Jan 12

Today’s News 12th January 2024

  • Criminality In The White House: The Rise Of The Political Psychopath
    Criminality In The White House: The Rise Of The Political Psychopath

    Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

    – Richard Nixon

    Many years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “What’s the difference between a politician and a psychopath?”

    The answer, then and now, remains the same: None.

    There is no difference between psychopaths and politicians.

    Nor is there much of a difference between the havoc wreaked on innocent lives by uncaring, unfeeling, selfish, irresponsible, parasitic criminals and elected officials who lie to their constituents, trade political favors for campaign contributions, turn a blind eye to the wishes of the electorate, cheat taxpayers out of hard-earned dollars, favor the corporate elite, entrench the military industrial complex, and spare little thought for the impact their thoughtless actions and hastily passed legislation might have on defenseless citizens.

    Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.

    Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.

    It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.

    Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. Such leaders eventually create pathocracies: totalitarian societies bent on power, control, and destruction of both freedom in general and those who exercise their freedoms.

    Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. “At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,” author James G. Long notes. “We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.”

    In other words, electing a psychopath to public office is tantamount to national hara-kiri, the ritualized act of self-annihilation, self-destruction and suicide. It signals the demise of democratic government and lays the groundwork for a totalitarian regime that is legalistic, militaristic, inflexible, intolerant and inhuman.

    Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence.

    Indeed, a study from Southern Methodist University found that Washington, DC—our nation’s capital and the seat of power for our so-called representatives—ranks highest on the list of regions that are populated by psychopaths.

    According to investigative journalist Zack Beauchamp, “In 2012, a group of psychologists evaluated every President from Washington to Bush II using ‘psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president.’ They found that presidents tended to have the psychopath’s characteristic fearlessness and low anxiety levels — traits that appear to help Presidents, but also might cause them to make reckless decisions that hurt other people’s lives.”

    The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.

    When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.

    Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.”

    Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virus among the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, “[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

    People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.

    Much depends on how leaders “cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,” says Professor Alex Haslam. “I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’”

    The goal of the modern corporate state is obvious: to promote, cultivate, and embed a sense of shared identification among its citizens. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”

    We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions.

    Any resistance to such regimes depends on the strength of opinions in the minds of those who choose to fight back. What this means is that we the citizenry must be very careful that we are not manipulated into marching in lockstep with an oppressive regime.

    Writing for ThinkProgress, Beauchamp suggests that “one of the best cures to bad leaders may very well be political democracy.”

    But what does this really mean in practical terms?

    It means holding politicians accountable for their actions and the actions of their staff using every available means at our disposal: through investigative journalism (what used to be referred to as the Fourth Estate) that enlightens and informs, through whistleblower complaints that expose corruption, through lawsuits that challenge misconduct, and through protests and mass political action that remind the powers-that-be that “we the people” are the ones that call the shots.

    Remember, education precedes action. Citizens need to the do the hard work of educating themselves about what the government is doing and how to hold it accountable. Don’t allow yourselves to exist exclusively in an echo chamber that is restricted to views with which you agree. Expose yourself to multiple media sources, independent and mainstream, and think for yourself.

    For that matter, no matter what your political leanings might be, don’t allow your partisan bias to trump the principles that serve as the basis for our constitutional republic. As Beauchamp notes, “A system that actually holds people accountable to the broader conscience of society may be one of the best ways to keep conscienceless people in check.”

    That said, if we allow the ballot box to become our only means of pushing back against the police state, the battle is already lost.

    Resistance will require a citizenry willing to be active at the local level.

    Yet if you wait to act until the SWAT team is crashing through your door, until your name is placed on a terror watch list, until you are reported for such outlawed activities as collecting rainwater or letting your children play outside unsupervised, then it will be too late.

    This much I know: we are not faceless numbers.

    We are not cogs in the machine.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are not slaves.

    We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.

    The Founders understood that our freedoms do not flow from the government. They were not given to us only to be taken away by the will of the State. They are inherently ours. In the same way, the government’s appointed purpose is not to threaten or undermine our freedoms, but to safeguard them.

    Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 23:40

  • Why Are "Hottest Year" Ever Headlines Spiking Right Before A Polar Vortex?
    Why Are “Hottest Year” Ever Headlines Spiking Right Before A Polar Vortex?

    This week, legacy media outlets such as Politico, BBC, Reuters, and The Hill, among others, all of a sudden pumped out ‘climate-doomsday’ headlines, fearmongering their readers in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere winter about how 2023 was the hottest year on record.

    The surge in “hottest year” on record headlines was seen immediately after the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service released a report detailing how 2023’s average temperature was 2.66 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average temperature between 1850 and 1900. Of course, these media outlets blamed fossil fuel-induced climate change, while some left out the warming effects of El Nino. 

    We are no strangers to corporate media pushing climate misinformation. Remember this from July: “Even NOAA “Runs Away” From ‘Hottest Day Ever’ Claim After Media Hysteria.” 

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    What’s intriguing is the timing of the Copernicus report and eruption of climate doom headlines right before weather models show a polar vortex split is about to send parts of the Lower 48 into a deep chill. 

    Cold weather is an inconvenient truth for the climate-change industrial complex, with their talking heads Al Gore and Greta spewing climate propaganda. 

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    Whether corporate media deliberately blasted “hottest year” headlines right before the polar vortex remains to be seen. But considering these media outlets wage an info war on ordinary folks, nothing surprises us. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 23:20

  • Advanced Prostate Cancer Cases On The Rise After Years Of Decline
    Advanced Prostate Cancer Cases On The Rise After Years Of Decline

    Authored by Cara Michelle Miller via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was recently diagnosed and is being treated for prostate cancer. He is one of the nearly 290,000 American men who will be diagnosed with the condition this year.

    (Lightspring/Shutterstock)

    Nearly all types of cancer have become less deadly over the last 30 years, with one notable exception: advanced-stage prostate cancer, according to a recent report from the American Cancer Society (ACS).

    “We have had more men diagnosed with more advanced prostate cancer over the last decade,” Dr. Sam S. Chang, the Chief Surgical Officer at the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, told The Epoch Times in an email. “The good news, many men with prostate cancer can be monitored safely and never require treatment.”

    Survival Rates Are High, But Concerns Grow Over Advanced Cases

    One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer—the second leading cause of cancer death among men in the U.S. after lung cancer—in their lifetime, according to ACS.

    While concerning, the vast majority do not die from it. In fact, this type of cancer has one of the highest survival rates. The 5-year relative survival rate, which refers to the percentage of people with a prostate cancer who will still be alive five years after diagnosis, compared to people without that cancer, is over 90 percent.

    However, advanced prostate cancer rates, after declining for decades, are rising again.

    The Debate Around PSA Screenings for Prostate Cancer

    Overall prostate cancer rates grew 3 percent annually between 2014-2019, per the ACS report. Meanwhile, advanced cases have increased 4-5 percent yearly since 2011, likely due to decreased screenings, according to Dr. Chan.

    “The American Urology Association (AUA) guidelines recommend screening people for prostate cancer through bloodwork, which is obtained with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test,” Dr. Adnan Dervishi, a urologist with Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital specializing in urologic cancers, told The Epoch Times. Elevated PSA levels can be an indicator of potential prostate cancer. A “biopsy is needed to look at specimens under a microscope to get an accurate diagnosis,” he added.

    In the past, PSA screenings posed health risks, yielding false positives or prompting unnecessary, potentially harmful procedures. This is why, in 2008 the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force advised against routine PSA testing for men 70 years and older.

    False positives are when the test indicates high PSA levels, but there is no prostate cancer. Because some men with prostate cancer live for decades without any problems, there are concerns about over treatment. Cancer treatments, like surgery or radiation, may result in other health issues, including loss of bladder and bowel control, and erectile dysfunction.

    “My standard practice is to recommend getting an MRI prior to proceeding with a biopsy,”  Dr. Dervishi said. “It is more comprehensive.” A 2017 study in The Lancet suggests that 27 percent of men at low risk who get a prostate MRI may be able to avoid a biopsy.

    Still, screenings can prevent advanced disease and death, which is why the AUA recommends them for men ages 55-69 on a case-by-case basis.

    Researchers attribute rising advanced cancer rates to multiple factors, including improved diagnostic tools, more screenings, an expanding and aging population.

    Risk of Developing Prostate Cancer

    The risk factors for developing prostate cancer vary based on a man’s age and ethnicity. For example, men with obesity, older men, and African American men, as well as Caribbean men of African ancestry, are more prone to prostate cancer. Men of this ethnic background have a 70 percent higher likelihood of developing prostate cancer compared to white men.

    The National Comprehensive Cancer Network recommends that patients in this higher risk ethnic group or anyone with a family history of prostate cancer receive bloodwork testing beginning at age 40.

    The risk of prostate cancer starts to increase significantly after the age of 55 and reaches its highest point between the ages of 70 and 74. Prostate cancer is still rare in men under 40. The average age for a first diagnosis is about 67.

