Jul 12

Today’s News 12th July 2021

  • German Court Orders YouTube To Pay 100,000 Euros For Censoring Pandemic Protest Footage
    German Court Orders YouTube To Pay 100,000 Euros For Censoring Pandemic Protest Footage

    YouTube has been fined 100,000 euros by the German Higher Regional Court at Dresden after it wrongly deleted a user’s video which showed massive pandemic lockdown protests in Switzerland – and then failed to reinstate the video ‘immediately’ after the court ordered it to do so on April 20.

    Source: dpa-infocom GmbH

    Instead, the company waited nearly a month to revive the video, which led to last week’s fine, issued on July 5th, according to WELT.de.

    Lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel, who represents the account operator, considers the court’s decision to be a guideline for freedom of expression on the Internet. “With the historically high fine, the Higher Regional Court makes it very clear that court decisions must be observed without restriction, regardless of whether YouTube assumes a violation of its guidelines or not,” said Steinhöfel. -Welt.de (translated)

    YouTube, however, doesn’t seem phased. A spokesman told WELT, “We have a responsibility to connect our users with trustworthy information and to combat misinformation during Covid-19. This is a decision on a case-by-case basis that we respect and will review accordingly.”

    The protest video was deleted at the end of January, with YouTube citing its “Policy on medical misinformation about COVID-19,” however the court rejected their reasoning, concluding in part that the company’s amended guidelines had not been sufficiently conveyed to the account operator – and that a literal amendment to the user agreement is required for this. The mere indication that changes may occur surrounding their COVID-19 policies is not enough.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/12/2021 – 02:45

  • Why Africa's Geography Is A Barrier To Growth
    Why Africa’s Geography Is A Barrier To Growth

    Authored by Lipton Matthews via The Mises Institute,

    Browsing through history, we can identify several examples of states overcoming the hurdles of geography to achieve great feats. Though the plague of an inhospitable geography is not an insurmountable obstacle to development, it remains crucial to understanding disparities in income across countries. However, some mainstream economists place a premium on institutional development as a panacea for economic growth. Institutions are indeed important, but the legacy of geography still lingers.

    Compared to the rest of the world, economic growth in Africa has been quite sluggish. A stunning fact is that during 1965–90, GDP (gross domestic product) per capita growth in Africa averaged 0.8 percent per year. Yet growth in the seven fastest-growing developing countries outside the region averaged 5.8 percent, and growth in the rest of the developing world recorded an average growth of 1.8 percent. Economic decline was so dramatic that the average 1972 GDP level was not attained again until 2004. 

    Economists admit that exploring Africa’s lackluster performance requires a multidimensional approach. However, many argue that geography is a major contributor to Africa’s anemic performance. According to a landmark study by Sachs and Warner (1997), countries in tropical regions grow more slowly than countries in temperate environments, and unfortunately, a sizeable proportion of the African population is in tropical climates.

    Relative to temperate zones, tropical countries encounter a litany of parasitic diseases that are less pervasive in the former. Furthermore, as Austin (2008) reports, such places are also characterized by fragile soils. When combined, these features greatly inhibit agriculture productivity in tropical climates. To some onlookers, the negative implications of a hostile environment may not seem obvious, but studies show that the consequences for development are enormous.

    Economic analysis suggests that after accounting for initial poverty, economic policy, and tropical location, among other variables, countries with intensive malaria grew 1.3 percent less per person per year, but a 10 percent reduction in malaria increased growth by 0.3 percent. Malaria is one of several diseases responsible for limiting the dynamism of African economies through its adverse impact on working hours by lowering life expectancy.

    Similarly, adding to the burden of malaria is the TseTse fly. Marcella Alsan in a 2012 paper singled out this insect as an impediment to development in Africa. Alsan contends that the TseTse Fly restricted the capacity of Africans to generate an agricultural surplus by historically limiting the use of domesticated animals and impeding the adoption of animal-powered devices. By undermining the potential of livestock, the TseTse fly made it difficult for capital-intensive agriculture to emerge in Africa.

    Estimates indicate that the typical African country would be 30 percent richer had the fly not impacted the quality of institutions. Moreover, recent research posits that the TseTse fly continues to affect the development of modern finance in Africa. Jianfu An and Wenxuan Hou in a 2017 paper argue that because of the TseTse fly some parts of Africa failed to harness institutions conducive to interclan transactions: “Ethnic groups in TseTse-infested areas were more likely to rely on hunting and gathering and therefore divided into small bands. This consequently solidified and perpetuated narrow ethnic identities and created ethnically fragmented societies that stymie the development of institutions associated with property rights and contract enforcement.”

    Apart from the torrent of diseases, Africa is also a victim of inconsistent rainfall. In fact, rainfall has been declining in Africa since the 1960s. Salvador Barrios, Luisito Bertinelli, and Eric Strobl submit that if rainfall did not recede, the gap in African GDP per capita relative to the rest of the developing world would decline by around 15 to 40 percent.

    Another striking feature of Africa is that it contains the largest share of landlocked countries. These countries face substantially higher costs in trade and transportation. For example, research reveals that the cost of tradable commodities is more expensive for sub-Saharan Africa due to the region’s landscape and coastlines. In their study of economic growth in Africa, Tin Mang and Dwayne Woods conclude:

    “Geography is most favorable to economic production for Europe, next to America, then to Asia, and least favorable to Africa…. If it were not for the unfavorable physical environment, African countries would be better off economically than South American countries.”

    In general, we are not implying that Africa’s challenges are impossible to solve. However, due to its unique geography, the region requires policies that account for its peculiar condition. As such, primacy should be accorded to improving transportation networks and reducing barriers to trading. Solving the problem of a harsh geography demands bold thinking and surely Africans are up to the task.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/12/2021 – 02:00

  • "Down With Dictatorship": Thousands of Cubans Demonstrate Against Communist Regime
    “Down With Dictatorship”: Thousands of Cubans Demonstrate Against Communist Regime

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    Thousands of Cubans took to the streets on Sunday in a number of cities to protest against human rights abuses, a lack of freedom, and a worsening economic situation in the communist-ruled country.

    People gather during protests outside the Capitol building, in Havana, Cuba July 11, 2021. (REUTERS/Stringer)

    Videos uploaded to social media appear to show demonstrations in a number of towns and cities, including the capital, Havana, on Sunday. Protesters, chanting in Spanish, said they “weren’t afraid” of the regime led by Miguel Diaz Canel, and said they wanted access to COVID-19 vaccines and an end to the regime.

    It comes amid reports of gas, electricity, and vaccine shortages across the Caribbean island nation. Some analysts noted online that Sunday’s demonstrations are the first time that so many had protested the government since the Maleconazo uprising in 1994, which prompted a number of Cubans to leave the country by boat to the U.S.

    Shouts of “down with the dictatorship,” “freedom,” and “homeland and life” were also heard during the demonstrations, according to footage uploaded online.

