Today’s News 12th November 2023

• Is Abortion, Not Trump, The GOP's Albatross?
  Is Abortion, Not Trump, The GOP’s Albatross?

  Authored by Matthew Boose via American Greatness,

  Republicans should restrict abortion wherever and whenever it is prudent to do so…

  

  How many times do voters have to send the message before Republicans get the picture?

  America loves abortion. Is that cavalier? Unfortunately, it’s the truth. Decades of “me, me, me” culture have taken their toll. We are in the end stages of democracy, here, and there may be no putting the genie back in the bottle.

  Nothing is ever free. Because of Dobbs, abortions are much harder to get in a number of states. The right made a bargain to save lives, and the cost is pain at the polls.

  Tuesday’s election was a wipeout for conservatives. Everyone is quick to blame Donald Trump, but the real loser was Ron DeSantis – although it’s hard to say what he had left to lose.

  DeSantis, and the pro-life movement in general, hammered Trump weeks ago for urging Republicans to moderate on abortion. They called Trump a sell-out. But Trump is unfortunately correct. No serious political junkie thinks Trump is going to lose Ohio next year. And guess what? Ohio just voted to enshrine abortion into law, and it wasn’t particularly close. In a time when the smell of pot pervades every public space imaginable, Ohio also legalized recreational marijuana. It was twofer for “Fetterman nation.”

  Trump is the only Republican with the sense and the courage to say what many conservatives do not want to hear: their moral agenda is unpopular. This is especially true in the Rust Belt states that Trump flipped in 2016, like Pennsylvania. Democrats won a Supreme Court seat there on Tuesday night by, once again, championing “choice,” much as they did successfully in Wisconsin months ago.

  Trump’s Republican critics are already trying to blame him for the election’s disappointing results. In reality, Trump has never been more electable.The New York Times just released a poll that has Trump dominating Biden in swing states, despite the unprecedented and unscrupulous lawfare campaign unleashed on Trump by the Democrats. The “blue wall” that Trump toppled in 2016, since patched up by Biden (with a little help from ballot shenanigans), is vulnerable once more.

  Democrats are actually scared for the first time in three years that they will lose the White House. They’re not confident in Biden, at all. Nothing would calm their nerves so much as Republicans nominating an uptight socially conservative ideologue in 2024.

  Biden wants to run on abortion. It’s his party’s saving grace – the perverse absolution for all the destruction they have wrought.

  Republicans have a winning agenda on every other issue – the economy, crime, and especially immigration, Trump’s signature issue. Everyone can see now that Trump was right about the border, especially those taking advantage of Biden’s abdication by pouring across. An unprecedented invasion is swelling at the gates, and even blue state voters have had enough.

  In Suffolk County, New York, Ed Romaine won the race for county executive in a landslide – solidifying the GOP’s gains from last year in the Empire State. Romaine is the first Republican to hold the office in 20 years. Of course, in New York, crime and immigration are much more salient issues than abortion.

  Immigration is the reason we are in this quandary with abortion to begin with. Decades of demographic replacement have rigged democracy in the favor of one party. Democrats now have a built-in advantage in every single election, and pretty soon they will win them all. This is the biggest issue facing the country, not abortion. America cannot survive another four years of the invasion. The Republican party certainly can’t.

  Republicans should restrict abortion wherever and whenever it is prudent to do so. But, as the saying goes, “politics is the art of the possible.” This reasoning strikes many conservatives as devilish, but we live in a fallen world. Republicans can either continue on their self-destructive course, or they can compromise with reality, take Trump’s advice, and fight to live another day.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 23:20

• Certain COVID-19 Vaccines Linked To Elevated Risk Of Guillain-Barré Syndrome
  Certain COVID-19 Vaccines Linked To Elevated Risk Of Guillain-Barré Syndrome

  Authored by Ellen Wan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  As the vaccination rate continues to rise, an increasing number of side effects are being reported. Research indicates that COVID-19 viral vector-based vaccines increase the risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) by three to four times compared to mRNA-based vaccines.

  

  The Link Between Vaccines and Guillain-Barré Syndrome Risk 

  Increasing evidence suggests an association between COVID-19 vaccines and Guillain-Barré Syndrome. One study revealed an increase in GBS cases within 42 days of receiving the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The researchers suggest a potential link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the increased risk of GBS.

  In March, a prospective surveillance study published in Scientific Reports indicated that out of 38,828,691 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, between February 2021 and March 2022, 105,409 adverse events were reported, including 55 cases of GBS.

  After assessing the risk factors for GBS following COVID-19 vaccination, it was found that viral vector-based vaccines were linked to a three-to-fourfold higher risk of GBS compared to mRNA-based vaccines.

  In terms of age and gender, the incidence of GBS was higher in individuals aged 60 and older compared to younger age groups, and it was more common in men than women.

  Based on a vaccine mechanism evaluation, the incidence rate of GBS for viral vector-based vaccines was 4.49 cases per million doses, higher than mRNA-based vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) which had an incidence rate of 0.80 cases per million doses.

  The researchers are urging health care providers to closely monitor individuals following COVID-19 vaccination, especially men who received their first dose of viral vector-based vaccines.

  Onset of GBS Following COVID-19 Vaccination 

  In 2021, the British Medical Journal published a case study in which a 48-year-old man from Malta experienced facial paralysis on the left side of his face 10 days after receiving the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. He was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy grade III and received treatment with prednisolone, an oral corticosteroid, as well as eye drops and eye care.

  The patient had pre-existing blood lipid abnormalities before vaccination, but no other relevant medical history or history of infections.

  The patient also experienced intense and excruciating pain in the central area of the back, with conventional pain relievers proving ineffective. Over the next 24 hours, the patient’s facial paralysis symptoms progressively worsened, and similar symptoms appeared on the right side of the face.

  Three days later, the patient developed grade V facial nerve paralysis on both sides of the face, and the severe back pain persisted. However, neurological examinations did not reveal any defects. The patient underwent a lumbar puncture, which revealed elevated protein levels (1,264 milligrams per liter) and an excess of lymphocytes beyond normal values, leading to a diagnosis of GBS. Subsequently, the patient was discharged after an improvement in facial paralysis symptoms.

  However, in less than 24 hours, the patient returned to the emergency department with symptoms including lower limb weakness, absent reflexes, foot drop, moderate weakness in the hands, and pain sensations when wearing gloves or long socks. The doctor administered intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) at a dosage of 2 grams per kilogram of body weight, which continued for five days, along with oral prednisolone.

  Subsequently, the patient’s condition rapidly improved, with significant recovery in muscle strength and limb paralysis, and complete disappearance of the facial paralysis symptom. After undergoing intensive physical rehabilitation therapy, the patient regained the ability to function independently. A follow-up examination two months later revealed only mild weakness in both hand muscles.

  Researchers believe that among the various side effects of different vaccines, neurological complications may be one of the most severe, thus causing the greatest concern.

  GBS affects multiple peripheral nerves in the body (polyneuropathy). Peripheral neuropathy can also affect the nerves controlling functions of the heart and circulation system (cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy).

  Symptoms of Guillain-Barré Syndrome

  According to National Health Service in the UK, Guillain-Barré Syndrome is a rare and severe neurological disorder caused by an immune system dysfunction, with an extremely low incidence rate.

  Under normal circumstances, the immune system attacks any pathogens that make their way into the body. When the immune system malfunctions, it can mistakenly attack and damage the nerves.

  The symptoms of GBS typically begin in the hands and feet before spreading to the arms and legs. Common symptoms include numbness, pins and needles, muscle weakness, pain, as well as balance and coordination problems. These symptoms may worsen over the next few days or weeks and then gradually improve. In severe cases, GBS can lead to difficulties in walking, breathing, or swallowing. Occasionally, it can be life-threatening, and some individuals may experience long-term complications. If you experience any symptoms of GBS, it is crucial to seek immediate medical attention.

  According to the latest records released by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program of the Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare on Aug. 10, a total of 150 GBS cases related to adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination have been reviewed. Among them, a 56-year-old Mr. Tsai from Taipei experienced numbness in all four limbs, breathing difficulties, and unsteady walking after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. Additionally, two individuals who received the Moderna vaccine reported symptoms, including numbness and weakness in their upper and lower limbs, thigh pain, and more. All of them sought medical attention, and neurological tests confirmed Guillain-Barré Syndrome in all three cases. The Ministry of Health and Welfare offered compensation of TWD 450,000 (nearly $14 million), TWD 70,000 ($2,166), and TWD 250,000 (nearly $8000), respectively.

  Treatment of GBS

  According to the National Institutes of Health, there are currently two commonly used treatment methods to interrupt immune-related nerve damage: plasma exchange and intravenous immunoglobulin therapy. Both treatment options show no significant difference in effectiveness if started within two weeks of GBS symptoms onset.

  1. Plasma exchange: This procedure involves extracting some of the patient’s blood through a catheter, treating it to remove blood cells, and then reintroducing it into the body. Plasma contains antibodies, and plasma exchange helps remove harmful antibodies that damage the nerves.

  2. Intravenous immunoglobulin therapy: Immunoglobulins are proteins naturally produced by the immune system to target invading organisms. This therapy can lessen the immune system’s attack on the nervous system and shorten recovery time.

  According to Taiwan’s Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, it is recommended to closely monitor fluctuations in heart rate and blood pressure, as well as regularly assess the degree of respiratory muscle weakness. This is crucial because the condition can progress to respiratory failure or lead to life-threatening arrhythmias, necessitating intubation or pacemaker implantation to maintain cardiopulmonary function. Additionally, pain management and early rehabilitation exercises can help alleviate symptoms and restore muscle strength.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 22:10

• Dear Greta…
  Dear Greta…

  According to the Global Carbon Atlas, the world’s top polluters are China, India, and the U.S., which accounted for 52% of the world’s CO₂ in 2021.