    With patients who are categorized as low-risk prostate cancer, doctors use a wait and see approach called “active surveillance.” It delays treatment until there are indications that the cancer has progressed.

    What to Know About Prostate Health

    The prostate, a small walnut-sized gland in the male reproductive system situated below the bladder, surrounds the urethra—the tube carrying urine from the bladder. With age, the prostate may enlarge, exerting pressure on the urethra and causing a slower urine flow. This “benign enlargement of the prostate is very common and results in urinary symptoms such as hesitance, frequency, nocturia (waking up at night to void) and urgency to void,” Dr. Chan said.

    The most prevalent form of prostate cancer is adenocarcinoma, where cells in the gland lining grow uncontrollably, Dr. Chan added. Prostate cancer often goes unnoticed in its early stages, lacking symptoms. Currently, an estimated 2.9 million men are living with prostate cancer.

    At later stages, prostate cancer can obstruct the kidneys and the bladder. Advanced prostate cancer spreads to the bone which can be very painful and even cause bone fractures, Dr. Chan noted.

    When symptoms are serious, surgery is recommended to remove the section of prostate tissue causing the most harm. However, he stresses that while “many men live without sequala (complications that exist from a pre-existing illness) it is important to remember that there is no cure for prostate cancer once it has become metastatic and spread to the bones.”

    While there are no clinically proven dietary methods to reduce prostate cancer risk, men from Asian countries exhibit lower incidences compared to their Western counterparts—attributed to genetic and dietary differences, according to some research.

    Natural Ways to Keep the Prostate Healthy

    Some scientific evidence has shown several natural methods for maintaining prostate health, promoting overall well-being, and preventing potential complications.

    Eat a nutritious diet

    Eating nutritious foods with healthy fats, antioxidants, and good quality proteins is beneficial for one’s overall health. In a 2009 study, scientists found that consuming a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids (found in salmon, nuts and plant-based oils) was associated with a decreased risk of aggressive prostate cancer. 

    Additionally, studies indicate that regular consumption of lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomato and watermelon, can contribute to lowering the risk of prostate cancer.

    Maintain vitamin D levels

    Some studies have shown that vitamin D may be effective with more aggressive forms of prostate cancer.

    Vitamin D plays a role in regulating cell growth and preventing the formation of abnormal cells. Adequate levels of vitamin D may help control the growth of prostate cells, reducing the risk of cancer.

    Exercise regularly

    A sedentary lifestyle, such as prolonged periods spent working at a computer, can be detrimental and may contribute to inflammation in the prostate. To counteract this, incorporating regular exercise is essential to mitigate the negative effects of extended sitting.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 23:00

  • Second-Largest Foreign Owner Of US Land Is Member Of The CCP
    Second-Largest Foreign Owner Of US Land Is Member Of The CCP

    A member of the Chinese Communist Party is the second-largest foreign owner of US land, according to the Daily Caller.

    Screenshot/Haokan/印度留学生Tony

    Billionaire Chen Tianqiao, founder, chairman and CEO of Shanda Group, owns around 200,000 acres of land in Oregon, according to Land Report. His involvement with the CCP ranges from membership to executive roles in CCP-linked organizations, the DCNF reports following a review of Chinese-language media reports.

    In 2015, Chen acquired 198,000 acres in Oregon, according to Land Report. The $85 million purchase made the Chinese national the 82nd-largest property owner in the U.S. and the second-largest foreign U.S. land owner, Bloomberg reported, second only to a Canadian family who owns over 1 million acres of Maine.

    Oregon’s Bull Springs Skyline Forest accounts for approximately 33,000 of Chen’s acreage, according to Land Report. The forest is located west of Bend, Oregon, and is home to springs, creeks, timberland and wildlife, according to the Bull Springs Skyline Forest website.

    Oregon Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer said she was “deeply concerned that individuals tied to the  Chinese Communist Party are buying up timberland, which is one of our most precious and finite resources.” -Daily Caller

    “Foreign ownership of United States lands is a serious problem that has rightfully sparked unease among farmers, ranchers and foresters across the country,” said Chavez-DeRemer.

    In addition to the farmland, Chen also owns various urban properties throughout America, including the Vanderbilt mansion in Manhattan and the Seely Mudd Estate near Los Angeles. He also owns a 150,000 sqft. research facility at Caltech – the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience.

    “One of the Chinese Communist Party’s goals is to undermine and weaken America,” Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) told the Caller. “This includes instances where our greatest adversary continues to buy land — whether its farmland or near our installations.”

    According to a translation of a 2005 press release from Chen’s alma mater, Fudan University in Shanghai, “In 1990, Chen enrolled in Fudan University to major in economics, the following year he joined the Chinese Communist Party, and, in 1993, he won the title of ‘Shanghai Municipal Outstanding Model Cadre Student.”

    According to a 2007 article from Communist Youth Daily, Chen was 18-years-old when he joined the CCP, and has since been identified repeatedly as a CCP member by various Chinese media outlets.

    A 2016 Sohu.com article identified Chen and several other Chinese CEOs as CCP members. Likewise, Chen’s profile on the Chinese financial portal Sina, which was last updated in November 2023, identifies him as a CCP member.

    The state-run Beijing Review describes Chen as an admirer of Mao Zedong, first chairman of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Several Chinese-language outlets have also reported that Chen’s corporate office prominently displays Mao’s written works.

    Chen even has a favorite Mao Zedong quote, according to state-run media outlet China News Service: “Strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously.”

    Mao delivered the remarks in a speech denouncing American imperialism during a visit to Moscow in November 1957, according to the University of Dayton Review. -Daily Caller

    “The increase in PRC-affiliated U.S. land purchases in recent years is a growing cause for concern,” a House Select Committee on the CCP aide told the DCNF. “We can start with adding a presumption of denial for entities affiliated with the PRC when it comes to land acquisitions near national security sites such as military bases that the CCP could use for intelligence collection or worse.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 22:40

  • Ecuador Needs A Second Amendment After Days Of Narcoterrorism
    Ecuador Needs A Second Amendment After Days Of Narcoterrorism

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    Ecuador is experiencing a wave of violence over the past year that has finally reached a boiling point.

    In the past few days, leaders of Ecuadorian cartels were broken out of prison, and violence quickly followed. Most recently, gunmen stormed a news station during a live broadcast and took hostages.

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    In addition, footage from the University of Guayaquil showed the armed gang members’ attempt to kidnap students.

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    In response to this takeover and the high levels of violence, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency, designated the cartels as terrorist organizations, and called in the military.

    But the military isn’t alone in their fight. Citizens of Ecuador have taken up arms to fight with the army against the gangs. Videos on X show citizens riding with the police and military on motorcycles and in the back of pickup trucks prepared to combat the rising narcoterrorism.

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    While Ecuador recently loosened restrictions on civilians carrying firearms, it has done very little to make it easier for them to own. Citizens must submit to a lengthy permitting process that includes a certificate of skill in handling and using firearms, along with a drug test and psychological evaluation. To make matters worse, according to those familiar with the process, the issuance of a gun license could take anywhere from a few months to a year.

    Even after all that, civilians are limited to very specific types of pistols, revolvers, and shotguns.

    Meanwhile, videos out of Ecuador appear to show the use of a rocket launcher.

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    These scenes of violence perpetrated by drug gangs are so foreign to the United States because even if the US military did nothing, law-abiding, gun-toting Americans could immediately mobilize to stop the threat.

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    The videos of violence and chaos coming out of Ecuador are evidence that an armed citizenry is necessary for the security of a free state.

    *   *   *

    We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

    *   *   *

    A comment from ZH staff: 

    GOA’s note from earlier this week: Did Loosening Gun Control Cause A Nationwide Drop In Homicides?

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 22:20

  • Even Insured Americans Can't Afford Medical Bills
    Even Insured Americans Can’t Afford Medical Bills

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Millions of Americans are struggling under the crushing weight of rapidly rising health care costs that now force them to choose between putting food on the table or taking care of their health.

    (Nata-Lia/Shutterstock)

    Even with insurance, medical bills have become backbreaking as health care expenditures devoured more than 17 percent of the U.S. GDP, an increase of 4.1 percent from the year before.

    Runaway Growth of Health Costs

    Over the past few decades, health care expenditures in the United States have skyrocketed.

    Costs rocketed to nearly $4.5 trillion in 2022 despite reduced services during the pandemic, data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that administers the Medicare program, show. The agency predicts national health expenditures will soar to nearly $7 trillion by 2030.

    Out-of-pocket costs will also increase by an average of 4.6 percent annually through 2030 to reach 9 percent of total spending.

    Deductibles also show a worrying trend, with the average deductible doubling from $1,025 in 2010 to $2,004 in 2021, according to the Center for American Progress, a public policy research and advocacy organization. In the same time frame, the percentage of plans mandating a deductible rose from 78 percent to about 89 percent.

    As a result, even those with insurance often cannot afford the out-of-pocket expenses associated with needed care. The problem is especially acute because incomes have failed to keep pace with rapidly rising costs.

    Who’s to Blame?

    Why are people with health insurance increasingly faced with high medical debt? Is it a problem with health insurers or health care providers?