    During different live broadcasts across Facebook, thousands of people can be seen marching through the streets of cities like San Antonio de los Baños, Guira de Melena, and Alquízar, reported South Florida’s WTVJ-TV.

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    “I just walked through town looking to buy some food and there were lots of people there, some with signs, protesting,” local resident Claris Ramirez said by phone.

    “They are protesting blackouts, that there is no medicine,” she added, reported the Reuters news agency.

    In response to the demonstrations, Diaz-Canel echoed an often-repeated claim by other Marxist governments and blamed the protests on a foreign smear campaign initiated by the United States.

    “The order of combat is given, the revolutionaries take to the streets,” he said on a state-run radio and television network, apparently ordering his security forces to disperse the demonstrators.

    Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is of Cuban descent, chronicled the protests on Twitter.

    “Spontaneous street protests breaking out in several cities in #Cuba right now with chants of #NoTenemosMiedo (We Are Not Afraid),” he wrote in a tweet. “Frustration with the dictatorships incompetence,greed & repression is mounting rapidly.”

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    The Senator also appeared to take note of security forces that were deployed.

    “Here come the Communist repression squads in #Cuba … Still largely being ignored so far by US corporate media outlets,” Rubio wrote.

    Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, the daughter of Cuban exiles, said that Diaz-Canel’s regime is now shutting off internet on the island.

    Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, also the son of Cuban exiles, whose city has a significant Cuban diaspora, called for an American-led intervention.

    “Cubans are worthy and ready to rule themselves without tyranny,” Suarez said during a press conference. “It can end today and it must end today. The implications of this moment can mean freedom for millions of people in the hemisphere, from Nicaraguans and Venezuelans and so many more.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 23:30

  • FBI Wants Family Members To Snitch On Each Other To Prevent 'Homegrown Extremism'
    FBI Wants Family Members To Snitch On Each Other To Prevent ‘Homegrown Extremism’

    “As the Nazis worked to consolidate their power and build a cohesive “national community,” suppression of dissent played a key role. In 1933, the Nazis issued a decree that required Germans to turn in anyone who spoke against the party, its leaders, or the government…” –Facing History

    The FBI issued an ominous tweet on Sunday which encourages “family members and peers” to “learn how to spot suspicious behaviors and report them to the FBI” in the name of national security.

    The broadly-worded tweet from the same agency that confiscated an unassembled Lego model of the US Capitol as evidence against a Jan. 6 protester – suggests that family members are “often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence.” For example, your radicalized Antifa nephew is being encouraged tell the FBI that you might be a domestic terror threat because you own guns and told the family at Thanksgiving you don’t like illegal immigration.

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    The FBI’s tweet goes hand-in-hand with a campaign dating back to at least September of 2020, when FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress that the greatest threat facing America comes from domestic extremists (and not the thousands of ‘protesters’ who spent much of last year looting, murdering and setting fires across American cities), which quickly morphed into ‘angry white men’ who disagree with Democratic policies.

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    Combine that with President Biden framing the Capitol rioters as ‘white supremacists,’ which he said is ‘he most lethal terrorist threat to our homeland today’, and Gen. Mark Milley, the highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testifying last month that he wants to understand where ‘white rage’ comes from, and it couldn’t be more clear that this is a coordinated propaganda campaign to demonize an entire race to solve a problem that largely doesn’t exist, while actual domestic terrorism is excused as ‘mostly peaceful’ protests.

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    Chicago’s 400 homicides year-to-date (black rage?) apparently don’t register on the radar, but if your indoctrinated leftist family member thinks you’re on the path to ‘extremism’, you may receive a knock on the door.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 23:05

  • Critical Race Theory & The Big Lie Behind It
    Critical Race Theory & The Big Lie Behind It

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Let’s discuss what Critical Race Theory really is including  the big lie behind it all.

    What is Critical Race Theory?

    The Encyclopaedia Britannica Explains CRT

    • Critical race theory (CRT), intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour. 

    • Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.

    One would have to be nuts to believe CRT theory should be taught in grade school. 

    Unfortunately, that’s where we are, and embraced by the Biden administration and the Left media.

    Donna Brazile, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a WSJ Op-Ed, Don’t Ban Critical Race Instruction.

    “Patriotism requires that we face up to our past, including slavery and racism.”

    Few would disagree with facing up to slavery. But where is the Civil War and slavery not taught? Anywhere? 

    We can and should go beyond that. What the US government did to Native Americans including the Trail of Tears is absolutely worthy of discussion.

    Woke Culture Hiding Behind Lies

    CRT proponents hide behind lies. The lie is that CRT discussion is about history suppression when it’s really about indoctrination. 

    The result is a Woke Culture War embraced by Leftist media.  

    Two of the country’s important newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, are unashamedly woke. The New Yorker and the Atlantic have ceased to be general-interest magazines and are now specific-interest publications—that interest being the spread of woke ideas. The major television networks early fell in line without a fight.

    Universities, in their humanities and social-sciences divisions, are not merely devoted to the propagation of woke ideas but initiate most of them.

    Capitalism and Racism are ‘Conjoined Twins’

    Critical Race Theorist Ibram X. Kendi says Capitalism and Racism are ‘Conjoined Twins’

    Donna Brazile wants critical race theory taught in K-12 schools (“Don’t Ban Critical Race Instruction,” op-ed, July 2). Its contribution to improving race relations is to tell children that the color of their skin determines their destiny, not the content of their character, as Martin Luther King Jr. had it.

    White children are to be told they enjoy “white privilege” and oppress their fellow students of color. Consequently, white students must publicly admit to specific advantages they enjoy stemming from their privileged position. The shaming will set them on the road to becoming “antiracists.”

    Any disparity in disciplinary actions or enrollments is also ipso facto evidence of implicit racial bias. Ibram X. Kendi, a popular exponent of critical race theory, says capitalism and racism are “conjoined twins” that must be fought together.

    Ms. Brazile is doing what many advocates of critical race theory do: Change the subject from critical race theory’s agenda to undermine our culture to the noble-sounding “look honestly at American history—much of it good, but some of it immoral and horrific.”

    Culture Wars

    Leftist mainstream media is in bed with CRT proponents. They both attempt to pawn this all off as some sort of noble history lesson.

    But if you read the definition itself, CRT it is not remotely about history.

    It is about a theory that says “race is culturally invented” and “legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist.”

    That is what CRT proponents want taught because that is the actual theory.

    White kids are made to feel inferior simply because they are white.

    CRT proponents want those preposterous theories taught to K12 schools (Kindergarten to 12th grade).

    Many if not most of those who support CRT do so only because they do not understand that the basis for CRT is a brazen lie. 

    Political Backlash

    Those who see through the lies are infuriated. 

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    Please play that video, and again if you already played it once.

    I discussed this previously in Critical Race Theory Should Be Banned, and a Black Parent Explains Why

    “Educators use CRT as their own agenda, to indoctrinate the kids to hate each other.”