  

  Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Bruno Venditti use that data in the graphic below to explore which countries contribute the most to CO₂ emissions.

  

  The largest polluters are also the biggest in terms of population, which means, in terms of CO₂ emissions per capita (metric tons), the U.S. is relatively high at 15.32, while China and India rank lower at 7.44 and 1.89, respectively.

  Historically, the U.S. has been the largest carbon emitter, releasing 422 billion metric tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. This is equivalent to almost a quarter of all CO₂ produced from fossil fuels and industrial activities.

  Given their massive populations and the fact that countries typically increase their emissions as they become more developed, China and India may continue to grow their shares even further.

  

  The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that India’s share of global emissions could rise to 10% by 2030.

  All of these major contributors of carbon to the atmosphere have set goals to reduce emissions over the next decades.

  While the U.S. targets net-zero emissions by 2050, China aims for carbon neutrality by 2060 and India recently set a target of 2070.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 21:35

• Raided Pro-Life Activist Sues DOJ For 'Malicious Prosecution,' Emotional Distress
  Raided Pro-Life Activist Sues DOJ For ‘Malicious Prosecution,’ Emotional Distress

  Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Pro-life activist Mark Houck and his wife are suing the Department of Justice (DOJ) over its treatment of their family during his harrowing arrest at gunpoint.

  

  The Houcks filed their lawsuits on Nov. 6, seeking damages for assault, false arrest, abuse of process, malicious and retaliatory prosecution, and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

  Mr. Houck, a Catholic and a father of seven, was arrested at his home in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, early on Sept. 23, 2022, when his family awoke to find a group of heavily armed FBI agents at their front door.

  The arrest stemmed from an October 2021 altercation between Mr. Houck and an elderly Planned Parenthood clinic escort—an incident in which local authorities chose not to bring charges.

  More than a year later, however, the DOJ charged Mr. Houck with twice violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a law that prohibits violent and threatening conduct intended to interfere with an individual’s right to “seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.”

  A jury acquitted Mr. Houck of those charges in January. But according to the complaints—filed by the Graves Garrett law firm—he and his family members continue to suffer “severe emotional distress” brought on by his arrest and the fight for his freedom.

  “These government agents intentionally sought to assault Mr. Houck and deprive him of his Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force to arrest him on non-violent charges when he had not threatened law enforcement, did not own a gun, and had offered to turn himself in to authorities if indicted,” one of the complaints notes.

  During the raid, agents reportedly pointed their weapons at the activist’s wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, and their children—an act that the lawsuits allege was meant to inflict emotional distress.

  Mr. Houck’s complaint also charged that the indictment against him was riddled with factual errors and false statements that could only have been adopted by a grand jury if the DOJ had presented the facts in a malicious way or concealed critical and material information.

  Restitution

  According to the lawsuits, the emotional trauma of the raid took such a toll on the Houck children that they all suffer from anxiety and sleep problems. Some of them have also developed deep-seated fears of police, unannounced visitors, and losing their parents.

  “Mr. Houck finds it important to be strong for them,” one complaint states. “But carrying his own emotional burden alongside the grief and fear of his wife and seven children has taken an enormous toll on Mr. Houck.”

  For Mrs. Houck, the lawsuits claim that the toll of the ordeal hasn’t only manifested in mental and emotional distress but also resulted in three miscarriages.

  “Doctors attribute the loss of the babies to the stress of these events and have told the Houcks that they are now infertile as a result. Mr. and Mrs. Houck suffer immense grief and pain from these losses of life and this diagnosis,” the suit states.

  Other injuries that the lawsuits list include loss of income and business opportunities following Mr. Houck’s high-profile arrest.

  In total, the Houcks are seeking $4.35 million in collective damages.

  “This is more than just a lawsuit; it’s a resounding declaration that the era of targeting individuals for their pro-life stance is over,” said Shawn Carney, president and CEO of 40 Days for Life, which is also representing the Houcks.

  Mr. Carney said that his organization—for which Mr. Houck has volunteered—has always cooperated with federal law enforcement, but in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, that dynamic “shifted dramatically.”

  “Mark Houck’s home was besieged at gunpoint—an appalling show of force that was completely unwarranted,” he said. “The local authorities saw no crime, yet the DOJ sought to make an example of him.

  “We stand up now to safeguard the rights of all Americans who advocate for life. This is a fight for our most essential freedoms, and we are fully equipped and ready to see it through to victory.”

  The lawsuits follow Mr. Houck’s announcement in August that he’s running for Congress.

  “I know firsthand what it’s like to be attacked by the federal government. I know firsthand how the enemy of the state can be created by virtue of your faith. And I want to protect the 1st District of Pennsylvania and all families in the 1st District from that ever happening to them,” Mr. Houck told Catholic News Agency at the time.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 21:00

• "Absolute Torture": Jan. 6 Inmates Put Renewed Spotlight On Use Of Solitary Confinement
  “Absolute Torture”: Jan. 6 Inmates Put Renewed Spotlight On Use Of Solitary Confinement

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  John Strand, who received a 32-month federal prison sentence for serving as the security detail for the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, is being held in long-term solitary confinement for doing a media interview, Dr. Simone Gold says.

  Mr. Strand, 40, of Naples, Florida, testified on June 13 at a U.S. House field hearing on Jan. 6 issues shortly after being sentenced for convictions on five criminal counts, including felony obstruction of an official proceeding and four misdemeanors. He has appealed the convictions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

  “He was in two weeks, let out for five or six days, and then today will be nine more weeks,” Dr. Gold said in a Nov. 9 interview with The Epoch Times. “It’s unbelievable. Absolute torture.”

  

  Mr. Strand apparently violated prison rules for doing a broadcast interview with Real America’s Voice host Grant Stinchfield. Dr. Gold said Mr. Strand did not realize he needed permission before speaking with the media from behind bars.

  “They also are not giving him his mail. They are not allowing legal [counsel] visits,” Dr. Gold said. “This is just what they do.”

  Another Jan. 6 inmate, InfoWars host Jonathon Owen Shroyer, is also in solitary confinement after his recent activity on social media.

  Dr. Gold—an emergency medicine specialist from Los Angeles who founded America’s Frontline Doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic—was sentenced in June 2022 to 60 days in jail under a plea deal on one Jan. 6 count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, a misdemeanor.

  She and Mr. Strand were indicted together in February 2021. She was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to speak at a permit-approved event on medical freedom and COVID-19.

  Her case was unusual because, according to Dr. Gold, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had asked her on a date when they were students at Stanford Law School in the early 1990s. She turned him down—something she said influenced the judge’s sentencing decision in her case. Judge Cooper denied Dr. Gold’s assertion—and also denied motions from her and Mr. Strand demanding he recuse himself from their cases.

  Retaliation?

  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) questioned U.S. Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters about Mr. Strand and Mr. Shroyer during a Nov. 7 hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance.

  “Does the Bureau of Prisons retaliate against people for constitutionally protected speech?” Mr. Gaetz asked Ms. Peters.

  

  “I have been very clear that retaliation will not be stood for on my watch,” Ms. Peters replied. “I’m confident that message has been delivered, and if anyone has engaged in retaliation, we will hold them accountable.”

  In a message posted on Nov. 7 to his social media account on X, Mr. Strand said he has been a victim of “abusive retaliation.”

  “I took an interview while incarcerated to explain the inhumane conditions of J6 prisoners like myself, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons retaliated by putting me in solitary confinement,” Mr. Strand was quoted as saying.

  Social media use is also believed to be the reason that InfoWars host Shroyer, 34, of Austin, Texas, was put into solitary confinement twice at the Federal Correctional Institution Oakdale in Louisiana.

  

  Mr. Shroyer is serving a 60-day sentence under a plea agreement on one misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

  The Strand and Shroyer cases have again thrown the spotlight on the alleged use of solitary confinement to further target Jan. 6 pretrial detainees and those serving sentences.

  According to U.S. Bureau of Prisons data, 10,842 of the 144,084 inmates in BOP custody are kept in special housing units, which can be protective custody or for misconduct, criminal behavior, or if they are transferring in or out of the prison. Thirty-one inmates have been held in protective custody for more than 30 days.

  Defense attorney Joseph D. McBride, who has represented more than a dozen Jan. 6 defendants, condemned the use of solitary confinement.

  “Solitary confinement is an inherently evil practice that should be banned absent a limited set of circumstances,” Mr. McBride told The Epoch Times. “It is being used to degrade, abuse, torture, and psychologically break January 6 prisoners.”

  Mr. McBride accused the Biden administration of actively encouraging the abuse of Jan. 6 defendants to send a message that political dissent won’t be tolerated. Affluent Republicans who are in a position to help, Mr. McBride said, “do not care at all about the suffering of these men.”

  In August 2021, Mr. McBride issued a report (pdf) that documented abuses against Jan. 6 pretrial detainees held at the District of Columbia jail.

  “January Sixers are routinely denied the right to confer with their counsel, as well as obtain and maintain their legal paperwork,” McBride wrote in the report, which was addressed to Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union.

  “They are also being beaten, sleep deprived, denied medical care, regular shower access, haircuts, shaves, and held in solitary confinement for long periods of time,” Mr. McBride wrote. “This is unprecedented, unconstitutional, un-American, offensive to all standards of common decency, illegal, and wrong.”

  

  Four months after Mr. McBride issued his document, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) issued a report, “Unusually Cruel,” (pdf) based largely on a site visit to the D.C. jail complex.

  Ms. Greene and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) were given a more than three-hour tour of the facility on Nov. 4, 2021. This was after Ms. Greene, Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Gohmert, and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) were twice denied access to the buildings to visit Jan. 6 detainees.

  “The walls of the rooms had residue of human feces, bodily fluids, blood, dirt, and mold,” the report said. “The community showers were recently scrubbed of black mold—some of which remained.