    It’s both, according to Pavani Rangachari, a professor of health care administration and public health director of the Master of Healthcare Administration program at the University of New Haven in Connecticut.

    The root cause is a broken health care system, “the way it is designed, unfortunately,” she told The Epoch Times. Federal policymakers must fix it to ensure affordability, “They have a big role to play in modifying the system to ensure that it works well for people who are insured.”

    Unaffordable Costs Forcing Patients to Skip or Delay Care

    A Federal Reserve survey found that, in 2022, about one-third of U.S. adults recently skipped or postponed medical care due to cost. The most frequently delayed care was dental, with 21 percent skipping dentist visits, followed by a visit to a specialist, with 16 percent saying they did not go.

    Other care avoided due to costs include the following:

    • 10 percent did not fill prescribed medication.
    • 10 percent skipped follow-up appointments.
    • 10 percent did not pursue needed mental health care.

    Lower-income patients suffered most: 38 percent of those earning under $25,000 went without some care due to expense, versus 11 percent of those earning at least $100,000.

    Data from The Commonwealth Fund, a health care policy-focused private foundation, reveal nearly half of lower- and middle-income adults reported at least one affordability issue accessing care in the past year.

    Why Is It Becoming Unaffordable?

    One factor contributing to the increasing unaffordability of care is due to the equation “price times quantity,” Ms. Rangachari said.

    Price

    Providers can charge substantially higher rates for the same services to private insurers versus public plans like Medicaid, Ms. Rangachari said. This allows them to negotiate selectively. For example, they may deny care for lower-paying Medicaid patients if reimbursements are deemed insufficient. This leaves uninsured and lower-income patients with fewer affordable options.

    “You have all of these different market segmentations, so the people who are able to afford it and might not really need that kind of preventive health care are benefiting from it,” Ms. Rangachari said. Additionally, those most in need of care face coverage denials.

    Quantity

    The quantity side of the affordability equation involves overused services, Ms. Rangachari said. Much unnecessary testing stems from fee-for-service models compensating volume over value. Each test, procedure, or patient visit triggers a separate payment.

    This has led payments to be based on volume rather than value, incentivizing unnecessary services over preventative care, she added. This has driven health care spending to nearly 20 percent of GDP according to the CMS, an economically unstable trajectory signaling a need for health system reform, Ms. Rangachari noted.

    Value-Based Care as a Solution

    Value-based care is one solution for repairing issues in the system, according to Ms. Rangachari. This model emphasizes patient outcomes over fee-for-service.

    “One big example is bundled payments for episodes of care, rather than just focusing on encounter-based care and paying for every service delivered,” she said.

    Programs like CMS’ bundled payments for joint replacements focus spending on total 90-day care rather than single encounters. This prevents emergency readmissions from fragmented or poor care, Ms. Rangachari added, noting this approach could extend to prescription drugs.

    Pharmaceuticals also bear the blame for health care’s cost spikes.

    A 2023 AARP analysis found list prices had more than tripled since their introduction to the market. To fight these price hikes, the Inflation Reduction Act enables Medicare to negotiate lower prices and limit out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries. (The act’s provisions don’t extend to the private health insurance market.)

    Applying value-based purchasing here could control pricing and supply issues, Ms. Rangachari said. CMS will increasingly scrutinize what value is delivered to justify cost, comparative efficacy, therapeutic advances, and research and development investments.

    “And this is an initiative that’s now underway as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Ms. Rangachari said. “Ultimately, it’s really tackling the p’s and the q’s of the equation through delivery system reform.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 21:40

  • Video Shows IDF Shooting Unarmed, Loitering West Bank Palestinians, Killing One
    Video Shows IDF Shooting Unarmed, Loitering West Bank Palestinians, Killing One

    In the latest in an ongoing stream of disturbing shootings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers caught on video, images captured last week show the IDF shooting three seemingly unarmed men — killing one — as they loitered in the West Bank village of Beit Rima.  

    The IDF says soldiers were in the village for a “counter-terrorism operation,” and claimed they shot at men who threw firebombs and explosives. An Israeli military spokesman who reviewed the video doubled down on the claim, saying a man who is seen kneeling in the video was in the act of lighting a Molotov cocktail when he was shot. 

    However, an Associated Press examination of multiple videos of the 2am incident found the evidence sharply contradicts the Israeli claims. Indeed, the IDF didn’t even shoot the kneeling man first. 

    Video that starts 20 minutes before the shooting shows various men casually loitering and walking around near a town square. Rather than lighting a Molotov cocktail, one of the wounded survivors say 17-year-old Osaid Rimawi was lighting a stack of cardboard boxes and paper he’d assembled to build a fire to keep the group warm. Video shot from across the street corroborates his version: 

    Osaid Rimawi kneels in front of a stack of cardboard boxes moments before the IDF opens fire (screenshot from security camera footage via AP)

    The IDF first shot 29-year-old Nader Ramawi in the left leg. The others initially scattered. When Ramawi’s 25-year-old brother Mohammed ran to aid his brother, he too was shot, with the bullet hitting his hip. Next, Osaid darts toward the victims, and is shot, fatally. The high school student was studying to be a barber. 

    The video gets worse. As Nader stands up and tries to hop away on his one good leg, the IDF shot him in that leg too. It bears emphasis that Nader wasn’t brandishing any weapons, and this incident didn’t take place in Gaza, but the West Bank.

    Soldiers approached the downed Palestinians a couple minutes later. One prodded the dying Osaid with his foot, and after hovering around the wounded, the soldiers leave without taking interest in the stack of boxes that the IDF spokesperson said was a Molotov cocktail, according to AP‘s review of the videos. 

    Thus far, Israel’s response to this latest claim of murderous misconduct by its soldiers follows a familiar pattern. First comes a denial of wrongdoing, then a false claim about the nature of the incident, followed by the announcement of a probe to be conducted by the IDF itself. 

    That pattern most prominently played out in the IDF’s fatal shooting of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022, which eventually ended in a mere apology and no charges against soldiers. Dror Sadot, spokeswoman for Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, tells AP that justice is unlikely to result from this new episode either:

    “Cases like these happen quite regularly, but no one’s hearing about them. The military will say that it is opening an investigation. And this investigation will last for years, probably without any media covering it. And then it will be washed down the drain.”

    Last month, IDF soldiers in Gaza shot and killed three Israeli hostages, all of whom were shirtless and one of whom was waving a white surrender flag. That incident lent credence to critics’ claims that the IDF has been demonstrating a reckless disregard for Palestinian life. 

    Also in December, we reported on the IDF fatally shooting these two men to death – one incapacitated and the other seemingly unarmed – in the Israeli-occupied West Bank:

    The United States has been reluctant to admonish the Israeli government over such incidents. However, amid a surging global outcry over the high civilian casualty count in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at a press briefing in Israel on Tuesday, said the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high.” 

    “Those who dare to accuse our soldiers of war crimes are people imbued with hypocrisy and lies who do not have a single drop of morality,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October. “The [IDF] is the most moral army in the world.” 

    Here’s the AP’s full video breakdown and report on last week’s West Bank shooting:   

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 21:20

  • The Root Cause Of Academic Groupthink
    The Root Cause Of Academic Groupthink

    Authored by Bruce Abramson via RealClear Wire,

    The shroud is coming off elite academia and America is not pleased with what it’s seeing. Its leaders have told us that genocidal antisemitism is too complex to recognize and that plagiarism is a problem for students, perhaps for junior faculty, but not for the president of Harvard. DEI policies elevated demographic considerations far above merit at our most prestigious institutions.

    How did this happen? What can be done to fix it?

    Those are tough questions. Major institutions don’t become corrupt overnight. The process is long, slow, and methodical. The solutions go far beyond the removal of a few high-profile officials. In academia, the egregious examples that gain sudden visibility are merely manifestations of a corrupt core.

    That corrupt core stems from the inherent difficulty of assessing the quality of knowledge work. Suppose that there are multiple competing theories to explain some phenomenon—freakish weather, persistent crime, disparate outcomes, reactions to a vaccine, the variance of election results from poll predictions, etc. How can anyone know which theory to believe?

    Most people turn to one of two heuristics. The first is personal, and few people like to admit it openly: They accept whichever theory comes closest to what they’d like to believe. The second is societal, and most people who advocate it do so with pride: They ask the experts.

    Academic institutions—built by experts and for experts—have enshrined this second approach, using mechanisms that sound unassailable, like “peer review” and “faculty governance.” Success in academia flows to those who most impress the key decision-makers. Many students encountered this phenomenon in classes known for handing the highest grades to those best adept at parroting the professor’s views.

    What few students appreciate is how powerful that approach remains throughout the academic hierarchy. Graduate students seeking faculty positions maximize their chances by embracing and building upon the work of their faculty interviewers. Assistant professors are most likely to gain tenure and promotion if they anchor their work to that of their senior colleagues. Authors seeking publication in prestigious journals cite the previous publications of the editors and reviewers. The same is true for those seeking research grants.

