality of life, causing some to flee, and leading to calls by some community associations for more law enforcement amid a wave of violence.

  

  While down slightly year-over-year, homicides have jumped 40 percent since 2019, with Oakland police reporting that every other category of crime shows an increase compared to last year and since before the pandemic.

  Also, compared to 2019, assaults and auto break-ins have doubled, and carjackings have tripled, according to FBI statistics.

  Additionally, the city rated a 1—the lowest possible score out of 100—meaning it is safer than less than 1 percent of areas across the country, according to online real estate market data firm Neighborhood Scout.

  Public protests are now routine at Oakland City Council meetings, and letters to officials are pouring in, with frightened and angry residents and organizations expressing discontent.

  At a July hearing with the Alameda County District Attorney and sheriff to discuss the ongoing crime wave, audience members told officials about their recent encounters.

  “While I’m driving, I’m pulled out of my car at gunpoint,” one woman said. “What are we doing to address this? How do we solve this? Nobody feels safe.”

  Failed Leadership, Anti-Police Rhetoric Are to Blame: NAACP

  Community safety advocates are also reaching out to administrators asking for immediate action to halt the violence.

  “Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities,” the Oakland chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, better known as the NAACP, said in a July 27 letter to elected officials. “We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis.”

  The group blames criminal justice reform and efforts to minimize policing for the recent rise in crime.

  “Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals,” the NAACP wrote in the letter. “If there are no consequences for committing crime in Oakland, crime will continue to soar.”

  Oakland’s Police Department currently employs approximately 715 officers, nearly 500 fewer than necessary to protect the city, its union said in a statement released July 29. Current budget plans call for an increase to 730 officers over the next two years.

  

  Residents No Longer Feel Safe at Home

  Many residents say they no longer feel safe leaving their homes, and home invasion robberies are making some uncomfortable in their own dwellings.

  “My mom and aunt live together, and they’re both older, and they don’t feel safe anymore,” Johnny Brown, a maintenance worker who has lived in Oakland most of his life, told The Epoch Times. “I bring them groceries, and I put a camera on their house, so I can watch and make sure they’re not in trouble.”

  The Brown family has called Oakland home for more than 30 years, and they said the crime has never been worse.

  “This is Oakland, there’s always been an element of danger, but it’s wild out here,” Mr. Brown said. “They’re getting away with so much that others are doing it too. They don’t care who you are or how much money they can get; they’re out here robbing everybody.”

  Another long-time Oakland resident agreed, telling The Epoch Times that it’s not safe at night to walk or stop for gas in certain areas.

  “It’s like predator and prey out here as a young woman,” LaTasha Jackson said. “We stay in groups at night and still don’t feel safe, and forget about pumping gas alone, that’s just asking to get robbed.”

  Crimes committed during daylight are also on the rise, with car break-ins at historic levels and armed robberies approaching all-time highs, according to the Oakland Police Officers Association.

  A recent video showed an elderly ice cream street vendor robbed by armed men wearing masks, but in a sign of solidarity, the community came together and raised thousands of dollars for the victim.

  While complaints and requests for action are numerous, city leaders say they are taking steps to address the concerns.

  Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao recently announced a collaboration with Gov. Gavin Newsom to bring California Highway Patrol officers to the city, in addition to a $1.5 million grant to install license plate readers in high crime areas, intended to identify criminals and track down suspects.

  “Strong partnerships are critical in making our city safer,” said Ms. Thao in a press release Aug. 3 announcing the deal. “Our comprehensive community safety approach includes both accountability for those who commit crime as well as prevention and deterrence efforts to stop crime before it occurs.”

  

  While acknowledging efforts to reduce crime, Ms. Thao insisted more must be done.

  “As a city, we’ve worked hard to make it safer,” she said in a statement Aug. 8. “We know we need to do more.”

  Law enforcement officials recognize the dilemma facing residents and urged the community to unify and protect each other.

  “In recent weeks, we’ve seen a surge in violence which has impacted our community and it’s concerning for all of us who work, live and visit the City of Oakland,” said Interim Police Chief Darren Allison in a joint statementwith the mayor in May. “Our city, like many other major cities, is facing very challenging times and it is crucial we come together to take a collaborative approach when it comes to addressing crime in Oakland.”

  Police Suggest ‘Air Horns’ to Sound off Intruders

  One suggestion from the Oakland Police Department was for residents to equip themselves with air horns to sound off intruders and to alert neighbors of any disturbances.

  While some are following the advice, others question the efficacy of such a plan.

  “An air horn won’t save you from a robber with a gun,” Ms. Jackson said. “It might get you killed, but I don’t see it saving many lives.”

  Home invasions have escalated over the past year, according to Oakland police, with videos from home security cameras posted on social media showing armed intruders robbing unsuspecting homeowners.

  Authorities also say elderly residents in the Oakland Hills have been targeted repeatedly over the last few months.

  Police advise, when possible, people install burglar bars on windows and doors and utilize security measures to help stop break-ins.

  Cameras can also help prevent attacks and provide evidence to assist law enforcement investigations, according to experts.

  For now, some Oakland residents say they’re worried about the future and are considering leaving the city.

  “We can’t live in fear forever,” Ms. Jackson said. “If things don’t get better, my family will leave as soon as we can.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 21:40

• Manhattan Rents Hit Record High As Lease Activity Slumps, Indicating Deepening Affordability Crisis
  Manhattan Rents Hit Record High As Lease Activity Slumps, Indicating Deepening Affordability Crisis

  New York City is experiencing the worst housing crisis in a generation. The limited supply of apartments led to record high rents in July, the peak rental month of the year, just before the start of the school year.  

  Data from appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate showed Manhattan’s median rent topped $4,400, up 2.3% from June. Rents soared 11% in Brooklyn to $3,950 and in northwest Queens. In Astoria and Long Island City, rents rose 1.9% to $3,641. Manhattan rents reached a record high for the fourth time in five months. 

  

  Bloomberg quoted Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, who said, “We’re arriving at the tolerance level of the market. Prices are rising, reaching new records. Leasing activity is weakening, likely due to the record rents — tenants aren’t getting relief.”

  Miller said another record high could be seen in August as families and students sign leasing agreements ahead of the new school year. 

  Despite Manhattan’s population plunge of 400,000 between June 2020-22 and half-empty office towers scattered across the area, there still appears to be demand for apartments amid tight supply. 

  

  Miller pointed out that inventory is beginning to rise, and the decline of leases might indicate people have hit a breaking point: “It looks like rents are probably close to the tipping point… We’re seeing transactions slip because of affordability.”

  A separate report, published in April by Fund for the City of New York & United Way of New York City, found half of the households in the city barely had enough money to ‘comfortably’ afford rent and other expenses. 

  Meanwhile, the latest CPI print shows shelter costs nationwide have not only reached their peak but are now starting to decline. 