    “And who are you to educate my children, or any of our children on life issues? That’s our job.”

    I transcribe the entire video in the above link.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 22:40

  • Voter ID: Kamala Mocked After Suggesting Rural Americans Can't Use Copy Machines
    Voter ID: Kamala Mocked After Suggesting Rural Americans Can’t Use Copy Machines

    Vice President Kamala Harris has been roundly mocked after suggesting that rural Americans don’t have the ability to photocopy their ID in order to prove their identity while voting.

    When asked during a Friday BET interview whether she would compromise on voter ID provisions in order to pass voting legislation, Harris said that for some, “you’re going to have to Xerox or photocopy your ID to send it in to prove that you are who you are,” and that many people live where “there’s no Kinko’s, there’s no OfficeMax near them.”

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    What do ‘rural’ citizens do in France, Germany, Mexico, Israel, Iceland or any other country which require voter ID?

    Harris’ extremely weak justification to prevent voter ID was roundly mocked on social media:

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 22:15

  • Real-Time Proof In Oakland That 'Defunding The Police' Is A White Issue
    Real-Time Proof In Oakland That ‘Defunding The Police’ Is A White Issue

    Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

    Eric Adams won the Democrat primary for mayor in New York City because he campaigned on a law-and-order platform. The New York Times found his popularity mystifying and disturbing because he refused to play to the stereotype that Blacks hate the police. If that wasn’t a strong enough signal that the Defund the Police movement is hostile to people living in crime-ridden neighborhoods, Black families in Oakland stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the police against Antifa’s “defund the police” madness.

    Make no mistake about Eric Adams: He’s a leftist. However, he’s a leftist who understands that even socialism needs a functioning infrastructure, and that cannot exist when anarchy is the name of the game in a community.

    Already before the primary anointing Adams as the Democrat candidate for mayor, the New York Times struggled to understand why minorities would flock to a candidate who promised to put more cops on the streets. After all, aren’t all minorities supposed to hate the police? Not so much, according to Adams, who said that policies such as “defend the police” were the purview of “a lot of young, White, affluent people.”

    Even the Times figured out that there was

    a disconnect between progressive activists and the rank-and-file Black and Latino voters who they [i.e., progressive activists] say have the most to gain from their agenda. As liberal activists orient their policies to combat white supremacy and call for racial justice, progressives are finding that many voters of color seem to think about the issues quite a bit differently.

    It doesn’t speak well for the thinkers and writers at the New York Times that they hadn’t noticed that the White leftists pushing the whole package of criminal justice reform – defunding the police, ending bail, electing non-prosecuting prosecutors – aren’t affected by those policies. They live in gracious suburban enclaves or pricey urban neighborhoods far removed from the criminals who benefit from these policies. Minorities aren’t so lucky.  

    The fact that minorities suffer from the policies that White leftists impose on them was vividly illustrated in Oakland, California, a city in which the activists on the City Council had voted to defund the police. As a result, violence in Oakland has shot into the stratosphere. Indeed, all over California crime has soared.

    Sane people, when looking at 2020 and the start of the crime surge in urban America, concluded that it happened because of leftist “criminal justice reform,” courtesy of those White wokesters and Black race hustlers. The San Francisco Chronicle, though, is confused:

    California officials recently released data showing that homicides in the state were up 31% in 2020. But the reasons for the spike — the largest percentage increase in years — are still unclear.

    The surge — while not unique to California — comes after a yearslong downward trend in the state’s homicide rate. But 2020 was an exceptional year, and crime experts, government officials and advocates alike wonder whether the spike can be attributed to the economic and social strain caused by the pandemic.

    Oakland, of course, is part of this violent trend and the City Council just can’t figure it out:

    Oakland City Council Member Loren Taylor — whose district has been affected by violent crime — also said he thinks several factors have contributed to last year’s increase in violence, including worsening economic and mental health conditions, isolation and lack of access to social services due to the pandemic.

    On Oakland’s streets, though, Blacks and Hispanics caught in the crossfire aren’t confused at all. On Saturday, a perplexed journalist for the leftist Intercept, described what he saw as a “surreal moment in Oakland”: Minority victims of crime joined with police, with White Antifa protesters facing off against them:

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    As Glenn Greenwald tweeted:

    “Few things make the liberal-left angrier than when Lee Fang goes out on the street in the place where he live and reports on what he sees and gives voice to those you’re supposed to pretend don’t exist. They think reporting is only reporting if it advances their agenda.”

    We are looking at a great realignment in America, one that explains huge minority support for Trump. White leftists and minority race-hustlers, secure in their affluent fortresses, what communism. Meanwhile, ordinary people across America, no matter their color, what good governance: sound economic policies, law-and-order, national security priorities, and the freedom to make their way in the world.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 21:50

  • Visualizing The Biggest Political Spenders And Donators In America, By Generation
    Visualizing The Biggest Political Spenders And Donators In America, By Generation

    In politics, the candidate who spends the most money usually wins. Because of this, donations are an important part of political campaigns, and the people behind those donations wield an intangible level of power and influence.

    As Visual Capitalist put together the inaugural Generational Power Index (GPI), which looks at power dynamics across generations in the U.S., we started wondering which generation spent the most on political campaigns and lobbying.

    Here’s what we found out.

    Old Money

    Of top spenders in the U.S., the Silent Generation (age 76+) and Baby Boomers (age 57-75) both sit at the top of the ranking.

    In 2020, 55% of the biggest campaign donations in the U.S. came from the Silent Generation, and meanwhile, more than 60% of the biggest lobbying expenditures came from organizations run by Baby Boomers.

    Outliers

    Of course, there were a few exceptions.

    Facebook, run by Millennial Mark Zuckerburg, spent over $19 million on lobbying in 2020. The social media giant spent more than any other Big Tech monolith, with lobbying efforts focused on competition and consumer privacy issues.

    When it comes to electoral spending, Millennial Dustin Moskovitz is the youngest person on the list, contributing over $50 million to the Democrats in 2020. Interestingly, he co-founded Facebook back in 2004, but he left in 2008 to start the project management platform, Asana.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 21:00

  • Illinois Teacher Sues District, Claims "Anti-Racist" Curriculum Teaches That Whites Oppress, Violates Constitution
    Illinois Teacher Sues District, Claims “Anti-Racist” Curriculum Teaches That Whites Oppress, Violates Constitution

    Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,

    A middle school drama teacher in Illinois has filed a lawsuit against her school district, alleging that it is violating anti-discrimination laws and the U.S. Constitution through its curriculum that pits “different racial groups against each other” in the name of “anti-racism.”

    Teacher Stacy Deemar, in her lawsuit (pdf) filed in federal court on June 29, alleges that since 2017, teachers in Evanston-Skokie district (District 65) have been made to under go so-called “antiracist training,” and continue to do so.

