Today’s News 12th February 2022

• Another Banner Year For The Military-Industrial Complex
  Another Banner Year For The Military-Industrial Complex

  Authored by William Hartung via TheNation.com,

  Twenty twenty-one was another banner year for the military-industrial complex, as Congress signed off on a near-record $778 billion in spending for the Pentagon and related work on nuclear warheads at the Department of Energy. That was $25 billion more than the Pentagon had even asked for.

  

  It can’t be emphasized enough just how many taxpayer dollars are now being showered on the Pentagon. That department’s astronomical budget adds up, for instance, to more than four times the cost of the most recent version of President Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which sparked such horrified opposition from Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other alleged fiscal conservatives. Naturally, they didn’t blink when it came to lavishing ever more taxpayer dollars on the military-industrial complex.

  Opposing Build Back Better while throwing so much more money at the Pentagon marks the ultimate in budgetary and national-security hypocrisy. The Congressional Budget Office has determined that, if current trends continue, the Pentagon could receive a monumental $7.3 trillion-plus over the next decade, more than was spent during the peak decade of the Afghan and Iraq wars, when there were up to 190,000 American troops in those two countries alone. Sadly, but all too predictably, President Biden’s decision to withdraw US troops and contractors from Afghanistan hasn’t generated even the slightest peace dividend. Instead, any savings from that war are already being plowed into programs to counter China, official Washington’s budget-justifying threat of choice (even if outshone for the moment by the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine). And all of this despite the fact that the United States already spends three times as much as China on its military.

  The Pentagon budget is not only gargantuan, but replete with waste—from vast overcharges for spare parts to weapons that don’t work at unaffordable prices to forever wars with immense human and economic consequences. Simply put, the current level of Pentagon spending is both unnecessary and irrational.

  PRICE GOUGING ON SPARE PARTS

  Overcharging the Pentagon for spare parts has a long and inglorious history, reaching its previous peak of public visibility during the presidency of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Then, blanket media coverage of $640 toilet seats and $7,600 coffee makers sparked public outrage and a series of hearings on Capitol hill, strengthening the backbone of members of Congress. In those years, they did indeed curb at least the worst excesses of the Reagan military buildup.

  Such pricing horror stories didn’t emerge from thin air. They came from the work of people like legendary Pentagon whistleblower Ernest Fitzgerald. He initially made his mark by exposing the Air Force’s efforts to hide billions in cost overruns on Lockheed’s massive C-5A transport plane. At the time, he was described by former Air Force Secretary Verne Orr as “the most hated man in the Air Force.” Fitzgerald and other Pentagon insiders became sources for Dina Rasor, a young journalist who began drawing the attention of the media and congressional representatives to spare-parts overcharges and other military horrors. In the end, she formed an organization, the Project on Military Procurement, to investigate and expose waste, fraud, and abuse. It would later evolve into the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the most effective current watchdog when it comes to Pentagon spending.

  A recent POGO analysis, for instance, documented the malfeasance of TransDigm, a military parts supplier that the Department of Defense’s Inspector General caught overcharging the Pentagon by as much as 3,800 percent —yes, you read that figure right!—on routine items. The company was able to do so only because, bizarrely enough, Pentagon buying rules prevent contract officers from getting accurate information on what any given item should cost or might cost the supplying company to produce it.

  In other words, thanks to Pentagon regulations, those oversight officials are quite literally flying blind when it comes to cost control. The companies supplying the military take full advantage of that. The Pentagon Inspector General’s office has, in fact, uncovered more than 100 overcharges by TransDigm alone, to the tune of $20.8 million. A comprehensive audit of all spare-parts suppliers would undoubtedly find billions of wasted dollars. And this, of course, spills over into ever more staggering costs for finished weapons systems. As Ernest Fitzgerald once said, a military aircraft is just a collection of “overpriced spare parts flying in formation.”

  WEAPONS THIS COUNTRY DOESN’T NEED AT PRICES WE CAN’T AFFORD

  The next level of Pentagon waste involves weapons we don’t need at prices we can’t afford, systems that, for staggering sums, fail to deliver on promises to enhance our safety and security. The poster child for such costly, dysfunctional systems is the F-35 combat aircraft, a plane tasked with multiple missions, none of which it does well. The Pentagon is slated to buy more than 2,400 F-35s for the Air Force, Marines, and Navy. The estimated lifetime cost for procuring and operating those planes, a mere $1.7 trillion, would make it the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons project ever.

  Once upon a time (as in some fairy tale), the idea behind the creation of the F-35 was to build a plane that, in several variations, would be able to carry out many different tasks relatively cheaply, with potential savings generated by economies of scale. Theoretically, that meant the bulk of the parts for the thousands of planes to be built would be the same for all of them. This approach has proven a dismal failure so far, so much so that the researchers at POGO are convinced the F-35 may never be fully ready for combat.

  Its failures are too numerous to recount here, but a few examples should suffice to suggest why the program minimally needs to be scaled back in a major way, if not canceled completely. For a start, though meant to provide air support for troops on the ground, it’s proved anything but well-designed to do so. In fact, that job is already handled far better and more cheaply by the existing A-10 “Warthog” attack aircraft. A 2021 Pentagon assessment of the F-35—and keep in mind that this is the Department of Defense, not some outside expert— found 800 unresolved defects in the plane. Typical of its never-ending problems: a wildly expensive and not particularly functional high-tech helmet that, at the cost of $400,000 each, is meant to give its pilot special awareness of what’s happening around and below the plane as well as to the horizon. And don’t forget that the F-35 will be staggeringly expensive to maintain and already costs an impressive $38,000 an hour to fly.

  In December 2020, House Armed Services Committee chair Adam Smith finally claimed he was “tired of pouring money down the F-35 rathole.” Even former Air Force chief of staff General Charles Brown acknowledged that it couldn’t meet its original goal—to be a low-cost fighter—and would have to be supplemented with a less costly plane. He compared it to a Ferrari, adding, “You don’t drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays.” It was a stunning admission, given the original claims that the F-35 would be the Air Force’s affordable, lightweight fighter and the ultimate workhorse for future air operations.

  It’s no longer clear what the rationale even is for building more F-35s at a time when the Pentagon has grown obsessed with preparing for a potential war with China. After all, if that country is the concern (an exaggerated one, to be sure), it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which fighter planes would go into combat against Chinese aircraft, or be engaged in protecting American troops on the ground—not at a moment when the Pentagon is increasingly focused on long-range missiles, hypersonic weapons, and unpiloted vehicles as its China-focused weapons of choice.

  When all else fails, the Pentagon’s fallback argument for the F-35 is the number of jobs it will create in states or districts of key members of Congress. As it happens, virtually any other investment of public funds would build back better with more jobs than F-35s would. Treating weapons systems as jobs programs, however, has long helped pump up Pentagon spending way beyond what’s needed to provide an adequate defense of the United States and its allies.

  And that plane is hardly alone in the ongoing history of Pentagon overspending. There are many other systems that similarly deserve to be thrown on the scrap heap of history, chief among them the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), essentially an F-35 of the sea. Similarly designed for multiple roles, it, too, has fallen far short in every imaginable respect. The Navy is now trying to gin up a new mission for the LCS, with little success.

  This comes on top of buying outmoded aircraft carriers for up to $13 billion a pop and planning to spend more than a quarter of a trillion dollars on a new nuclear-armed missile, known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD. Such land-based missiles are, according to former secretary of defense William Perry, “among the most dangerous weapons in the world,” because a president would have only minutes to decide whether to launch them on being warned of an enemy nuclear attack. In other words, a false alarm (of which there have been numerous examples during the nuclear age) could lead to a planetary nuclear conflagration.

  The organization Global Zero has demonstrated convincingly that eliminating land-based missiles altogether, rather than building new ones, would make the United States and the rest of the world safer, with a small force of nuclear-armed submarines and bombers left to dissuade any nation from launching a nuclear war. Eliminating ICBMs would be a salutary and cost-saving first step towards nuclear sanity, as former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg and other experts have made all too clear.

  AMERICA’S COVER-THE-GLOBE DEFENSE STRATEGY

  And yet, unbelievably enough, I haven’t even mentioned the greatest waste of all: this country’s “cover the globe” military strategy, including a planet-wide “footprint” of more than 750 military bases, more than 200,000 troops stationed overseas, huge and costly aircraft-carrier task forces eternally floating the seven seas, and a massive nuclear arsenal that could destroy life as we know it (with thousands of warheads to spare).

  You only need to look at the human and economic costs of America’s post-9/11 wars to grasp the utter folly of such a strategy. According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, the conflicts waged by the United States in this century have cost $8 trillion and counting, with hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, thousands of US troops killed, and hundreds of thousands more suffering from traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. And for what? In Iraq, the United States cleared the way for a sectarian regime that then helped create the conditions for ISIS to sweep in and conquer significant parts of the country, only to be repelled (but not thoroughly defeated) at great cost in lives and treasure. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, after a conflict doomed as soon as it morphed into an exercise in nation-building and large-scale counterinsurgency, the Taliban is now in power. It’s hard to imagine a more ringing indictment of the policy of endless war.