  “The interior walls of the common area were also freshly painted,” the report said. “According to the inmates, the U.S. Marshals had recently visited the area just days before, which caused a flurry of activity by guards to clean up the January 6 area while the U.S. Marshals were inspecting another area.”

  Mr. Gaetz said he plans to take up Ms. Peters’s offer to arrange site visits at FCI Miami and FCI Oakdale.

  “I would like to go with you,” Ms. Greene posted Nov. 7 on X. “There are many reports coming out about human rights abuses against J6 defendants.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 19:50

• Dems Suffer Flashbacks As 2016 'Spoiler' Jill Stein Announces White House Run
  Dems Suffer Flashbacks As 2016 ‘Spoiler’ Jill Stein Announces White House Run

  Democrats across the country are pacing their living rooms with clenched jaws and fists, as the woman they hold responsible for tipping the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump has announced she’s jumping into the 2024 race.  

  Jill Stein, who previously ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2016 and 2012, announced her bid on Thursday. “With the war machine swallowing trillions of dollars as working people struggle to survive and the climate crisis accelerates, it’s time to offer voters a viable alternative to the bought-off politicians who have thrown them under the bus,” said Stein. “The ruling parties that got us into this mess aren’t getting us out.”

  In a video promoting her latest Green Party candidacy, Stein took shots at both major parties, but many of her most pointed barbs were illustrated with headlines about the Democratic Party’s actions —  including references to “throwing competitors off the ballot, suppressing the base” and “rigging their primaries.”   

  The political system is broken. Over 60% of us now say the two-party establishment has failed us and we need a party that serves the people.

  I’m running for President to offer a better choice for the people. Join us!https://t.co/sjGXNNSnmK pic.twitter.com/QkrugPGadb

  — Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) November 9, 2023

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

  Stein is reviled by Democrats who think she took enough votes from Hillary Clinton in 2016 to allow Trump to win key battleground states and thus the election. Stein’s vote-counts in both Michigan and Wisconsin were larger than Trump’s margins of victory. 

  In 2019, when the Russia Collusion hoax still had legs, Clinton went so far as to accuse Stein of working directly for Moscow. Discussing the 2020 field, Clinton first said the Russians were grooming Tulsi Gabbard. She continued, “That’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she’s also a Russian asset. Yes, she’s a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate.”

  Hillary Clinton accused Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in both the 2012 and 2016 elections, of being a “Russian asset.”

  Stein tells @smerconish it’s a “completely unhinged conspiracy theory.” https://t.co/zm0aJeH8M7 pic.twitter.com/wT1kAk2g0z

  — CNN (@CNN) October 19, 2019

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

  In that same wacky spirit, following Stein’s announcement, many are rushing to social media to post a photo that’s supposed to be some sort of gasp-inducing, smoking-gun evidence of Stein’s status as a Russian agent. 

  Jill Stein is a Russian asset. What part of what happened in 2016 don’t you all understand? pic.twitter.com/B4fCcUaAvy

  — American Veteran (@VetsNyc30811) November 10, 2023

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

  Stein’s campaign issued a statement disputing the photo’s implications:

  “Jill Stein was invited to a 2015 media conference in Russia, which she attended at her own expense to spread a message of peace and diplomacy. At the Moscow conference, Dr. Stein gave a speech in which she criticized the excessive militarism of both Vladimir Putin and U.S. leaders.

  At the dinner, she was seated with diplomats and office holders from various countries, including Michael Flynn, who had most recently served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama. Putin sat at the table for a few minutes, during which he spoke only with his Russian-speaking companions. Dr. Stein publicized her experiences at the time via a press release and social media posts. The Senate Intelligence Committee later investigated the trip and found no wrongdoing whatsoever.” 

  Against the backdrop of the proxy war in Ukraine and blank-check backing of Israel’s ruthless destruction of Gaza, Stein is certain to capture at least some progressive voters outraged with the Biden administration. However, as with 2016, the debate about Stein’s potential spoiler status rests on the extent to which those voters might simply stay home if Stein weren’t in the race — as opposed to making the effort to vote for the warmongering Biden. 

  Stein’s announcement coincided with another blow to Democrats: On Thursday, centrist West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced he wouldn’t seek re-election in 2024, virtually guaranteeing the seat will flip to the Republican Party. Manchin also dropped strong hints that he’ll pursue a third-party White House run via the No Labels organization.  

  Manchin and Stein are the latest in a wave of late-to-the-2024-party, wild-card entrants:

  • This summer, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced that he was abandoning the rigged Democratic Party nomination process — which includes refusing to host debates — to run as an independent. A recent Quinnipiac poll found Kennedy leading among independents. His candidacy briefly had high appeal for many libertarians and progressives, before Kennedy startled them with a series of intensely pro-Israel statements that shattered his anti-war credentials. 
  • In October, Democratic Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips announced he was challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination. Phillips has voted in lockstep with the Biden agenda. The mega-millionaire Phillips’ campaign appears to be a call option on a scenario in which the clearly-declining Biden is finally deemed physically and/or mentally incapable of running again. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 19:15

• It Really Doesn't Matter Who Created Bitcoin, Or Why…
  It Really Doesn’t Matter Who Created Bitcoin, Or Why…

  Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

  Even if it was the NSA, the CCP, or the WEF…

  

  Rumours have abounded that Bitcoin was created by the NSA (or the CIA, or the CCP or WEFsters)  going back at least as far as 2010, or so.

  They resurfaced over the past week when  Dr Mercola interviewed Catherine Austin Fitts. Since then I’ve had numerous readers forward me some choice quotes of their talk  (the transcript is here), and highlighting Fitts’ suspicion that Bitcoin was created non-altruistically by the NSA.

  In it, there is a reference to Nic Carter’s theory about the NSA having created Bitcoin:

  “The common understanding is that Nakamoto is the ultimate altruist and abandoned his 1 million Bitcoin for the benefit of humanity. Nic Carter is a well-known figure in the cryptocurrency community, and he doesn’t buy that story and is convinced that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) is responsible for creating Bitcoin. He believes Bitcoin was written by NSA cryptographers as a monetary bioweapon.“

  Mercola references this Cointelegraph article where Nic Carter clearly lays out that his NSA-origin theory for Bitcoin is “the lab leak” scenario:

  “I call it the ‘Bitcoin lab leak hypothesis.’ I think it was a shuttered internal R&D project, which one researcher thought was too good to lay fallow on the shelf and chose to secretly release.”

  Very much in line with the Promethean mythos behind the Satoshi Nakamoto legend that resonates so deeply throughout the community – and if true, might explain just why, the he/she/they/them that is Satoshi – left those 1 million BTC exactly where they sit today. Nobody would want to suffer the fate of Prometheus, doomed to spend eternity chained to a rock, having his liver eaten daily by an eagle.

  

  Yet the discussion between Fitts and Mercola, as well as many others who suspect something nefarious behind Bitcoin’s mysterious creation, seem to be deriving the wrong conclusion from Carter’s theory – or dismissing it in favour of an intentional, deliberate creation, and presumably, what that would mean (as per Fitts),

  “It depends on how their rollout of complete control works … As long as they have the ability to assert complete control and shut [crypto] down or marginalize it, it’s easy for [Mr. Global] to assert control. Until then, they can continue to pull money out of precious metals and real and hard assets by encouraging retail to go into crypto.”

  The assumption being: whoever created Bitcoin, controls Bitcoin.

  The reality is:

  Bitcoin is beyond anyone’s control

  And the reason, quite simply, is because Bitcoin is open source software.
  What does “open source” mean and why does it matter to Bitcoin?
  Contrast with something closed source and proprietary, like Microsoft Windows – or the entire Microsoft operating system stack, open source means that the instructions that comprise the computer program itself are published to the world openly in their uncompiled source code form.

  Further, anybody running the software does so by downloading the open source copy of the code, compiling it locally and then running it.

  What this means is that even if the NSA, or the CCP or the WEF secretly created and released Bitcoin intending it as a Trojan horse for digital slavery (like CBDCs will be), then we would all be able to literally see it in the source code, which is right here – and nobody would run it.

  • There wouldn’t any Bitcoin devs maintaining the codebase (or if there was, they’d simply remove the malware)

  • Nobody would be trading energy, or cash, for Bitcoin generated from compromised code, and

  • Bitcoin miners would certainly not be spending hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars in order to build out massive server farms to run NSA malware.

  In other words, there would be zero market momentum behind the phenomenon known as “Bitcoin” that is sweeping the world.

  Some others might concede that Bitcoin is an open source movement, with no hidden trojans or malware – but that it’s really One Big Psy-Op  to acclimatize us plebs to a cashless society using digital money.

  The people who believe this might even tweet about it from their smart phone while sitting in a cafe sipping a latte that they just bought via ApplePay or tapping their chipped credit card (like that Mastercard that already cuts off your spending when your carbon footprint quota is exceeded).

  

  You don’t need Bitcoin to brainwash people to accept a cashless society or even the coming CBDCs – huge swaths of the population are going to line up for that – and in my mind it will result in a kind of Monetary Apartheid.

  Bitcoin is emergence, CBDCs are totalitarian.

  The people who think Bitcoin is some kind of meat tenderizer to soften the public’s mind up for CBDCs have simply not been paying enough attention to:

  1. The difference between Bitcoin and CBDCs, and

  2. The difference between Bitcoin and other cryptos

  It all comes down to the decentralized nature of the blockchain, the miners (Proof-of-Work) and self-custody of one’s own private keys vs centralized banking, centralized cryptos, faux-decentralized shitcoins and the like.

  We even see this manifesting in legal policy in the US, as Bitcoin is the only digital asset being treated as a commodity while everything else is looking at being designated a security (even Ethereum, especially since that unforced error of switching to Proof-of-Stake).

  Where people mistakenly think that Bitcoin is paving the way to usher in CBDCs, Bitcoin is actually the  anti-CBDC. It is the CBDC’s Kryptonite. An emerging monetary system as a response to the over-centralization of what I liked to call Late Stage Globalism, but lately I have become enamoured with George Gilder’s term: Emergency Socialism.