    Deemar is being represented by the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

    Among a number of objectives in the training, teachers are stereotyped by trainers and divided according to their race, the complaint says. Teachers are required as part of the training to accept that white individuals are “loud, authoritative … controlling” and to hold the view that “to be less white is to be less racially oppressive,” according to the lawsuit. It added that teachers were taught to modify their viewpoint to fit the theory that “White identity is inherently racist” and to denounce “white privilege.”

    If teachers oppose, question, or “disengage” from the views promoted in the training, the district “blatantly calls them ‘racist,’” the lawsuit alleges.

    Students in the district, meanwhile, are then taught these concepts by their teachers who are mandated according to the curriculum for Pre-K through eighth grade to impose the race-based worldview on their students, the lawsuit added. As a result, students are expected to gather by race in “affinity groups,” and to participate in “privilege walks” based on their skin color. They are also given books depicting “whiteness” as a devil that “mess[es] endlessly” with “all fellow humans of color.”

    The children were also taught “whiteness is a bad deal,” white people send “overt and subliminal messages” that they are “superior” and black people are “bad, ugly, and inferior,” and that pretending not to see skin color “helps racism,” according to the complaint.

    The lawsuit alleges these practices violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection guarantee, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

    “Fostering racial identities, promoting the idea that they are in conflict, and perpetuating divisive stereotypes pits teachers and children against one another based on the color of their skin,” the lawsuit says.

    “They teach them that their whole identity comes from the color of their skin. They teach them to hate each other. They teach them not only how to be racist, but that they should be racist.”

    The Evanston School District didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.

    On its website, the district says that it has “persistent and unacceptable opportunity and achievement gaps for students of color.”

    “The racial predictability of achievement and disciplinary outcomes is attributable to institutional racism, cultural biases and other societal factors,” it says.

    “The district recognizes that in order to provide educational opportunities that result in equitable outcomes, particularly for Black/Brown students, that it must proactively acknowledge and intentionally address racial and cultural biases, in an effort to eliminate institutional structures and practices that affect student learning and achievement.”

    The lawsuit come as efforts to incorporate elements of the quasi-Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT) into American classrooms face intense pushback from moderates and conservatives. States that have banned or restricted the teaching of CRT in public schools include Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas, while more than a dozen states are considering or have partially imposed similar restrictions.

    The CRT is rooted in the Marxist theory of class struggle but with a particular focus on race. Proponents of CRT see racism in every aspect of the American public and private life, and seek to dismantle American institutions—such as the Constitution and legal system—which they deem to be inherently and irredeemably racist.

    The effort to promote CRT in K-12 education drew national attention in April when the Education Department under the Biden administration proposed a rule to prioritize funding U.S. history and civics programs that incorporate the works of critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi and the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which centers around the idea that America was founded as, and remains today, a racist nation.

    The lawsuit commented that ideologies like CRT are advocating “equity” in a departure from the U.S. tradition of striving for equality as “proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence [and] defended in the Civil War,” which is about sameness and treating everyone in an identical manner regardless of their race.

    “Equality strives for equal opportunity while equity strives for equal outcomes,” it said.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 20:30

  • US Military Tank Listed On Popular Auction Site 
    US Military Tank Listed On Popular Auction Site 

    Popular US-based auction website Bring a Trailer has recently listed a World War II US military tank for sale.

    The M3 Stuart, officially Light Tank, M3, was initially supplied to British and other Commonwealth forces during the second war. 

    But the auction for this M3 Stuart Light Tank produced in 1941 reportedly ended up in Australia for training purposes until 1946. “It remained in the country until it was acquired by the current owner in 2018 and reimported to the US,” the listing said. 

    Equipment on the tank includes a “manually rotating turret, a de-milled M22 gun with a shoulder mount, a Mark 19 radio set, and canvas seatbacks.”

    The auction has been newly listed with a starting bid of $2,000, but the price will likely move higher as popularity around this listing grows over the coming week. 

    Another tank we noted for sale on Bring a Trailer was a 1943 M4A1 Sherman tank, “one of fewer than 20 known-running M4A1s,” according to the listing, which sold for $480,000 last November. 

    Besides tanks becoming popular as America descends into years of socio-economic crisis, demand for armored vehicles indistinguishable from an ordinary Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Range Rover, Cadillac, and or Lincoln has increased.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 20:00

  • Suspected Assassins Of Haitian President Moïse Trained By US, Linked To Pro-Coup Oligarchy
    Suspected Assassins Of Haitian President Moïse Trained By US, Linked To Pro-Coup Oligarchy

    Authored by Dan Cohen via MintPressNews.com,

    As the investigation into Moïse’s murder unfolds, the U.S. is laying the groundwork to deploy troops into Haiti for the fourth time in 106 years, at the request of a figure it has spent decades grooming…

    Suspects in the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise are shown to the media, along with the weapons and equipment they allegedly used in the attack, at the General Direction of the police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 8, 2021. Joseph Odelyn | AP

    As shock grips the Caribbean island nation of Haiti following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, the Haitian government has carried out a campaign to arrest suspects it alleges are responsible for the murder.

    Haitian Director of National Police Leon Charles announced at a press conference that the assassination squad that killed Moise is comprised of 28 foreigners, including two Haitian-Americans and 26 Colombian nationals. Fifteen of those Colombians have been detained while three were killed in a gun battle and eight remain fugitives. Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano has admitted that some of the Colombians are retired military personnel. Among them are at least one highly decorated soldier who received training from the United States and another who has been implicated in the murder of Colombian civilians.

    Ties to oligarchs

    The Haitian-Americans have been identified as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55. Solages lives in Fort Lauderdale where he is the CEO of EJS Maintenance & Repair and runs a nonprofit group, the website of which has since been scrubbed of information. Prior to relocating to Florida, he lived in the southern Haitian coastal city of Jacmel.

    According to The Washington Post, Solages’ Facebook profile, which has since been removed, listed him as the chief commander of bodyguards for the Canadian Embassy in Haiti. The Canadaian Embassy confirmed that Solages previously worked as a security guard. While in Florida, Solages was an “avid and vocal supporter of former President Michel Martelly,” the founder of Moïse’s Haitian Baldheaded Party (PHTK), according to Tony Jean-Thénor, leader of the Veye Yo popular organization in Miami, founded by the late Father Gérard Jean-Juste.

    Photos of James Solages and an armored military vehicle that he posted to his now-removed Facebook page

    The Haitian Times reported Solages also used to work as a security guard for both Reginald Boulos and Dimitri Vorbe, two prominent members of Haiti’s tiny bourgeoisie. Although initially friendly to him, they both became bitter opponents of Moïse. Boulos was also a prominent supporter of previous coups in 1991 and 2004 against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

    The Boulos family is one of the wealthiest in Haiti and owns a pharmaceutical company that, in 1996, was responsible for poisoning scores of children with its tainted fever medicine, some fatally. Since the July 6-8, 2018 national uprising against the IMF-dictated hike of fuel prices, Boulos has attempted to recast himself as a popular and progressive figure (after one of his stores was burned and looted), heading a political party called the Third Way Movement (MTV).