    In other words, the safest, surest, most common path to success in academia involves telling those already designated experts precisely what they most want to hear: That their own work had been so groundbreaking that the most interesting and exciting path forward is to build upon it.

    Suppose you’re part of the senior faculty of a department committed to the phlogiston theory (i.e., debunked 18th c. chemistry). Two candidates compete for a junior slot. The first presents a marginal tweak on phlogiston citing your own work and that of several colleagues. The second presents groundbreaking proof that phlogiston is wrong.

    Who gets the job? The candidate whose work flatters you and your colleague? Or the candidate who’s shown that you’ve dedicated your career to nonsense? Now ask the question about climate change instead of phlogiston. Then ask it about DEI. The answer is always the same. Experts who’ve staked their careers and prestige on the validity of a theory will always hire, promote, and reward those who burnish that theory.

    The net result is a reinforcement of orthodox thinking and a field committed to moving further along whatever path it was already taking. I’ve termed this phenomenon “incremental outrageousness.” It defines the basic incentive structure of academia—and of our entire credentialed class.

    Decades ago, when WASP men (to use the acronym of the time) held almost all positions of influence, it was hard to argue with the proposition that casting a far broader net might yield superior candidates. Once our institutions had committed to moving in that direction, however, autopilot took over. The edict was clear: Whatever you may have done vis-à-vis hiring and promotion last year, increase the consideration given to minority candidates.

    That instruction did two things: It entrenched a bureaucracy charged with moving incrementally forward in the same direction and it guaranteed that we could never reach an appropriate balance. It thus elevates an idiosyncratic view of cosmic justice over the challenge of placing the best qualified people in jobs. That’s incremental outrageousness in action. It’s a necessary consequence of a system whose sole determinant of quality is the collective opinion of those who’ve already navigated that system most successfully.

    America is chafing beneath the leadership of an expert class motivated to elevate the experts who flatter the egos of the expert class. That’s hardly a prescription for good governance. It does, however, explain fully what Americans are learning about our most prestigious academic institutions: The only way to make sense of their performance is to understand that their sole motivation is the promotion of their own grandeur.

    Removing a few poorly chosen, underperforming college Presidents is a start. Dismantling a bureaucracy that is committed to engaging in current discrimination to remedy past discrimination would help also. But the only way to truly fix the problem is to alter the incentives.

    We need to broaden the base of decision-makers: Bring back those who’ve been cast to the periphery of their fields for challenging the orthodoxy. Include those too productive to worry about credentials. Embrace those who’ve retained their common sense rather than chasing the next incremental outrage. Meritocracy can never be better than those who define merit. Never confuse the finest contributions to orthodox thinking with the finest contributions to society—or science.

    Unless we do that, today’s elite consensus will always point academics in a direction that, given time, leads to some form of groupthink that is just as damaging—and just as divorced from reality—as that we find in our institutions today.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 21:00

  • Maersk Boss Warns Red Sea Chaos Could Last Months
    Maersk Boss Warns Red Sea Chaos Could Last Months

    President Biden’s efforts to stop Iran-backed Houti attacks on commercial shipping routes in the Red Sea continue to face significant challenges. The boss of shipping giant AP Møller-Maersk disclosed to the Financial Times in an interview that reopening the critical waterway could take months instead of weeks. 

    Vincent Clerc, Maersk’s chief executive, said the weekly drone and missile attacks on container ships have been “brutal and dramatic.” He said vessels have been rerouted to the Cape of Good Hope as this 1- 2 week detour adds higher shipping costs because of reduced container capacity and increased fuel usage. 

    “It’s unclear to us if we are talking about re-establishing safe passage into the Red Sea in a matter of days, weeks or months . . . It could potentially have quite significant consequences on global growth,” he said.

    As of Thursday morning, AIS vessel tracking data via Bloomberg shows two container ships in the highly contested Red Sea waters, with destinations for Europe and North America. Most of these vessels have been rerouted to the Cape of Good Hope. 

    Last week, Maersk said it would divert ships from the Red Sea around Africa “for the foreseeable future.” The shipper has failed to restart operations in the critical waterway that links Europe and Asia after its vessels were attacked last month. 

    Clerc said Cape of Good Hope adds about 8,000 miles in distance for an Asia-Europe route on a round trip basis. He said the extra distance has made Maersk’s fuel bill 50% higher. He warned that if the Red Sea route is not restored soon, it could threaten “logistics and global supply chains.” 

    “We are urging the international community to mobilize and do what it needs to do to reopen the [Bab-el-Mandeb] strait. It is one of the main arteries of the global economy, and it is clogged right now,” he said. 

    He added: “It could have wider-ranging consequences not only for the industry but for end consumers, product availability, and the global economy as a whole.” 

    Maersk’s inability to restart the Red Sea route directly reflects Biden’s faltering Operation Prosperity Guardian mission to safeguard commercial vessels in the region with US warships. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 20:40

  • Biden "Saves" Democracy By Destroying It; VDH
    Biden “Saves” Democracy By Destroying It; VDH

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    When faced with the possible return of President Donald Trump, the current agenda of the Democratic Party is summed up simply as “We had to destroy democracy to save it.”

    The effort shares a common theme: any means necessary are justified to prevent the people from choosing their own president, given the fear that a majority might vote to elect Donald Trump.

    Sometimes the anti-democratic paranoia has been outsourced to state and local officials and prosecutors to erase Trump from the primary and likely general election ballots as well.

    One unelected official in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, is a Democrat, an official never elected by the people, and a non-lawyer rendering a legal edict. Yet she has judged Trump guilty of “insurrection.”

    And presto, she erased his name from the state’s ballot.

    Yet Trump was never charged, much less convicted, of “insurrection.”

    The statute Bellows cites is a post-Civil War clause of the 14th Amendment. It was passed over a century and a half ago. It was never intended to be used in an election year by an opposition party to disbar a rival presidential candidate.

    In the earlier case of Colorado, the all-Democrat Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, took Trump off the ballot.

    In sum, just five officials in two states have taken away the rights of some 7 million Americans to vote for the president of their choice.

    Note that Trump continues to lead incumbent Joe Biden in the polls.

    Sometimes, indictments are preferred to prevent Americans from voting for or against Trump.

    Currently, four leftist prosecutors—three state and one federal—have indicted Trump.

    They are petitioning courts to accelerate the usually lethargic legal process to ensure Trump is tied up in Atlanta, Miami, New York, and Washington, D.C., courtrooms nonstop during the 2024 election cycle.

    Their aim is to keep Trump from campaigning, as he faces four left-wing prosecutors, four liberal judges, and four or five overwhelmingly Democratic jury pools.

    Yet all the indictments are increasingly clouded in controversy, if not outright scandal.

    Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis campaigned on promises to get Trump. She now faces allegations that she outsourced the prosecution to an unqualified personal injury lawyer—her current stealth boyfriend who was paid handsomely by Willis’s office and traveled on pricey junkets with her.

    New York partisan attorney general Letitia James likewise sought office on promises to destroy Trump.

    She preposterously claims Trump overvalued his real estate collateral to a bank. Yet it eagerly made the loan, profited from it, and had no complaints given that Trump paid off the principle and interest as required.

    Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg is even more desperate. He is now prosecuting Trump for campaign finance violations from nearly a decade ago, claiming a nondisclosure agreement with a purported sexual liaison somehow counts as a campaign violation.

    Federal special prosecutor Jack Smith claims Trump should be convicted of improperly removing classified documents after leaving office. In the past, such disagreements over presidential papers were resolved bureaucratically.

    Joe Biden, for example, improperly took out classified files after leaving the Senate and vice presidency and stored them in unsecure locations for over a decade.

    All of these prosecutors are unapologetic anti-Trump progressives.

    Some have communicated with the White House legal eagles, even though Joe Biden is likely to face Trump in the November election.

    Some prosecutors are themselves facing controversies, if not scandals. Some wish to synchronize their drawn-out investigations and indictments to hinder the Trump reelection effort.

    At other times, the effort to neuter Trump is waged by his rival Biden himself.

    He has hammered Trump as an insurrectionist and guilty of a number of egregious crimes against democracy—even as Biden’s own Attorney General has appointed a special counsel to try Trump on just those federal charges concerning the January 6 demonstrations, a dead horse that Biden periodically still beats to death to scare voters.

    Biden periodically smears half of America who supported or voted for Trump as “ultra-Maga” extremists and “semi-fascists” who would destroy democracy.

    Yet the more Biden and the Left weaponize the judicial system to prevent Trump from running, and the more Biden screams and yells that Trump supporters are anti-American and anti-democratic, the more Trump soars in the polls while Biden sinks.

    The left privately knows that its historically unprecedented strangulation of democracy is increasing Trump’s popularity. But like an addict, it cannot quit its Trump fix.

    In sum, the Left is creating historic, anti-democratic precedents that will someday boomerang on Democrats should Republicans win the November election and follow the new Democrat model of extra-legal politics.