  I’ll re-iterate a quote from my recent review of Ferdinand Lips classic, Gold Wars, about where monetary systems actually come from:

  By 1900, approximately fifty countries were on a gold standard. including all industrialized nations. The interesting fact is that the modern gold standard was not planned at an international conference, nor was it invented by some genius. It came by itself, naturally and based on experience. 

  The United Kingdom went on a gold standard against the intention of its government. Only much later did laws turn an operative gold standard into an officially sanctioned gold standard.

  The same thing is happening today, with Bitcoin (yes, really).

  Hyper-Bitcoinization vs Notgeld

  In the early days of my involvement with the space, I too, dismissed claims that the global monetary system was destined for “Hyper-Bitcoinization” – I just didn’t think it would ever happen because central bankers would simply never allow it.

  Instead, I viewed Bitcoin as a kind of “Notgeld” – a German term that emerged during the Weimar Hyper-inflation that translated to “Emergency Money”. In those days towns would print their own scrip. In later hyper-inflations, other things would emerge as “notgeld” – in Zimbabwe it was prepaid phone cards and gas coupons. Every hyperinflation had one. I thought Bitcoin was an emergent, global notgeld, but I never thought it would become anything “official”.

  Then, two things happened that flipped me into the Hyper-Bitcoinization camp:

  The first was when the ruling Liberal/Socialist coalition government of Canada weaponized the banking system against the #FreedomConvoy protestors, probably the one single act that orange pilled the most citizens globally since the Cyprus bail-in of 2013.

  The other was when the US government seized the foreign reserves of two other governments. It doesn’t matter that those governments were Russia and The Taliban, doing so probably orange-pilled more than a few nation states.

  What I also realized since then, namely watching the globalists attempt – and fail – to impose a permanent technocracy under Covid, was that what ultimately happens isn’t up to the central banks, and it’s not even up to the governments. It’s up to market forces – despite all the central planning and authoritarianism marshalled against it.

  That won’t prevent them from trying, however. Which is where CBDCs come in.

  Money backed by debt, becomes social credit backed by carbon quotas

  In the latest issue of the premium newsletter (while analyzing an Agustín Carstens speech to the BIS working group on CBDCs)  I said:

  Right now, what we call “the fiat world” uses debt for money. That’s no longer sustainable, so what we think will happen in the future is an attempt to switch what we loosely identify as “money”, from something backed by debt, to social credit scores, backed by carbon emissions.

  When that comes, Bitcoin will not be some sort of gateway drug to CBDCs because there are fundamental incompatibilities, and there are other cryptos out there far more suited to the task – like Ethereum and Ripple, and who actually want to the global base layer for Central Bank Digital Currencies (after all, it’s not called WEFereum for nothing…)

  

  So where we are headed – is a global economy where the world is either going to have to adopt a non-state, decentralized digital bearer asset or international trade flows will inexorably grind to halt as trust deteriorates right along with every fiat currency going.

  And a social credit system where the majority of the population (everybody who has any reliance on The State for their economic sustenance) has their lives gamified via their smart phones and their carbon footprints rationed in the name of climate justice.

  Marbled throughout this world (for as long as such a system will last, because ultimately, it can’t) there will be “network states” and enclaves of those who hold their wealth and earn their income outside the social credit/CBDC system.

  In my next post, I’ll tackle the inevitable arguments that “governments will never allow people to escape the coming CBDC system” and show why, at the end of the day, they have no choice. It’s already beyond their control.

  *  *  *

  My forthcoming ebook The CBDC Survival Guide will give you the tools and the knowledge to navigate coming era of Monetary Apartheid. Bombthrower subscribers will get free when it drops, sign up today.

  Follow me on Nostr, or Twitter.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 18:40

• WaPo Drops Bombshell On The Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Narrative: A Ukrainian Colonel, Covert Ops, & The CIA's Shadow
  WaPo Drops Bombshell On The Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Narrative: A Ukrainian Colonel, Covert Ops, & The CIA’s Shadow

  Consider the source (and the timing)…

  No lesser deep-state mouthpiece than The Washington Post just dropped a bombshell with the revelation that Ukrainian Colonel Roman Chervinsky “was integral to the brazen sabotage operation” on the Nord Stream pipeline, “according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.”

  

  The bombing, dubbed a “dangerous assault on Europe’s energy infrastructure” by US and Western officials at the time, marked a critical juncture in the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West. By targeting the pipeline, the operatives (whoever they were) struck a blow to a critical artery of Russian energy exports, a sector that has been at the heart of European-Russian economic relations.

  Additionally, as the Goebbels-ian narrative that ‘Russia did it’ was pushed by mainstream media (and politicians), it enabled further ‘aid’ to be sent to Ukraine, to ‘protect interests’.

  The think tanks receive funding from the US government and private entities, and often don’t report it, in order to spread misinformation and discredit accurate information pic.twitter.com/BHx7d8wvmO

  — Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) February 8, 2023

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  Chervinsky, a senior figure within Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was allegedly the “coordinator” of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. The operation, executed with precision and secrecy, involved deep-sea diving and explosive charges, ultimately resulting in substantial damage to the pipeline which Ukraine had long complained would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kyiv of huge transit revenue.

  Of course, as one would expect, the Ukrainian Colonel, via his counsel, refutes any involvement in the pipeline sabotage, blaming Russia for this accusation.

  “Without merit, Russian propaganda is spreading all rumors regarding my participation in the assault on Nord Stream,” Chervinsky stated in a written statement to The Washington Post and Der Spiegel, which jointly investigated his activities.

  It would not have been out of character as WaPo reports that Chervinsky is a decorated officer with extensive experience in covert operations, reportedly including plans to ensnare Russian Wagner mercenaries and targeting pro-Russian separatists, highlighting a pattern of aggressive, high-stakes operations against Russian interests.

  Furthermore, WaPo reports that Chervinsky did not act alone and he did not plan the operation, again “according to the people familiar with his role,” but instead took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, “according to people familiar with how the operation was carried out.”

  More problematically, Chervinsky’s involvement in the Nord Stream assault is in direct opposition to Zelensky’s public denials regarding Ukraine’s involvement.

  “I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said in press interview in June, responding to a report by the Post that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had learned of Ukraine’s plans before the attack.

  “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way,” Zelensky said.

  Interestingly, WaPo reports that Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022. Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others.

  

  This WaPo report comes at a crucial time in the geopolitical chess-game, as the desire for more spending in what appears to be a lost cause in Ukraine is fading fast among Western populations (most notably US), and perhaps offers President Biden an ‘excuse’ to reduce aid in light of this ‘shocking development’ – which, of course, Washington has vehemently denied any involvement in (and denounced as a “reckless act”.

  But the twists and turns do not stop there as the backdrop to this unfolding drama includes Seymour Hersh’s explosive allegations regarding the CIA and the US Navy’s covert activities.

  Throughout “all of this scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’”

  Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: “We have a way to blow up the pipelines.”

  Hersh, a renowned investigative journalist – who broke such well-known stories as the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib scandal and has long been known for impeccable insider sources – has previously reported on the deep entanglement of US intelligence in various global hotspots, hinting strongly at the complex interplay between Ukrainian ambitions and broader Western strategic objectives.

  The broader geopolitical context cannot be ignored.

  The US and NATO have been deeply involved in supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, but the extent of their involvement in covert operations remains a subject of intense debate and speculation. The Nord Stream bombing, if indeed orchestrated by a faction within the Ukrainian military, could be seen as an extension of this proxy conflict, where Ukraine serves as a frontline in a larger strategic contest between Russia and the West, with CIA pulling the strings (just as Hersh concludes).

  In an interview with WaPo in June of this year, Zaluzhny said the CIA had never asked him directly about any attack on Nord Stream. He said that after the explosions, in September 2022, he received a phone call from then-U. S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley.

  “He asked me, ‘Did you have anything to do with it?’ I said, ‘No’. A lot of operations are planned, a lot of operations are going on, but we have nothing to do with it, nothing at all.”

  Some of those who described Chervinsky’s participation in the Nord Stream attack defended the veteran intelligence officer as acting in Ukraine’s best interests.

  So, why now? Suddenly various ‘sources’ come forward to offer a scapegoat for this “reckless act”?

  A distraction from potential confirmation of Washington’s involvement? … A potential release valve on the ‘blame Russia’ narrative enabling ‘peace’ conversations to take place? … An opportune excuse to curb ‘aid’ (pending an investigation)given the involvement of Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military officer (and Zelensky’s denial) prompting questions of discord within the Ukrainian chain of command?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 18:05

• On "River City One" And Coming Home From War
  On “River City One” And Coming Home From War

  Authored by Erica Moshtahedian via RealClearPolitics.com,

  For those of us who came of age in the aftermath of September 11 and the wars that followed, a new book “River City One” by first-time author John Waters provides a reprieve from glamorized, military-style leadership guides like “Extreme Ownership” or “Make Your Bed,” or adrenaline-filled memoirs like Navy SEAL Chris Kyle’s “American Sniper.”

  This is a penetration into the mind of a veteran returned to the world that we share with him.

  

  A Naval Academy graduate and a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, Waters is now an attorney in Omaha, his hometown. “River City One” is a novel, not a memoir, albeit a palpably autobiographical account. (In the interest of disclosure, after leaving military service as a U.S. Marine Corps captain, Waters was co-editor of RealClearDefense; Carl Cannon, executive editor of RealClearMedia, wrote the foreword to this book).

  The story’s protagonist, war hero John Walker, shares with the reader an inner dialogue influenced by his drug-like withdrawal from the adrenaline and purpose of battle into the mundaneness of everyday life. He is an imperfect protagonist. Walker shares more with the self-doubting characters found in the novels from Lost Generation authors than the depictions of modern war heroes likely to be adapted by Hollywood.