    Vorbe is the executive director and vice president of Société Générale d’Énergie SA, one of the largest private energy companies in Haiti which had a sweet-heart deal providing power to the energy grid that Moïse sought to renegotiate after the collapse of the PetroCaribe program, under which Venezuela provided Haiti with cheap oil and credit from 2008 to 2018.

    Many believe Boulos is the intellectual author and financial backer of Moïse’s murder.

    “Solage’s employment by Boulos and centrality to the operation appears to confirm the growing popular consensus in Haiti that this controversial merchant-turned-politician was the principal backer of Moïse’s assassination,” explained journalist Kim Ives, continuing:

    A lot of factors have been pointing to his involvement: The arrival of the mercenaries in nine brand new Nissan Patrol vehicles without license plates suggests that they were vehicles coming from the Nissan dealership owned by Reginald Boulos. The Haitian people have already concluded that Boulous was behind the assassination and have dechoukéed [uprooted] the dealership, Automeca, that he owned.”

    Colombian assassin trained by the U.S.

    While the Haitian-Americans reportedly served as translators, the muscle of the assassination squad came from Colombia, the U.S.’s top regional ally, which serves as a platform for destabilization and regime change plots in the region, from Venezuela to Ecuador – and now apparently Haiti.

    The most prominent member of the hit squad is Manuel Antonio Grosso Guarín, a 41-year-old former special operations commando who retired from the military as a member of the Simón Bolívar No. 1 infantry battalion on December 31, 2019. According to the Colombian newspaper La Semana, Grosso “had several special combat courses, had been a member of the special forces and anti-guerrilla squads, and was known for being a skilled paratrooper who flew through the air without fear.”

    Grosso is pictured in the rear (blue jeans) being moved following a press in Port-au-Prince, July 8, 2021. Joseph Odelyn | AP

    In 2013, Grosso was assigned to the Urban Anti-Terrorist Special Force group, a secretive elite military detachment dedicated to counter-terrorism operations and carrying out kidnappings and assassinations (euphemistically known as ‘high value target acquisition and elimination’). This branch of the military is also tasked with providing security to VIP figures from the Colombian president to U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush.

    “He was one of the most prepared,” a source remarked to La Semana.

    Among Grosso’s preparations was special command instruction from the United States military, which supplies training and weapons to the Colombia military, one of the most repressive armed forces in the region and one that works to secure international corporate interests and drug trafficking routes.

    “How many false positives (see the following paragraph), how many social leaders, how many signers of the peace accord, will be on this man?” left-wing Colombian Senator Gustavo Bolivar commented on Twitter.

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    Grosso was joined by Francisco Eladio Uribe Ochoa, who had retired from the Colombian Army in 2019, according to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo. Eladio Uribe’s wife told the newspaper that he had been investigated for participation in the execution of civilians — a practice known as “false positives,” in which the Colombian military lured at least 6,402 civilians, murdered them, and dressed them in guerrilla fatigues in order to inflate their kill numbers. This gruesome practice helped military commanders reach lofty kill-count quotas set by the United States and was incentivized with bonus pay and vacation time for soldiers who carried out the killings.

    Though Eladio Uribe’s wife said that he had been exonerated, his name has appeared in a file of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a court formed out of the 2016 peace accord, which has investigated several thousand cases of false positives that the Colombian government had not previously admitted. Eladio Uribe is one of two soldiers accused in the 2008 murder of Luis Carlos Cárdenas in the village of Chorros Blancos in Antioquia region.

    Other alleged members of the hit squad alleged to have killed Moïse include:

    • Duberney Capador Giraldo, a retired Deputy First Sergeant (killed in a gun battle in Haiti)

    • ​​Alejandro Giraldo Zapata

    • John Jairo Ramírez Gómez

    • Víctor Albeiro Piñera

    Of the 28 total people who allegedly participated in the assassination, four of the Colombians arrived in Haiti on June 6, 2021. Grosso arrived in the Dominican city of Punta Cana and crossed the land border into Haiti two days later. Photos show him and other suspects at popular tourist sites in the Dominican Republic.

    A photo of Grosso, left, along with some of the other suspects posing in Haiti posted to Grosso’s Facebook page

    Unanswered questions and a growing consensus

    Questions also remain about why Moïse’s security team failed to protect him, and if any of its members were complicit in the murder. Dimitri Herard, the head of the General Security Unit of the National Palace, is under investigation by the United States government for arms trafficking, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). While there is no evidence (but many rumors) linking him to the murder, “Herard is one of the individuals most responsible for the safety of the president.”

    While the Haitian government has identified what appear to be Moïse’s assassins, there is still no hard evidence — just circumstantial — linking them to Boulos and possibly even Vorbe. Nonetheless, “there is a growing consensus that Reginald Boulous, for whom an arrest warrant [was] issued last week, paid for the mercenaries,” according to Ives. “It appears to be becoming more and more evident that the sector of the Haitian bourgeois, with whom Jovenel Moïse was at war, are intimately linked to his assassination.”

    As the investigation into Moïse’s murder unfolds, the U.S. appears to be preparing the groundwork to deploy troops to Haiti at the request of a figure whom it has spent decades grooming. According to The New York Times, Claude Joseph, who is in a struggle against Dr. Ariel Henry to head the Haitian state in the wake of Moïse’s assassination, requested the U.S. send military forces to guard key infrastructure, including the port, airport, and gasoline reserves. White House Spokeswoman Jen Psaki announced that the U.S. would reinforce U.S. personnel in Haiti with FBI and DHS deployments.

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    Joseph is an asset of the United States and its regime-change arm, the National Endowment For Democracy. Wikileaks cables revealed that he first came to prominence in 2003 as the leader of a NED-spawned student front called GRAFNEH in the lead up to the coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He also founded another NED-funded anti-Aristide group Initiative Citoyenne (Citizens’ Initiative). He is reported by Haitian radio stations to have been, with prominent Haitian ex-Deputy Gary Bodeau, one of the principal assailants who severely beat the late Father Gérard Jean-Juste in a Pétionville church in 2005.

    Jean-Juste, perhaps the most prominent supporter and surrogate of the then exiled-in-South-Africa President Aristide, had been falsely accused of involvement in the killing of his own cousin, Jacques Roche, a writer.