  Despite the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, for which the Biden administration deserves considerable credit, spending on global counterterror operations remains at high levels, thanks to ongoing missions by Special Operations forces, repeated air strikes, ongoing military aid and training, and other kinds of involvement short of full-scale war. Given the opportunity to rethink strategy as part of a “global force posture” review released late last year, the Biden administration opted for a remarkably status quo approach, insisting on maintaining substantial bases in the Middle East, while modestly boosting the US troop presence in East Asia.

  As anyone who’s followed the news knows, despite the immediate headlines about sending troops and planes to Eastern Europe and weapons to Ukraine in response to Russia’s massing of its forces on that country’s borders, the dominant narrative for keeping the Pentagon budget at its current size remains China, China, China. It matters little that the greatest challenges posed by Beijing are political and economic, not military. “Threat inflation” with respect to that country continues to be the Pentagon’s surest route to acquiring yet more resources and has been endlessly hyped in recent years by, among others, analysts and organizations with close ties to the arms industry and the Department of Defense.

  For example, the National Defense Strategy Commission, a congressionally mandated body charged with critiquing the Pentagon’s official strategy document, drew more than half its members from individuals on the boards of arms-making corporations, working as consultants for the arms industry, or from think tanks heavily funded by just such contractors. Not surprisingly, the commission called for a 3 percent to 5 percent annual increase in the Pentagon budget into the foreseeable future. Follow that blueprint and you’re talking $1 trillion annually by the middle of this decade, according to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense. Such an increase, in other words, would prove unsustainable in a country where so much else is needed, but that won’t stop Pentagon budget hawks from using it as their North Star.

  In March of this year, the Pentagon is expected to release both its new national defense strategy and its budget for 2023. There are a few small glimmers of hope, like reports that the administration may abandon certain dangerous (and unnecessary) nuclear-weapons programs instituted by the Trump administration.

  However, the true challenge, crafting a budget that addresses genuine security problems like public health and the climate crisis, would require fresh thinking and persistent public pressure to slash the Pentagon budget, while reducing the size of the military-industrial complex. Without a significant change of course, 2022 will once again be a banner year for Lockheed Martin and other top weapons makers at the expense of investing in programs necessary to combat urgent challenges from pandemics to climate change to global inequality.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 23:40

• ATF Tries To Ban Forced Reset Triggers As People Begin To 3D Print At Home
  ATF Tries To Ban Forced Reset Triggers As People Begin To 3D Print At Home

  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has been coming after the Orlando-based Rare Breed Triggers (RBT), the manufacturer of a drop-in AR-15 forced reset trigger since last summer. 

  Everyone in the gun-rights world has been following the ATF’s attack on RBT. The Feds say RBT’s FRT-15 (forced reset trigger for an AR-15 platform) is classified as a “machine gun,” but the company claims otherwise. 

  Less than two weeks ago, Gun Owners of America, one of the most prominent pro-gun organizations, published an alleged leaked internal ATF email documenting plans to start seizing lawfully-owned FRT-15s from manufacturers and resellers. RBT’s president Lawrence Demonico responded to the leaked memo and said while he couldn’t confirm it, “I can tell you we’ve received word from one dealer in Illinois late yesterday afternoon stating that the ATF visited him and handed him a cease and desist order and seized FRT-15 triggers.” 

  The ATF under the Biden administration is getting bolder and could rule by executive fiat on new guidelines for gun braces, serialized uppers, and 80% lowers as early as spring. The Feds are also pursuing the ban of forced reset triggers. Many in the gun community have a bad feeling about an overreaching ATF ahead of midterms as President Biden must appease his anti-gun base. 

  With that aside, we enter the world of 3D printing and how the gun community has embraced this technology over recent years to stay one step ahead of the ATF. This brings us to one YouTuber named “Hoffman Tactical,” who released a video days ago explaining how he 3D-printed a forced reset trigger. 

  

  Parts for the drop-in trigger can easily be printed at home. 

  

  The video starts with an individual shooting an AR-15 with a custom 3D printed “FRT” trigger. One can noticeably tell the forced reset trigger speeds up the rate of fire. The remainder of the video explains the design and printing of the trigger. 

  Our point is no matter how much effort the Biden administration puts into banning guns and accessories through executive fiat. There is a rapidly growing community of law-abiding citizens 3D printing and evolving gun designs in their basements with 3D printers found on Amazon and free CAD software online, along with countless forums for discussion among other enthusiasts. Technology is far outpacing the ATF and is a countermeasure to make sure government doesn’t overstep its boundaries. 

  “The interesting thing about the design of this 3D Forced Reset Trigger is that there are only three small 3d printed components that integrate with a regular or “mil-spec” trigger group. If you looked at the 3D printed components, you’d have no idea they’re even gun parts. This is why the ATF has their new rule changes they will be trying to implement in the spring, trying to cast the widest regulatory net possible. With 3d printing and home builds, who’s to say what is, and isn’t a gun? Will the ATF regulate blocks of aluminum as 0% receivers, or will they make a push to regulate source code or books on 3d printing and CAD files. Ultimately the ATF is fighting a battle that it cannot win without a major increase in its power over taxpayers, which the Biden administration has continuously asked for from congress, but is unlikely to receive,” said gun advocacy group The Machine Gun Nest. 

  So what can the ATF do about law-abiding citizens printing guns and accessories at home? Ban printers? Regulate PLA purchases? Ban the ability to share CAD files?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 23:20

• How Much Are Americans Using Novel 'Sextech'? A New Survey Finds Out
  How Much Are Americans Using Novel ‘Sextech’? A New Survey Finds Out

  Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClear Science (emphasis ours),

  Emerging technologies continually reshape almost every aspect of our lives, including our sex lives. A new survey published in the Journal of Sex Research finds that some types of “sextech” are becoming mainstream.

  

  “Sextech” includes internet-based applications, platforms, or devices used for sexual pleasure.

  Online pornography may be the quintessential sextech. Hard to come by just three decades ago, today, two of the top ten most visited websites in the world are porn sites. One in six American women and nearly one in two American men view online pornography on a weekly basis. Could any other sextech reach similar levels of adoption?

  To find out, researchers at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute conducted an anonymous online survey with just over 7,500 participants aged 18 to 65. As part of a broader questionnaire about their digital lives, participants were queried about their use of six emerging sextechs: visiting a “camming” website where performers stream sexual content for viewers, participating in a camming stream by messaging or tipping the performer, using a remotely-controlled, internet-connected “teledildonic” sex toy, viewing virtual reality pornography, playing a sexually explicit online video game, or messaging an artificially intelligent sex-focused chatbot.

  Overall, 18% of those surveyed had visited a camming website, 13% had played sex-focused video games, 11% had participated in a camming stream, 10% had used VR pornography, 9% had used teledildonics, and 8% had exchanged sexts with an A.I. chatbot. Men were about three to four times more likely than women to engage in all those activities. Wealthier, younger, and LGBT individuals were also much more likely to use emerging sextech. Of note, about a third of those surveyed between ages 18 and 20 had played sex-based video games. Only about one in fifty people aged 60+ used these novel sextechs.

  Also intriguing: religious individuals were slightly more likely than nonbelievers to use sextech, a finding which surprised the researchers.

  “Perhaps prominent religious figures have not condemned these newer technologies as heavily as more traditional forms (e.g., pornography), thereby minimizing shame,” the authors speculated.

  With a highly-publicized presence at the Consumer Electronics Show, innovative sexual technologies are clearly here and not going anywhere. Technology now pervades our lives, both publicly and intimately.

  “The current results suggest the sexual landscape has dramatically changed, with technology increasingly offering avenues for sexual fulfillment across a wide range of demographics,” the researchers conclude.

  Source: Amanda N. Gesselman, Ellen M. Kaufman, Alexandra S. Marcotte, Tania A. Reynolds & Justin R. Garcia (2022) Engagement with Emerging Forms of Sextech: Demographic Correlates from a National Sample of Adults in the United States, The Journal of Sex Research, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2021.2007521

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 23:00

• Global Freedoms Hit 'Dismal' Record Low Amid Pandemic
  Global Freedoms Hit ‘Dismal’ Record Low Amid Pandemic

  The state of democracy worldwide fell to a record low in 2021, largely due to pandemic restrictions that have led to many nations placing a public health emergency of arguable severity over personal freedoms, according to a new report released Thursday which rated 167 countries based on various measures including civil liberties and electoral processes.

  

  According to the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), less than half the world’s population live under some form of democracy.

  Overall, the world’s score fell to 5.28 out of 10, setting “another dismal record,” with the EIU’s lowest rating since they began the index in 2006, according to the Washington Post.