  

  Housing inflation slowing fast:

  Shelter inflation up 7.69% YoY in July vs 7.83% in June, lowest since Dec 22; also up 0.43% MoM, lowest monthly increase since Jan 22

  Rent inflation up 8.03% in July vs 8.33% in June, lowest since Nov 22; also up 0.41% MoM, lowest since March 22 pic.twitter.com/yL5d0RRTx6

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 10, 2023

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  If Miller is correct, the rental affordability breaking point is quickly approaching. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 21:20

• 'This Is Not The Scandal You're Looking For': How Washington Is Attempting To Dismiss $20 Million As An Illusion
  ‘This Is Not The Scandal You’re Looking For’: How Washington Is Attempting To Dismiss $20 Million As An Illusion

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  I previously wrote a column marveling at the success of the Bidens in pulling off one of the neatest tricks in political history. I analogized it to how Houdini used to make his 10,000-pound elephant Jennie disappear on a stage in front of a live audience. The media and political establishment is now striving to top that performance by declaring $20 million in payments to Biden family members as an “illusion” of influence. At the heart of this scandal is the BFF, the Biden Family Fund.

  

  Here is the column:

  This week, President Joe Biden responded to calls for greater access to the media with a blockbuster interview with . . . the Weather Channel.

  The interview immediately prompted critics to speculate that the president wanted to continue to talk about the weather – the same claim made after the disclosure of his participation in various dinners with his son’s foreign associates.

  As the number of these dinners, meetings and outings increase, Joe Biden appears to have covered more meteorological subjects than Al Roker.

  The problem is that conditions are worsening in Washington.

  This week, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer released a third report on the ongoing investigations into the Biden corruption scandal.

  The latest bank records indicate the Biden family has received more than $20 million, including from corrupt Kazakh figures.

  Some of this money provided Hunter Biden with extravagant toys. On April 22, 2014, Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev wired $142,300 to the Rosemont Seneca Bohai bank account.

  That account then shows the exact same amount being wired to a New Jersey car dealership for a Fisker sports car for Hunter.

  Finding the Fisker unsuitable, Hunter traded it in for a Porsche.

  Notably, these payments often coincided with dinners and meetings with Joe Biden.

  Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, the widow of Moscow ex-Mayor Yury Luzhkov, wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton Feb. 14, 2014.

  She later attended a dinner with Joe and Hunter Biden at Washington, DC, hotspot Café Milano.

  For weeks, Joe Biden’s prior claims have been collapsing as his allies in the media and Congress struggle for an alternative spin on these new disclosures.

  The president’s denials of any knowledge of his son’s foreign dealings finally have been exposed as a lie.

  Even the Washington Post has acknowledged Biden lied when he insisted that Hunter never made any money in China.

  It was always a boldfaced falsehood (and a confusing claim from a man who insisted that he had no knowledge of his son’s foreign dealings).

  But the testimony of associate Devon Archer and new bank records forced the paper and others to recognize the falsehood.

  There is also the confirmation that Biden’s long denials that he attended key dinners with Hunter’s business associates were false.

  Most notably, the media are grudgingly admitting that Hunter was openly selling influence peddling and access to his father as part of what Archer called “selling the brand.”

  The final line of defense is now that Hunter Biden was selling access to Joe Biden but it was an “illusion.” The reason, they claim, is there is no evidence of direct payments to Joe and Jill Biden.

  There is, of course, nothing “illusionary” about tens of millions moving to Hunter and other family members.

  But political spins are often built on illusions. The latest is that Joe Biden only benefits from these payments if they were directly deposited in his accounts.

  For a family that Hunter explained was “the best” at this type of dealing, it is absurd to expect a deposit slip from a corrupt Ukrainian official to the account of Joe and Jill Biden, one of the most vulnerable accounts in the world to review and monitoring.

  These claims, moreover, ignore emails discussing Hunter’s and his father’s use of joint accounts to pay for expenses, including how one account was used to pay Joe’s taxes. There is also Hunter’s complaint that he was using half of his earnings to support his father. Indeed, one trusted FBI informant said that, in planning a bribe, one foreign figure was told to avoid direct payments to Joe Biden. Today, that is as amateurish as an envelope of cash and the Bidens have been in the business of influence peddling for decades.

  Responding to the new evidence, Washington Post columnist Phillip Bump led the charge in asking: Where’s the bribe?

  In other words, as long as Hunter got the luxury car, Joe didn’t benefit or receive a bribe.

  (Notably, Bump did not have the same high standards when he pushed the false claim over a photo op in Lafayette Park and later refused to concede with the rest of the media on the lack of Russian collusion with Donald Trump.)

  Not even millions to Biden children and grandchildren would seem to satisfy Bump as an inducement for the then-vice president.

  Yet the greatest illusion is the claim Joe Biden would only be motivated by a direct payment to one of his accounts.

  Biden clearly benefited from millions going to the Biden Family Fund (BFF). Even grandchildren received some of the transfers funneled through a labyrinth of accounts.

  Joe Biden is 80 years old. Despite holding only government jobs in his career, he is worth an estimated $8 million.

  Forbes reported he earned $17.3 million over the four years he was out of office. He will never spend his fortune. Any additional money would have to pass to his descendants.

  For most wealthy people in their final years, the challenge is not raising more money but getting that money to your children without heavy taxes or delays.

  This money was going to his BFF. That is a benefit and probably of greater value to a man of Joe Biden’s age and wealth.

  None of this has stopped politicians, press and pundits from insisting that absent a direct payment to the president’s account, there is no corruption or crime.

  

  After all, $20 million going to a president’s family is like complaining about the weather in Washington.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 21:00

• Another Massive Mystery Fire Strikes Moscow, This Time Just Miles From Putin's Residence
  Another Massive Mystery Fire Strikes Moscow, This Time Just Miles From Putin’s Residence

  Another explosion and fire has rocked Moscow in the overnight hours, as a warehouse in Odintsovo, which lies west of Moscow, suffered reported explosions and was engulfed in flames. 

  TASS stated that the size of the fire was 2,000 square meters (21,500 square feet) as of around midnight Moscow time, and a largescale emergency response is in progress.

  

  While no cause has as of yet been officially communicated, Russia’s defense ministry has this week said the military intercepted several waves of drones in past days, including on the outskirts of Moscow. Drones out of Ukraine have become a serious enough threat to have briefly halted air traffic at key airports on a couple of occasions recently.

  According to Reuters, the warehouse blaze is a mere miles from President Putin’s presidential residence: 

  It did not say how the fire had started in the warehouse, 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) away from Putin’s presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo.

  Russia is on 🔥
  Moscow region again ❗
  Big Black Bavovna 🔥🔥🔥💨🤌
  Not just only windows lol
  A major fire in Odintsovo near Moscow tonight. According to updated data a warehouse on Zelenaya Street is on fire. Fire areas around 2.000 square meters. Dark smoke rises. The cause is… pic.twitter.com/FMNop3uYcq

  — LX (@LXSummer1) August 10, 2023

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

  This current disaster follows on the heels of Wednesday’s Zagorsk optical-mechanical plant fire.

  The Russian factory northeast of Moscow erupted into a massive explosion of unknown cause, injuring at least 45 people, and causing damage to surrounding buildings.