    Democrats are tearing apart the country in a manner not seen since the Civil War era—apparently convinced democracy cannot be trusted and so itself must be sacrificed as the price of destroying Donald Trump.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 20:20

  • Is A Tech Layoff Wave Slated For 2024?
    Is A Tech Layoff Wave Slated For 2024?

    There have been a number of layoff announcements by big tech firms at the start of the new year, signaling a potentially weakening labor market that could accelerate into 2024. Yet, the recent pivot by the Federal Reserve might stave off a spike in the unemployment rate and a resulting recession, should Chair Powell create a soft landing in the economy. If the Fed fails and ushers in a hard landing, brace for a layoff surge. 

    Let’s begin with a Resume Builder survey released at the end of last year, which said nearly 40% of 900 companies surveyed warned they would have to announce layoffs this year. About half of companies said they would implement a hiring freeze. 

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

    When respondents were asked about the rationale for layoffs, half cited an impending recession as the reason. 

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

    In a separate report, Bloomberg detailed the latest big tech layoffs layoffs: 

    Amazon.com Inc. is cutting hundreds of workers across content-creation units, including Prime Video and live-streaming site Twitch. Alphabet Inc.’s Google is also nixing hundreds of positions in hardware and its Assistant unit. Unity Software Inc., which makes the tech that underpins popular mobile games like Pokemon Go, said it would reduce its workforce by 25%, eliminating about 1,800 jobs. 

    Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Poonam Goyal said the job cuts at Amazon were “likely just a move to further streamline costs and improve efficiency to increase earnings.” 

    Despite signs of an economic downturn, the job tracking website Layoffs.fyi showed the job market could be stabilizing after 1,186 tech companies cut 262,600 jobs last year. Since the first of the year, 18 tech companies have laid off nearly 3,000 workers. 

    “I’d say the dust is settling — you’re starting to see companies gear up to say the worst is behind us,” said Bert Bean, chief executive officer of Insight Global, a staffing company.

    However, Citi analysts told clients this last week: “While layoffs are still low, these early signs of a weakening labor market could still accelerate into 2024.” 

    The analysts continued: “On the other hand, the recent Fed-induced loosening in financial conditions may also be successful in delaying a 2024 recession. Labor market data in early 2024 (after the volatile holiday period through January) will be particularly important to watch.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 20:00

  • China Says It Cracked Apple's AirDrop Encryption To Track Senders
    China Says It Cracked Apple’s AirDrop Encryption To Track Senders

    Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Chinese authorities have claimed that they can identify individuals who use Apple’s wireless file-sharing tool to spread content that Beijing considers “inappropriate.”

    Police officers seal off the area near Apple’s flagship store in Beijing on Jan. 13, 2012. (Feng Li/Getty Images)

    Experts had managed to identify the phone number and email address of an AirDrop sending device using logs found on the receiving device, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice said in an article published on Jan. 8. That allows local police to find “several suspects” who use the iPhone feature to transmit files containing what authorities have referred to as “inappropriate remarks,” according to the agency.

    AirDrop, designed to function over short distances, was created as a program reliant on direct connections between phones. By forming a local network of devices without relying on the internet to communicate, AirDrop makes it hard for authorities to regulate “through conventional network monitoring methods,” according to the article.

    The file-sharing feature, which is available on iPhones and other Apple devices, has been a critical tool for protesters in both mainland China and Hong Kong to evade censorship and maintain communication. Users can’t review the transmission history, and the recipient’s device may only show the user-defined name of the sender.

    The Beijing judicial agency stated in the article that experts extracted AirDrop’s encrypted records by analyzing the iPhone’s logs. They praised experts from Beijing Wangshendongjian Technology Co. Ltd., a local forensic appraisal institute, for assisting authorities to “break through technical difficulties of tracing anonymous AirDrops.”

    The Epoch Times contacted Apple for comment but didn’t receive a response by press time.

    iPhone Censorship

    AirDrop was used widely as a communication tool during Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2019. Demonstrators deployed the program to bypass China’s so-called Great Firewall, delivering crucial messages to the public and ensuring ongoing communication among themselves.

    In late 2022, after protests against Beijing’s draconian COVID-19 measures erupted in Shanghai and other major Chinese cities, Apple restricted the sharing feature in the mainland following reports that young demonstrators used the AirDrop function to share images and slogans denouncing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leader, Xi Jinping.

    On Nov. 9, 2022, Apple released iOS 16.1.1., a new version of its mobile operating system. The tech firm noted that the “update includes bug fixes and security updates and is recommended for all users.” However, Chinese readers of 9to5Mac, a website covering news about Apple and its products, noticed a modification in the update that was specific to iPhones sold in China.

    Following the operating system update, AirDrop on iPhones sold in China can only be configured to receive messages from “everyone” for 10 minutes before switching off. Typically, AirDrop users can choose to receive files from “everyone”—contacts and noncontacts—for an unlimited time. Before the update, the “everyone” setting could be turned on permanently on Chinese iPhones.

    Apple has stated that the feature was an effort to cut down on spam content sent in crowded areas such as malls, and it originally planned to roll out the feature globally starting in 2023.

    However, Apple hasn’t offered an explanation as to why it chose China to be the first country with AirDrop restrictions.

    China Censorship

    For years, Apple kept Chinese customers’ data locally on servers run by a state-owned company, adhering to Beijing’s request to keep information within its borders.

    Experts have pointed out that this method gives the CCP unfettered access to consumer data. Apple, in response, stated that it holds encryption keys to the data stored in those server facilities and has “never compromised the security” of its users and their data.

    This local storage means that although the United States has laws against companies sharing data with Chinese authorities, Beijing can demand the data from the server storage company rather than from Apple.

    Apple has already been subjected to restrictions in China, one of the company’s biggest markets and responsible for nearly 20 percent of the Cupertino, California-based firm’s revenue.

    Multiple media outlets reported in September 2023 that Beijing instructed state employees and officials at some government agencies to not use iPhones and other foreign cell phones for work. Local officials from three provinces previously told The Epoch Times that they had already been told to not bring iPhones and foreign cell phones to important meetings. These officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said there were no formal documents regarding that order.

    When asked about the reported iPhone ban at a briefing at the time, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official didn’t directly comment on the issue but said phone companies operating in China must adhere to its laws and regulations.

    China observers have noted that the CCP has long sought to tighten control over its people. The regime has poured massive resources into constructing a nationwide surveillance system, clamping down on both domestic and foreign businesses and penalizing individuals perceived as threats to national security. The money Chinese authorities have spent on policing the whole society has surpassed its national defense budget under Xi, according to Nikkei Asia’s analysis of official data.

    Andrew Moran, Catherine Yang, and Lear Zhou contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 19:40

  • Griffin, Singer, And Schwarzman Pour Millions Into McCormick Super PAC In Hopes Of Flipping PA Senate Seat Red
    Griffin, Singer, And Schwarzman Pour Millions Into McCormick Super PAC In Hopes Of Flipping PA Senate Seat Red

    One of the most competitive 2024 Senate races is heating up, thanks in large part to nearly $18 million in billionaire donations to a super PAC supporting GOP candidate David McCormick, who hopes to unseat Democratic incumbent Senator Bob Casey in November.

    Citadel’s Ken Griffin, Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman and Elliott Management’s Paul Singer have heavily contributed to the super PAC, Keystone Renwal, Bloomberg reports.

    McCormick, a former chief executive officer at hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, is seen as a business-friendly Republican who could pose a formidable challenge to Democratic incumbent Senator Bob Casey in the 2024 election.

    The $18 million that Keystone Renewal raised since it was formed in August is in addition to the $6.4 million the McCormick campaign raised in the fourth quarter. -Bloomberg

    According to Ken Griffin, McCormick is a “proven business leader who understands what it takes to create jobs and grow a company,” and “America will be well served if talented patriots and leaders like David are elected to serve in Congress.”

    Ken Griffin, Citadel Photographer: Bryan van der Beek/Bloomberg

    According to Keystone spokesperson, Brittany Yanick, “This shows that there is not only real excitement and momentum for McCormick’s candidacy, but also the fact that Pennsylvania is a state that McCormick will win in November.”

    In December, Paul Tudor Jones hosted a fundraiser at his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Guests included former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross; San Francisco Giants principal owner Charles Johnson; former Colorado Senator Cory Gardner; and Byron Trott, founder of merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners LLC., according to the report.

    The push behind McCormick shows that major Republican donors are serious about flipping the Senate red this year. While Democrats currently maintain a slim majority in the chamber, they face tough races in Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 19:20

  • "We Need To Find Ways To Suppress Douglas Murray & Joe Rogan": Inside A Counter-Terrorism Course For UK Civil Servants
    “We Need To Find Ways To Suppress Douglas Murray & Joe Rogan”: Inside A Counter-Terrorism Course For UK Civil Servants

    Authored by Anna Stanley via FathomJournal.org,

    Scandalous Indoctrination: Inside a Kings College Counter-Terrorism Course for UK Civil Servants

    A former civil servant, Anna Stanley reports on a counter-terrorism course she attended which she found a deeply, existentially depressing experience. She argues that ‘prestigious’ educational institutions are delivering politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination and that extremism and terrorism are misunderstood by civil servants to the point of being a national security risk.