    “Essentially, we have a U.S. puppet asking his puppeteer to invade Haiti for the fourth time in just over a century,” Ives concluded. “But both the region and, above all, the Haitian people are sick and tired of U.S. military interventions, which are largely responsible for the nation’s current debilitated, critical state both economically and politically. Much of the most oppressed neighborhoods are now heavily armed and have already announced a revolution against the likes of Boulos, so the U.S.-led invaders of 2021 are likely to face a resistance similar to that which emerged against the U.S. Marines in 1915 and UN ‘peace-keepers’ in 2004, only more ferocious.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 19:30

  • New York Hydro Power Plant Mines Bitcoin Because More Profitable Than Selling Electricity To Grid
    New York Hydro Power Plant Mines Bitcoin Because More Profitable Than Selling Electricity To Grid

    This year, some of the hottest trends in the crypto industry have been bitcoin adoption and environmental, social, and governance factors into crypto mining. 

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk pushed bitcoin’s environmental concerns into the forefront, calling for “renewable energy” to be used for mining instead of fossil fuels. It’s no secret that bitcoin mining takes a massive amount of electricity. It’s estimated that energy consumption exceeds the power consumption of countries like the Netherlands and the UAE. 

    With the push towards ESG-Friendly bitcoin mining operations, there’s one historic hydroelectric plant near Albany, New York, using power generated from its massive water turbines to mine crypto. 

    “We think this is the oldest renewable energy facility in the world that’s still running,” Albany Engineering Corp. CEO Jim Besha told the Times Union.

    He said the plant “could actually make more money with bitcoin than selling the electricity to National Grid.

    Albany Engineering Corp. receives around 3 cents per kilowatt-hour when it sells energy to National Grid. Mining bitcoin makes about three times the amount of money, Besha said. 

    “It’s the best (type of bitcoin mining) because we’re using renewable energy,” Besha said. “We’re just doing it on the side, experimenting with it. We’re buying used servers.”

    Each week Besha converts thousandths of a bitcoin into fiat rather than ‘HODL’ because he’s worried about crypto volatility.  

    The hydroplant was constructed in 1897 and is getting new life amid China’s crackdown on miners, resulting in the hash rate —the computational power available to mine the cryptocurrency, reflecting the efficiency of the bitcoin blockchain network, plunging since mid-May. 

    The only issue Besha has to worry about is a bill that would ban cryptocurrency mining in New York. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 19:00

  • "Down With Dictatorship" – Tens Of Thousands Of Cubans Take To Streets 
    “Down With Dictatorship” – Tens Of Thousands Of Cubans Take To Streets 

    Tens of thousands of Cubans took to the streets Sunday in rare protests against the communist government. The island nation faces mounting socio-economic issues, food inflation, and other problems exacerbated by the virus pandemic.

    Protestors chanted “down with the dictatorship,” “freedom,” and “homeland and life” across multiple Cuban cities. Here are the scenes on the ground. 

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    Cubans are fed up with worsening economic problems, food shortage/runaway food inflation, lack of medicine and other essential products, rolling electricity blackouts, as well as the third wave of the virus pandemic. 

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    Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel blames the uprising on a foreign smear campaign initiated by the US. 

    “The order of combat is given, the revolutionaries take to the streets,” Díaz-Canel said.

    “In several protest areas, internet service on cell phones has been cut off, so news from the island is being interrupted, according to NBC Miami.” 

    We wonder who started the hashtag on Twitter: “#soscuba.” Remember, social media played a significant role in facilitating Araba Spring more than a decade ago. 

    US leaders in South Florida, such as Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, took to Twitter Sunday evening to support the protests. She said: 

    “We stand united with the Cuban people on the island and across our community at this historic moment in the struggle for freedom, dignity, and basic human rights, Levine Cava tweeted. “May their courageous actions bring about real change and move us closer to the dream of a free Cuba.”

    “We’ve never seen anything like this before,” Rep. María Elvira Salazar tweeted. “The Cuban people are determined to be free.”

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    Senator Marco Rubio also chimed in: 

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    Rubio tweeted a video showing “Communist repression squads” preparing to battle protesters.

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    Cuba’s communist government is known for repressive crackdowns on dissent and today’s protest is rather astonishing. It also comes days after the Haitian president was assassinated by a heavily armed hit squad of two Americans and more than a dozen Colombians. 

    Focusing on Food, the island nation faces one of the worst food shortages since the 1990s. Shortages have resulted in out-of-control food inflation – and much of this was called by SocGen’s Albert Edwards in December.

    What’s happening is rapidly rising food costs and other essential goods are producing social instability in the fragile country.

    Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid recently reminded us that emerging markets are more vulnerable to social unrest because their citizens spend a far greater share of their income on food than those in the developed world.

    Also, Michael Every and Michael Magdovitz of Rabobank warned about the correlation between rising food prices and major socio-political unrest.

    Perhaps, the Arab Spring of 2010 is repeating, but this time it’s happening in the Caribbean. Maybe call it “Caribbean Summer.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 18:31

  • Volocopter's Flying Taxi Secures Production Organization Approval As Commercialization Nears
    Volocopter’s Flying Taxi Secures Production Organization Approval As Commercialization Nears

    eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) air taxis are emerging as a revolutionary means of transportation across metro areas. Though no urban air mobility service exists at the moment, plenty of startups have touted their future air taxi designs and or test flights. 

    One company that could be way ahead of the competition is closer than ever to commercialization. 

    German aircraft manufacturer Volocopter GmbH announced Tuesday that it had received Production Organization Approval (POA) with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Notably, Volocopter was the first eVTOL company to obtain Design Organizations Approvals (DOA) in 2019. 

    Volocopter also announced it had acquired German manufacturer of sailplanes DG Flugzeugbau for production of the new eVTOL. This means with a DOA and POA, the future towards a commercial launch could be in a few years. 

    “Our ten-year partnership with DG Flugzeugbau has been an extraordinary learning experience. Having this legendary industry leader on our side to kick-start scalable and affordable UAM [urban air mobility] for people and cargo has been a game-changer. Today marks an exciting milestone as we unify DG Flugzeugbau’s leadership in aviation production with Volocopter’s pioneering UAM goals to establish yet another crucial stepping-stone for our collective global endeavors,” said Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter. 

    As populations increase and metro areas become larger, urban air mobility services using eVTOLs could be the solution to decrease congested highways. Urban air mobility is faster and cleaner than traditional ground-based vehicles.

    Volocopter’s certifications with EASA are recognized across global markets and positions it to launch future services in Europe, Asia, and North America.

    Volocopter recently unveiled its new winged eVTOL that can cruise around 110 mph, with a range of about 60 miles, and carry a payload of 660 to 880 pounds. 

    Volocopter’s first passenger flight may happen in the second half of 2023 in Singapore. 

    By 2024, United Airlines is preparing to launch an eVTOL service of its own.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 18:00

  • Enough About Interest Rates!
    Enough About Interest Rates!

    Authored by Alexander William Salter via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Monetary policy isn’t about interest rates. It’s about money. Specifically, it’s about the supply of money relative to the demand to hold it. But you wouldn’t know that from financial journalists’ constant focus on interest rates. Sentences like “The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates today,” or “Yesterday, the Fed debated whether to start raising interest rates” are all too common. They are also highly misleading.