  Official Russian sources said it was being investigated as an “accident” – but the scale and frequency of such fires is leading to the obvious questions of whether these are covert sabotage operations or drone strikes.

  In #Odintsovo, #Moscow region, #Russia, there is a large fire happening tonight. Some reports say that the fire is at a warehouse.

  Odintsovo area houses multiple military bases and facilities. pic.twitter.com/D2OhUlVQxZ

  — Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) August 10, 2023

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

  And the fact that Moscow has now witnessed two very large industrial-warehouse fires in two consecutive days, coming off a week of frequent drone attacks, strongly points to cross-border Ukraine operations (or else sabotage attacks involving NATO). 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 20:40

• Man Killed During FBI Raid After Allegedly Threatening Biden
  Man Killed During FBI Raid After Allegedly Threatening Biden

  Authored by Zachary Steiber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A man was killed as FBI agents executed a search warrant in Utah on Aug. 9, officials confirmed.

  

  There was a shooting in Provo, Utah around 6:15 a.m. local time, the FBI said.

  “The incident began when special agents attempted to serve arrest and search warrants at a residence. The subject is deceased,” a bureau spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

  “The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously. In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is under review by the FBI’s Inspection Division. As this is an ongoing matter, we have no further details to provide,” the spokesperson added.

  A U.S. Secret Service spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email that the agency is aware of an FBI probe “involving an individual in Utah who has exhibited threats to a Secret Service protectee.”

  The spokesperson said the Secret Service is in close coordination with the FBI but that the bureau is leading the investigation.

  Court documents reviewed by The Epoch Times show that Craig Robertson, a Provo resident, was charged recently with threatening President Joe Biden and federal law enforcement officers.

  Neither the FBI nor the Secret Service denied it was Mr. Robertson who was killed.

  Mr. Robertson wrote in one Facebook post that he heard President Biden was traveling to Utah and that he would be “cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle, according to the court documents.

  “Welcom [sic], buffoon-in-chief,” Mr. Robertson wrote.

  President Biden was scheduled to land in Salt Lake City at 4:30 p.m. local time after spending most of the day in Arizona. A White House official told reporters in Arizona that the schedule has not changed.

  The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

  It was not clear whether Mr. Robertson had a lawyer.

  He did not return a message on Facebook, where his profile was still active.

  Mr. Robertson wrote on Facebook on Tuesday night that he dreamed of seeing President Biden’s body with the head severed. “Hoorah!!!” Mr. Robertson wrote.

  He had previously written, “The time is right for a presidential assassination or two.” He added, “First Joe then Kamala!!!” Kamala Harris is the vice president.

  The Cougar Chronicle, a student-run newspaper, reported that an elderly man and retired weld inspector was shot during an FBI raid in Provo on Wednesday. A LinkedIn profile for Mr. Robertson said he worked for 45 years as a welding inspector before retiring and starting a custom wood business.

  The Chronicle reported that eyewitnesses saw FBI agents approach the Provo residence and attempt entry with a battering ram. Gunshots rang out, and an elderly man was shot.

  In another post, Mr. Robertson was said to write to his “friends in the Federal Bureau of Idiots” that “I know you’re reading this and you have no idea how close your agents came to ‘violent eradication.'” And a third post said: “The FBI tried to interfere with my free speech right in my driveway. My 45ACP was ready to smoke ’em!!!”

  Mr. Robertson is also accused of threatening Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr., a Democrat who charged former President Donald Trump with felony counts related to payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels.

  “Heading to New York to fulfill my dream or iradicating [sic] another of George Soros two-but political hach [sic] DAs,” Mr. Robertson wrote on social media, according to court documents. He said he would be waiting in a parking garage with a gun to “smoke” Mr. Bragg.

  President Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case.

  Mr. Robertson was charged with making interstate threats, retaliating against federal officers by threat, and threatening the president.

  Visit

  The FBI became aware of threats made against Mr. Bragg when tipped off by a social media company in March, an FBI agent said in a probable cause filing.

  On March 19, two agents surveilled a Provo residence at which they believed Mr. Robertson lived. They witnessed a white male around 70 to 75 years old exiting the home and entering a vehicle registered to Mr. Robertson. He was wearing a hat with the word “TRUMP” on the front.

  The agents followed Mr. Robertson to a church and, later, back to his home. They approached him and asked about the threat against Mr. Bragg. Mr. Robertson admitted to the post but was quoted as saying, “I said it was a dream!” He added, according to the agent: “We’re done here! Don’t return without a warrant!”

  The agent told the court he later reviewed posts from another account used by Mr. Robertson and that he found evidence of additional threats as well as possession by Mr. Robertson of firearms.

  Other posts appeared to refer to Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of Mr. Biden, and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 20:20

• Burisma Told To Remove Joe Biden's Picture From Website After Lawyer Freaked Out
  Burisma Told To Remove Joe Biden’s Picture From Website After Lawyer Freaked Out

  In May of 2014, lawyers for then-VP Joe Biden freaked out and insisted that Ukrainian energy giant Burisma remove a photo of Biden and Burisma board member Devon Archer from its website, according to emails from Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop.

  

  In an email, Biden’s lawyer, Demetra Lambros, told Hunter Biden business associate Eric Schwerin that the photo needed to go.

  “Hey, guys,” Schwerin begins a May 13, 2014 email to Hunter Biden and Devon Archer. “There is apparently a photo of Devon and the VP on Burisma’s website (I can’t see it – the website isn’t working very well right now) but Demetra (VP Counsel) called and asked that we tell Burisma they need to take it down (legally they aren’t comfortable with the VP’s picture being up on the site as what seems like an endorsement),” the Daily Caller reports.

  Schwerin was referencing then-VP Biden’s counsel Demetra Lambros, whom President Biden appointed in June 2021 to serve as Chair of the President’s Commission on White House fellowships. She previously worked with Biden in 1996 as General Counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee under then-Democratic Delaware Sen. Joe Biden’s chairmanship.

  “Thanks Eric,” Archer responded. “Hunter got the call and it’s down. Was put up without authorization.  Just on a Board call now and will call you this afternoon.” -Daily Caller

  “Looks like it may have been taken down…finally got on the site,” said Schwerin.

  The now-defunct Burisma website had previously featured profiles of Hunter Biden and Devon Archer on its board of directors page.

  The same day Schwerin sent the email about the Biden picture, he sent multiple emails to Hunter asking about Burisma’s apparent ownership by a Cyprus-registered company, and how he could explain that to Lambros – who had raised the issue with Schwerin following the publication of a Politico article noting Hunter’s board seat.

  “FYI, the only other issue Demetra raised/asked about was that there was a Cypriot connection (ownership?) of the firm and your Dad is going next week. She just raised it – nothing more than that,” said Schwerin.

  “The company is simply registered in Cyprus,” Hunter replied.

  “That’s what I said,” responded Schwerin, adding: “Press is saying that not merely registered in Cyprus but is owned by a Cypriot entity named, ‘Brociti Investments.’ Demetra is asking about this. Any ideas if this is correct?”