  The annual decline was the largest since 2010, with the survey finding that just 6.4% of the world lived in a “full democracy” last year, while over 1/3 lied under authoritarian rule – with much of that coming from China.

  The decline did not start with the pandemic, but it has compounded negative trends. From lockdowns to travel bans, the coronavirus led to “an unprecedented withdrawal of civil liberties among developed democracies and authoritarian regimes alike,” the report said. -WaPo

  “It has led to the normalization of emergency powers, which have tended to stay on the statute books, and accustomed citizens to a huge extension of state power over large areas of public and personal life,” reads the report, which adds that the pandemic has exposed inequalities in health care, government mismanagement, and weaknesses in economic ‘safety nets.’

  The pandemic has also opened the door for governments to exploit the health crisis in order to suppress political participation.

  While North America remained the highest-ranked region in the EIU survey, Canada saw “a notable decline,” pushing the country out of the top 10, though it still scored highly, the report said.

  Meanwhile, it noted that just about 10 percent of Canadians in a separate poll felt they had “a great deal” of freedom of choice and control, with “a worrying trend of disaffection among Canada’s citizens with traditional democratic institutions and increased levels of support for non-democratic alternatives.” -WaPo

  In the United States – which received a “flawed democracy” rating from the EIU, “political and cultural divisions have become more entrenched,” despite Americans having become more engaged in politics in recent years due to “a series of high-impact events in 2020—including a politicized pandemic and a presidential election that the two main political parties framed in existential terms—boosted political engagement and participation.”

  Topping the list of ‘full democracies’ are Norway, New Zealand and Finland. At the bottom are Afghanistan, Myanmar and North Korea.

  Meanwhile, the 2021 Human Freedom Index from the Cato Institute and the Fraser Institute similarly found that freedom has declined for around 80% of the world, and that’s the ‘good news’ according to RealClear Policy.

  The HFI, the broadest available freedom index, measures economic and personal freedoms, including security and the rule of law, both needed to protect the freedom of all and enable people to safely exercise their freedom. 

  The decline in freedom is wide-ranging. It affects countries large and small, dictatorships and democracies, and all regions of the planet. The freedoms that have declined most are speech, religion, and association and assembly. Yet there is a silver lining in these darkening skies.  

  In short, the decline in freedom worldwide is higher now than at any time in human history prior to the late 20th century, when the iron curtain fell.

  Although in decline, freedom across the globe is higher now than at any time in human history prior to the late 20^th century, when the iron curtain fell freeing hundreds of millions; African dictatorships gave way to elections; Latin America’s young democracies began opening their economies; Asian nations like Indonesia and the Philippines eased suppression; and China, home to more than a billion people, continued its liberalization. Most nations now backsliding are freer than they were two generations ago. 

  Yet today, much of the good news is bad. Look at the five nations where freedom most increased between 2008 and 2019: Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Armenia.  

  Myanmar and Tunisia have since suffered coups; Sri Lanka’s former leaders, accused of human rights crimes, have returned to power; Ethiopia has fallen into a gruesome civil war (after its newly elected prime minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019), and Armenia lost a destabilizing war with Azerbaijan, which may have negative consequences for freedom internally. 

  The story is the same regionally. The Caucuses and Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa increased freedom between 2008 and 2019. However, gains in the Caucuses and Central Asia were driven by advances in freedom in Georgia where the president who led the freedom charge, Mikheil Saakashvili, is now under arrest in brutal conditions. 

  Many East Asian nations — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia — had stable or rising levels of freedom. But most East Asians live in China, and the Chinese Communist Party has intensified its repression since 2019.  

  In South Asia — a vast region including countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka — only Bhutan escaped growing repression since 2019. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers instability in the Horn of Africa and, in the Sahel, uprisings, coups, and growing Islamic insurgences. All of this will damage freedom going forward. 

  For full disclosure, both authors’ nations, the United States and Canada, have suffered comparatively smaller losses in freedom, though they face threats going forward. Government is growing rapidly in both nations, squeezing space for free exchange. Political polarization, particularly in the United States, will almost certainly continue to have negative consequences for freedom. 

  Reasons for freedom’s decline vary. In some cases, democratically elected leaders are aspiring autocrats, amplifying their power by suppressing opposition, speech, assembly, and even religion and relationship freedom, as in the Philippines, Turkey, Hungary, Mexico, and Poland. In other nations, autocratic leaders have intensified their attacks on freedom. Russia, China, Nicaragua, Egypt, and Venezuela are on this track.  

  * *  *

  And what’s suffered the largest drop? Freedom of speech.

  

  We’re sure this will all go back to ‘normal’ once the pandemic is over, as authoritarians will surely cede the ’emergency’ powers they’ve granted themselves – right?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 22:40

• "An Absolute Mad Rush": Californians Confess Why They're Fleeing The State
  “An Absolute Mad Rush”: Californians Confess Why They’re Fleeing The State

  Authored by Jamie Joseph via The Epoch Times,

  When former Bay Area resident Terry Gilliam, 62, started the Facebook group “Leaving California” in 2018, the group attracted 200 members within six months. Four years later, the group has over 50,000 members, and the number continues to climb every week.

  “In the last 30 days, we’ve added 11,000 members, which is darn close to a record,” Gilliam told The Epoch Times.

  “And it all started on January 1st … I think there is an absolute mad rush of people who are going to get out of California this year.”

  Although he formed the group a few years ago, Gilliam didn’t take the plunge and move out of state to Florida until last year. Issues like homelessness, crime, politics, cost of housing, traffic, and exorbitant taxes pushed Gilliam away—and he’s not the only one.

  When the group first began, Gilliam said Idaho and Texas were the most popular destinations for California residents. Now, he’s seeing more people moving to Tennessee and Florida as well.

  Earlier this month, U-Haul reported that the top states for people moving within the United States in 2021 were Texas, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arizona, while California was at the very bottom of the list.

  

  Matt Merrill, U-Haul area district vice president of the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex and West Texas, said in a statement that many people are moving to Texas from California, New York, and other states “due to the job growth—a lot of opportunity here. The cost of living here is much lower than those areas. Texas is open for business.”

  Demand was so high, U-Haul even ran out of trucks leaving California last year, according to the company.

  

  In this file photo, a worker moves a piece of furniture into a truck while moving a family in Tiburon, Calif., on Aug. 3, 2010. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

  Gilliam’s Facebook group has become a sort of haven for disaffected natives who are able to connect with local moving companies who are also in the group and eager for business. Though most of the users lean conservative, Gilliam said he didn’t start it for that reason.

  “But I think conservatives in California are the most upset with what’s happening, so they’re the first to leave,” he said.

  Mild weather, beautiful coastal beaches, and a vibrant, diverse culture bring tourists to California year-round. But for some residents, it’s not enough to keep them here anymore.

  Alexander Erwing, 30, and his wife moved from the Monterey Peninsula to Oklahoma last year.

  “The business I worked for was headquartered here, and now they’ve moved their headquarters to the Midwest, and you know, that’s just one less reason to stay here,” Erwing told The Epoch Times. “So, it’s like over the years all the reasons to stay have kind of gone away.”

  The state has the highest top income tax rate at 13.3 percent, with an 8.84 percent tax rate for businesses, in addition to permits and regulatory costs depending on the county and city. With a high cost of living and rent prices averaging $2,500 in competitive markets, mom-and-pop shops have to turn an incredible profit to stay afloat.

  In the first six months of 2021, more than 70 company headquarters left California, according to a Hoover Institution of Stanford University report (pdf), which found the exodus was accelerating. Later that year, Elon Musk’s Tesla made headlines by relocating to Texas.

  

  An aerial view of the Tesla Fremont Factory in Fremont, Calif., on May 13, 2020. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

  “Our findings identify the California counties that lost headquarters facilities, the states to which migrations occur, and extensive discussion of the reasons, including high tax rates, punitive regulations, high labor costs, high utility and energy costs, and declining quality of life for many Californians which reflects the cost of living and housing affordability,” the report said.

  California’s own Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the state’s “outmigration is increasingly concentrated among older, more affluent people” in a report from last July. Data from the office also showed “a persistent, long-term net outmigration.”

  “A key driver of migration between California and other states is living costs, particularly the cost of housing,” the report read.

  The median cost for a house in the Golden State as of 2021 is more than $800,000, up 34.2 percent from the previous year, according to the California Association of Realtors. The U.S. national average is perched around $400,000.

  U-Haul isn’t the only moving company getting a piece of the massive demand. Joey Childs, 22, co-owner of San Jose-based Silicon Valley Moving & Storage told The Epoch Times the past two years “have been like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

  “December, January, February, was a little slow. But last year was it was ridiculous—I mean, we were booked four or five months out in advance,” he said. “It’s getting very expensive to live here too … with very high taxes. A lot of people that we move are also small business owners too, and it’s getting very hard for them to operate their business here. So, they’re just leaving, and it’s a no brainer.”