    I recently attended a Kings College course called ‘Issues in Countering Terrorism’. Organised by the Centre for Defence Studies, it was designed for civil servants and professionals in Counter Terrorism. Staff from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and Home Office attended. Facilitating this relatively new 3 day course were senior lecturers from the Security Studies Department.

    The civil servants were given presentations by Kings College lecturers while Visiting Senior Research Fellows and Professors also spoke. These included those formerly holding positions such as Permanent Secretary of the Home Office and Director of GCHQ, Defence Minister and Foreign Office Director.

    The course was a deeply, existentially depressing experience.

    ‘Prestigious’ educational institutions are delivering politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination. It confirmed my fears – that extremism and terrorism are misunderstood by civil servants to the point of being a national security risk.

    Underpinning their presentations, some of the lecturers relayed typical post-modern identity politics.

    The course began with the issue of definitions. What is Terrorism? Without anyone providing an opposing standpoint, we were taught the adage, ‘One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.’

    I posed to the room: ‘Surely we can acknowledge subjectivity while being able to come up with a collective understanding of what terrorism is?’ Some 40 civil servants looked at me blankly. No?

    I wondered why we were there.

    The danger of understanding terrorism with cultural relativism is that it breeds moral apathy; the kind that says ‘Who are we, mere democratic, liberal Westerners to impose our morality onto others? Who are we to say our culture is superior to others?’

    These are luxury attitudes.

    It is easy to be sat in Kings College London and feel that all cultures are equal, when you haven’t been anally raped at a peace festival by someone shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and held hostage. In the introduction to the course, labeling an organisation as terrorist was described as a problem because it ‘implies a moral judgment’. Nothing was said about why a moral judgment might be appropriate.

    All the civil servant participants were given a topic to research and present. One attendee said her brother had been radicalised and fought in Syria for Islamic State (ISIS). ’Phew’, I thought. At least one person here will understand the problems of extremism (!) Her presentation was about the UK’s Counter Terrorism Strategy, Prevent.  She argued Prevent is inherently racist because it focuses on Islamist extremism. The mere mention of Islamist extremism makes Muslims ‘feel uncomfortable’, she argued. Her brother would most certainly have agreed.

    I raised the point that nearly 70 per cent of terrorist attacks in the UK are Islamist. Similarly, 70 per cent of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. It would be absurd to avoid mentioning this in the study of cancer so smokers don’t feel uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, this comparison was not well received.

    Later on, we were shown an ISIS propaganda recruitment video filmed in Syria. The same attendee’s face lit up. Laughing and pointing at the Jihadi in the video, ‘He used to go to my school! I know him!’ she exclaimed. Mouth agape, I looked around the room for responses to yet another disclosure involving personal links to ISIS terrorists. I appeared to be the only one to find this extraordinary.

    There was an irony to being surrounded by civil servants who hate the concept of the State.

    As young professionals, they represented a microcosm of the views emanating from British universities: When it comes to extremism and counter terrorism, the State is not to be trusted.

    The head of Security Studies at Kings College read concernedly, ‘Problems of Definitions: Labelling a group terrorist can increase the state’s power.’ The civil servants nodded in agreement.

    The visiting speakers were political heavyweights. Possessing genuine expertise with interesting anecdotes, their past responses to crises like the ‘Northern Ireland Troubles’ were referenced frequently. Yet I couldn’t help but feel many of their insights were lost by the audience.

    One attendee provocatively asked a former head of GCHQ whether he ‘felt bad infringing on our civil liberties in the pursuit of terrorists?’ Naïve and uninformed, the questioner had highlighted mainstream opinion that security services are routinely listening to innocent, random people’s phone calls or stalking their WhatsApps. Lacking was any appreciation the UK is exemplary. Protective legislation is laborious to the point of being near obstructive and investigations pursuing criminals and terrorists are rigorously audited.

    Israel was referenced throughout the course. We were told some consider Hamas terrorists as freedom fighters whereas Israel was provided as a prime example when considering the question of whether a state can commit terrorism. In the introduction, one slide read ‘Condemning terrorism is to endorse the power of the strong over the weak’, a dangerous conclusion breeding anti-Israel positions. In this perspective, Israel is seen as a powerful aggressor and the Palestinians militarily disadvantaged in asymmetric warfare. Thus, the Palestinians are inherently oppressed an axiom that fuels the view that Israel is a terrorist state and Hamas’ atrocities are justifiably ‘contextualised’. To call Hamas terrorist – as the BBC is so pointedly resistant to doing – would be to ‘endorse the power of the strong over the weak’.

    Another slide read, ‘Terrorism is not the problem, rather the systems they oppose are terrorist,’ reflecting post-modern identity politics wrapped up as counter terrorism education. Everything was viewed through the lens of power.

    While the lecturer did not explicitly present the slides as reflecting his own beliefs, he said nothing to counter them.

    I am grateful I attended the course before the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. I have no doubt the pogrom would have been contextually justified as ‘merely the oppressed countering the oppressor’; with Israel’s response described as morally equivalent (or worse) to the atrocities.

    None of the Counter Terrorism lecturers (bar two) posted about the attacks on their otherwise informative social media platforms.

    Of these two, one Professor wrote a RUSI Think Tank commentary, saying Israeli ‘crisis meetings could be affected by a desire for revenge’ and why ‘restraint in Counterterrorism is so important’.

    During the span of the course, there was no mention of immigration being relevant to terrorism in the UK, except as a view ‘given by the right wing’.

    The course’s overriding emphasis was that Islamist extremism is exaggerated. Right-wing extremism was given more weight than is proportionate. This is in direct conflict with William Shawcross’ findings, in the latest government commissioned review of its anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent.

    One lecturer derogatively described Shawcross as ‘the type of person who would say all current counter-terrorism professionals are woke…He is of that ilk.’

    This of course discredited Shawcross to the course attendees.

    The lecturer further argued that Douglas Murray and Joe Rogan are both examples of the far right.

    ‘To what extent should Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray be suppressed?’ he asked.

    ‘They have millions of followers. To de-platform them would cause issues.’

    Concluding his talk, the lecturer told a room full of government professionals, ‘so, society needs to find other ways to suppress them.’

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 19:05

  • Liz Cheney Vs. Stefan Passantino: The Jan. 6 Committee Fraud
    Liz Cheney Vs. Stefan Passantino: The Jan. 6 Committee Fraud

    Authored by Newt Gingrich via RealClear Wire,

    It’s becoming increasingly clear that U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney was dishonest, manipulative, and destructive while serving on the Jan. 6 Committee.

    A lawsuit filed by my friend and long-time attorney Stefan Passantino on Dec. 20, 2023 lays it out.

    I know both participants well. I entered Congress in 1978 with Liz Cheney’s father, Dick Cheney. I watched Liz Cheney become a competent, effective implementor of American policy around the world. Few things have made me sadder than watching her drift into an anti-Trump fanaticism – which ultimately convinced her that breaking the rules, destroying innocent people, and pandering fake news were justified behaviors.

    Years later, I got to know Stefan Passantino. Since 1998, he has been legal counsel for me and for our companies. He is a thoughtful, scholarly, and deeply ethical attorney. Passantino represents his clients with integrity and a passionate commitment to protecting them and seeing justice done.

    I was proud of Passantino when he served as Deputy White House Counsel focusing on federal compliance and government ethics. We could not have imagined how he would later be smeared and lied about by Congresswoman Liz Cheney and the Jan. 6 Committee.

    Liz Cheney and the committee’s ongoing process of dishonesty, violating attorney-client privilege, and leaking to friendly leftwing media was a total perversion of the congressional system. It was a dishonest effort to destroy innocent people of integrity with one-sided lies and smears.

    Fortunately, Chairman Barry Loudermilk, who leads the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight (on which I served for over a decade), has doggedly looked into the Jan. 6 Committee’s lies and manipulations. In the coming months, we will be shocked at the stunning dishonesty Chairman Loudermilk will reveal.

    Passantino represented several witnesses before the Jan. 6 Committee with no problems. He represented Cassidy Hutchinson with precisely the same integrity. In fact, he represented Hutchinson through multiple interviews covering about 20 hours.

    Hutchinson was a desirable witness for the Committee, because she entered the White House in her early 20s and became Special Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Legislative Affairs. She reported to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and had an office in the West Wing just a few feet from the Oval Office.

    Liz Cheney apparently decided Hutchinson would make a star witness – if only she would say the right things.

    In an amazingly inappropriate and unethical move, Liz Cheney herself (along with a small number of senior staff) approached Hutchinson after her second committee interview without informing her Passantino. Liz Cheney then called Cassidy in for a third interview, with Passantino again serving as counsel, with neither Cassidy nor Cheney ever informing Passantino that they had been speaking without his knowledge. Contacting Hutchinson without informing Passantino was clearly unethical, and it appears as if Liz Cheney instructed Cassidy not to tell Passantino they had spoken. This was a profound breach of legal ethics. Liz Cheney knew this well. She earned her law degree from the University of Chicago.