  He then sent another email to Hunter later in the day seeking answers regarding Burisma’s ownership.

  “[I]f you have any idea on the Cypriot ownership question (per my earlier email that is [sic] seems the company is owned by a Cypriot company not just registered there), that would be helpful for Demetra and I can get back to her while you are on the plane tomorrow,” he said.

  Schwerin, Biden and Archer were part of an email exchange May 13, 2014, where Rosemont Seneca executives discussed how to respond to an inquiry from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) related to Hunter Biden’s Burisma board seat, emails show.

  Schwerin discussed the WSJ article May 14 and said Lambros and then-VP Biden spokesperson Kendra Barkoff’s potential questions pertaining to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky’s connection to pro-Russia Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was removed in 2014 as a result of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution. Zlochevsky was the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources in Yanukovych’s government prior to his ouster. -Daily Caller

  “When I talked to your Dad’s office they seemed to think the Yanukovich connection was incorrect and that the guy sold in 2011. I assume Kendra and/or Demetra will be interested in clarifying this while you are in the air tomorrow if you know. Let me know if you have any clarity on this you want me to pass on,” Schwerin wrote to Hunter.

  Meanwhile… no knowledge? Never spoken about? Impeachment when?

  Devon Archer’s testimony confirms Joe and Hunter Biden had dinner with Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi in Washington, D.C. @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/cfe2Ny06Qn

  — James Lynch (@jameslynch32) August 3, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 20:00

• Will They Ever Come Clean About The Damage They Caused?
  Will They Ever Come Clean About The Damage They Caused?

  Authored by Mark Oshinskie via The Brownstone Institute,

  Over the past few years, two immigrants in their mid-fifties became my friends. These guys are among the gentlest spirits that I’ve known, though one tells me he was a boxer back in the day and he works like a beast with a pick and shovel. The other man speaks five languages and knows far more about Botany than I do.

  While both men are delightful to interact with, each binge drinks every so often. One drinks until he passes out at the community gardens I manage and sometimes ends up in the hospital, drying out, for multiple days. The other becomes annoyingly loud and manic and does stupid stuff that causes him to lose jobs. He also suffers broken bones in unexplained tumbles. Both have visibly damaged their bodies by drinking excessively and seem likely to die before their time. 

  When I talk to these two about a given alcohol-fueled episode, they initially deny that they had drank to excess. After I mention the contrary evidence provided by the above outcomes, one admitted that, well, he might have had a beer or two. The other would only cop to imbibing a small amount of an alcohol-based herbal tincture remedy.

  Please. 

  We’ve all seen this same denialism regarding other instances of misbehavior. Initially, the transgressor denies any wrongdoing. Then, when confronted with specific proof, he understates the magnitude and/or frequency of the misconduct. These incomplete, and thus ultimately dishonest, admissions assuage his guilt and allow him to, at least in his own mind, save face and continue his self-deception. Like the child who hides his eyes and thinks you can’t see him because he can’t see you, the self-deceiving misrepresenter thinks he’s also deceiving the listener.

  After 41 months, Coronamania exponents find themselves in the same place as unrecovering alcoholics.

  

  For nearly three-and-a-half years, they’ve wildly lied about Covid’s danger. In particular, they cited grossly inflated death tolls to build panic and to justify their failed interventions. Nearly all of those said to have died “from Covid” were old, sick and/or obese and would have died soon whether infected or not. Those who didn’t fit this profile likely died iatrogenically from destructive hospital protocols, such as ventilation and kidney-damaging Remdesivir. 

  Hence, there was never a good reason to limit the lives of the non-old. This virus never justified, e.g., closing schools or mandatorily jabbing hundreds of millions.

  Additionally, the Covid overreactors lied about how effective the masks, tests and vaxxes were. When the shots clearly failed – as had been promised – to stop infection and spread, they moved the goalposts to “Well, the shots kept people out of the hospital.” 

  Yet, neither I, nor many uninjected others, have ever “gotten the virus,” much less been hospitalized. When I say this to vaxxers, they tell me I’m just lucky. It’s certainly not because I masked or hid form people. Because I didn’t.

  At long last, many of the Covidmanic are modifying their narrative. David Leonhardt’s recent New York Times article typifies this long overdue acknowledgement and abandonment of some – but not all – of the linchpin Covid lies. For example, 41 months after the racket began, Leonhardt quotes an “expert” who says that Covid deaths correlate closely with old age. 

  Please. 

  As if this wasn’t obvious in March, 2020.

  In an attempt to self-deceivingly save face and to appear to take a moderate, “nuanced” view, Leonhardt tentatively suggests that “the Pandemic” is over. He says that we should take comfort because, after 41 months of excess mortality, there are scarcely more than average excess deaths. 

  To begin with, I question this assertion; the figures I’ve seen still show significantly elevated deaths in many highly-vaxxed nations, including the United States. In the same week that Leonhardt posted his semi-apologia, statistical analyst/Subsatcker Ethical Skeptic discussed the ongoing understatement of excess deaths. According to Skeptic, non-natural deaths in late July, 2023 are still running 14 percent above historical trends.

  Even if excess deaths were flattening, one would have to consider that many deaths of the old and sick seem to have been “pulled forward” during the Scamdemic. Given prior death “spikes” over the past three years, there are fewer old, sick, obese people around than before. Thus, fewer in that cohort should be dying recently. Accordingly, we should now expect lower than average death rates. Having normal death rates would show that some factor other than Covid is causing excess deaths. I suspect these deaths derive from the Covid shots and such lingering Covid overreaction effects as substance abuse, depression, weight gain, and impoverishment.

  Notably, after three years of using inflated death figures to create the panic that delivered political and economic advantages, such Covid exaggerators as politicians, public health administrators, and Leonhardt now admit that Covid deaths were significantly overcounted. But, like hospitalized alcoholics who say they just had a couple of beers, the Covid-crazed won’t admit how much these numbers were exaggerated. They only admit to a 30 percent overstatement. 

  The 30 percent figure seems far too low for at least three reasons. Firstly, 65 percent of those who died with Covid were over 80. By that age, the average person has passed away; the bodies of those who’ve survived are wearing out. Secondly, the CARES Act strongly incentivized hospitals to overcode for Covid and families to accept death certificates blaming Covid. Thirdly, and anecdotally, though I directly know many hundreds of people, I know zero who were said to have died of Covid. I indirectly know—i.e., people I know have told me about—eight people they knew who were said to have died of Covid. Four of the decedents were over 90, two more had Stage 4 cancer, one was over 70 and very overweight with congestive heart failure and one, in his forties, was morbidly obese. Thus, eight out of eight reported “Covid deaths” that I know of involved distinctly unwell people. 

  By logical extension/extrapolation, all or nearly all purported Covid deaths seem to have extrinsic causes. Yet, throughout the Scamdemic, politicians, bureaucrats, and the media consequentially pretended that all were imperiled.