  In Walker, we are introduced to a character who, like Ford Madox Ford’s character Christopher Tietjens in “Parade’s End,” is not immediately likable and somewhat aloof. Unlike Tietjens, Walker doesn’t inform us of his life philosophy. Instead, we know only of his opinions through his critique of others. Clients, colleagues, fellow veterans, and family are not spared. He regularly dismisses the accomplishments of others as having little meaning. He thinks of civilians who want to ask him questions about his service as “turned on” by war stories. He asserts that his family occupies a separate world apart from him, as if he is unimportant to their well-being. We come to understand that his opinions are partial truths, informed by shame, used to justify his avoidance of family intimacy.

  Even as a civilian, Walker has remained fit enough to drop and rhythmically knock out pushups. He must be sufficiently handsome and masculine to coast at his job as a lawyer, putting less effort into his work and appearance than his colleagues. Had Walker’s physicality been defined up front and the character described as having a more amiable disposition, he would register as a heartthrob, like Milan Kundera’s Tomas in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Instead, the author avoids allowing his protagonist either to be put on a pedestal or seen as a cad, ensuring that his dalliance with an aging, auburn-haired singer named Ruth is not regarded as part of a pattern. Instead, it registers as an act of despair, a final gasp for life.

  We instead relate to Walker by accepting that his internal dialogue (like our own) can be wildly detached from what he says or does or how others perceive him. He is thus simultaneously unlikable and sympathetic. Who among us has only benevolent thoughts? As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Walker’s private criticism of others reflects more than passing internal commentary but rather his inability to find purpose. His inner dialogue transforms into the cause of the unfolding drama. Ultimately, his fixations lead to an existential crisis.

  Unlike “Parade’s End,” Waters’s novel features no evil force or character challenging the protagonist. Walker’s wife epitomizes the modern supportive partner, even as Walker goads her by sharing his interest in meeting Ruth, the exotic and alluring opera singer, who is introduced halfway through the novel. Moreover, despite his lack of ambition in his peacetime profession, his colleagues and superiors do their best to include, mentor, and elevate him.

  Walker does not want for opportunity. The schism between his self-image and how others perceive him is internal. Ironically, Ruth doesn’t suffer this same internal conflict. She is an archetype of a sophisticated and attractive woman who, in the abstract, could “understand” him. At any moment, Walker could choose to make his life about the future and move on from the past. He could decide to reconnect with his wife and son.

  “River City One” is a stimulating read because it addresses how such a fractured sense of self can lead to all-consuming nihilistic thoughts.

  Walker may be handsome, educated, employed, and loved – but he is unable to reciprocate in relationships or to recognize PTSD in himself and the deep shame he feels from the loss of a friend during the war.

  

  Does his predicament represent the quiet despair and numbness that thousands of our veterans feel when they return to their own River Cities?

  Waters illustrates that a downward spiral can occur inside a man’s head, even if life appears to move forward.

  Walker supplies a subtle reminder – especially to those of us with friends, family, or peers who are combat veterans of Afghanistan or Iraq – that one never knows what is going on in someone else’s head. Neither talent nor opportunity spares veterans from the loss of purpose they may experience when returning home from war.

  Many American families wish that they knew how to get someone in this position to snap out of it. “River City One” does not offer a remedy but simply a glimpse inside the mind of someone whose life and self-image were shattered by war. The novel’s lesson broadly applies to veterans and civilians alike: our lives are the sum of our choices. At every stage, we can choose to embrace family and make better decisions for ourselves and the people who care for us. The author leaves open the possibility of redemption for his protagonist. There is always hope. Perhaps Waters is a “Make Your Bed” guy, after all.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 17:30

• Bill Maher's Pissed Off At 'Progressive' Pandering Using "Victims Or Victimizers" Reductivism
  Bill Maher’s Pissed Off At ‘Progressive’ Pandering Using “Victims Or Victimizers” Reductivism

  In his characteristic blunt and provocative style, Bill Maher recently tackled the apparently contentious topic of Western civilization and its role in shaping modern values, during a segment on his HBO show “Real Time.”

  

  He passive aggressively challenges the increasingly negative narrative surrounding Western culture, particularly among progressives and academics, arguing that Western civilization has been instrumental in developing liberal values:

  “Western civilization is what gave the world pretty much every goddamn liberal precept that liberals are supposed to adore.”

  His position – as he has repeatedly done over the past few years – is a stark contrast to the current trend, from so-called progressives, of demonizing Western history and achievements including “Individual liberty, scientific inquiry, rule of law, religious freedom, women’s rights, human rights, democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech.”

  Focusing on Israel, Maher highlighted it as an exemplar of Western values in the Middle East, suggesting that the world could benefit from more nations embracing the Western ideals that Israel represents. Sure to stir the blood of every pandering political activist, Maher calmly stated that:

  “…since one can find all these concepts in today’s Israel and virtually nowhere else in the Middle East, if anything, the world would be a better place if it had more Israels.”

  Maher swiftly moves on to destroy the current socio-political movements that often view Western civilization solely through the lens of oppression and colonialism, lamenting that the oversimplified categorization of nations and cultures as either “victims or victimizers”, arguing that this viewpoint ignores the positive impact of Western ideals, “so Israel is lumped in as the toxic fruit of the victimizing West.”

  Challenging this binary and idiot-level reductivist narrative prevalent in today’s mainstream media and ‘protests’, Maher exclaims:

  “The irony being that all marginalized people live better today because of Western ideals, not in spite of them.”

  Going further back in time, Maher points out that Western Enlightenment ideals have profoundly influenced global human rights and governance, mentioning figures like Thoreau, Rousseau, and Locke, and challenges the notion that Western history is predominantly negative with a controversial example:

  “The cop who murdered George Floyd got 21 years for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, an idea we got directly from John Locke, who no one in college would ever study anymore because he’s so old, and so White, and so dead.“

  Finally, given the increasing refusal to recognize Western historical figures and their contributions, Maher calls for a more balanced view of Western civilization, criticizing the tendency to overlook its contributions while magnifying its flaws. He questioned the double standards in historical assessments, asking, “Why is it that every other culture gets a pass, but the West is exclusively the sum of the worst things it’s ever done?”

  We suspect his calls for a more nuanced understanding of Western history, that acknowledges both its achievements and failures, will fall on deaf ears. And as he concludes, it appears he thinks so too…

  “America only ever overcorrects, and so we’re at this place now where the words ‘Western Civ’ became kind of a shorthand for ‘White people ruined everything’…”

  But, he pauses amid the crowd’s cheers and applause, “they didn’t ruin everything…”

  “Why is it that every other culture gets a pass, but the West is exclusively the sum of the worst things it’s ever done? You think only White people colonized?”

  Watch the full monologue below on X (since we would not be surprised if such blasphemy has been removed from other ‘less free’ social media platforms):

  The world would be a much better place if it had more “outposts” like Israel. pic.twitter.com/w6QlVSTaVe

  — Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 4, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 16:55

• Good Samaritan Arrested After Stopping NYC Subway Assault By Firing Warning Shots
  Good Samaritan Arrested After Stopping NYC Subway Assault By Firing Warning Shots

  A man with no criminal history who saved a woman from being attacked by a homeless man has been arrested and charged by the Manhattan DA with criminal possession of a firearm and reckless endangerment because he fired a warning shot, stopping the assault.

  

  According to eyewitness accounts and security footage, John Rote, 43, drew a pistol and began firing shots after witnessing a man trying to steal a woman’s purse.

  The suspect in the attempted robbery, Matthew Roesch, 49, was also arrested. Roesch was running scheme by which he would hold an emergency gate open to let riders avoid paying fees, and asked for money in return. Around 9 p.m. Tuesday, Roesch tried to grab a 40-year-old woman’s purse who refused to pay him, before Rote scared him off with his gun.

  This incident raises questions about the adequacy of law enforcement in New York’s transit system. With crime rates on the rise and insufficient policing across major cities in America, ordinary citizens like Rote feel compelled to take matters into their own hands.

  This is John Rote

  Yesterday, he was in a New York Subway station when a homeless man tried to violently mug a woman.

  John pulled out his gun, yelled “leave her alone”, and fired 2 warning shots.

  The NYPD arrested him. pic.twitter.com/cooKtb7D1c

  — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 9, 2023

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  Officials, who aren’t protecting vulnerable citizens, are pissed.

  “I’ve looked at the video,” said New York City Transit President Richard Davey at a news conference Wednesday. “It’s, I would say unusual. He sort of looks very calm, pulls out a gun, fires two shots, calmly puts the gun back in the bag and walks away.”

  “The point is, that’s not what we need from anybody in this system,” Davey continued.

  Mr. Rote is originally from West Virginia and has ties out of state, but no criminal history, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

  “Thank goodness nobody was hurt here—but what happened was outrageous, reckless, and unacceptable,” Mr. Davey said in a statement released after Rote was arrested. -AP

  John Rote stepping up to protect someone only to be charged is absurd. A good Samaritan faces punishment while criminals roam free? That’s twisted justice. The DA’s priorities seem misplaced. Self-defense isn’t a crime; it’s a right.

  — Swan (@BigPoppaSwan) November 9, 2023

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  The incident comes months after a Marine Corps veteran was arrested for putting a deranged homeless man in a chokehold on a New York City subway, which led to the man’s death.

  

  Daniel Penny, the marine, says he didn’t intend to take Jordan Neely’s life, but he had to protect the frightened passengers after Neely threatened to kill people on the train.

  “The man stumbled on, he appeared to be on drugs, the doors closed, and he ripped his jacket off and threw it down at the people sitting next to me at my left,” Penny said in the video.

  “I was listening to music at the time, and I took my headphones out to hear what he was yelling,” he continued.

  “The three main threats that he repeated over and over was ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ‘I’m prepared to go to jail for life,’ and ‘I’m willing to die.’”