  

  A closed restaurant in Los Angeles on Dec. 8, 2020. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

  Childs said his family is also looking to relocate to Ohio soon and open a second location of their moving company there.

  Nonpartisan policy research group California Policy Lab examined exits from the state amid the pandemic. The study revealed that fewer people are moving to California since the start of the pandemic in 2020, while the number of residents leaving has gone up significantly.

  “At the end of September 2021, entrances to California were 38% lower than at the end of March 2020,” the study noted. “Exits, following a dip early in the pandemic, have rebounded and are now 12% higher than pre-COVID levels—on pace with pre-pandemic trends.”

  California native Kathy Kean, 62, moved from Yorba Linda to Spring Ranch, Texas last year with her husband. She said she had noticed an increase in crime in her region.

  “It’s not what we remembered our area to be,” Kean told The Epoch Times. “Some of the crime, like the gangs, were getting worse in our area from L.A. and Riverside coming in.”

  The Public Policy Institute of California examined the state’s crime trends in 2021 and found an increase in property and violent crime numbers—with homicides increasing—in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Francisco.

  “An increase in property crime in 2021, driven by car break-ins and auto thefts, returned property crime numbers close to pre-pandemic numbers,” the policy institute memo read. “The need to continue monitoring crime trends, investigating underlying causes, and identifying effective solutions remains high.”

  Homelessness has also been an explosive issue for voters as the November election remains on the horizon. In total, California has the highest number of homeless people in the country, with 161,548 people. Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated an aggressive investment of $2 billion to address homelessness in his 2022 budget.

  

  Homelessness in Venice Beach, Calif., on Jan 27, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  San Mateo resident and union pipe fitter Michael Bentley, 53, is moving to Colorado in June. He said he was never into politics until a few years ago and would always vote alongside his labor union’s suggestions.

  Then, he noticed an increase in homelessness in the Bay Area. He began avoiding downtown due to the crime and squalor he saw on the streets.

  “When I first came here, there was wasn’t very much homelessness,” Bentley told The Epoch Times. “Now, I mean, it is freaking crazy. I mean, I avoid San Francisco at all costs. I don’t go downtown, I mean, I feel sorry for these people.”

  Others who have left, like former Fontana resident Michael Welter, 63, packed up due to the pandemic restrictions the state imposed. He now resides in Arizona.

  “The freedoms that we experienced here, particularly around the pandemic, has been a breath of fresh air, literally, because we don’t wear a mask anymore,” Welter told The Epoch Times. “And you know, we can make decisions for ourselves. I like that I can carry a gun without getting a permit. It’s just freedom—it’s just what America should be.”

  All of the subjects interviewed said they only miss the weather in California, while their quality of life has now improved, especially financially. Many had family already in other states they were moving to, or moved with their families. They also uniformly said taxes were one of the top reasons they chose to leave, with some mentioning recent policy disagreements.

  “I think the Democrats in legislature and the governor have been emboldened by the failed recall,” Gilliam said.

  “And they’re going to double down on everything. They they think that everybody agrees with what they should be doing. Instead, they’re going to lose the middle class because of it.”

  After forming the Leaving California Facebook group, Gilliam also created a “Life After California” group, which focuses on former residents posting about their new lives after moving away. That group now has 79,000 members.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 22:20

• "It's A Mess" – Shocking Image Reveals Baltimore Parking Garage Transformed Into Make-Shift Morgue
  “It’s A Mess” – Shocking Image Reveals Baltimore Parking Garage Transformed Into Make-Shift Morgue

  A wild story out of Baltimore says hundreds of bodies are piling up in a make-shift morgue in a parking garage. 

  Baltimore Banner’s first newsletter broke the story Thursday. It said, “more than 200 bodies are awaiting autopsies by doctors at Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the agency located in downtown Baltimore responsible for investigating deaths statewide.” 

  Baltimore Banner’s Tim Prudente, the lead reporter on the story, called the backlog of bodies awaiting the medical examiner “unprecedented.” He said the number of bodies at the make-shift morgue is “growing by the day and filling up the morgue refrigerators.”

  “The backlog snowballed from 50 bodies awaiting autopsy in late December to 150 bodies in late January. State officials estimate the number will exceed 300 bodies this month. They blame office turnover and the coronavirus pandemic that’s kept employees sick at home. Staff shortages come amid increasing numbers of murders and drug overdoses, cases that require autopsies,” Prudente said. 

  Space in the parking garage of the old Social Security Administration building in the downtown area of Baltimore City appears to be filling up quickly. 

  

  Prudente interviewed Patrick Moran, president of the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, whose members include autopsy assistants, lab techs, and forensic investigators with the office, and confirmed the make-shift morgue in the parking garage and said, “it’s a mess.” 

  The situation worsens and has caused alarm among Dr. Victor Weedn, the chief medical examiner for Maryland, who has requested help from the federal mortuary disaster teams. 

  

  The Baltimore Banner obtained an internal email from Weedn to his staff who wrote:

  “The entire Chief Medical Examiner Office staff is struggling to cope. We are receiving endless calls from families, who have to wait without being given an answer to their questions when their loved one will be released. We have no good answers for them.”

  Despite the increasing body count, there’s a growing concern about labor shortages among morgue workers that limit body processing. 

  “If the federal government is paying more, if cities and counties are paying more, that’s where people are going to go,” Moran said. We are having bodies piling up in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner because they can’t bring anybody to work because the conditions are miserable, unsanitary and the pay is awful.”

  A spokesman for Gov. Larry Hogan chimed in on the discussions and said the problem isn’t state salaries but too few pathologists.

  “There is a critical shortage of forensic pathologists – there are only about 500 board-certified pathologists in the entire country, so this is not a challenge unique to Maryland,” said Michael Ricci, a spokesman for Hogan.

  Baltimore Banner’s first news story appears to have broken a disturbing development in the liberal state where out of control murders and drug overdoses, along with staffing shortages, has created a perfect storm for the medical examiner. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 22:00

• Nebraska Joins Call For Convention Of States To Amend US Constitution
  Nebraska Joins Call For Convention Of States To Amend US Constitution

  Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Nebraska on Jan. 28 became the 17th state to push for a convention of states to make changes to the U.S. Constitution—an unconventional process that’s never been used before.

  

  Under Article V of the Constitution, calling a convention to amend the U.S. constitution would require approval from two-thirds of U.S. states, or 34 of 50 states. According to the National Constitution Center, the measure is used to bypass Congress, but has never been accomplished before.

  Constitutional amendments can also be made if two-thirds of both chambers of Congress agree on a proposal and it is ratified by three-fourths of states. Since the U.S. Constitution was adopted, 27 amendments have been made.

  The Nebraska Legislature in its resolution, similar to other states, put forward changes that will “impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress.”

  State lawmakers reached a compromise with an amendment that would let the call expire in February 2027.

  Nebraska state Sen. Steve Halloran, a Republican who sponsored the resolution, told Fox News that he believes an “overreach on the part of the federal government” is driving states to push for change.

  “The Founding Fathers had anxiety that that might happen,” Halloran said. “I don’t believe they imagined that it would get to this point.”

  Halloran decried the $30 trillion national debt as “unsustainable.”

  “It’s become abundantly clear with the history of Congress that they have no sense of limiting their spending and the accrued debt that’s happening upon our nation,” Halloran said.

  “We have effectively kicked that can down the road on repayment of any of that, but we cannot kick the can down the road every year,” he added.

  The senator called on other states to join on calls to amend the U.S. Constitution.

  “It’s an exercise in what the Constitution is,” he said. “I think it would be a great civics lesson once it happens.”

  In a message aimed at state leaders, Halloran told Fox News he believes the nation can no longer be operated on “fear, uncertainty, and doubt.”

  He separately told Newsweek that states need to move to exercise their constitutional authority by “proposing amendments through an Article V Convention of States to restrain the federal government from driving our country into insolvency.”

  According to the Convention of States Action, so far Georgia, Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona, North Dakota, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Utah have approved a call for the convention, while 24 others are considering doing so.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 21:40

• Meteorologists Closely Monitor ​​​​​​​"Big Storm" For Next Week
  Meteorologists Closely Monitor ​​​​​​​”Big Storm” For Next Week

  Meteorologists at private weather forecaster BAMWX are monitoring weather models that suggest a change in the jet stream will create cooler weather for the central part of the country and, by the end of next week, set up the possibility for the next “big storm.“

  “A big storm one week from today [Thursday] continues to show itself on all global weather data,” according to Kirk Hinz, the chief meteorologist at BAMWX. The timing of the storm, remember, nothing is locked in, is between Feb. 17-19 for areas of the central US, including Northern Texas to Omaha to Minneapolis to Chicago. He noted there could be “a severe side to this along with a wide side.” 

  There are still many unknowns about the storm a week out, but Hinz has produced a storm risk threat map that gives readers a general idea of where the storm may strike late next week. 