  Further, while he concedes that Covid deaths were overstated by 30 percent, Leonhardt engages in statistical sleight of hand. He continues to cite a 1.1 million Covid death toll, without deducting the overcounted 30 percent. Staying above the million-death threshold has too much emotional/rhetorical value to give away. 

  Neither Leonhardt nor other Coronamania backers ever acknowledge that medical practices that killed many were modified. Instead, in an abiding homage to Pharma, Leonhardt dutifully praises Paxlovid, while never noting that other, low-cost, off-label pharmaceutical/nutraceutical protocols worked well for many, before Paxlovid was marketed. Governments and many doctors withheld from the public information regarding these alt protocols. If excess deaths have flattened, much of that reflects hospitals’ retreat from the ham-handed Covid protocols they previously used.

  Reciting a central tenet of the Coronamanic faith, Leonhardt asserts that the shots significantly curtailed “The Pandemic.” But purported Covid deaths didn’t decline in synch with vaxx uptake; as more people injected in early 2021, there wasn’t a corresponding, sustained, linear drop in purported Covid deaths. To the contrary, ostensible Covid deaths “spiked” in 2021. In the second half of 2021, and throughout 2022, the vaxxes “wore off” and failed, on a mass scale, to prevent illness. Hence, vaxx uptake fell off a cliff. It seems highly unlikely that an ostensible decline of deaths in mid-2023 would derive from injections that failed two-plus years ago and have been widely avoided since. 

  Those who injected have been more, not less, likely to have become sick. If the shots didn’t—as promised—stop the spread, why would one believe those who assert that the shots make illness less severe? 

  Relatedly, Leonhardt never considers that viruses naturally evolve to weaker forms. Viral adaptation underlies the persistent ads urging everyone to get the latest “bivalent booster” to thwart the latest variant. But only the most gullible and fearful are rolling up sleeves for these worthless shots.

  Intransigent vaxx backers continue to misleadingly characterize the vaxx data. For example, Leonhardt asserts that the non-injected are more likely, on a percentage basis, to die from Covid. By relying on percentages, rather than absolute death stats, Leonhardt unwittingly implies what is undeniably true: many of the vaxxed have died with Covid. The vaunted vaxxes’ protection from serious illness is far from ironclad. 

  Leonhardt’s vaxx advocacy also overlooks the statistical distortions used to make the shots look better. First, those who administered the shots strategically declined to vaxx those who were so frail that the shots might kill them. Second, it fails to take into account that those who injected weren’t counted as vaxxed for 42 days after their first shot. As the shots initially suppress immunity, one should expect the shots to increase illness and deaths in the weeks after the shot regimen begins. Injectors who died within this initial 42 days were falsely counted as “unvaxxed.” 

  Delivering a Schadenfreude-y dopamine hit to his Times tribe, Leonhardt reports that Covid now kills more whites and Republicans, because these demographic groups disproportionately eschewed the shots. Initially, the study seems flawed because it derived party affiliation data from voter registrations, even though many voters don’t declare an affiliation or may cross party lines when they vote.

  Secondly, in yesterday’s Substack, Alex Berenson identifies basic flaws in this politically-driven study. Despite media misportrayals, the study concluded that only Republicans over 75—who had less ability to decline shots and were more likely with or without the shots—were more likely to die than are Democrats.

  Leonhardt doesn’t mention that the study found that death rates for Democrats were higher than Republicans between ages 65-74. Nor does he mention that death rates were the same for those under 64 in either party. Thirdly, Leonhardt’s race-based assertion seems hard to reconcile with data that jab uptake among whites was higher than that among blacks and Latinos and the media’s repeated assertions that, owing to medical access disparities, Covid deaths were higher among minorities. 

  Most fundamentally, the study shows that Democrats base their worldviews and their “Science” on political affiliation and race. But did anyone need a study to learn that?

  Leonhardt also conspicuously fails to mention that hundreds of thousands have suffered apparent vaxx injuries or deaths from heart attacks, strokes or cancers. Vaxx critics say that the shots are causing a net loss, not gain, in life span.

  Leonhardt also tacitly admits something that few, if any, in his camp would admit for 41 months, namely that the natural immunity that follows infection confers immunity. His belated admission of a bedrock epidemiological principle—herd immunity—that was, from 2020-23, used to vilify those who stated it is another instance of Coronamanic jersey-switching. 

  Leonhardt also belatedly, but only obliquely, admits what many who cite excess deaths won’t admit: the lockdowns/closures themselves killed multitudes. Those who supported the lockdowns/closures engendered the isolation, despair, overdoses, gun violence and postponed medical treatments for non-Covid ailments.

  Even if the lockdown/mask/test/vaxx supporters were to properly admit they were wrong about everything, their mea culpa would be far too late. Too much damage has already been done.

  The Machiavellians who concocted the Covid response and the media who sold it don’t regret what they did. It served their political, social, and economic purposes. Thus, the truth can now be publicly admitted, though not fully. Denying some aspects of reality allows the Coronamanic to deceive many and to think of themselves as good, smart people for having supported lockdowns, school closures, masks, tests, and shots.

  Ultimately, there’s one big difference between alcoholics, on the one hand, and the government and media that effected the Scamdemic and those who went along: while alcoholics mostly victimize themselves, those who effected and complied with Scamdemic policies victimized hundreds of millions of others.

  Republished from the author’s Substack

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 19:40

• Seattle Mayor's Office Demanded Fewer 'Officers Who Are White' For New Police Hires
  Seattle Mayor’s Office Demanded Fewer ‘Officers Who Are White’ For New Police Hires

  Seattle Mayor Bruce Harnell’s office demanded that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) hire fewer white men and those with “military bearing,” according to a memo obtained by the Jason Rantz Show.

  While the Mayor’s office initially refused to turn over the document through a public disclosure request, it was provided to Rantz by a confidential source.

  

  The memo, part of a larger effort to hire fewer white men, may be illegal according to the source.

  Ben Dalgetty, a Digital Strategy Lead from the Mayor’s office, took control of SPD marketing efforts. In a March 2023 memo to SPD human resources staff titled “SPD Marketing More and Less,” Dalgetty asked for “less” images and videos of “officers who are white, male,” and “officers with military bearing.” In their place, Dalgetty asked for more “officers of color,” “officers of different genders,” and “officers who are younger.” –KTTH

  “I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? You put this in writing?” one source told the Jason Rantz Show on the condition of anonymity. “It shows not only a lack of respect for officers, but a lack of respect for the military. They have no understanding of someone willing to put their lives on the line for their fellow man. They don’t have respect.”

  Contained in the memo were “guidelines … for relative terms compared to previous SPD marketing efforts,” designed to “shift the proportions of our photo/video collateral” away from featuring white male officers, and instead showing younger officers of color with different genders.

  After the controversial memo began attracting negative attention, Dalgetty, the digital strategist, edited the memo – effectively destroying the record that the city is obligated to maintain for public disclosure.