    As a senior member of Congress (and the national media’s anointed hero), Liz Cheney approached and sought to manipulate an isolated, frightened woman in her mid-20s. Does that sound appropriate? I suspect Liz Cheney knew she was doing something wrong because she apparently did not tell her fellow committee members.

    After being manipulated by Cheney, Hutchinson dismissed Passantino and hired a new lawyer who was eager to cooperate with the committee. Suddenly, Hutchinson’s testimony started changing. As Chairman Loudermilk has said:

    “Cassidy Hutchinson tried to explain her dramatic changes in testimony by blaming her initial lawyer, Stefan Passantino. Our discovery of Cassidy’s errata sheet showing just how substantially her story changed, raises serious concerns about her credibility. Until now, her version of the story was the only one.”

    As John Solomon at Just the News reported:

    “As the Jan. 6 congressional investigation rushed to a close in 2022, one of the House Democrats’ star witnesses waived her attorney-client privilege with her first lawyer in a move that could now open the door for House Republicans to question both her and her attorney, correspondence obtained by Just the News shows. Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony played a large role in shaping House Democrats’ final report sharply criticizing Donald Trump for the Capitol riot that ensued on Jan. 6, 2021, but Republicans on the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight led by Chairman Barry Loudermilk recently discovered an errata sheet she submitted to Congress that made substantial changes to her account midway through the Democrat-led inquiry. Errata sheets are routinely provided to deponents and witnesses by stenographers to allow for correction of typographic errors and dropped words.”

    The Jan. 6 Committee did everything it could to avoid being reviewed. It has not released transcripts of many interviews. It claims to have destroyed some videos of interviews. In one deliberately opaque move, the committee seems to have sent some of its documents to various other agencies, making them difficult to gather.

    Further, the committee called in thousands of witnesses to interview. Yet, it never interviewed Passantino. This is the biggest clue that Liz Cheney and the committee were interested in promoting their narrative rather than finding the truth.

    The Republican House has since brought the Jan. 6 Committee materials back from the National Archives, and they are being studied by the Committee on House Administration. Some surprisingly bad examples of rule-breaking and simply lying to the American people are beginning to emerge.

    Passantino’s courage in bringing his lawsuit will accelerate the process of learning just how bad the Jan. 6 Committee was – and reveal the depth of its most aggressive members’ dishonesty and manipulation.

    History will not grant Liz Cheney or the Jan. 6 Committee members the profile in courage they wanted. It will record a profile in deception, distortion, and vengeance.

    I have no doubt Stefan Passantino will emerge from this lawsuit with his integrity intact and reputation restored. I can’t say the same for Liz Cheney.

    For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 19:00

  • The Best Bank Stock Rally In Years Raises Scrutiny
    The Best Bank Stock Rally In Years Raises Scrutiny

    By Jessica Menton, Bloomberg Earnings Watch reporter and analyst

    Fresh off their best quarter since 2021, banks stocks are set for a high-stakes earnings showdown as Wall Street’s most influential executives give investors their latest take on the US economy.

    JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. kick off the reporting cycle for Corporate America on Friday, after a gauge of US bank stocks gained 23% last quarter, trouncing the broader market.
    Bank shares were under pressure for much of 2023, and then surged starting in late October as confidence built that the Federal Reserve would end its rate-hike campaign without triggering a recession. Now the focus is on the timing of policy easing, and investors will scrutinize what that means for all corners of the lenders’ business, from the health of their loan portfolios to the outlook for deposit rates.

    “Banks are obviously not as cheap as they were, but at the same time I don’t think people believe the valuations of banks are stretched,” said Richard Ramsden, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

    If the banks are more upbeat than expected around net interest income, loan growth, capital markets and deposit pricing, “all of that is obviously going to feed through into greater earnings and probably further relative outperformance from some of the banks,” Ramsden said.

    On Tuesday, attention turns to earnings from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. That day also brings the first results from the regional lenders, with PNC Financial Services Group reporting, making it a bellwether for regional lenders.

    The big banks are generally expected to report downbeat results for the fourth quarter amid higher funding costs. Net interest income for the sector looks set to drop, while elevated expenses and weak trading revenue are also likely to weigh on earnings, Goldman’s Ramsden said in a report. Loan growth will probably be modest, he said.

    The companies are also expected to detail payments to the FDIC resulting from the regional bank failures that roiled financial markets early last year. Citigroup said Wednesday that it expects to incur a $1.7 billion cost to replenish the FDIC fund. Meanwhile, Bank of America said it would take a $1.6 billion charge tied to the Libor transition.

    The tide turned for bank shares last quarter as the prospect of Fed rate cuts in 2024 eased concern over areas such as net interest margins.

    There’s plenty of reason for caution. The inflation rate remains well above the Fed’s target, and markets are betting on a more aggressive path of rate cuts than the Fed is signaling. JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon this week said he remains skeptical that the Fed’s hikes will succeed in taming inflation without eventually slamming the breaks on the economy.

    Some analysts are advising investors to temper their enthusiasm.

    At BMO Capital Markets, James Fotheringham downgraded a handful of US banks and specialty-finance firms on the back of the rally, warning they appear vulnerable to an “impending” credit cycle. UBS Group AG analysts, meanwhile, flagged the risk of “wild swings in sentiment.”

    “January earnings season may present a speed bump to the sector’s recent momentum,” UBS’s Erika Najarian wrote in a note this week. Still, looking more broadly, over the past month financial companies are the only sector where the majority of analyst earnings revisions were upwards, according to Citigroup data.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 18:40

  • Energy Lease Hypocrisy: Biden Uses Taxpayer Protections To Prop Up Wind, Gut Oil
    Energy Lease Hypocrisy: Biden Uses Taxpayer Protections To Prop Up Wind, Gut Oil

    Authored by Pete McGinnis via RealClear Wire,

    What constitutes a “proven technology” with “predictable income” to the Biden administration? Apparently, it isn’t the oil and gas industry that has been powering the world, raising standards of living, and making entire nations wealthy for well over a century. On the other hand, the first-ever North American ocean wind turbine installation – unpopular with people who will have to look at it and part of a flailing, not-ready-for-primetime industry – is a sure thing to the Department of the Interior.

    Per a recent report, on June 15, 2021, Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) waived the customary financial assurance for decommissioning on the lease of the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. Decommissioning fees are typically required for every energy lease Interior grants so that if a project fails and the lessee goes bankrupt, taxpayers aren’t stuck with cleanup costs. Vineyard first asked for a deferment in 2017 and was denied by the Trump administration, but the Biden BOEM informed Vineyard the fee was deferred for 15 years into its 20-year lease. Why?

    Well, the financial assurance fees were “unnecessarily burdensome for lessees because, at that point, they have not begun receiving project income.” Besides, Vineyard used “proven wind turbine technology,” and “guaranteed electricity sales prices that, coupled with the consistent supply of wind energy, ensure a predictable income over the life of the Project.”

    But a June 2023 Barrons report said of wind energy, “Financially, the industry is teetering, with a parade of companies planning to renegotiate or pull out of contracts, jeopardizing plans for projects that were expected to provide electricity for millions of homes.” What’s more, “At least eight multinational companies in three states have quietly started to back out of wind contracts, or ask to renegotiate deals in ways that will pass more costs to consumers.”

    That includes Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, which recently pulled out of two wind projects off the New Jersey coast. Its stock price was down some 50% in 2023, and the company had “$4 billion in write-downs,” according to Barrons.

    As for that “proven technology,” Siemens Energy shares fell almost 40% in one day in June 2023 because of serious turbine failures – failures that “might be a symptom of a wider issue for the industry,” according to CNBC.

    BOEM, it seems, was overoptimistic about Vineyard Wind. Or they just wanted to give a plucky young upstart a hand. Or they were recklessly pursuing an environmental agenda, whatever the consequences for taxpayers. The evidence points to that last option. One need only look at how BOEM has wielded federal bonding against traditional oil and gas developers.

    On June 29, 2023, BOEM published a proposal to amend bonding requirements. As the Daily Caller has explained, “The old bonding rules established supplemental bonding prices for lessees based on the net worth of that lessee, among other factors … the June 2023 proposal from BOEM would shift that calculus away from net worth and instead focus on the lessee’s credit rating.”

    That shift would impact the 76% of the oil and gas developers working in the Gulf of Mexico that don’t happen to be publicly traded oil giants. Politico’s E&E News says it “would also protect some of the biggest drillers in the country from cleaning up abandoned wells when smaller firms go bust.” In many cases, the Chevrons and Shells did the initial drilling and then sold their lease rights to smaller companies. Under the proposal, these small companies would incur $9 billion in insurance costs that even the surety industry itself claims would not be financially viable. BOEM wants to finalize the new rules by April.

    According to agency documents FGI obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, one of the reasons the BOEM proposal falls so heavily on small independent companies is because Big Oil had a seat at the table when BOEM was dreaming it up. BOEM met with The American Petroleum Institute and major oil companies about changing the surety requirements mainly in 2021. That was the same year BOEM gave Vineyard its sweetheart deal. Meanwhile, as gas prices skyrocketed, President Biden demonized those same energy giants.