  

  It appears a new jet stream configuration this weekend could pave the way for the storm. In recent days, the southern Plains and Rockies and even Southern California experienced abnormally warm temperatures. 

  

  The latest round of warmer weather in the central and western part of the US resulted in declining heating demand which sent US natural gas futures tumbling this week, the most significant weekly drop this year. 

  

  BAMWX meteorologists will continue to monitor weather models as they change, and a more accurate threat map will be produced in the days. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 21:20

• Blinken Reassures Pacific Allies The Asia 'Pivot' Still On Despite "Working 24/7" On Ukraine
  Blinken Reassures Pacific Allies The Asia ‘Pivot’ Still On Despite “Working 24/7” On Ukraine

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on a tour of the Asia Pacific where he is reassuring regional allies that the US is still committed to its Asia “pivot” despite the recent focus on Russia and Ukraine.

  “There are a few other things going on in the world right now, some of you may have noticed. We have a bit of a challenge with Ukraine and Russian aggression. We’re working 24/7 on that,” Blinken said Thursday in Australia.

  

  “But we know, the president knows and each of you knows this better than anyone else, that so much of this century is going to be shaped by what happens here in the Indo-Pacific region,” he added.

  Early on in Biden’s presidency, officials made it clear that the foreign policy priority was meant to be on countering China and increasing the US footprint in the region. As part of this strategy, the US working to boost military cooperation in the region, and signed the new AUKUS military pact with the UK and Australia.

  The Biden administration has also been working to strengthen the Quad, an informal alliance that consists of the US, India, Australia, and Japan. Blinken is meeting with officials from the other Quad countries in Melbourne on Friday.

  Ahead of the meeting, Blinken insisted the Quad is not primarily meant to counter China. “This is not about standing against anyone in particular,” he said. “It is about standing up for a rules-based order, making sure that we uphold those rules and principles if they’re being challenged.”

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Australia with in a bid to bolster Indo-Pacific partnership and counter China’s growing power and influence pic.twitter.com/xWJTW6eA6l

  — TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) February 10, 2022

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

  But it’s clear that the Quad is about China, and the so-called “rules-based order” is jargon for the US-dominated world order that Washington thinks Beijing is threatening. After Australia, Blinken is due to visit Fiji, where he plans to reassure Pacific island leaders that the US is committed to the region.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 21:00

• Nobel Laureate Who Discovered HIV And Was One Of The First To Claim A COVID Lab Leak, Dead At Age 89
  Nobel Laureate Who Discovered HIV And Was One Of The First To Claim A COVID Lab Leak, Dead At Age 89

  Luc Montagnier, the French Nobel laureate who co-discovered HIV – and who we pointed out one was of the first to claim that Covid-19 had come from a lab, as early as April 2020 – has died at the age of 89, France 24 reported yesterday. 

  In 2008, Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi were awarded the Nobel Prize for work they did at the Pasteur Institute in Paris isolating HIV, the report says. Montagnier was also known for a “bitter rivalry” with U.S. scientist Robert Gallo in identifying HIV.

  His HIV work began in January 1983 after “tissue samples arrived at the Pasteur Institute from a patient with a disease that mysteriously wrecked the immune system.”

  Unfortunately for the hero in his field, as French media put it, Montagnier was “later dismissed by the scientific community for his increasingly outlandish theories, notably on Covid-19”. 

  But his “outlandish” theories, as they are still being called – disregarded in early 2020, when we first commented on them – appear to have panned out. Recall, Montagnier claimed that SARS-CoV-2 was a manipulated virus that was accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

  He also claimed at the time that the lab, known for its work on coronaviruses, tried to use one of these viruses as a vector for HIV in the search for an AIDS vaccine.

  

  Montagnier, interviewed by Dr Jean-François Lemoine for the daily podcast at Pourquoi Docteur, said in early 2020:

  Indian researchers have already tried to publish the results of the analyses that showed that this coronavirus genome contained sequences of another virus, & the HIV virus (AIDS virus), but they were forced to withdraw their findings as the pressure from the mainstream was too great.

  In a challenging question Dr Jean-François Lemoine inferred that the coronavirus under investigation may have come from a patient who is otherwise infected with HIV.

  “No,” says Luc Montagnier, “in order to insert an HIV sequence into this genome, molecular tools are needed, and that can only be done in a laboratory.”

  A plausible explanation for Covid-19’s release would have been an accident in the Wuhan laboratory, he said at the time. He also added that the purpose of this work was the search for an AIDS vaccine.

  Montagnier also predicted that altered elements of the virus are eliminated as it spreads:

  Nature does not accept any molecular tinkering, it will eliminate these unnatural changes and even if nothing is done, things will get better, but unfortunately after many deaths.

  Two years later, at the time of his death, Montagnier appears to have been right about the lab leak all along. Now, what other of his assertions will prove to be true?

  “In any case, the truth always comes out, it is up to the Chinese government to take responsibility.” – Montagnier, 2020

   

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 20:40

• "Systems Issue" Knocks Out Trucking Giant Schneider National's Computer Network
  “Systems Issue” Knocks Out Trucking Giant Schneider National’s Computer Network

  By Clarissa Hawes of FreightWaves

  Trucking giant Schneider National confirmed Friday that a “temporary systems issue” is to blame for a massive outage that has knocked out the company’s network since Thursday afternoon.

  

  In a statement to FreightWaves, Schneider, headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said the company has “implemented our contingency plan and we are executing business manually.”

  Sources told FreightWaves early Friday that an ongoing computer systems outage has left the trucking company unable to receive or book freight, update its invoicing system or pay its carriers.

  Schneider, which posted $5.6 billion in operating revenue in 2021, said it is currently “manually accepting orders and dispatching drivers.” 

  No date was given for when its computer systems would be operational again.

  “We have contacted affected customers,” the Schneider statement said. “Our trucks are still moving. We are working to address the situation.”

  Kara Leiterman, media relations manager for Schneider, told FreightWaves that it’s unclear whether the publicly traded company fell victim to a cyberattack.

  “At this point, we don’t have evidence of that,” Leiterman said. “The situation remains under investigation.”

  The company, which has been in business for 87 years, said it plans to send out an update later in the day on Friday.

  “We will continue to keep associates, professional drivers, customers and suppliers informed as we learn more,” Schneider said in a statement.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 20:20

• As The Super Bowl Nears, This Is The State Of Sports Betting In The US
  As The Super Bowl Nears, This Is The State Of Sports Betting In The US

  According to estimates by the trade association American Gaming Association (AMA), the upcoming Super Bowl will invite about 18.2 million U.S. Americans to place a bet on the matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams via retail sportsbooks or traditional bookies.

  While illegal sports betting is still an issue, Statista’s Florian Zandt details below that a majority of U.S. states have now legalized gambling on sporting events.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As the chart above shows, ten more states passed corresponding laws in 2021, increasing the number of states where sports betting is legal to 31. Among the newcomers are Arizona, Maryland and the state of Washington. While North Carolina has so far only allowed sports betting in Native American casinos, a bill proposing statewide legalization has already passed the state Senate and could become enshrined in law in 2022. The same is true for New Mexico, which hasn’t officially passed legislation concerning sports betting, but some tribes do offer betting services under a Class III gaming compact.

  Overall, 31.5 million U.S. residents are expected to place bets on the Super Bowl either officially or via private pools or casual bets between friends and family, an increase of 35 percent compared to 2021. Similarly, bets are expected to sum up to $7.6 billion, which is an increase of 78 percent from last year. Bill Miller, CEO of the AMA, shone a positive light on the developments concerning legalization across the country in a press release.

  “Americans have never been more interested in legal sports wagering,” he said. “The growth of legal options across the country not only protects fans and the integrity of games and bets, but also puts illegal operators on notice that their time is limited.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 20:00

• ABA Forcing Wokeness On Law Schools
  ABA Forcing Wokeness On Law Schools

  Authored by William A. Jacobson & Johanna E. Markind via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

  Legal education is about to undergo a revolutionary change, with the American Bar Association poised to mandate race-focused study as a prerequisite to graduating from law school. It’s another instance of woke ideology being forced on the nation, and may necessitate that states revisit the ABA’s government-granted near-monopoly accrediting power.

  

  This race-focused educational mandate is being forced on law schools through the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (ABA). Much of ABA’s power stems from the federal government. Law students must attend schools whose accreditor is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to receive federal student loans. The ABA is the only federally recognized law school accreditor.

  Yet, ABA’s accreditation power doesn’t depend only on federal law. Graduating from a law school accredited by ABA is required in almost every state for applicants seeking admission to the bar. All 50 states recognize ABA accreditation. With only a small number of exceptions, most accept only ABA accreditation.

  Why governments gave the ABA near-monopoly power is disputed. Some say the purpose was to guarantee quality legal training. Others argue that, like any guild, the ABA’s primary motivation was to limit competition.