  In one edit, Dalgetty removed language asking for fewer images and video of white men. In another edit, he removed references to officers with military bearing. Finally, Dalgetty removed: “This doesn’t mean no officers who are white or male or only young officers of color, but guidelines to shift the proportions of our photo/video collateral to more of some things and less of others.” -KTTH

  Edited memo:

  

  More via KTTH (emphasis ours):

  Legality of memo

  According to the police source, several within the SPD were livid with the memo. Their jobs were already hard enough and they were uncomfortable with race-based hiring. As maddening, one said, the “less” portion was completely unnecessary. But did it describe illegal discrimination?

  Joshua Brittingham, a labor & employment attorney with Carney Badley Spellman, said the memo could haunt the city of Seattle should anyone make a legal claim of discrimination.

  “The SPD Marketing More and Less memo focuses on images for marketing purposes. It does not appear on its face to contain rules for hiring or promotion. The narrow focus of the memo could potentially inoculate the SPD from legal liability, at least based solely on the creation and distribution of the memo,” Brittingham tells The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “That said, employment laws prohibit refusing to hire, terminating, or discriminating against any person in wages or in other terms or conditions of employment based on race and veteran/military status. In the event of such discrimination — for example, an officer demoted or fired because he was white or a veteran — the memo might be used as evidence to demonstrate illegal discriminatory intent.”

  Police union weighs in

  Officer Mike Solan, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG), calls the memo unnecessarily divisive. He notes that “95% of what is listed in this recruiting document SPOG fully supports.”

  “What I condemn and will forever continue to push back on is the verbiage within the recruitment document that calls for less of white male officers. Less of people in leadership positions, and less of humans with military backgrounds. This is flat-out discrimination. Period. It is an affront to decency, reasonableness and further divides our communities,” Solan wrote in a statement to The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “When politics is intentionally inserted into the public safety policing conversation, we all lose. It is embarrassing, shameful, and detrimental to a healthy functioning society.”

  The Seattle Police Department, via a spokesperson, did not deny the memo caused a stir for staff. Instead, the spokesperson said in a statement that the department is committed to hiring staff that represents “the full diversity of our city.”

  Memo was seemingly destroyed

  It took the Mayor’s office months to supply the memo via a public disclosure request. In the initial disclosures, the original memo was not provided. Instead, the updated memo was supplied.

  “After speaking with Ben [Dalgetty], my understanding is that the record you’ve referred to was shared as a ‘live’ OneDrive link and was not attached to an e-mail,” the public disclosure officer emailed on July 10, over three months after the initial request. OneDrive is a cloud-based service for online collaboration, editing, and storage. “As with OneDrive documents shared out for collaboration, edits were made to the ‘live’ OneDrive link that was still in draft form on March 22, 2023 and March 23, 2023. The only version that we have of that record is the version that has already been provided to you.”

  It’s unclear if Dalgetty knew that OneDrive files track the history of edits made to a document. After The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH informed the public disclosure officer of the OneDrive history feature, the memo was belatedly turned over.

  Staying silent

  Though there’s no indication Dalgetty willfully withheld the document, a point the public information officer made in a statement to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH, it doesn’t matter.

  The memo edits weren’t properly saved to be turned over for a request that clarified, “The [Delgatty] emails should include all documents attached or linked to.” This incident begs the question: how often is the Mayor’s office withholding information (or not traditionally saving them) by using “live editing” on documents that they are legally obligated from maintaining for public records? If asking for “all documents” attached to emails isn’t interpreted as desiring all documents prior to being edited, what requests haven’t been properly fulfilled?

  Dalgetty did not respond to a request for comment.

  The Mayor’s office, via spokesperson Jamie Housen, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The mayor’s strategy, according to a source, is to ignore requests for comments as they wait to see if other outlets pick up a controversy. But given the allegations, it’s the reaction of police officers that they should pay attention to.

  Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). He is the author of the book What’s Killing America: Inside the Radical Left’s Tragic Destruction of Our Cities. Subscribe to the podcast. Follow @JasonRantz on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Check back frequently for more news and analysis.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 19:20

• Dems' Three Conflicting Goals Spark Surge In Political Risk Insurance Needs
  Dems’ Three Conflicting Goals Spark Surge In Political Risk Insurance Needs

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  In a recent survey of large corporations, 100% of the companies made some enhancement to their political risk management. 54% increased political risk insurance.

  

  Political Risk is Everyone’s Risk

  Please consider The Year Political Risk Became Everyone’s Risk.

  This is how an insurance broker typically describes political risk: “low frequency, high severity.” Political risk is, in short, a catastrophe risk, or “cat risk,” much like many types of natural disaster.

  We are going to have to rethink that description: this year, more than 9 in 10 of the companies we surveyed reported a political risk loss (up from 35% only a few years ago). This year, political risk became everyone’s risk.

  The annual Political Risk Survey, carried out by Oxford Analytica on behalf of WTW, combines in-depth interviews with a broader survey of a larger sample of companies. There were 50 respondents to the survey; The survey sample is representative of globalized businesses, across geographic regions, industries, and company size.

  Key Points

  • 86% of Western European respondents reported a net negative financial impact of the conflict, while only 33% of North American firms did so.

  • The shock of war on the European continent had triggered a “paradigm shift” said one member of our business panel; it is a “watershed moment,” said another.

  • 100% of the companies we surveyed had made at least some enhancement to their political risk management capabilities since February 2022.

  • The proportion who reported purchasing political risk insurance nearly trebled from 25% in 2019 to 68% this year.

  • The proportion who predicted deglobalization would “greatly strengthen” was 16% last year; this year it was nearly 50%.

  • The proportion who predicted decoupling from China would “greatly strengthen” was 12% in 2022, but 42% in 2023.

  • Each year, the study study by asks the business panel about the top risks for the year ahead. This year, complications from the Ukraine conflict led the list, followed by decoupling with China. A surprise third place was taken by the European Union, which faces an energy crisis, but is also reshaping the rules and standards of global businesses with its willingness to regulate in areas such as technology, data, supply chains and climate.

  When you confiscate reserves and place massive tariffs and sanctions on Russia and China, political risk blowback is the result.

  Political risk from Ukraine was felt more heavily in Europe, but the US was not immune. 33% of North American firms reported a loss from Ukraine. Interestingly 42 percent of US companies reported a gain.

  Oil companies, the weapons industry, and agricultural exporters were likely the big winners from the war in Ukraine. But were there any winners with big dependence on China?

  You Might Not Be Able to Get Insurance

  Although the need for insurance is soaring, Your Business in China May Be Uninsurable

  Underwriters stopped writing new policies in Russia months ago, and in China they appear spooked by events ranging from raids on Western consulting firms to threats against Taiwan. Two years ago, after Chinese state media declared videogames “spiritual opium,” shares in the Chinese entertainment giant Tencent swiftly plunged by more than 10%. Not even food and apparel companies, which have been considered relatively safe from political risks, can now be certain they’ll get such coverage.

  Of the 60 or so insurers that offer political-risk insurance, only four or five are still offering it for China, the insurance executive noted. Policies still being offered likely wouldn’t exceed $50 million coverage, down from around $2 billion a few years ago. Most large companies with operations in China have assets far above $50 million.

  Political Risk Is Just Beginning

  The Biden administration has escalated sanctions and tariffs on China.