    Perhaps in the hope the crocodile would eat the biggest bites last, the huge oil companies fed their smaller competitors to the Biden Administration and its appetite for shutting down domestic fossil fuel production where and when it can. The proposal would drive many companies out of the market of completely under. The administration wins. The president’s allies on the left win. Big Oil wins. And Vineyard Wind must be laughing all the way to the bank.

    If hypocrisy were combustible, we’d be paying $1 per gallon at the pump.

    Peter McGinnis is with the Functional Government Initiative. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 18:20

  • Hunter Biden Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Tax Charges
    Hunter Biden Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Tax Charges

    World-renowned painting legend and crackhead hooker-connoisseur, Hunter Biden, pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars in income from foreign businesses – even though he previously agreed to settle the case in a preferential wristslap plea deal with the DOJ – in a case that Republicans hope will bolster the impeachment of his father, Joe Biden.

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    The president’s son entered his plea Thursday in Los Angeles (the case is US v. Biden, 23-cr-599, US District Court, Central District of California), where he may face trial this year as his father seeks reelection in a rematch with Donald Trump, who himself is the target of a Soviet-style witch hunt orchestrated by Biden’s activist, weaponized Department of “Justice.” Trump, who himself was arrested four times, points to the business affairs of Hunter Biden as evidence the presidential family is corrupt.

    According to Bloomberg, US District Judge Mark Scarsi said he’s considering a June 20 trial date and set a briefing schedule for the case. A federal grand jury charged Hunter Biden on Dec. 7 with failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2019 even as he spent millions of dollars on a drug-fueled lifestyle featuring escorts, fast cars and luxury hotels, much of it while he was in the grips of addiction. He could face 17 years in prison if convicted of the three felonies and six misdemeanors in his indictment.

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    Hunter Biden’s problems extend far beyond the Los Angeles tax case. He also faces a separate trial in Delaware on federal gun charges, and House Republicans have made his overseas business dealings, especially his slush fund receipts from Ukraine and China which were split with his father, a central focus of their impeachment inquiry.

    Separately, as reported yesterday, two US House committees recommended Wednesday that the younger Biden be held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena in the impeachment inquiry into his father.  The votes, 23-14 in the Judiciary Committee and 25-21 in the Oversight Committee, came after Hunter Biden made an unannounced appearance on the US Capitol grounds to attend the proceedings.

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    Hunter Biden had hoped to avoid these criminal cases. In July, he agreed to plead guilty in Delaware to two misdemeanor tax counts and acknowledge a firearms violation without a conviction, receiving no jail time. But the deal imploded when a federal judge – apparently one of the few who has not been bribed by Soros – questioned its terms and refused to sign off on it.

    David Weiss, the US attorney in Delaware, came under intense criticism for offering a sweetheart deal to the president’s son. Hilariously, BIden’s pet attorney general Merrick Garland then appointed Weiss as special counsel in the case, freeing him to pursue separate criminal cases.

    The indictment alleges Hunter Biden made more than $7 million in gross income from 2016 to 2020, including from a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings, and a Chinese private equity firm, CEFC China Energy. Instead of paying his taxes, prosecutors say, he spent money on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature.”

    After the indictment, Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell assailed Weiss in a statement, saying that prosecutors engaged in selective prosecution of a man who paid his back taxes.

    “If Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought,” Lowell said. “Now, after five years of investigating with no new evidence — and two years after Hunter paid his taxes in full — the US Attorney has piled on nine new charges when he had agreed just months ago to resolve this matter with a pair of misdemeanors.”

    House Republicans had subpoenaed Hunter Biden to testify for a private Dec. 13 deposition, but Lowell has said his client will answer questions only in a public hearing or setting. Republicans have countered that Hunter Biden’s demands amount to a “request for special treatment” and an attempt to “bully” Congress.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 18:00

  • Gaza War Expands As US, UK Warplanes Bomb Houthi Strongholds In Yemen
    Gaza War Expands As US, UK Warplanes Bomb Houthi Strongholds In Yemen

    Update(1840): Reuters and VOA are reporting that US and UK warplanes have begin striking Houthi targets in Yemen, in what marks the first major regional expansion of the Gaza war. According to Politico:

    The U.S. and U.K, with support from Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, and Canada, conducted joint strikes tonight against Houthi targets in Yemen, per DOD official. Strikes involved U.S. aircraft, ships and submarines.

    The Telegraph has also reported British fighters and ships are participating in the military action against the Houthis. There are incoming reports of large airstrikes in major Yemeni cities. Unverified videos have begun coming in via social media. The below video is unconfirmed at this early stage:

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    One Mideast correspondent remarks that “we have gone from US prioritizing an end to war in Yemen to US getting involved against rebels in control of Yemen. Regional ramifications of both Yemen and Gaza wars on full display, with heavy toll on trade, maritime navigation.”

    Al Arabiya has reported that there are “Violent air strikes on the vicinity of Hodeidah city” and Sanaa has also been bombed.

    There are emerging reports that US bases in Iraq may be coming under attack. Also, the Houthis say they are hitting back against Western warships in the Red Sea. 

    Like pretty much all of America’s last twenty something years of the ‘war on terror,’ Congress has been sidelined once again…

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    Meanwhile…

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    * * * 

    Update(1730ET): It begins… and a White House statement is also expected imminently:

    UK’S SUNAK AUTHORIZES JOINT MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST HOUTHIS

    And the Times (UK) reported an hour ago:

    Britain expected to join U.S in carrying airstrikes on Houthi military positions in Yemen on Thursday night — Times

    The Houthis have said they are not scared of US and UK threats. While the US does not confirm future military operations before they happen, Reuters has the following details from the British side:

    Britain is expected to join the United States in conducting air strikes on military positions belonging to the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen “within hours”, the political editor for the Times newspaper reported on Thursday.

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street office did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment, while the Pentagon and the White House each declined to comment on the report.

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    Western coalition fighter jets reportedly airborne…

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    * * * 

    Update(1710ET): The administration is expected to imminently launch airstrikes against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis following the repeat attacks on both commercial shipping and US and coalition warships in the Red Sea.

    Breaking reports say strikes are expected “shortly” – however, there’s been some confusion and contradictory statements over whether President Biden will given an address. Choreographed statements are expected from the UK and other international allies as well.

    Yemeni military sources have warned that “Any attack carried out by the UK on Yemen, will be met with harsh & “painful strikes on all British bases, battleships, ships and navigation” a threat that’s been extended to the US as well.

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    * * *

    Chatter and rumors are growing on reports that the Western coalition is cobbling together a plan to go on the offensive against continuing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea… “If approved in the emergency UK cabinet meeting tonight, the military action will be in partnership with the US against Houthi forces in Yemen,” journalist Halah Jaber, formerly of the Sunday Times, has reported on X.

    Additionally, al-Arabiya has reported Thursday afternoon that the US military is “stepping up its contingency plans for a response to Yemen’s Houthis in the near future” while also noting that Washington’s “multiple warnings” have failed to stop the attacks.

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    So far there’s been a lot of empty threats and posturing from Western defense leaders, but after at least 25 significant missile and drone attack incidents against commercial vessels and shipping lanes in the Red Sea, there’s yet to be one instance of US or UK or other coalition warships hitting back directly against Houthi launch positions.

    As predicted, the Iran-aligned Houthis have only grown bolder:

    The leader of Yemen’s Houthi militia vowed on Thursday to intensify assaults on ships in the Red Sea, Bab El-Mandab, and the Gulf of Aden, only hours after the UN Security Council passed a resolution requesting the Houthis to stop their attacks.

    The Houthis have boldly and proudly owned up to directly targeting at least one US Navy warship, and are now vowing more: 

    And he reiterated threats to attack US Navy vessels more forcefully if they targeted his forces. “The retaliation to any American strike will not only be at the level of the current operation, which included more than 24 drones and multiple missiles, but will be larger,” Al-Houthi added.

    The referenced Tuesday night attack was the biggest thus far of the war (since Oct.7), and the Houthis said they were specifically trying to hit a US warship amid the barrage of projectiles that also included drones.

    Houthi spox, handout via Reuters

    Meanwhile a fresh op-ed in The Guardian underscores that the Houthis have already called the West’s bluff regarding to weakness that is ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’:

    But the risks of a Houthi drone getting through are potentially worse, spurring arguments in Washington that the US should take a more active approach.

    “If we only sit there in a defensive posture, eventually one of these missiles or drones will get through and kill sailors,” said Michael Allen, a former White House national security policy specialist.

    The Houthis can continue bleeding Western navies given they use $20,000 drones to draw a response from $1 million anti-air interceptor missiles.

    The Guardian underscores that for this reason it’s “hard to see the emboldened Houthis stopping their campaign, given their access to relatively cheap missiles and drones and desire to show resistance to the west.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/11/2024 – 17:40

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