  Whether or not ABA accreditation previously ensured quality, the ABA has become partisan, using its power to promote an ideological agenda.

  The liberal bias of the ABA itself is not new. A study of ABA evaluations of judicial nominees from 1977-2008 found “strong evidence of systematic bias in favor of Democratic nominees,” who were likelier to be rated “well-qualified” than similarly qualified Republicans. Republicans have long recognized this. That’s why President George W. Bush discontinued ABA pre-screening of judicial nominees. Most Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans now treat the ABA merely as an advocacy group.

  That may explain why ABA membership dropped from 300,000 (over 50% of the bar) in 1980 to 194,000 (14.4%) in 2017. ABA may once have been a proxy for the American legal community, but now it’s just a proxy for the left wing of the American legal community. Yet its accrediting power continues.

  For example, in 2016, the ABA amended Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4 to impose a “heckler’s veto,” barring lawyers from saying or doing anything someone else could consider harassing or discriminatory. As law professor Eugene Volokh wrote at the time, “My inference is that the ABA wants to … limit lawyers’ expression of viewpoints that it disapproves of.”

  Now, the ABA wants to limit law student and faculty freedom of expression. Its proposed revision to Standard 303 (which will be presented to the ABA House of Delegates in mid-February 2022) mandates “educati[ng] law students on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism.” Proposed Interpretation 303-7(3) suggests satisfying the new requirement with “[c]ourses on racism and bias in the law.” Proposed Interpretation 303-6 converts the existing professional responsibility requirement into teaching lawyers’ “obligation … to promote a justice system that provides equal access and eliminates bias, discrimination, and racism in the law.”

  Without saying so openly, the revised standard in reality dictates that law schools should “institutionalize dogma,” as a group of Yale Law School professors objected. The obsessive focus on systemic racism, a subject of scholarly dispute, reveals the new standard’s Critical Race Theory underpinnings.

  The ABA pretended to address the problem by adding Interpretation 303-8: “Standard 303 does not prescribe the form or content” of the required education. This doesn’t fix the problem, because law school faculties overwhelmingly lean hard left. Only the naïve or dishonest would expect schools to teach anything other than CRT and a “systemic racism” approach.

  This all reflects a politicized sea change. Existing ABA legal education standards stick to general principles of legal education. The ABA requires schools to inculcate “knowledge and understanding of substantive and procedural law,” “legal analysis and reasoning, legal research,” and legal writing (Standard 302). The only specific requirements are a professional responsibility course (added post-Watergate), an experiential course, and two legal writing experiences (current Standard 303).

  By contrast, the proposed “bias” education requires specific and non-legal content. As the Yale professors observed, “mandating the content of [required courses] misconstrues the accreditation function.”

  The other problematic proposal concerns Standard 206, regarding diversity. The ABA’s original proposed revision met with so much pushback that ABA delayed moving forward with it. The recently revised proposal (which likely won’t be adopted before August) aims to increase student admissions and faculty-staff hires of members of groups underrepresented in law compared to the U.S. population overall. Although the ABA Council has denied seeking to impose quotas, its effort to guarantee a proportional share of admissions/hires is likely unlawful.

  The current federal administration will not rein in the ABA. But states, which helped create the ABA monopoly, are not helpless. They should act.

  The most important action that states can take is to stop requiring bar applicants to graduate from an ABA-accredited school. Because state structures vary, in some states this may require changes implemented through state supreme courts or quasi-independent bar agencies. States also can substitute state licensing, as already takes place in Alabama, California, Massachusetts, and Tennessee, which allow graduates of local non-ABA law schools take their bar exams. States also should consider whether a law school degree is needed, by revisiting self-study and apprenticeship in lieu of increasingly politicized law school curriculum and related student debt.

  Whatever the reform approach, action is needed. States enabled the ABA’s near-monopoly accrediting power, which now is being abused for ideological purposes. What the states gave the ABA, the states can and should take away.

  William A. Jacobson is a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School and president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to free expression and academic freedom on campuses.

  Johanna E. Markind is Research Editor and Counsel at Legal Insurrection Foundation.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 19:40

• Biden Orders Seizure Of $7 Billion In Afghan Funds, With Half Going To 9/11 Victims
  Biden Orders Seizure Of $7 Billion In Afghan Funds, With Half Going To 9/11 Victims

  President Biden on Friday signed a hugely controversial executive order which effectively steals $7 billion in assets from Afghanistan’s central bank held in the US, which had previously been frozen by the administration.

  The new Biden action is intended to make half of the $7 billion available as compensation for families of 9/11 victims, with the other half going to humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan. This comes as both international human rights bodies and activists have called for the unfreezing of the assets to help stave off Afghanistan’s total economic collapse under the Taliban, which is leading to starvation and widespread malnutrition, particularly impacting already impoverished families and children in the war-torn country.

  

  The White House has said the action will ensure the funds stay out of the hands of the Taliban and “malicious actors”. The statement described it’s “designed to provide a path for the funds to reach the people of Afghanistan while keeping them out of the hands of the Taliban and malicious actors.” 

  Specifically the order will force all American financial institutions holding Afghan central bank assets to transfer the funds to a consolidated account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. As The Hill observes, “The effort is unusual, as it involves money held by a foreign government on U.S. soil. It is likely to be the subject of complex litigation.”

  As for the $3.5 billion to be set aside for humanitarian aid for the Afghan population, there will still likely be strings attached determining whether it actually gets released. The Hill cites an admin official as follows:

  The senior administration official said the Biden administration will spend the coming months setting up a third-party trust fund to administer the $3.5 billion in funds to support Afghanistan, as officials await a court ruling. 

  A senior administration official cautioned that the signing of the executive order is “a step in a process that might lead to the unlocking of these funds for the benefit of the Afghan people,’ noting that the situation involves complex litigation.   

  Previously Washington set as a condition for the release of funds that the Taliban undertake specific urgent reforms, including in women’s rights and education, eradicating terrorism, and allowing US passport holders to freely and safely leave the country.

  After a dry winter & weak harvest, drought & food insecurity continue in Afghanistan. Almost 14 million #children don’t have enough food to eat. #UNICEF warns that over 1 million #Afghan children could die from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) unless they get urgent treatment. pic.twitter.com/ceSAmhBUlp

  — UNICEF Afghanistan (@UNICEFAfg) November 19, 2021

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

  Recently the United Nations warned that one million children under the age of five could die from severe acute malnutrition if the current dire food and medicines shortage in the country persists. Critics have warned that the US sanctions and assets seizure regimen is greatly exacerbating the crisis, and that ultimately it will be the common populace that bears the brunt of the punitive US measures.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 19:20

• Trapped In IMF Debt, Argentina Turns To Russia And Joins China's Belt & Road
  Trapped In IMF Debt, Argentina Turns To Russia And Joins China’s Belt & Road

  Authored by Benjamin Norton via Multipolarista.com,

  Argentina is trapped in $44 billion of IMF odious debt taken on by corrupt right-wing regimes. Seeking alternatives to US hegemony, President Alberto Fernández traveled to Russia and China, forming an alliance with the Eurasian powers, joining the Belt and Road Initiative.

  

  Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández meets with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping in February 2022

  The United States constantly intervenes in the internal affairs of Latin America, organizing coups d’etat, destabilizing independent governments, trapping nations in debt, and imposing sanctions. Washington sees the region as its own property, with President Joe Biden referring to it this January as “America’s front yard.”

  Seeking alternatives to US hegemony, progressive governments in Latin America have increasingly looked across the ocean to form alliances with China and Russia.

  Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández did exactly that this February, taking historic trips to Beijing and Moscow to meet with his counterparts Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

  Fernández signed a series of strategic agreements, officially incorporating Argentina into Beijing’s international Belt and Road Initiative, while expanding economic partnerships with the Eurasian powers and telling Moscow that Argentina “should be the door to enter” Latin America.

  China offered $23.7 billion in funding for infrastructure projects and investments in Argentina’s economy.

  In the meetings, Fernández also asked for Argentina to join the BRICS framework, alongside Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Xi and Putin reportedly both agreed.

  “I am consistently working to rid Argentina of this dependence on the IMF and the US,” Fernández explained. “I want Argentina to open up new opportunities.”

  The Argentine president’s comments and meetings with Putin and Xi reportedly angered the US government.

  Argentina is trapped in odious debt with the US-controlled IMF

  Argentina is a Latin American powerhouse, with significant natural resources and the third-largest economy in the region (after Brazil and Mexico, both of which have significantly larger populations).

  But Argentina’s development has often been weighed down by debt traps imposed from abroad, resulting in frequent economic crises, cycles of high inflation, and currency devaluations.

  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) – a de facto economic arm of the United States, over which Washington alone has veto power – has significant control over Argentina, having trapped the nation in huge sums of odious debt.

  In 2018, Argentina’s right-wing President Mauricio Macri requested the largest loan in the history of the IMF: a staggering $57.1 billion bailout.