  In response, China placed export restrictions on rare earth minerals used in computer chips and weapons.

  China’s Limits Germanium and Gallium Exports

  On July 5, Reuters reported China’s rare earths dominance in focus after it limits germanium and gallium exports

  China said on Monday it will impose export restrictions on gallium and germanium products used in computer chips and other components to protect national security interests.

  The decision, widely seen as retaliation for U.S. curbs on sales of technologies to China, raised concerns that China might eventually limit exports of other materials, notably rare earths, whose production China dominates.

  Mining: China accounted for 70% of world mine production of rare earths in 2022, followed by the United States, Australia, Myanmar and Thailand, United States Geological Survey (USGS) data shows.

  Processing: China is home to at least 85% of the world’s capacity to process rare earth ores into material manufacturers can use, according to research firm Adamas Intelligence in 2019.

  The chemical properties of rare earths make them difficult to separate from surrounding materials, and processing generates toxic waste.

  Lax environmental standards enabled China to build its dominance in rare earths in recent decades as Western producers left the industry.

  How China Cornered Rare Earths

  Good Grief Luke

  How China cornered rare earths

  1: China was blessed with minerals, not oil.
  2: China doesn’t give a damn about wrecking its environment to process them

  You seriously need to study many things and get out of your mindset that everything will crash the dollar.

  — Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) July 30, 2023

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

  How Long Does it Take to Start a Mine?

  Any attempt to eliminate fossil fuels by 2035, as Biden nationally, and the state of California are independently trying, will massively increase costs then fail spectacularly.

  — Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) April 17, 2023

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

  The US and G-7 Allies Are Torn Over Dependence on China

  Please consider my April post The US and G-7 Allies Are Torn Over Dependence on China

  Three Conflicting Goals 

  

  1. Reduce dependence on China

  2. Avoid protectionism 

  3. Appease the Greens 

  Impossible Requirements 

  1 + 2 is difficult if not impossible. 2 + 3 is difficult if not impossible. 1 + 3 is difficult if not impossible.

  1 + 2 + 3 is 100% guaranteed impossible. 

   Damn the Inflation, Full Speed Ahead

  Biden’s and California’s energy policy can easily be summed up in meme phrases.

  • Damn the Inflation, Full Speed Ahead

  • What, Me Worry?

  • The world will end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.

  On March 22, 2022, I commented Biden Doing Everything Possible to Drive Up the Price of Oil, Some of It’s Illegal

  On November 30, 2022, I commented The EU is Very Worried About Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

  On December 3, 2022, I commented Damn That Wind, It’s Not Listening to Biden or AOC

  On February 7, 2023, I commented Biden Gives a Well-Delivered SOTU Speech Begging for More Inflation and Tax Hikes

  On January 16, 2023, I commented “America First”, Biden and Trump Both Guilty of Sponsoring Inflation

  Biden’s Energy Policy Mandates Cause Severe Shortage of Electrical Steel and Transformers

  In case you missed it, please see Biden’s Energy Policy Mandates Cause Severe Shortage of Electrical Steel and Transformers

  Lesson of the Day

  Finally, please consider my July 20, 2023 post, Lesson of the Day: If You Weaponize the Dollar and Confiscate Assets, Expect Retaliation

  Meanwhile, someone please tell me how we are going to reduce dependence on China, avoid protectionism, and appease the Greens with their untenable demands to eliminate gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.

  You can’t because it’s impossible. So, yeah, the need for political risk insurance is soaring everywhere.

  *  *  *

  Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 19:00

• Thank Unions: Hottest Job Is $170k UPS Driver
  Thank Unions: Hottest Job Is $170k UPS Driver

  Earlier this week, United Parcel Service (UPS) slashed its financial outlook after reaching an agreement with the Teamsters Union in late July. This deal ensures delivery drivers receive an annual pay of $170,000. Even part-time employees are set to earn $25.75 an hour. As a result, UPS job searches are erupting nationwide. 

  Bloomberg cited data from online jobs website Indeed, which recorded a 50% jump in searches for “UPS” or “United Parcel Service” in the job title last month when the union secured $30 billion in new money for its members over the next five years. 

  Google search results show “UPS driver jobs near me” soared to a record high. 

  

  We should note the tentative agreement has yet to be accepted by the Teamsters Union, and a vote will be announced on Aug. 22. 

  Unions have been pushing companies to improve on-the-job conditions amid the worst inflation in a generation and two years of negative real wage growth that decimated households. Companies that have conceded to union demands, like UPS, are emerging as the most sought-after jobs due to pay hikes.

  

  While it’s unlikely the 340,000 union members will pass up this sweetheart deal, UPS slashed its full-year outlook this week on sliding package delivery volumes and costs associated with the union. Bloomberg explained the souring conditions for UPS means: “The company is most likely not going to hire en masse right now.” 

  Meanwhile, there are other rumblings in the transportation space. Pilots at FedEx rejected a union-brokered deal that would have raised their wages by about 30% through 2028. Union members were displeased with FedEx, citing higher wages at airlines.  

  “Labor groups seem to find it more appealing to reject the first offer to get a better second offer,” Helane Becker, an analyst at investment banking company TD Cowen, said. She added, “Sometimes it doesn’t get better.”

  Some labor fights with unions and companies have sparked turmoil. Trucking company Yellow Corp. filed for bankruptcy this week, placing the blame on the union:

  “We faced nine months of union intransigence, bullying and deliberately destructive tactics.” 

  And the wave of union bosses making outsized demands at other companies could only be in the beginning innings. This will only lead to higher prices and could drive some companies out of business, such as what happened to Yellow.

  Rising labor disputes and wage inflation will likely mean elevated overall inflation, signaling the Fed’s job isn’t done. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 18:40

• In A World Stripped Of Authenticity, "Let's Dispense With Human Presidential Candidates"
  In A World Stripped Of Authenticity, “Let’s Dispense With Human Presidential Candidates”

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  I’m Not Really Enjoying the Show

  Let’s dispense with human presidential candidates and conventions, and replace both the candidates and their supporters with idealized AI fabrications.

  The Show Must Go On, but I’m not really enjoying the show. One reason why is I Keep Changing Channels But It’s Still the Same Program, i.e. the programming and marketing are now homogenized. Another is Even the Aliens Are Boring, i.e. everything is so sensationalized and hyped that we are now desensitized to it all.

  A third reason is our culture has perfected the craft of self-parody, rendering parody impossible. To parody foolish excess, we exaggerate a two-patty burger into a four-patty burger: oops, they’ve already hyped four-patty burgers.

  To parody the fossilization of American politics, we create a parody in which 77-year olds are the vibrant young-uns in the halls of power. Dang, the halls of power are already choked with more elderly than the USSR’s creaky leadership just before it collapsed in a heap.

  To parody the homogenization and infantilization of Hollywood, we create a parody in which the dominant “tentpoles” generating steady profits are endlessly proliferating comic book superheroes. Darn, that’s already the case.