  Penny, who stands at 6 feet 2 inches tall, said he was intimidated by Neely, who was bigger than him and was shouting in the subway riders’ faces.

  “There’s a common misconception that Marines don’t get scared. We’re actually taught, one of our core values is courage, and courage is not the absence of fear but how you handle fear,” he said.

  “I was scared for myself, but I looked around, I saw women and children. He was yelling in their faces saying these threats. I just couldn’t sit still.”

  *  *  *

  “For evil to succeed, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 16:35

• Your $2 Bill Could Be Worth Thousands Of Times More: Here's How To Check
  Your $2 Bill Could Be Worth Thousands Of Times More: Here’s How To Check

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

  A $2 bill you have lying around could be worth hundreds—or even thousands—of times more than its face value.

  

  The U.S. Currency Auctions’ Pricing guide shows that a $2 bill, which features the third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson, could be worth up to $4,500, depending on certain factors. Compared with other bills, the $2 currency is considered more rare, although they’re still being produced.

  “Americans don’t spend $2 bills, because they think they are markedly scarce. However, the numbers tell us a different story,” Dustin Johnston, vice president of Heritage Auctions, told MarketWatch on Wednesday, noting that some bills could be worth up to $20,000 at auction.

  The auction official issued a caveat: “Just in the last five years, they’ve printed 100 million $2 bills. The fact that they don’t circulate and are kept as mementos is a little bit odd. Very few of them have numismatic or collector value.”

  And Art Pinto, the manager of Legacy Coins and Curiosities in Florida, told Fox 13 that there are several contributing factors that help determine the potential value of a $2 bill. He noted that newer bills have a green seal on them and are likely just worth their face value, but if the bill includes a red seal, it likely is worth more.

  “If you’re looking for a high dollar $2 bill, it would be pre-1900, and it would have to be in a very high-graded condition,” said Mr. Pinto.

  Mr. Johnston told MarketWatch that other than the date, people look for serial numbers and the condition of the bill.

  “What we look at is fancy serial numbers,” he said. “A serial number ‘1’ for a 1976 $2 bill would be worth $20,000 or more. But a majority of those people holding 1976 $2 bills, they are only worth face value. There are very few that actually exceed face value.”

  He added that “beyond the fancy serial numbers, most of the value is going to be in the large size notes [from] 1918 and prior,” adding that 1918 bills “are very common.”

  “They typically start at $80 to $100 and go up from there,” Mr. Johnston added. “The more recent ones, the 1920s and beyond, well over 99 percent are going to be worth marginally over face value.”

  According to Heritage Auctions, a $2 currency note that was minted in 2003 sold online for $2,400 in July 2022. The same bill sold for $4,000 at a separate auction later that year.

  A $2 bill known as a “Rainbow Note,” dating back to 1869, is expected to sell for at least $12,000, says a listing on the auction company’s website. One of those same notes is also currently listed on eBay for $7,990.

  The $2 bill has been in U.S. circulation since 1862, and six different types have been created since then, according to the Department of Treasury’s website. But the currency been mostly unpopular over its history.

  “For most of their history, $2 notes have been unpopular, being viewed as unlucky or simply awkward to use in cash exchanges,” the Bureau of Engraving and Printing says, which added that President Jefferson did not start appearing on the bill’s face until 1869. Before that, first U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton appeared on the currency.

  As of 2017, there were about 1.2 billion $2 bills in circulation, according to the U.S. Currency Education Program.

  However, Mr. Johnston said that holding onto most recently made $2 bills likely won’t pan out. “Holding onto the common ones for another 30 years, they are common now, they are going to probably stay common,” he told MarketWatch. “You’re almost better off spending them now, or depositing them in the bank vs. holding onto them.”

  Several years ago, a extremely rare $1,000 bill sold for $1.2 million at an auction. The 1891 bill features the face of William L. Marcy, who served as the governor of New York and was a secretary under President James K. Polk in the mid-nineteenth century.

  The most expensive U.S. coin that was ever auctioned is the 1933 Double Eagle gold coin, which was sold for $18 million in 2021.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 16:20

• The Biden-Du Pont Nexus: From A Prestigious Golf Club To A Controversial Child Rape Plea Deal
  The Biden-Du Pont Nexus: From A Prestigious Golf Club To A Controversial Child Rape Plea Deal

  As the MSM turns on President Joe Biden heading into the 2024 election, the Washington Post had an interesting piece on Thursday exploring a little-known connection between the Bidens and the du Pont family, which revolves around a 2001 case in which then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) was voted in as a prominent new member of a prestigious Golf Club in Wilmington, Delaware, founded by a du Pont heiress.

  

  That year, Biden, known for his “Middle-Class Joe” image and modest financial status, joined the exclusive Fieldstone Golf Club, a symbol of prestige and power. This move painted a contrasting picture: a politician aligned with working-class values, yet rubbing shoulders with the state’s most affluent family, renowned for their chemical company empire.

  At the time, Biden walked a delicate line. On one hand, he campaigned as an Amtrak-riding “Middle-Class Joe” striving to make ends meet, and accurately described himself as “one of the poorest members of Congress” — reporting $221,000 in combined income with his wife that year and $360 in charitable contributions. -WaPo

  Biden’s connection to the du Ponts extended beyond social interactions. His staffing choices, political allies, and personal real estate investments all reflected a deep integration with this influential family. His acquisition of a mansion built by a du Pont member further underscores this relationship.

  Yet, Biden’s entry into the Fieldstone Golf Club raised eyebrows and led to a brief FBI investigation in 2007. The inquiry centered on how Biden obtained his club membership, especially as it involved an “unused” ticket from a company owned by the club’s founder, potentially bypassing a substantial partnership fee. The FBI’s probe, which included photographing Biden’s personal locker at the club, eventually closed without any allegations of wrongdoing. It’s unknown whether Biden was ever informed about the FBI investigation.

  

  In response to an inquiry, the White House told the Post: “These bizarre suggestions from more than 20 years ago are confusing given the fact that the Post is reporting that President Biden was fully responsible for membership dues at the golf club and all out-of-pocket costs associated with it. Frankly, the Post’s own reporting suggests this supposed matter was closed 15 years ago with no finding of wrongdoing. If you want to dig deep on who’s funding a president’s golf habits, we might have some suggestions.”

  Yet, this story reveals the delicate balance Biden navigated between his public identity as a relatable politician and his private interactions with Delaware’s elite. While maintaining his image as a defender of middle-class interests, Biden also sought inclusion in the state’s upper echelons, epitomized by his association with the du Ponts and his membership at Fieldstone.

  For someone raised in Delaware with Biden’s blue-collar background, “it would be quite an accomplishment” to rise into the same social circles as the du Ponts, said Joseph Hurley, a Wilmington attorney who grew up with Biden and represented Moseley.

  “It’s like, ‘I’ve really arrived,’ because the du Ponts were the family, the king’s-family type thing,” he said. -WaPo

  Biden often cited the long role of the du Pont family in Delaware in his family story – writing in his memoir that his father moved the family from Scranton, PA to a suburb of Wilmington, which was made more economically stable thanks to so many well-paid DuPont employees.

  “DuPont meant security for today and better times for the future,” Biden wrote.

  Years later, Biden recalled that his mother urged him to value his heritage with as much pride as the state’s best-known family. “Like I’m a du Pont or something,” Biden recalled. “You’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you, and everybody’s equal to you,” his mother told him.

  Still, he envied the position and power of those who founded the DuPont company.

  Elected to the Senate in 1972, he served in Congress alongside Rep. Pierre “Pete” du Pont IV, who later became Delaware’s governor and ran for president. Biden’s close adviser and Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, had worked for DuPont as a plastics engineer.

  In 1974, Biden spent $185,000 to buy what he called a “gorgeous … enormous” mansion built six decades earlier by a du Pont family member in Greenville, Del. The home, which he named “the Station,” served as a base for Biden’s unsuccessful 1988 presidential campaign; he sold it for $1.2 million in 1996 and then bought a four-acre lakefront property in Greenville. -WaPo

  

  The Biden-du Pont connection, reinforced by this membership, raises questions about potential influences and reciprocal favors within these elite circles.

  In particular, it seems appropriate to revisit a controversial 2009 plea deal offered by then-Attorney General Beau Biden to a du Pont heir accused of raping his own daughter when she was a toddler. Richards was originally charged with two counts of second-degree rape, which carried a minimum of 20 years behind bars. Instead, he pleaded guilty in 2008 to fourth-degree rape, which carries no minimum prison time.

  

  The deal was offered to du Pont heir Robert H. Richards IV, who had confessed to the fourth-degree rape of his 3-year-old daughter. He was spared prison time, a decision that sparked public outrage and scrutiny. Beau Biden defended the decision in 2014, citing the case’s weaknesses and potential for loss at trial, but these justifications were met with skepticism, given the family’s history with the du Ponts.

  The plea bargain’s leniency towards a figure from a wealthy and powerful family contrasts sharply with the typically harsher sentences meted out to less privileged offenders. This disparity points to a potential bias within the judicial system, influenced by socio-economic status and connections.

  The link between the Bidens and the du Ponts, established years earlier through Joe Biden’s golf club membership, suggests a narrative of mutual benefits and unwritten understandings among Delaware’s elite. While there’s no evidence of a link, the timing and context of these relationships paint a picture of intersecting interests and shared spaces between powerful families.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 15:45

• Revelations From Special Counsel David Weiss' Testimony On Hunter Biden Investigation
  Revelations From Special Counsel David Weiss’ Testimony On Hunter Biden Investigation

  Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

  Ever since explosive whistleblower testimony detailing DOJ efforts to sabotage the Hunter Biden investigation was released this summer, the US Attorney (and now Special Counsel) in charge of that investigation – David Weiss – has been under siege.