    Financial journalists usually focus on the federal (fed) funds rate. This is the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans. The Fed has a target for the fed funds rate as part of its monetary policy strategy. But the fed funds rate is not an instrument. That is, it’s not something the Fed directly controls. Rather, the Fed sets its federal funds rate target and then uses its instruments to push the federal funds rate toward its target. The federal funds rate might be thought of as a barometer for monetary policy. But it is not the substance of monetary policy. 

    What about the so-called administered rates, which the Fed does control? These include the discount rate, which the Fed charges for loans, and the interest rate on excess reserves, which the Fed pays to banks that keep funds in their accounts at the Fed. The discount rate usually doesn’t matter much, because banks try not to borrow from the Fed directly, given the stigma associated with discount window lending. Interest on excess reserves is another story. Especially in a floor system, which the Fed has embraced since 2008, interest on excess reserves matters. But even here the Fed does not have complete freedom. Set the interest on excess reserves too low, and banks won’t keep their funds with the Fed. Set it too high and you choke off economic activity, because banks let capital sit idle rather than investing it in productive projects. The feasible range for interest on excess reserves is determined by factors largely outside the Fed’s control.

    It’s very important to separate monetary policy from interest rates. Yes, monetary policy affects interest rates, because changing the money supply by buying or selling assets affects yields. But, ideally, monetary policy keeps these effects to a minimum. Good monetary policy is about allocatively neutral demand stabilization, giving markets the liquidity they need to operate at full employment. If monetary policy were “about” changing interest rates, it would become something entirely different. Interest rates are prices and some of the most important ones in the economy: the prices of various capital instruments, and hence of time and risk. 

    If monetary policy purposefully changed interest rates, it would by definition alter relative prices. In market economies, relative prices guide resource allocation. If you believe monetary policy is about interest rates, you must also believe the central bank has better knowledge about the opportunity costs of capital than the market. This seems unlikely, to put it mildly. 

    It’s not the central bank’s job to pick winners and losers in the markets by altering the terms of exchange (prices). The central bank’s job is to create a stable foundation for the market process, in the form of monetary equilibrium: not too much money, nor too little, but just the right amount.

    We need to change the public conversation surrounding monetary policy. Talking about the Fed’s activities in terms of interest rates is easy, but deeply flawed. It is better to keep an eye on more relevant variables, like the overall size of the balance sheet. Of course, if central bankers start making crazy statements about “yield control,” as they do from time to time, we will have to talk about interest rates.

    It’s absolutely proper to push back against bureaucrats with minimal skin in the game who try to tinker with the yield curve. But for ordinary Fed policy, strategy, and announcements, keep your eye on money supply and demand. That’s where the action is.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 17:30

  • Watch: CNN Doctor Says It's "Time To Start Mandating" COVID Vaccines
    Watch: CNN Doctor Says It’s “Time To Start Mandating” COVID Vaccines

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    CNN ran a broadcast Thursday with its own medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner declaring that it is “time to start mandating” coronavirus vaccines for all Americans to counter people opting not to take the shots.

    CNN host Erin Burnett said to Reiner “when you look at this in the broader context, there’s still a third of the eligible population in the United States that hasn’t got a single dose.”

    “Given where things are going, is it time to move on from saying please to mandating?” Burnett asked.

    Reiner replied “I do think it’s time to start mandating vaccines. And I think that the private industry and private organizations will do that.”

    “At GW university, where I work, starting in fall, you can’t be on campus unless you’re fully vaccinated,” Reiner added.

    He continued, “We’re at the part of the pandemic now where the problem in this country is that 150 million Americans are not vaccinated. Half of that number is less than 18 years of age. But let’s look at the adults. Seventy-five-million adults have chosen not to get vaccinated. That choice has consequences.”

    Reiner noted that the government cannot physically force vaccinations on people (for now), but advocated making it basically impossible for those who choose not to take it to live their lives normally.

    “Now, we can’t force you to take a jab in the arm,” Reiner said, adding “But there are many jobs, perhaps, that can prevent you from working if you decide not to get vaccinated. So I think we need to be more proactive, and we will see industry take the lead in this.”

    Watch:

    Earlier in the day, CNN hosted Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who said that “it is absolutely the government’s business” to know if Americans have been vaccinated.

    In a telling statement, Becerra said “We want to give people the sense that they have the freedom to choose, but we hope they choose to live.”

    Meanwhile, over at MSNBC they took things a step further with anchor Chris Hayes declaring that everyone who has scepticism about the efficacy of vaccines and opts not to take them are “cowardly.”

    Hayes blamed the ‘right wing media’, proclaiming “You saw some of it there, people of the most conservative parts of the country turning against the vaccine. The leaders of this movement are cowardly. They refuse to have the courage of their convictions. They will not come out and say they are against the vaccine. Instead, they take this straw-man stance saying they’re just against anyone trying to promote the vaccine or heaven forbid mandate it.”

    He continued, “So on the ‘Fox & Friends’ and others on the right say they don’t want anybody try to convince them to take the shot. They don’t want it mandated. They just want it out there. What they’re saying is you don’t want people to get the vaccine. Come out and say it, but they won’t say it. Because that means you want people to die. Those are the options right now.”

    Tucker Carlson, whom MSNBC’s Hayes also targeted in his rant, said Thursday that the Biden administration is “no longer pro-choice” when it comes to vaccines.

    “It’s so obviously unnecessary that it’s vindictive, and it makes you wonder, what is this really about?” Carlson said, adding “Medical privacy, physical autonomy, the right to control the medicines you take. These are the pillars of medical ethics, officially, or were. They no longer are.”

    “Tony Fauci has declared [these pillars of medical ethics] merely a political statement,” Carlson continued.

    The host further noted, “They’re telling you that you’ll wind up in a government database if you don’t comply, and that government agents could be showing up and knocking on your door. What is happening? What is this about?”

    Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

    White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who declared earlier this week that the Biden administration is to send “strike forces” to people’s homes to ensure children get vaccinated, decreed Thursday that criticism of the plan is a “disservice to the country.”

    *  *  *

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

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 16:30

  • Former Canadian Embassy Worker Arrested In Haiti Assassination Worked For Shadowy Security Firm
    Former Canadian Embassy Worker Arrested In Haiti Assassination Worked For Shadowy Security Firm

    Update: The Sun-Sentinel reports that the two South Florida Haitian Americans currently in custody in Haiti claimed to have been recruited to do work in the country by an “under-the-radar firm in Doral” called CTU Security.

    According to the report, it’s run by a Venezuelan émigré, Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera.

    The Miami Herald visited the company’s offices on Thursday, where a doorbell rang to a phone, and a man declined to discuss the events in Haiti. He did not return phone calls, texts or emails asking about reports of involvement in the monumental developments gripping Haiti. No one answered on Saturday.