  To parody the media’s desperate competition for “engagement,” we create a parody in which everything becomes a global existential crisis. Heh, there’s no way to parody anything that’s already been driven to excess via the mastery of self-parody.

  Irony has also been shown the door. The core dynamic of the modern world isn’t–as is constantly hyped–innovation; it’s marketing, persuading someone to transfer value–money, loyalty, votes, engagement– for something (tangible or intangible) without regard to the eventual costs and consequences of the exchange.

  The irony is authenticity is faked to make the sale. But the fraud of mimicking authenticity to make the sale is now so embedded, so ubiquitous, that the irony is lost: we are living in a Philip K. Dick story come to life in which real young women fabricating fake lives of glamor and luxury to boost their Only Fans income are now competing with digitized imaginary young women that are idealized versions (like Barbie) of the sexually compelling female.

  In a culture stripped of irony and parody, a movie based on an idealized female doll introduced 64 years ago reaps $1 billion in sales and sparks thousands of earnest cultural commentaries. Barbie as a marketing phenomenon has of course evolved: idealized male Ken was introduced a few years later, along with an ever-expanding line of ethnic Barbies. Barbie is clearly an “authentic” cultural icon.

  If the aliens are watching us, one hopes they have a refined sense of absurdist humor.

  As for AI: what’s marketed as “artificial intelligence” is certainly artificial, but it isn’t remotely intelligent. By mimicking humanity’s natural language abilities, ChatAI programs make a marketing claim of authenticity that is entirely fraudulent. There is no “there there” in terms of understanding, predictive acumen or any other form of what once passed for intelligence.

  The entire point of this bogus AI is to automate the processes of marketing, homogenization and hype, to streamline and reduce the costs of faking authenticity to make the sale. As in a Philip K. Dick story, where the protagonist ends up asking if he is in fact a robot and not a human as he assumed–our own authenticity must be questioned, as what we assume is “the real me” turns out to be nothing but a jumble of marketing cliches that reads like an obituary: he was a Steelers fan, loved the music of Nashville, was an avid BBQer, etc.

  With parody and irony both enfeebled, the show is now tediously humorless. What can we say about a show in which the once-compelling topic of alien visitations to Earth are reduced to another boring congressional hearing on CSPAN, a parody in which the possibility of an alien presence is reduced to ashes while whatever is being marketed at the moment is hyped as the “crisis” you must pay attention to?

  It’s impossible to parody what is already an absurdist parody. Consider the ceaseless adverts for low-quality processed / fast-food in which ecstasy can be yours (“this greasy sugar-bomb tastes good!”) for a low, low price and the rest of the adverts, which are for pharmaceutical medications for all the diseases created by consuming low-quality processed / fast-food, ads that include an eye-watering list of side-effects that is impossible to parody, as it already includes “and in rare cases, death.”

  Hmm. So we can expire from metabolic and other lifestyle disorders in the pursuit of infantile “it tastes so good!” or we can expire from the supposed cure, after suffering from a list of side-effects that would qualify as banned protocols of torture. Absurdist irony, you are now live, action!

  So desperate are we for authentic authenticity that “the real thing” becomes an irresistible marketing platform. You may have come across a young woman’s artful videos of her preparing real food in a beautiful rural setting in China. Her name is Li Ziqi. Her videos have logged almost 3 billion views. They are remarkable for their composition and for her culinary, gardening and handicraft skills, which are clearly real. She brought the mythology of an authentic life close to the Earth into being, and the global desperation for some shred of unpackaged, unprogrammed, unmarketed authenticity generated her vast audience.

  Alas, her authentic skills were packaged so entrancingly with a commercial purpose. Thanks to a marketing deal, her global audience exploded, as did the sales of her line of products in China. She suddenly stopped issuing new videos two years ago, and it seems legal / commercial conflicts were at the heart of her disappearance: Li Ziqi’s Online Pastoral Poetics: Millions of people subscribed to her vision of an idyllic rural existence. Who was she, and why did she disappear? (New Yorker)

  It’s doubtful that many of her millions of viewers actually wanted to spend hours tending gardens and making real food from real produce; they found pleasure in the mythology, not the reality. This is the problem with authenticity: it’s demanding and requires discipline and an inner life immune to marketing.

  To grasp why the show is no longer enjoyable, we turn once again to Philip K. Dick, who offered an insightful description of authenticity in How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later:

  “The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds. but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.”

  In conclusion, I offer an idea: let’s dispense with human presidential candidates and conventions, and replace both the candidates and their supporters with idealized AI fabrications. Thanks to AI, the fake candidates can engage in realistic fake debates, and their fake supporters can clap, cheer and jeer on cue.

  

  In a world stripped of authenticity, irony and parody, such a substitution makes marketing sense. Let’s get the show rolling, and make the sale. It’s just a guess, of course, but I think the aliens would approve.

  *  *  *

  My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

  Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  Subscribe to my Substack for free

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 18:20

• $13 Billion For Ukrainians, $12 Billion For Devastated Hawaii
  $13 Billion For Ukrainians, $12 Billion For Devastated Hawaii

  Just on the heels of Hawaii declaring a state of emergency over its deadly hurricane-driven wildfires which have decimated much of the once paradise island of Maui, President Biden is expected to request $13 billion in emergency funding for… military support to Ukraine.

  And oh… emergency funds for Hawaii will be less, as Biden simultaneously approved $12 billion for federal disaster relief.

  

  In total the new package being requested for Congressional approval comes in at a whopping $40 billion. 

  On top of the $13 billion in defense aid for Ukraine, another $8 billion is being sought for humanitarian support for the Ukrainians through the end of the year.

  As for Hawaii, which saw wildfires wipe entire towns and neighborhoods off the map, leaving 36 Americans dead, it clearly takes a backseat to the Ukrainians’ plight in the thinking of the administration: 

  The package includes $12 billion to replenish the U.S. federal disaster funds at home after a deadly climate season of heat and storms, and funds to bolster the enforcement at the Southern border with Mexico, including money to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl. All told, it’s a $40 billion package.

  The giant total price tag is setting up a fight with GOP leadership. 

  White House budget director Shalanda Young wrote House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday, urging Republicans to prioritize “commitment to the Ukrainian peoples’ defense of their homeland and to democracy around the world” as well as other needs. But the optics are obvious, and bad…

  Do you think Hawaii will get as much money as Ukraine? pic.twitter.com/yKDKCnbOpw

  — Ben Swann (@BenSwann_) August 10, 2023

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  The verdict is in, as Biden continues to put Ukraine first…

  Rebuild Hawaii, not Ukraine. https://t.co/wgymiIaujj

  — Abe Hamadeh (@AbrahamHamadeh) August 9, 2023

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  Republicans are likely to seize on these terrible optics, also given public support is generally waning amid the failing Ukraine counteroffensive.

  USA Today has observed that Biden’s request “will run into stern opposition in the GOP-run House with Republicans who are adamantly against approving government spending that isn’t paired with budget cuts and conservatives who want a more detailed accounting of how Ukraine is spending the money the U.S. has already sent.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 08/10/2023 – 18:00

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