  

  Beset with allegations of misconduct by those who had been part of his investigative team, and self-inflicted mistakes such as allowing the statute of limitations on tax crimes to pass, Weiss (who was appointed Special Counsel in August) provided closed-door testimony this week before the House Committee on the Judiciary, led by Jim Jordan.

  It was a rare opportunity to obtain testimony from a Special Counsel – they typically only testify after their reports have been completed. And while he refused to answer specifics concerning Hunter’s plea deal, the status of his investigation, and why he allowed the statute of limitations to pass on some of Hunter’s tax crimes, Weiss’s testimony does provide important context regarding what has transpired since his investigation began.

  For background, Weiss has investigated Hunter Biden for approximately five years. According to the testimony of whistleblower Gary Shapley, a highly-credentialed IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent, this investigation “has been handled differently than any investigation I’ve ever been a part of for the past 14 years of my IRS service.” Agent Shapley explained:

  “Some of the decisions seem to be influenced by politics. But whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation. These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before elections to ensure the investigation did not go overt well before policy memorandum mandated the pause. These are just only a few examples.”

  As we noted back in June, the preferential treatment included: denials of normal investigative steps like looking into Hunter Biden’s communications; tipping off the Biden Transition Team that Hunter Biden would be interviewed; and refusing search warrants of Joe Biden’s home, though the Assistant US Attorney (Lesley Wolf) helping with the case admitted it was “likely” there would be evidence.

  One of the biggest revelations from the whistleblowers was that Weiss, who was the Delaware US Attorney at the time, was denied authority to file charges against Hunter Biden in DC or California.

  During his testimony, Weiss was able to provide some context on how that transpired.

  In February of 2022, Weiss reached out to Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer “because we were looking to bring certain portions of our investigation to either D.C. or L.A.” In that call, Weiss raised the idea of being granted “Special Attorney” authority, which would have allowed him to bring the charges in those venues.

  This requested wasn’t granted by Main Justice. Instead, Weinsheimer told Weiss to reach out to DC (and California) to see if they “would be interested in joining or otherwise participating in the investigation.”

  Weiss then reached out to the US Attorneys for DC and the Central District of California (LA) regarding the potential to prosecute Hunter Biden for 2014-2015 tax crimes. These are the years where, according to the testimony of IRS whistleblower Shapley, Hunter Biden undertook a scheme to not report his foreign income from Burisma and “to evade his taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon.”

  The US Attorney for DC denied his request: “I received word from my staff that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia had decided not to join the case as a partner or co-counsel moving forward.” (A remarkable declination from DC, considering their zealous prosecutions of January 6 protesters.)

  The Central District of California also declined to help pursue the charges.

  These denials are important because they were made by political appointees of President Biden. Main Justice, by ordering Weiss to go through this process, put Weiss in a position that he probably didn’t like – that he would have to pursue charges that were denied by other US Attorneys. (Weiss probably imagined the condemnations from the media.)

  This left Weiss with a decision: whether to file the DC and California tax charges against Hunter Biden on his own. Weiss would testify that after the DC denial, Main Justice informed him that he had the authority under the “Special Attorney” regulations “to bring whatever charges you deem appropriate.”

  Weiss, however, let the statute of limitations expire on Hunter Biden’s 2014 and 2015 tax crimes. Why Weiss decided not to go forward with these charges remains a mystery, especially considering that the DOJ Tax Division (and AUSA Wolf) recommended Biden be prosecuted for these years (see below for reference). Weiss declined to explain his non-prosecution decision, stating he could address this in his report.

  Read the rest here – including:

  • Weiss’s response as to whether it was “fair” that Hunter could avoid paying taxes on his Burisma income
  • Weiss’s defense of AUSA Lesley Wolf, who was accused of covering for the Bidens
  • Weiss’ thoughts on the future of his investigation as Special Counsel

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 15:10

• IRS Unveils New Tax Bracket Income Limits For 2024
  IRS Unveils New Tax Bracket Income Limits For 2024

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Internal Revenue Service has announced its annual tax inflation adjustments for 2024, including new income limits for seven tax brackets.

  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has disclosed the annual inflation adjustments affecting over 60 tax provisions for the upcoming 2024 tax year, including an increase in the standard deduction and new income limits for seven tax brackets.

  The federal agency said in a Nov. 9 announcement that a string of new annual inflation adjustments will impact the 2024 tax year, potentially bringing a boost to your paycheck.

  The IRS adjusts tax rates each year to take into account the higher cost of living and with price pressures remaining abnormally elevated, many inflation-weary Americans are hoping for some relief at tax time.

  

  Standard Deductions

  The standard deduction, which is typically used by people who don’t itemize their taxes, raises the amount of income people can earn before they have to hand some of it over to the government through taxes.

  Under the IRS’s newly announced annual inflation adjustments, the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly in 2024 is $29,200, up $1,500, or 5.4 percent from the prior year. This year’s increase is smaller than last year’s (which was $1,800, or 7 percent greater) because the pace of inflation has slowed somewhat from last year’s eye-watering levels.

  For single taxpayers and married individuals filing separately, the standard deduction rises to $14,600 for 2024, up $750. For heads of households, the standard deduction will be $21,900 for the tax year 2024, up $1,100 from 2023, marking a 5.4 percent increase (less than last year’s 7.4 percent bump).

  

  Tax Bracket Changes

  While the tax rates in percentage terms remain unchanged for the tax year 2024, the income limits at which they kick in have been changed.

  The top marginal rate, or the highest tax rate based on income, remains at 37 percent for individual single taxpayers with incomes greater than $609,350, or $731,200 for married couples filing jointly.

  The lowest rate is 10 percent, and applies to single individuals with incomes of $11,600 or less and married couples earning $23,200 or less.

  The other rates are:

  • 35 percent for incomes over $243,725 (or $487,450 for married couples filing jointly),
  • 32 percent for incomes over $191,950 (or $383,900 for married couples filing jointly),
  • 24 percent for incomes over $100,525 (or $201,050 for married couples filing jointly),
  • 22 percent for incomes over $47,150 (or $94,300 for married couples filing jointly),
  • 12 percent for incomes over $11,600 ($23,200 for married couples filing jointly).

  Overall, the income limits for the seven tax brackets have been raised by 5.4 percent for the 2024 tax year compared to last year.

  Alternative Minimum Tax

  For single filers, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) exemption amount has been raised to $85,700 for the 2024 tax year, up from $81,300 for the prior year.

  This is the threshold level at which taxpayers become subject to the AMT, a separate tax scheme with its own set of rules and rates meant to ensure that higher-income individuals and corporations pay a minimum amount of tax regardless of deductions or credits.

  For married couples filing jointly, the AMT exemption amount has been raised to $133,300 for the 2024 tax year.

  The AMT exemption amount for tax year 2024 starts to phase out at $609,350 for single filers and at $1,218,700 for married couples filing jointly.

  Earned Income Tax Credit

  The IRS has raised the maximum amount for households who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to $7,830 for the tax year 2024 for individuals who have at least three qualifying children. In the tax year 2023, or the current tax year, this was $7,430.

  Last year, the average claimed EITC amount was more than $2,000, but around 20 percent of those entitled to the credit didn’t claim it, according to the IRS.

  People particularly prone to overlooking the tax credit include those living in nontraditional homes (such as a grandparent raising a grandchild), those whose earnings declined or whose marital or parental status changed, people living in rural areas, veterans, the self-employed, and those with earnings below the tax return filing requirement.

  Since navigating EITC eligibility can be tricky due to its complexity, the IRS has a tool called the EITC Assistant that people can use to check if they qualify and how much they can expect to get.

  Flexible Spending Arrangements

  For the 2024 tax year, the dollar limitation for employee salary reductions for flexible spending arrangement contributions increases to $3,200, up from the current tax year’s threshold of $3,050.

  The flexible spending account, also known as a flexible spending arrangement, allows workers to contribute a portion of their regular earnings, up to a limit set by the IRS, into an account that can be used to pay for certain health care costs.

  The funds taken from the account are not subject to income and payroll taxes, and so they offer certain tax advantages.

  Other Notable Adjustments

  In tax year 2024, other notable changes include higher Medical Savings Account (MSA) deductibles and out-of-pocket expense limits.

  For self-only coverage, the deductible range is $2,800 to $4,150, and the maximum out-of-pocket expense is $5,550. Family coverage deductibles range from $5,550 to $8,350, with an out-of-pocket limit of $10,200.

  The foreign earned income exclusion increases to $126,500, and estates of decedents in 2024 have a basic exclusion amount of $13,610,000. The annual gift exclusion rises to $18,000, and the maximum adoption credit is $16,810.

  Certain provisions remain unchanged: the personal exemption stays at zero, there’s no itemized deduction limitation, and the Lifetime Learning Credit phases out for incomes over $80,000 ($160,000 for joint returns) for all tax years starting from Dec. 31, 2020.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 14:00

• San Francisco Clears Homeless And Cleans Sh*t-Covered Streets For World Leaders Next Week
  San Francisco Clears Homeless And Cleans Sh*t-Covered Streets For World Leaders Next Week

  Progressive city leadership in crime-ridden San Francisco has undertaken a massive effort to improve the city’s image, which has been tarnished with shit-covered streets, homelessness, and open-air drug markets. These measures have been implemented as a temporary solution ahead of the global trade summit that will flood the city with world leaders and corporate executives beginning today. 

  The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is San Francisco’s largest international event since world leaders gathered in the town in 1945 to sign the charter creating the United Nations. A lot has changed in the metro area in 78 years, including radical leftists in City Hall that have pushed failed ‘defund the police’ policies that have transformed parts of the region into an out-of-control, crime-infested hellhole. 

  The New York Post confirmed the wonderful folks in City Hall began pushing “drug addicts, dealers, and homeless” from the downtown area to other parts of the city, an effort that some believe is to conceal their failed policies from the international community during APEC. 

  REPORT: The San Francisco homeless population has “miraculously” gone missing as President Biden & Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet in the liberal city.