    Multiple sources in Haiti, requesting anonymity for their safety, have confirmed to the Herald that the detained men said they were hired by CTU, and several of the men indicated they had been in Haiti for at least three months, some longer. It is unclear if they knew or believed CTU leaders were aware of the assassination plot.

    *  *  *

    The assassination of Hatian president Jovenel Moïse has taken yet another strange twist, after ABC News reports that a Florida man arrested in connection with the hit formerly worked in Canada’s Embassy in Haiti, and also worked for a Hatian Relief Organization founded by suspected spooky actor Sean Penn following a 7.0 earthquake in 2010 that killed over 300,000 people.

    James Solages, a 35-year-old Haitian-born resident of Miami, is one of 28 suspects accused by the Haitian government of participating in the deadly July 7 ambush attack that killed Moïse.

    James Solages. (Facebook)

    Solages, along with 55-year-old Joseph Vincent (also of Miami), claim they thought they were acting as interpreters ‘for an authorized operation to arrest the Haitian president’ by a group of Columbians, who told them Moïse was going to be arrested, not killed, according to the Washington Post.

    According to NBC News, Solages worked as a bodyguard at Canada’s Embassy in Port-au-Prince, however relatives say he has no formal military training. Canada, of course, is adding as much distance as possible (via the Florida Sun-Sentinel):

    Solages is also the president of a nonprofit organization with an office in North Lauderdale. FWA SA A JACMEL AVAN, which is Creole for “This Time Jacmel First,” has a mission of “rebuilding Haiti,” according to its website. The website as well as its Facebook page — both which were working Thursday — were no longer accessible Friday.

    The website on Thursday said Solages claimed to be the chief commander of bodyguards for the Canadian Embassy in Haiti. However multiple news outlets are reporting that Canada’s foreign relation department said one of the men detained in the assassination (it did not name Solages) had been employed only briefly as a reserve bodyguard at its embassy by a private contractor.

    Meanwhile, Solages worked as a driver and in a security capacity for Sean Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organization according to two sources.

    Penn laid down what he considers lifelong roots in Haiti following the earthquake, at one point even living in a tent city among some 40,000 Haitians left homeless by the natural disaster.

    For his multi-year efforts on behalf of the Haitian people, former President Michel Martelly — the mentor of slain President Jovenel Moise — named Penn ambassador at large, the first non-Haitian to receive that designation. -ABC News

    James Solages (left) and other suspects in the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise

    The assassination was carried out early Wednesday when a heavily armed group of men stormed the presidential mansion and shot Moïse multiple times, injuring his wife in the process. Prior to the storming, a man with an American accent could be heard on a megaphone announcing that it was a “DEA Operation.”

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    Last months, Solages filed for divorce from his wife of three years, according to court records. On June 15, he signed a financial affidavit claiming that he was unemployed, had zero cash on hand, and zero assets, according to the Sun-Sentinel. His uncle by marriage, Schubert Dorisme, said he had not seen Solages for a few months – while the Post reported that he had been in Haiti for about a month, while the other Florida suspect, Vincent, had been there about six months.

    Solages and Vincent were among several suspects captured and detained on Thursday evening, while three suspects have been killed and eight are on the run.

    Suspects in the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise sit on the floor handcuffed after being detained, at the General Direction of the police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, July 8, 2021.  (AP)

    Of course, now that FBI and Homeland Security officials are on their way, we’re sure the situation will be fully investigated and an honest accounting will be made public (perhaps after a few Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuits).

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 15:58

  • "Utterly Unacceptable": Judge Blasts DC Jail For Not Allowing Jan. 6 Capitol Defendant Access To Evidence
    “Utterly Unacceptable”: Judge Blasts DC Jail For Not Allowing Jan. 6 Capitol Defendant Access To Evidence

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    A federal Washington D.C. judge faulted a district jail on Thursday for failing to provide evidence to a defendant who was arrested for allegedly being involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach and has been held there for months.

    Jorden Mink, the defendant in the case, was indicted (pdf) on several federal charges, including destruction of government property and theft. Mink, who has pleaded not guilty, has been held in jail since January. Officials have alleged Mink used a baseball bat to smash windows at the Capitol and passed furniture through the smashed windows to the crowd outside.

    “I can’t allow someone to sit in prison for this long without access to material,” Judge Randolph Moss said at a court hearing on Thursday, saying the delay in evidence was “utterly unacceptable” and “not consistent with due process.”

    During the Thursday court hearing, prosecutors said they had given the evidence to the jail in May and didn’t understand why Mink hasn’t been able to obtain the documents. Mink was offered a plea deal, prosecutors noted, but they said he can’t decide on whether to accept the deal because he hasn’t seen the evidence against him.

    Randolph ordered prosecutors to work with the jail to grant the defendant access to the evidence against him by the end of Thursday, reported CNN. If Mink doesn’t gain access to the documents soon, the judge said, his detention may be reconsidered.

    There have been other reports of Jan. 6 defendants not being able to gain access to evidence against them, essentially denying them due process under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. Prosecutors have suggested that due to the sheer number of arrests related to the incident, there have been delays.

    So far, more than 500 defendants across nearly every U.S. state have been charged over the past six months over the Jan. 6 breach, according to the Department of Justice in early July.

    It comes as lawyers earlier this month said that dozens of people in federal custody following the Jan. 6 incident are currently being held in solitary confinement, denied access to legal counsel, and are being denied medical care.

    “There are about 50 plus or minus that are being detained, that have been in prison for months and will likely remain in prison for many more months until their day in court,” attorney John Pierce told EpochTV’s “The Nation Speaks.”

    Mink was scheduled to appear before Randolph in April but missed the court date because he tested positive for COVID-19. His attorney, Michael Mosher, said that Mink was having difficulty gaining access to medication that he takes regularly while in jail.

    “He takes medications to treat those, but since coming to Virginia and DC, he’s not been getting those meds as prescribed,” Moser told a court at the time, according to local media.

    In January, Mink was arrested at his home in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, and was held in the Butler County Jail. Federal court records say that he was transferred from the county jail to the D.C. jail.

    The Epoch Times has contacted the D.C. jail for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 15:30

  • Watch Kyle Bass On The "Cancer" Of China’s New Digital Currency
    Watch Kyle Bass On The “Cancer” Of China’s New Digital Currency

    “Imagine a currency that almost has a mind of its own … It knows your account data, knows your birthday, your social security number, where you live” and exactly what you like to buy. And all of this knowledge would be sitting in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

    In this Epoch Times interview of American Thought Leaders, Kyle Bass, founder of Hayman Capital Management and one of the few people who successfully bet on the bursting of the subprime bubble, breaks down the threat of a new Chinese digital currency and how the regime could force countries to use it.

    “They’re so good at exploiting every crack, every nook, every cranny … They take our openness, and they exploit it,” Bass says.

    Watch more in the full American Thought Leaders interview below.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/11/2021 – 15:00

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