  Macri was notorious for his corruption, and this was no secret at the time. By agreeing to give such an enormous sum of money to Macri’s scandal-plagued government, the IMF knew it was ensnaring Argentina in debt it would not be able to pay off. But this was far from the first time the US-dominated financial instrument had trapped Argentina in odious debt.

  In December 2021, the IMF published an internal report admitting that the 2018 bailout completely failed to stabilize Argentina’s economy.

  But when Argentina’s center-left President Alberto Fernández entered office in December 2019, his country was ensnared in $44.5 billion in debt from this bailout that the IMF itself admitted was a total failure. ($44.5 billion of the $57.1 billion loan had already been disbursed, and Fernández cancelled the rest.)

  The Argentine government has tried to renegotiate the debt, but in order to do so the IMF has imposed conditions that severely restrict the nation’s sovereignty – such as appointing a British economist who “will virtually be the new economic minister,” acting as a kind of “co-government,” warned prominent diplomat Alicia Castro.

  Seeking ways around these US debt traps, Fernández decided this February to turn to the two rising Eurasian superpowers.

  Argentine President Fernández travels to Russia to meet with Putin

  On February 3, Argentine President Alberto Fernández travelled to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin.

  “I’m certain Argentina has to stop being so dependent on the [International Monetary] Fund and the United States, and has to open up to other places, and that is where it seems to me that Russia has a very important place,” Fernández said, explaining his motivation for the trip.

  🇷🇺🇦🇷 | “Estamos dando un paso importante para que la Argentina y Rusia profundicen sus lazos”, expresó el presidente @alferdez en una declaración conjunta que brindó junto a su par Vladímir Putin. #GiraPresidencial

  📍 @KremlinRussia_Ehttps://t.co/aHl8tOuPZy pic.twitter.com/APoQR6VHtU

  — Casa Rosada (@CasaRosada) February 3, 2022

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

  Fernández added that, for Russia, Argentina “should be the door to enter” the region, telling Putin, “We could be a venue for the development of your cooperation with Latin American nations.”

  The two leaders discussed Russian investment in the Argentine economy, trade, railroad construction, and energy technology.

  Fernández also thanked Moscow for collaborating with his country in the production of its Sputnik V covid-19 vaccine. Argentina was the first country in the western hemisphere to do so.

  The Argentine president even pointed out in their meeting that he has received three doses of the Sputnik V vaccine. Putin added, “Me too.”

  Putin said the two countries agree on many issues, calling Argentina “one of Russia’s key partners in Latin America.”

  Es un honor haberme reunido con Vladímir Putin, presidente de Rusia.

  Tuvimos la oportunidad de intercambiar ideas sobre cómo podemos complementar mucho más el vínculo entre nuestras naciones. pic.twitter.com/ntmDGn6jtD

  — Alberto Fernández (@alferdez) February 3, 2022

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

  Argentine President Fernández travels to China to meet with Xi

  Just three days after meeting with Putin, President Alberto Fernández travelled to China on February 6 to meet with President Xi Jinping.

  In this historic trip, Argentina officially joined Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive global infrastructure program.

  Fernández and other top Argentine officials signed agreements for $23.7 billion in Chinese financing, including investments and infrastructure projects.

  The funding will be disbursed in two parts: one, which is already approved, will provide Argentina with $14 billion for 10 infrastructure projects; the second, for $9.7 billion, will finance the South American nation’s integration into the Belt and Road.

  There are three joint Chinese-Argentine projects that were reportedly at the top of Fernández’s list: creating 5G networks, developing Argentina’s lithium industry, and building the Atucha III nuclear power plant.

  Tuve una cordial, amistosa y fructífera reunión con Xi Jinping, presidente de China. Acordamos la incorporación de Argentina a la Franja y la Ruta de la Seda.

  Es una excelente noticia. Nuestro país obtendrá más de US$ 23 mil millones de inversiones chinas para obras y proyectos. pic.twitter.com/LGyIJ6zWdG

  — Alberto Fernández (@alferdez) February 6, 2022

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

  Fernández also discussed plans for Argentina to produce China’s Sinopharm covid-19 vaccine, in addition to Russia’s Sputnik V.

  Argentina and China signed a comprehensive memorandum of understanding, including 13 documents for cooperation in areas such as green energy, technology, education, agriculture, communication, and nuclear energy.

  Fernández and Xi discussed ways to “strengthen relations of political, commercial, economic, scientific, and cultural cooperation between both countries,” according to an Argentine government readout of the meeting.

  The two leaders apparently hit it off very well, with Fernández telling Xi, “If you were Argentine, you would be a Peronist.”

  🇨🇳🇦🇷 | El presidente @alferdez mantuvo reuniones sobre el proyecto de producir en Argentina la vacuna de Sinopharm, participó de la inauguración de los JJOO de Invierno #Beijing2022 y visitó el Museo de la Historia del Partido Comunista. #GiraPresidencialhttps://t.co/acSH9rvpM7 pic.twitter.com/Edz7hHRLE8

  — Casa Rosada (@CasaRosada) February 4, 2022

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

  Argentina’s incorporation into the Belt and Road comes mere weeks after Nicaragua joined the initiative in January, and Cuba in December.

  Latin America’s growing links with China and Russia show how the increasingly multipolar international system offers countries in the Global South new potential allies who can serve as bulwarks against and alternatives to Washington’s hegemony.

  While right-wing leaders in Latin America keep looking north to the United States as their political compass, progressive governments are reaching across the ocean to the Eurasian powers of China, Russia, and Iran, building new international alliances that weaken Washington’s geopolitical grip over a region that the US president still insists is its “front yard.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 19:00

• The Companies Getting Paid The Most By States
  The Companies Getting Paid The Most By States

  According to a recent report by watchdog group Good Jobs First and the union federation UNI Global Union, Amazon has amassed a total of $4.7 billion in subsidies around the world since 2012. Even though this is a sizable number, Statista’s Florian Zandt shows below that the tech giant doesn’t even make the top 8 when it comes to last year’s biggest subsidies. Its tech and media competitors, on the other hand, do as the following chart shows.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Leading the pack in government subsidies is automaker Ford, which received $1.3 billion in funding from Kentucky and Tennessee for planning to build electric vehicle and battery plants in the corresponding states. While these plants do lead to new jobs in the area, the need for government subsidies in such a relevant and well-funded sector can be called into question, especially with Ford rebounding from a comparatively weak 2020 to $136 billion in revenue and $17 billion in net income in 2021.

  Electronics manufacturer Samsung comes in second with a total of $1.2 billion in various tax rebates and grants rewarded by the state of Texas, the city of Austin and the Taylor School District in exchange for building a chip fabrication plant in the area. Other tech and media companies with net incomes in the billions like Apple, Disney and Oracle are also featured on the top list with projects like R&D centers, relocations of corporate offices and office campuses netting them hundreds of millions in tax abatements, grants and other government funding.

  As evidenced by publicly available data collected by Good Jobs First, courting large companies with subsidies has a huge effect on the tax revenue flow in the corresponding state and local governments. Analysis of 37 of the 50 U.S. states shows a total loss in taxes of $8.4 billion in 2020 alone, with New York, Texas and Florida offering up the most money to make their state more attractive to big corporations. The data does have its limitations, though: Not all states disclose their subsidies, and local grants and abatements are not comparable with previous years due to the unfeasibility of complete data collection.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 18:40

• China's Digital Currency Is A Surveillance Tool Threatening US: Former US Rep.
  China’s Digital Currency Is A Surveillance Tool Threatening US: Former US Rep.

  Authored by Frank Fang and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

  Beijing’s new digital currency is a tool that could prop up authoritarian regimes around the world, including China, and the Chinese paperless money could also undermine U.S. leadership in finance, warned a global finance professional.

  “This is a surveillance tool and it’s disguised as a payment mechanism. It’s going to allow the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), their central bank to look into, peer into everyone’s purchasing history,” said Erik Bethel, who once served as the U.S. representative to the World Bank.

  Bethel sounded the warning during a recent interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

  

  The Chinese regime is making the currency—known as digital yuan, digital renminbi, and e-CYN—available to foreigners for the first time during the 2022 Winter Games, as athletes and visitors can use the money either through a physical card or via a mobile app that can be downloaded at China’s domestic app stores.

  Since the digital yuan is backed by the PBOC, it is a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or simply the digital form of China’s fiat currency. Before rolling out the digital money at the Winter Games, Beijing began carrying out pilots tests in several cities in 2020 after the PBOC began developing the system in 2014.

  Now, American athletes and visitors to the Games are the only ones exposed to the app but Bethel warned that this is only Beijing’s first step, given the communist regime’s desire to export its technology around the world.

  “Inevitably, let’s fast forward several months, every American multinational working in China is going to have to use a version of the Chinese digital technology, the digital currency technology,” Bethel said.

  And Beijing won’t stop there either, he continued.