  Remarkable!

  The typical drug addicts & homeless who wander the city like zombies have disappeared as 20,000… pic.twitter.com/2iDpl4FHCG

  — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 11, 2023

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  Residents and business owners told The Post that Mayor London Breed’s attempts to “herd” the homeless and drug addicts to an opposite side of the city during the summit are only a “Band-Aid” amid the worst crime crisis the city has ever seen.  

  Sources said the cleanup of homeless people and drug addicts is concentrated across seven intersections in the Tenderloin and South of Market, or SoMa, neighborhoods. These areas have been known to be covered in shit and fentanyl and heroin needles, as well as various tent cities housing the homeless. 

  China level propaganda and control. Clearing out homeless in San Fran for a world leadership summit, only to unleash them back into the streets days later. https://t.co/Xfvn3qLb1D

  — Red Bear (@RedBear04749384) November 11, 2023

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  “They started clearing the tents earlier this week and there is definitely a lot more police presence,” SoMa resident and community activist Ricci Lee Wynne said. 

  “They’ve cleared out the tents that were near the Moscone Center on Howard Street, which tells me the city had the capability to do this all along — instead they just do the bare minimum,” Wynne said. 

  He added, “Once APEC is gone, police presence will start to simmer down again, the tents will return. And it will slowly flare up again. What we need is a permanent solution.”

  The summit, which runs through next Friday, will feature a highly anticipated meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday. 

  So, all along, radical Democrats in City Hall had the capability to enforce law and order but chose not to only until world leaders and corporate execs showed up to a summit. This is the biggest red flag yet for residents that leftists do not have the best interest of the majority of voters and are likely serving a fringe minority of elites.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 13:25

• Taibbi: According To Pundits, "Ignorance" Makes Americans Give "Wrong" Answers To Economic Confidence Poll
  Taibbi: According To Pundits, “Ignorance” Makes Americans Give “Wrong” Answers To Economic Confidence Poll

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

  Paul Krugman of the New York Times on America’s “belief” problem when it comes to the economy:

  Biden is not, in fact, presiding over a bad economy. On the contrary, the economic news has been remarkably good, and history helps explain why. Nonetheless, many Americans tell pollsters that the economy is bad. Why? I don’t think we really know… Many voters have demonstrably false views about the current economy — believing, in particular, that unemployment, which is near a 50-year low, is actually near a 50-year high.

  The Guardian editorial Krugman linked to explains: Americans continue to believe the economy sucks, even though they’ve been told over and over it doesn’t! Why won’t they listen?

  

  Commenting on their own exclusive poll, the Guardian wrote:

  The results illustrate a dramatic political split on economic views — with Republicans far more pessimistic than Democrats. But unhappiness about the economy is widespread.

  Two-thirds of respondents (68%) reported it’s difficult to be happy about positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month (Republicans: 69%, Democrats: 68%).

  Noting Joe Biden’s achievements include a “landmark $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill” and legislative actions “predicted to create 1.5m jobs per year for the next decade,” the Guardian complained:

  That message may be hard to sell given the widespread disbelief of and ignorance about the health of the US economy highlighted by the poll.

  As well as being wrong about the unemployment data, respondents were unaware of, or chose to mischaracterize, other major economic data points.

  I can’t remember an instance of newspapers polling Americans about their feelings, then telling them their answers are not only wrong, but ignorant! The Guardian takes the additional hilarious step of blasting respondents for making it harder to “sell” the story the economy is doing well.

  Krugman, last seen citing the sqme unemployment stat and insisting those who complain about the economy are Republicans bent on “giving Vladimir Putin victory,” now says the problem is “psychological,” because people want to think higher incomes are personal reward rather than monetary side-effect.

  Subscribers to Racket News can read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 12:50

• Iceland Declares Emergency As 'Quake Swarms' Signal Potential Volcanic Eruption
  Iceland Declares Emergency As ‘Quake Swarms’ Signal Potential Volcanic Eruption

  Authorities in Iceland declared an emergency and issued an evacuation order for thousands of people in a popular tourist town in the country’s southwestern Reykjanes Peninsula after quake swarms intensified in the last 48 hours – sparking fears that the next big volcanic eruption could be imminent. 

  WATCH: Series of earthquakes being felt in Iceland due to volcanic unrest pic.twitter.com/3XGMWLXgqn

  — BNO News (@BNONews) November 10, 2023

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  OMG….Another earthquake video #Iceland. This was happining all day yesterday. They are still getting loads of earthquakes but not as big…..😱👇

  I can’t verify the video as I can’t find the original but it does look legit. All credit to them! pic.twitter.com/7T81XBzEbk

  — Volcaholic 🌋 (@volcaholic1) November 11, 2023

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  On Friday night, Iceland’s National Police Commissioner declared a state of emergency for civil defense. Residents in Grindavík were ordered to leave after a magma tunnel formed under the area. 

  “We want to reiterate that residents MUST evacuate their homes and leave the town. But we also want to reiterate that this is not an emergency evacuation, there is plenty of time to prepare, secure things and drive out of town calmly,” the agency said.

  The Icelandic Meteorological Office’s latest update warned:

  “The seismic activity has moved south towards Grindavík. Based on how the seismic activity has evolved since 6 PM today, along with results from GPS measurements, there is a likelihood that a magma intrusion has extended beneath Grindavík.” 

  It said: 

  “At this stage, it is not possible to determine exactly whether and where magma might reach the surface. There are indications that a considerable amount of magma is moving in an area extending from Sundhnjúkagígum in the north towards Grindavík. The amount of magma involved is significantly more than what was observed in the largest magma intrusions associated with the eruptions at Fagradalsfjall.”

  Magma coming to the surface produced the first seismic activity on Oct. 25, and since then, 22,000 quakes have been reported.

  

  In the last 48 hours, seismic activity has intensified with over 1,500 quakes. 

  

  Officials have elevated the volcanic warning system to “orange,” which means heightened unrest with an increased likelihood of eruption. 

  The road between Grindavik and Reykjanesbraut has been closed by the police due to damage. A large crack has formed. #Reykjanes #eruption pic.twitter.com/dyBl2AS5Ng

  — Gisli Olafsson (@gislio) November 10, 2023

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  The US Embassy in Iceland also issued a volcano alert, warning about the increased signs of volcanic activity. 

  “If an eruption occurs, follow the instructions of Icelandic authorities. Volcanic hazards may include lava, toxic gases, and heavy smoke from fires ignited by lava,” the embassy said.

  In 2010, nearly all flights in Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean were halted for a week as ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano sparked one of the most significant air traffic disruptions in peacetime until the Covid virus pandemic in 2020. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 12:15

• Bump Stock Case Could Nullify Other Biden Admin Gun Control Rules
  Bump Stock Case Could Nullify Other Biden Admin Gun Control Rules

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  After years in litigation, a Trump-era gun control rule is finally headed to the Supreme Court.

  The case in question is Cargill v. Garland. In January of 2023, the 5th Circuit decided that bump stocks were not, in fact, machine guns, as they do not meet the definition of ‘machine gun’ as stated by federal law.

  Gun Owners everywhere are saying: “Exactly!”

  For those unfamiliar, a bump stock is a device that uses the recoil of a firearm to “bump” the trigger. This causes a semi-automatic firearm to shoot faster. While the ATF now considers this device to be a “machine gun” under federal law, it’s worth noting that bump fire can be achieved with belt loops and pants pockets. 

  U.S. House of Reps. votes 233-194 (including 13 Republicans) to pass a bump stock & bump fire ban. Apparently, belt-loops and pants-pockets must now be illegal, too! Watch @RealGunLobbyist bump fire without a stock ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/7jXPo94Jgg

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 8, 2022

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  The 5th Circuit ruled against US Attorney General Merrick Garland and blocked the ATF’s bump stock rule, which had been in place since 2019. 

  Before that decision, GOA had a nearly identical case in the 6th Circuit, GOA v. Garland. But the Supreme Court declined to hear our case when we petitioned them. 

  But because our case and Cargill’s case are so similar, we’ve created what’s known as a circuit split, which is when two federal courts issue opposite decisions. The circuit split has made it extremely difficult for the Supreme Court to ignore this case. 

  Bump stocks do not make firearms into fully automatic weapons nor do they “pose a significant threat to public safety.”

  We are glad our case helped pave the way for Michael Cargill’s case to make it to SCOTUS and we’re confident the correct decision will be made. https://t.co/ZfbRPAa8jp

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) November 3, 2023

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  And maybe the most important detail is that both cases were filed not on Second Amendment grounds but instead on the fact that ATF exceeded its powers by creating law out of thin air with this “regulation.”  

  The Supreme Court has an opportunity in this case not just to reign in the rogue bureaucrats at the ATF, but also to put limits on how executive agencies issue regulations. This case could affect many of Biden’s more recent gun control regulations, which were issued in the same manner as the Trump-era bump stock ban.

  To this day, ATF has gone unchecked by the Supreme Court for this behavior. Even the House of Representatives attempted to smack down the recent ATF pistol brace rule by passing H.J. Res 44. This attempt ultimately failed in the Senate, but only by one vote, and is a massive boon to our current lawsuit against Biden’s pistol brace ban. 

  When we fight in the courts, we rely on the grievances of our members who we represent. This is why notice and comment periods are so important. Each ATF rule, by law, must go through the notice and comment period. ATF must consider each comment when regulating, so our members need to make their voices heard.

  If you didn’t already know, we’re actually in a notice and comment period right now. Biden is currently directing his Department of Justice and the ATF to “bring the United States as close to universal background checks as possible without the passage of new legislation.” 

  We’re calling on all our members to comment on this new rule. We all know that universal background checks are the first step towards a national gun registry.

  We can’t allow this to happen. 

  Please click here to comment on the ATF’s new Universal Background Check rule and help us defeat it! 

  *    *    * 

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/11/2023 – 11:40

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