  “Let’s fast forward even further, a U.S. multinational, let’s say, an oil company working in an African nation will have to use eventually the digital currency of that nation, which might be powered by China,” he said.

  “How can that be good for us?”

  Eventually down the line, Bethel said that Beijing would start demanding other countries to use the digital yuan instead of the U.S. dollar to settle foreign exchange transactions, such as commodities like oil, copper, or soybeans.

  

  Erik Bethel, former U.S. representative to the World Bank, in Coral Gables, Fla. on Jan. 28, 2022. (Otabius Williams/The Epoch Times)

  What’s more, he said the Chinese regime may offer countries mired in Chinese debts, such as Zambia, some debt relief in exchange for helping these nations set up their own digital currency using Chinese technology.

  Zambia is one of many developing countries that are in financial trouble because they cannot pay back Chinese loans for infrastructure projects under China’s “Belt and Road” initiative.

  “So my concern from a national security perspective is that now China has access to the payments of millions of individuals around the world, not just in China, but it extends that power to other places,” he said.

  Even more troubling is how other authoritarian regimes would behave once they possess such a surveillance tool.

  “Think of Venezuela in this hemisphere, or Cuba, or North Korea, or Iran,” he said.

  “Do you not think that the Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela would relish the opportunity to have a digital currency … [that] can peer into what the opposition is doing? Of course, they would.”

  Ultimately, Bethel said the digital yuan is going to “hurt the cause of freedom,” “prop up authoritarian regimes,” and “could potentially undermine the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”

  Inside China, where Chinese citizens are already subjected to oppressive surveillance, the digital yuan would allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to keep even tighter control, according to Bethel.

  “There are a lot of ways that the Chinese government could use this [digital yuan] as an instrument of surveillance, tying it to their social credit score, and ultimately keeping an authoritarian regime alive, in effect, forever,” he explained.

  The Chinese regime enforces a social credit system, which assigns each citizen a score of “social trustworthiness.” People can have points taken away from their social credit score by committing behaviors deemed undesirable by the CCP such as jaywalking. Those with low social credit scores are deemed “untrustworthy” and thus deprived access to services and opportunities. They could be barred from traveling by plane or attending schools, among other things. Critics have slammed the system as a violation of human rights.

  “So if China’s allowed to propagate their digital technology for their digital currencies around the world, it could be very problematic from a national security perspective. And it’s the thing that nobody’s thinking about right now. I mean, there are a few people that are thinking about it, but not very many,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 18:20

• Biden Fed Vice Chair Nominee Successfully Lobbied For Former Employer
  Biden Fed Vice Chair Nominee Successfully Lobbied For Former Employer

  Sen. Pat Toomey has accused Sara Bloom Raskin, President Biden’s nominee to replace Randall Quarles as the Fed’s Vice Chair for Supervision, of helping an obscure fintech firm obtain an “unusual” degree of access to the Fed’s payment system. Now, CNBC has corroborated Toomey’s suspicions by confirming that Raskin did indeed lobby Kansas City Fed President Esther George in 2017.

  Raskin placed the call to George with the intent to lobby for her employer, a small fintech firm called Reserve Trust, to receive a Fed “master account”. The lobbying occurred during 2017, when Raskin had left her role as the Treasury Department’s deputy secretary. Prior to her Treasury work, she spent more than three years at the Fed as one of its governors.

  

  After initially denying RT’s request for a master account, the Kansas City Fed approved the company’s second request for an account in 2018 after Raskin called and lobbied for them with Quarles.

  Earlier this week during Raskin’s confirmation hearing before the Senate, Toomey blased Raskin with questions about her relationship with Reserve Trust. Specifically, Toomey asked Raskin to turn over documents and to answer a series of detailed questions regarding her work for Reserve Trust, including what actions she took to help it obtain a Fed master account and any communications between Raskin and the Kansas City Fed or the Fed regarding Reserve Trust’s application.

  In a letter sent to the Kansas City Fed, Toomey claimed that George had told him about the call that Raskin had made in 2017.

  “On the evening of February 2, 2022, you and your staff spoke with my staff,” Toomey told George in his letter.

  “On that you call, you revealed that Ms. Raskin had, in fact, personally called you about Reserve Trust’s master account application after it had been denied.”

  The letter from Toomey, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, came more than a week after Raskin was grilled by Senate Republicans during her confirmation hearing to become the next Fed vice chair for supervision, replacing Randal Quarles.

  Bloom Raskin has been facetious about her work for Reserve Trust: Sen. Cynthia Lummis asked Raskin several times whether she had lobbied on behalf of Reserve Trust, but Raskin repeatedly refused to answer that question during her public confirmation hearing.

  Later, She suggested to Toomey that she didn’t recall making any outreach on behalf of Reserve Trust to help it secure approval.

  Raskin received equity in Reserve Trust when she joined its board, but sold her financial stake upon her 2019 departure from the company for about $1.5 million.

  To this day, Reserve Trust’s master account remains the company’s single greatest asset to potential customers, and potential acquirers. The company brags about this access on its website in a prominent spot.

  “Reserve Trust is the first fintech trust company with a Federal Reserve master account,” reads the homepage for ReserveTrust.com. “We provide payments services that financial institutions and fintechs have previously only been able to obtain from correspondent and sponsor banks.”

  The White House has doubled down on its support for Raskin while insisting that she has been ethically beyond reproach.

  “Sarah Bloom Raskin has always taken her ethical obligations very seriously during and after her public service,” the White House told CNBC on Feb. 3.

  But at the time Raskin called the Kansas City Fed to lobby for her new employer, she was a freshly retired top government official. There were no suggestions that Raskin’s actions were illegal – but rather an example of the “revolving door” between corporate interests and politics. On Wednesday, Raskin and two other people nominated by Biden to Fed governor posts – Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson – promised “not to seek any employment or compensation” from a financial services company after they leave the Federal Reserve.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 18:00

• San Diego County School Retracts "Wheel Of Privilege" Teaching Tool
  San Diego County School Retracts “Wheel Of Privilege” Teaching Tool

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

  A school in San Diego County claims it has removed a “Wheel of Privilege” graphic from its professional development training materials after the image was exposed on social media and parents objected.

  

  The image was touted as part of professional development training by the Black Mountain Middle School in Poway Unified School District (PUSD), according to the Californians For Equal Rights Foundation (CFER), whose executive director posted the graphic on Twitter.

  The “Wheel of Power/Privilege” teaching tool was designed to rank people by power and privilege based on skin color, body size, and gender identity, as well as citizenship, language, wealth, and other factors.

  CFER stated in a Feb. 9 newsletter that it was “alarmed by such a such divisive narrative, rooted in critical race theory (CRT) and intended for middle-schoolers.”

  “We exposed the issue on social media. In the meantime, PUSD parents and residents contacted the school leadership to demand explanations,” CFER stated.

  

  (Courtesy of CFER)

  The school’s principal, Scott Corso, indicated in an email sent to a parent on Feb. 7 that the graphic was shared as one idea at a Big IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity Equity Awareness) committee meeting “for a future professional growth day with educators.” The virtual meeting was open to the public.

  “After further reflection on feedback received and working with Shawntanet Jara, PUSD Director of Equity and Improvement, we have modified our activities. We have decided not to use the graphic entitled ‘Wheel of Privilege,’ nor the video related to intersectionality,” Corso said in the email obtained by The Epoch Times.

  Corso claimed in the email that the school is not teaching CRT.

  “We have no interest in promoting Critical Race Theory. That is not our intent,” he wrote.

  “Our intent, as educators, is to examine our own personal biases in order to support all students and be the most inclusive school we can be.”

  CFER disagrees.

  “While the education establishment stubbornly denies their engagement with CRT, mounting evidence shows otherwise,” CFER stated in its newsletter.

  “By now, it’s a moot point,” Wenyuan Wu, CFER’s executive director, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 9.

  “We’re not talking about teaching critical race theory as a legal doctrine or legal hypothesis. We’re talking about propagating and inculcating key tenants of critical race theory such as race essentialism, intersectionality, and anti-racism as a bandage or solution to all observed problems in our society,” Wu said.

  The claim CRT isn’t being promoted or is not “widely taught” in California schools is more than just an argument of semantics, Wu suggested. Rather, she contends, it’s a deliberate subversive tactic the “education establishment” commonly uses to hide from parents that they’re teaching “pseudoscientific ideas” based on the tenets of CRT to their children.

  “Call it whatever you want. Call it Mickey Mouse. It does not change the fact that it’s teaching or indoctrinating our kids with very bad illiberal and un-American ideas about race in our society,” Wu said.

  CFER sees the removal of the “Wheel of Power/Privilege” as small victory in its battle against CRT concepts. It encourages a “robust rebuttal to the narrative of victimhood and disempowerment.”

  The next Big IDEA meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 15 at 6 p.m. on Zoom, Corso said in the email.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/11/2022 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest