Oct 12

Today’s News 12th October 2024

  • America In The Age Of Nero
    America In The Age Of Nero

    Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics,

    Americans are like members of a quarrelsome family, so intent on arguing their petty grievances around the kitchen table that they don’t smell the rising smoke from the oven. As our nation fumes and the world burns, neither major party presidential candidate is addressing the lapping flames around us.

    Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are not simply ignoring our frightening national debt – both vow to ramp it up. Neither candidate has a serious plan to respond to the threats posed by China, Russia, or Iran.

    The strangling costs of health care, the sharp decline in mental health, the disintegration of our public schools – which is sharply tied to the breakdown in the family – are all ignored in a race marked by gauzy references to policy and sharp personal attacks.

    It’s not just Harris and Trump – our leadership in Washington has long refused to face up to the growing threats to our republic. Their empty promise is that everything is the other side’s fault. Help us annihilate the other guy and everything will be peaches and cream.

    A third-grader wouldn’t fall for this nonsense. Neither side can vanquish the other. A Harris victory will not be the death knell of Trump’s populist message; Trump’s win will not defang progressivism’s leftward lurch. Whatever the outcome, we will continue to be a divided, angry nation. And yet, seemingly thoughtful Americans have bought this line hook, line, and sinker.

    More importantly, even if one side did seize absolute power, they have no legitimate plan to right the ship of state. Sixty years of Great Society programs have shown us we can’t spend our way out of problems. The 44 years since the Reagan Revolution show us that tax cuts can only set the stage for reforms that have never come – a task that nears the impossible as ever more Americans become dependent on government aid.

    America is in a second Age of Nero – our leaders fiddle as the country burns.

    In past crises, the strength, resilience, and ingenuity of the American people have saved us from the depths of want and war. It is not clear we retain that grit.

    Instead of demanding leadership, we seem content with the bread and circuses of mindless politics more akin to the gladiatorial battle of Rome than the edifying debates of ancient Greece. The broad embrace of victimhood and grievance on both sides has replaced any question of sacrifice for the common good with the desire to demonize our imagined tormentors. If anything, we savor the fight. It makes us feel important, alive – it gives our lives meaning.

    Although we have serious problems, we are no longer a serious people. Hence our choice between Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris.

    They are not the disease, however, but a symptom. The first step toward a treatment, if not cure, is obvious: we must reject our empty politics of diversion in order to identify and address our urgent crisis. Honesty really would make a difference. It might also make us happier as we re-channel our energies from angry partisanship into thoughtful partnership.

    Still, that would only get us so far. Life teaches that identifying one’s problems is the relatively easy part of change – we all know what’s wrong with the other guy and, sometimes, ourselves. Finding the will and discipline to do something about it is far harder. 

    We are sinking before that challenge because it still seems possible to ignore the building fire. Many of us have it pretty good; our fears are mitigated by our confidence in escape. It won’t get me.

    Ironically, the fact that much of the rest of the world is crumbling imparts a false sense of security. Instead of seeing those problems as canaries in the coal mine, we think, Hey, we’re still doing okay.

    It’s true that history confutes the doomsayers. The world does get better in the long run. But that is little consolation to those whose one short life is spent during the ebbing flow.

    History also teaches that judgment for past failure often comes with sudden swiftness, like a thief in the night. As we think about the immense problems we are allowing to smolder, recall Ernest Hemingway’s pithy warning from “The Sun Also Rises.”

    “How did you go bankrupt?” one character asks a friend.

    “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

    J. Peder Zane is a RealClearInvestigations editor and columnist. He previously worked as a book review editor and book columnist for the News & Observer (Raleigh), where his writing won several national honors. Zane has also worked at the New York Times and taught writing at Duke University and Saint Augustine’s University.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 23:25

  • These Are The 10 Fastest-Developing Cities On Earth
    These Are The 10 Fastest-Developing Cities On Earth

    Out of the world’s top 15 growth hubs, 14 are forecast to be located in Asia, according to the Growth Hub Index 2024 by British real estate service Savills.

    These cities have been identified as set to develop particularly quickly by 2033, based on indicators measuring rising wealth, expanding economies and the potential for new development and business expansion.

    As the following chart, via Statista;’s Anna Fleck, shows, four Indian cities feature in the top 10, with Bengaluru in the top position. It is followed by Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and India’s Delhi.

    Infographic: The 10 Fastest-Developing Cities on Earth | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Several reasons are cited for the anticipated rise in Asia, including how many parts of the region have embraced tech-driven growth, while at the same time continuing to benefit from a strong traditional manufacturing sector. Many Asian cities are also forecast to see a growing middle class as personal wealth rises across the region, while at the same time they have strategies to improve connectivity and to invest in infrastructure.

    Savills analysts note that innovation hubs can attract new businesses, which in turn increases demand for office space, manufacturing spaces and housing and that if rapid urbanization is managed well, then it can lead to better health outcomes of populations and improved employment prospects and education.

    If poorly managed, however, rapid urban growth can exacerbate poverty, crime and health issues.

    The Growth Hub Index is based on economic, population and wealth indicators across 230 cities, each with a GDP of at least $50 billion in 2023, to identify the fastest-growing cities. The economic indicators included the city GDP in 2033 and future credit rating as well as the percentage increase in city GDP growth between 2023–2033. The personal wealth indicators measured the percentage increase in city GDP per capita and the percentage increase in the number of households earning more than $70,000 over the 10 years analyzed. Meanwhile, the population indicators focused on the percentage increase in city population and migration between 2023–2033 and the future ratio of dependents to the working-age population in 2033. Only cities with a GDP of $50 billion and up in 2023 were included in the index.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 23:00

  • Drug Trials Funded By Manufacturers Find 50 Percent Greater Drug Effectiveness
    Drug Trials Funded By Manufacturers Find 50 Percent Greater Drug Effectiveness

    Authored by Huey Freeman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Drug studies sponsored by drug manufacturers tend to report higher drug efficacy than studies not sponsored by the drug company, a new report published in the Journal of Political Economy on Oct. 7 finds.

    oasisamuel/Shutterstock

    The report found a “sponsorship effect” that tends to bias sponsored studies toward reporting higher drug efficacies. The author could not find differences in study design between those funded by drug companies and those not.

    “Removing the sponsorship effect would reduce the difference in efficacy … by about 50%,” Tamar Oostrom, an assistant professor of economics at Ohio State University, said in her paper.

    “This effect was larger than I expected,” Oostrom told The Epoch Times over email. “My results suggest that sponsored arms of trials should be discounted substantially.”

    She said that the difference in results between sponsored and unsponsored trials may be that “manufacturers are running multiple trials and selectively publishing those that are more favorable towards their drug.”

    Even a small effect of bias by funding could affect the use of a drug, she noted.

    “If some of the results from a clinical trial are biased, patients may be taking a less effective drug for them, or they may be taking a drug when alternate treatment might be more beneficial,” Oostrom said.

    Her research analyzed the published papers of 509 trials and 1,215 treatment arms (groups of participants). Most of the trials were published after the drug gained approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). About three-quarters of them examined were for antidepressants, with the remaining quarter for antipsychotic medications.

    “My paper is the first to examine the effect of financial sponsorship on outcomes by directly comparing a large set of trials in which the exact same arms are tested with differing financial interests,” Oostrom said.

    Trials Comparing Drugs Vary by Funding

    Oostrom examined two main types of drug trials: drugs that are compared to placebos and drugs that are compared to other drugs.

    She found that the effect of drug company sponsorship was more pronounced in placebo trials.

    There are multiple payoffs for results that favor a drug’s efficiency.

    “Trials in which the manufacturer’s drug appears more effective are more likely to be published,” Oostrom said.

    These published trials can be used in marketing to physicians. Prescriptions also tend to increase in response to favorable clinical trials.

    Oostrom cited a 2023 study that found that when a clinical trial significantly favors a drug, “there is a large and immediate increase in demand.”

    The trials Oostrom reviewed included an average of 100 participants, with a mean age of 42. Sex distribution was nearly equal, with 51 percent of participants being female.

    Case Study: Effexor Versus Prozac

    As an example of bias, Oostrom presented the case of Effexor, an antidepressant introduced by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in 1993. Over the following 15 years, Wyeth funded 14 randomized controlled trials comparing Effexor’s effectiveness to its rival, Prozac. In 12 of these trials, funded solely by Wyeth, Effexor was found to be more effective.

    However, when Effexor and Prozac were compared with alternative funding, only one out of three trials found Effexor to be more effective.

    “Each of these trials is a double-blind RCT comparing the exact same two molecules and examining the same standard outcomes,” Oostrom wrote in her paper.

    Expert Opinions on Research Bias

    The study confirms that the funding of studies greatly influences their design and results, Dr. Chad Savage, an internal medicine specialist and founder of YourChoice Direct Care, told The Epoch Times.

    “Multiple attempts have been made over the years to counter this effect, such as requiring financial disclosures from authors, but none have succeeded in fully eradicating the bias that can exist,” Savage said.

    This bias often stems from the “self-preservation instincts of researchers, who are in a constant quest for funding” or possibly facing unemployment, he added.

    “Solving this problem is challenging,” he said. “One potential solution is to return to the principle of reproducibility, a cornerstone of science. If a finding is valid, it should be replicable through multiple studies conducted by different researchers, with diverse funding sources, and published in different journals.”

    According to Dr. Peter C. Gøtzsche, professor of clinical research design and analysis at the University of Copenhagen, the bias in industry-sponsored trials is massive.

    “In head-to-head trials where Prozac was the drug of interest, significantly more patients improved on Prozac than in trials where Prozac was the comparator drug,” Gøtzsche told The Epoch Times.

    He cited a 2004 study that found systematic bias in rating the effectiveness of Prozac, one of the first antidepressants on the market. Prozac is the brand name for fluoxetine.

    The Epoch Times reached out to Eli Lilly, Prozac’s manufacturer, and Pfizer, which now owns Effexor, for comments.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 22:35

  • Ex-State Department Official Who Blew Up ISIS's Bank Reveals Roadmap For "Striking Iran" 
    Ex-State Department Official Who Blew Up ISIS’s Bank Reveals Roadmap For “Striking Iran” 

    Top Israeli officials, including senior ministers and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, met on Thursday to outline a war strategy for Israel’s retaliation against Iran, according to the New York Times, citing two officials who requested anonymity due to the private nature of the discussions. The move comes in response to Iran’s bombardment of Israel early last week, which involved up to 200 ballistic and hypersonic missiles. This tit-for-tat escalation could spiral into a much larger and broadening conflict across the Middle East.

    NYT cited Israeli officials, who have warned that coming retaliation for last week’s missile barrage “will be more severe.” President Biden this week spoke with Netanyahu, the first conversation in months, about Israel’s pending retaliation strike against Iran. 

    Last Thursday, Biden was asked by MSM reporters outside the White House if he would support Israel striking Iran’s critical oil export facilities. The president said, “We’re discussing that.”

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    Remember, on Sept. 27, Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly, “The curse of Oct. 7 began when Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza, but it didn’t end there. Israel was soon forced to defend itself on six more war fronts organized by Iran.”

    We have detailed in multiple notes how the most likely high-value assets that IDF jets (F-35s) could hit first would be Iran’s ability to export crude and crude energy products: 

    Providing more color on what a potential IDF strike on Iran would look like is David Asher, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former US State Department official who has worked on counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East. 

    Asher penned an op-ed in the WSJ on Thursday titled “A Strategy for Striking Back at Iran“… 

    Asher noted:

    The strategy Israel has successfully implemented against Hezbollah must now be applied against Tehran directly. The regime is the puppeteer behind Oct. 7 and the multifront attacks against Israel.

    He explained:

    Israel’s most effective course of action would be to target key leadership, military support and financial infrastructure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Intelligence and Security Ministry. That would weaken the regime’s pillars while avoiding direct harm to civilians, which could otherwise foster sympathy for the regime. Combined with attacks on Iran’s external oil-export capacity to deprive the regime of its financial lifeblood, a top-down leadership-focused approach would pressure the regime without disrupting essential domestic services.

    Israel should first neutralize the immediate missile threat posed by the regime. Striking Iran’s leadership and nuclear facilities without simultaneously addressing Iran’s offensive missile capabilities would allow the regime to retaliate aggressively. Iran knows this, which explains why its rulers are posting web images of their subterranean “missile cities.” Next, Israel must attack the regime’s headquarters, command facilities and military. No key Iranian leaders should be spared. The precision killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran apartment demonstrates that Israel can strike anyone, anytime and anywhere.

    Then Iran’s military training camps on the Iraq border should be smoked. For decades, these camps have been used to train Iranian, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraqi special-group operatives for campaigns against Israel, U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and global antiterrorist operations. After that Iran’s central bank and oil export facilities should be destroyed.

    Asher pointed out he was critical in counter-terrorism operations against ISIS’s central bank and cash distribution centers across Mosul, Iraq, in 2015-16.

    He said the combination of kinetic warfare and economic warfare could be a winning strategy for Israel to dismantle Tehran’s financial apparatus, adding that only after “disrupting command, control, and financial and logistical infrastructure should Israel consider direct action against key Iranian nuclear facilities.”  

     …

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    Asher said Americans should not forget… 

    The U.S. should provide direct and public support to Israel’s counterstrikes, not just sit on the sidelines. America should never forget the large number of Americans who have been murdered by Iran and its terrorist action network since Hezbollah attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut multiple times in the 1980s and obliterated U.S. barracks there in 1983, killing 241 Marines and sailors. These attacks were followed by the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 and numerous Iran-directed attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2012 that killed and wounded thousands.

    The U.S. military has a blood grievance against Tehran’s regime. Yet there has been little retaliation beyond taking down Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Now is the time to join Israel in retribution at scale and scope.

    A 2018 book by Col. Richard Kemp and Maj. (ret.) Chris Driver-Williams, titled “Killing Americans and Their Allies: Iran’s Continuing War against the U.S. and the West,” detailed how over 1,100 US deaths in Iraq are estimated as attributable to Iran. 

    Segwaying into energy markets… Brent crude prices would surge if IDF fighter jets neutralized Iran’s oil-export capacity. 

    According to S&P Global…

    Iran’s crude export loadings remained well below normal levels Oct. 10 as oil markets continued to brace for an expected retaliatory strike by Israel on Iran that could target the country’s oil infrastructure and disrupt Middle Eastern oil supplies.

    Register Now Crude loadings from Iran averaged 816,244 b/d in the week to Oct. 9, according to preliminary observed and estimated tanker movements in S&P Global Commodities at Sea. A 2 million-barrel cargo of Iranian crude was seen leaving Iranian waters Oct. 9, the second VLCC crude cargo in four days after an apparent hiatus of VLCC liftings since Sept. 28, when the geopolitical conflict between Iran and Israel escalated.

    Here’s a detailed map of oil assets across the Middle East:

    Late last month, Goldman analyst Lindsay Matcham told clients a war risk premium in Brent crude prices was absent. If IDF forces target Iranian energy assets, especially knocking out Tehran’s ability to export crude to buyers in Singapore and China, then Brent prices would instantly reprice much, much higher. 

    Asher penned a note in March about a “Global oil shock could trigger a crisis ala 2007-2008″ if the Middle East spirals out of control.

    The looming question is whether Israel will strike Iran before or after the US presidential election. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 22:10

  • Nearly 3 Million Americans Have Voted So Far. Here's What We Know.
    Nearly 3 Million Americans Have Voted So Far. Here’s What We Know.

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

    Nearly 3 million Americans have cast early ballots either in person or by mail with under four weeks to go until Election Day, an election tracking site shows.

    As of 6:43 p.m. on Oct. 9, 2,877,590 people had cast ballots in states that report early voting data, according to an update from the University of Florida’s Election Lab website.

    An election worker opens envelopes containing vote-by-mail ballots for the Aug. 4 Washington state primary at King County Elections in Renton, Wash., on Aug. 3, 2020. Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

    Early Voters By Party

    Of that figure, nearly 504,000 people had voted early in person, and more than 2.37 million had voted by mail, the tracking site found.

    About 47.5 million mail-in ballots have been requested so far. In comparison, more than 92 million mail-in ballots were requested through the 2020 election, according to the university.

    In the states reporting how people voted by party, 56.3 percent of people who had returned early ballots were Democrats, representing about 732,378 people. Another 27.4 percent were Republican, representing 356,797 voters, and 16.2 percent, or 210,980, were independent or members of a third party, according to the website.

    By Age, Gender, Ethnicity

    When broken down by age, nearly 60 percent of early voters were over 65, the tracking site found. Another 28 percent were age 41 to 65, while 9 percent were age 26 to 40, and only 3.2 percent were aged 18 to 25.

    Slightly more than 54.4 percent of people who returned early ballots were female, and roughly 44.6 percent were male, the site found. The remaining 1.1 percent were marked “unknown,” according to the site.

    Among early voters, about 72 percent were white, 8.6 percent were black, 2.2 percent were Hispanic, 2.4 percent were Asian, and 14.3 percent were marked “unknown,” the site stated.

    Early Voting Starts in Arizona

    Early in-person voting started on Oct. 9 in Arizona, making it the earliest of this year’s presidential battleground states to enable residents to cast a ballot at a traditional polling place ahead of Election Day.

    The start of in-person voting in the closely contested state is also drawing the presidential tickets, with both campaigns scheduling visits in the state this week.

    The Oct. 9 start date for early voting overlaps with campaign stops by both vice presidential nominees, Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who are each holding events in Tucson, Arizona, on that day.

    Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, is scheduled to host a rally in Phoenix on Oct. 10, while former President Donald Trump will hold an event on Oct. 13 in Prescott Valley, north of Phoenix.

    Early voting, particularly by mail, has long been popular in Arizona, where nearly 80 percent voted before Election Day in 2020, according to the secretary of state’s office. Each of Arizona’s 15 counties is required to open at least one site for in-person early voting, which runs until the Friday before the Nov. 5 general election. In Maricopa County, a dozen voting centers are scattered around the metro Phoenix area.

    Early in-person voting has been underway in some states for several weeks now. It begins next week in four more swing states: Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Nevada.

    Changes in North Carolina’s Election

    Following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, the state’s election board this week approved an emergency measure that changes voting rules.

    The rule changes apply to 13 counties that saw infrastructure, voting sites, and mail delivery impacted by Helene, which made landfall in late September.

    One change approved by the board includes enhancing in-person early voting by allowing county boards to modify early voting sites, dates, and hours. It will also allow a county election board for one county to open a polling site in another county, depending on the circumstances, the state election board stated.

    Voters in affected counties can now request an absentee ballot in person up until Nov. 4, the day before the general election, according to the election board. Completed ballots can be dropped off by Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. at a polling location.

    Voters who were displaced are also allowed to turn in ballots to another county’s elections board by the same deadline, the state said. Previously, voters could turn in absentee ballots to early voting sites only in their county or to their county elections board by Election Day.

    Other Activities

    South Carolina took action earlier this month to extend its voter registration deadline to Oct. 14, while Georgia elections officials have said they do not expect major disruptions from Helene.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order allowing election supervisors in 13 counties impacted by Helene to make voting-related changes. The state is bracing for a major hurricane, Milton, which is expected to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on the night of Oct. 9.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 21:45

  • Body Of Top IRGC General Finally Recovered In Beirut After 2 Weeks
    Body Of Top IRGC General Finally Recovered In Beirut After 2 Weeks

    A high-ranking Iranian military officer who was considered a “key figure” that oversaw Tehran’s support to the ‘resistance axis’ abroad was slain in the Israeli airstrike which killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on September 27 in south Beirut. 

    Iran had soon after the Israeli attack confirmed the death the IRGC’s #2, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan. But his body had not been found even long after Nasrallah’s remains were recovered. Iran’s government had vowed that his killing “will not go unanswered.”

    Senior Quds Force officer Abbas Nilforoushan

    The IRGC deputy commander’s body was finally recovered on Friday by Lebanese search and rescue workers, regional media has announced, a full two weeks after the strike:

    The Public Relations Department of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has announced that the body of IRGC Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan has been found.

    On September 27, Nilforoushan was killed by Israeli strikes in Beirut. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was also killed in the attack.

    The assassinations, along with the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, triggered Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel, in which it fired almost 200 ballistic missiles on October 1.

    The fact that there was enough rubble to bury his remains to the point that the body took two weeks to recover speaks to the enormity of the bombs’ impact and destruction.

    The strikes have been described as happening as a high-level meeting between Nasrallah and top Iranian officials was taking place. It’s believed that the meeting was being held in a bunker underneath office or apartment buildings.

    Israel likely used heavy US-supplied ‘bunker busters’ to penetrate that far down. Hezbollah and Iranian officials attending the meeting were essentially buried under the massive layers of rubble.

    According to a backgrounder on the slain Gen. Nilforoushan:

    Born in Isfahan in 1966, Nilforoushan began his military activities in the 1980s joining the Basij and later the IRGC, holding various positions including Deputy Commander of the IRGC Ground Forces for Operations.

    Iranian media outlet Student News Network (SNN) described Nilforoushan as a “key figure” with extensive battlefield experience who played a crucial role in supporting the “Resistance Axis, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian resistance groups,” helping to strengthen their capabilities against Israel.

    Following the assassination of IRGC General Mohammad Reza Zahedi in an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus in April, Nilforoushan “assumed command of the Lebanon front,” according to the Tehran-based Fararu website.

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    Hezbollah has since claimed to have reconstituted its command and communications structure, but it’s anything but clear who exactly leads the paramilitary organization at this point. Likely no specific name will be publicized anytime soon, given the person would immediately become a top target of Israel.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 21:20

  • Niacin: The Energizer Powering Your Cells And Fighting Cancer
    Niacin: The Energizer Powering Your Cells And Fighting Cancer

    Authored by Sina McCullough, Mercura Wang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Whether it is turning food into fuel, building cells, repairing DNA, detoxifying, recycling nutrients, or defending against oxidative stress, niacin provides the energy to keep it all running smoothly. Without it, your cells would be like a phone stuck with a 1 percent battery: desperately low on power and struggling to keep up!

    Niacin keeps your battery charged by converting food into energy the body can use. Illustration by Fei Meng

    But niacin does more than energize your body. It also plays a vital role in specific functions, like supporting skin health—a finding that dates back to the discovery of this remarkable vitamin.

    In the 1910s, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, a U.S. Public Health Service medical officer, was investigating the mystery of pellagra. This debilitating disease was sweeping South Carolina and other parts of the world, leaving a trail of severe symptoms: rough, scaly skin, digestive issues, and mental disturbances, with a fatality rate of 40 percent. Tens of thousands were affected, and the cause was a mystery. Most thought it was an infectious disease.

    Goldberger suspected pellagra wasn’t caused by a germ but by something missing from people’s diets. By restricting corn and adding foods like fresh milk, buttermilk, eggs, beans, and peas to the diets of pellagra patients, Goldberger showed the symptoms could be reversed. But what was the magic ingredient in these foods?

    Years later, a biochemist identified niacin as the specific factor behind this dietary solution. It turns out that niacin was the key to preventing pellagra and restoring health.

    Special Talents

    Niacin has many talents and roles, but a few main ones are highlighted below.

    1. Energizer

    Niacin is the star player in your body’s grand energy production team. Fats, carbohydrates, and specific proteins are broken down into energy when you eat. Turning these foods into usable energy is where niacin truly shines. In the presence of oxygen, these nutrients travel through a series of pathways to transform the food you eat into energy, known as adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which powers nearly everything you do, from thinking to moving.

    ATP is in constant demand but exists in only small, rapidly depleted amounts. To keep us alive, our cells must regenerate ATP continuously—and that’s where niacin steps in as a genuine “energizer.” Niacin, in the form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), acts as the critical energy carrier in the pathways that convert nutrients into ATP, ensuring that despite our limited ATP stores, we always have a fresh supply ready to fuel every heartbeat, every breath, and every thought.

    Without niacin, the body’s energy production would cease, making this nutrient essential for sustaining life itself.

    2. Nerve Protector

    Niacin has shown exciting potential in protecting the nervous system and combating neurological diseases. Pre-clinical trials suggest it could be beneficial for conditions like multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and glioblastoma.

    Niacin helps repair the myelin that protects your nerves and reduces inflammation in the brain. A 2004 prospective study found an association between higher niacin intake and a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline. Niacin also speeds up the transformation of stem cells into nerve cells and helps those cells survive, even under oxidative stress.

    3. Cancer Fighter

    Niacin enhances DNA repair by maintaining cellular energy levels, preventing ATP depletion, and increasing excision repair, which is essential for reducing cancer risk. In clinical trials, niacin reduced the incidence of skin cancer. In patients with cancer, higher niacin intake increased the odds of survival. Niacin may also help prevent certain cancers, as niacin deficiency can impair DNA repair, thus leading to genomic instability and increased tumor development in rat models, including a higher risk of chemically induced leukemia.

    Also, niacin has been shown to effectively reduce the incidence of premalignant actinic keratosis by 11 percent, squamous cell carcinoma by 30 percent, and basal cell carcinoma by 20 percent among cancer patients, compared to a placebo after a 12-month trial. Furthermore, if you have certain cancers, such as carcinoids, you may also need more niacin.

    Niacin has many roles, but some of the most important are turning food into energy, protecting the nervous system, and fighting cancer. Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock

    Other Talents

    Niacin also helps in the production of reproductive and stress-related hormones, improves circulation, regulates the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and suppresses inflammation.

    Fun Facts

    • Niacin is not technically an essential vitamin because your liver and certain microbes in your intestine can make it from tryptophan, the amino acid famous for making you sleepy after Thanksgiving turkey.
    • While some organizations discourage its use as a first-line therapy, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved niacin to treat high cholesterol and high triglycerides. Niacin was the first cholesterol-lowering drug before the discovery of statins.
    • Unlike some of the other B vitamins, niacin is stable when exposed to heat and light. It survives most cooking methods, so the niacin in your food is unlikely to be destroyed during preparation.
    • More than 400 enzymes depend on niacin, making it critical for proper body function.
    • There’s growing interest in niacin’s role in the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood, sleep, and appetite.

    Favorite Hangouts

    Niacin hangs out in liver and meat, including chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, salmon, tuna, shrimp, and sardines. Vegetarians can find niacin in unfortified nutritional yeast, mushrooms, asparagus, sweet potato, bell pepper, almonds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, nuts, lentils, peas, and legumes. Niacin bioavailability is higher in meat compared to plants because it is mainly in the form of the coenzyme NAD.

    Some of the foods rich in niacin are listed below. Their daily consumption quantities are calculated based on the Food and Nutrition Board’s Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for niacin, which is 16 milligrams per day for adult males and 14 milligrams per day for adult females.

    Food portions and the percentage of the daily value they meet include the following:

    • Pan-fried beef liver (3 ounces): 93 percent
    • Grilled chicken breast (3 ounces): 64 percent
    • Marinara sauce (1 cup): 64 percent
    • Roasted turkey breast (3 ounces): 63 percent
    • Cooked sockeye salmon (3 ounces): 54 percent
    • Light canned tuna (3 ounces): 54 percent
    • Roasted pork tenderloin (3 ounces): 39 percent
    • Pan-browned ground beef (3 ounces): 36 percent
    • Cooked brown rice (1 cup): 33 percent
    • Dry-roasted peanuts (1 ounce): 26 percent

    Recipe: Energizing Chicken Salad

    Short on time? No worries! Grab an organic rotisserie chicken, and this meal will come together in under five minutes. It’s a quick and easy way to load up on niacin and its supporting cast, vitamin B6, riboflavin, vitamin B1, iron, and tryptophan (covered later).

    Ingredients:

    • 1 cup cooked chicken breast
    • 2 cups spinach
    • ½ avocado
    • 1 tablespoon olive oil
    • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
    • Handful of sunflower seeds and sliced almonds

    Directions:

    1. Shred the cooked chicken breast and place it in a large bowl.
    2. Add spinach and diced avocado.
    3. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice.
    4. Sprinkle almonds on top.
    5. Toss well and serve chilled for a refreshing, niacin-packed meal.

    How to Optimize Absorption

    Some of the niacin in foods like coffee, grains, and seeds is bound, so for it to be released, it requires special processing, like roasting, germinating, fermentation, or alkali treatment.

    For coffee lovers, roasting is key; the more robust the roast, the more niacin available, while decaf contains less.

    Grains are often marketed as a good source of niacin, but here’s the twist: This is only true if they’re germinated, fermented, alkali-treated, or fortified. About 70 percent of the niacin in whole grains in their natural state is bound up in a form our bodies can’t easily absorb.

    Diets that relied heavily on grains like corn and sorghum were the culprit behind widespread pellagra outbreaks in South Africa, India, and Southern Europe in the 18th century and later in the United States after the Civil War. In the postwar South, diets were largely grain-based, relying on cereals like corn, wheat, and grits, which left them dangerously low in niacin. It wasn’t long before physicians, including Goldberger, connected the dots: Niacin deficiency was at the heart of these health crises, and eating niacin-rich foods could save countless lives.

    Long before modern science understood the importance of niacin, many ancient cultures had already developed ways to make it more available in their diets. The Aztecs, for instance, boiled and soaked corn in an alkaline solution, such as water with lime or calcium hydroxide—a method known as nixtamalization. Other cultures added alkalizing substances like juniper ash or lye made from hardwood ash.

    This alkalizing process freed the bound niacin, making it more bioavailable and likely protecting against pellagra in regions like South and Central America, where these techniques were practiced. Unfortunately, it is thought that when these traditional methods of processing corn were abandoned, niacin deficiency may have become more widespread, potentially contributing to pellagra outbreaks.

    Today, to help prevent such deficiencies, the FDA requires niacin to be added to flour and bread and labeled as “enriched.” That’s why added niacin is listed on many bread labels in the grocery store.

    If you’re cooking at home and want to unlock more niacin from whole grains, try these tricks:

    • Germinate (or sprout) raw grains.
    • If whole-food forms of corn are a staple in your diet, consider preparing them in lime water.
    • When making bread, use yeast or baking soda to help it rise.
    • Combine three days of sprouting with an eight-hour sourdough fermentation.

    Supporting Cast of Nutrients

    The amino acid tryptophan is a dietary source of niacin because it can be converted into niacin by the liver and certain microbes in your intestine. Including tryptophan-rich foods like turkey, eggs, and cheese in your diet can help boost niacin levels.

    However, the conversion process is inefficient, requiring about 60 parts tryptophan to make just one part niacin. This ratio is why niacin intakes are expressed as niacin equivalents (NE), with 1 milligram of NE equal to 1 milligram of niacin or 60 milligrams of tryptophan.

    Therefore, niacin should be consumed with foods containing vitamin B6, riboflavin, vitamin B1, and iron. These nutrients help convert tryptophan into niacin.

    Pairing niacin with foods containing unsaturated fatty acids is also a good idea. Adding unsaturated fatty acids to your diet can help increase niacin synthesis from tryptophan. Avocados, olives, nuts, fatty fish, and dark chocolate are a few examples of these types of foods.

    Deficiency

    Niacin deficiencies are rare in industrialized nations, primarily because of adequate dietary intake and the addition of niacin to numerous foods and multivitamin supplements.

    Recommended Dietary Allowance

    The current RDA (16 milligrams daily for men, 14 milligrams daily for women) is based on preventing deficiency. Still, some experts suggest higher amounts may benefit those dealing with high levels of oxidative stress, such as athletes or people with chronic conditions.

    Symptoms and Signs

    Common niacin deficiency symptoms include the following:

    • Depression
    • Headache
    • Fatigue
    • Memory loss
    • Hallucinations
    • Indigestion
    • Canker sores
    • Vomiting
    • Poor circulation
    • Pellagra-related symptoms

    Pellagra is often recognized by the “3 D’s”: dermatitis (inflammatory patches on the skin), dementia (cognitive decline), and diarrhea. In its most severe form, there is a fourth D: death. These symptoms typically appear in the late stages of niacin deficiency.

    Pre-pellagra symptoms include:

    • Weakness and fatigue (often the earliest symptom)
    • Exercise intolerance
    • Hair loss
    • Tongue inflammation and mouth sores (vitamins B2 and B6 and iron deficiencies can all lead to this)
    • Anxiety, depression, mood swings
    • Gas, bloating, indigestion (these precede diarrhea)
    • Neuropathy, or numbness and tingling in hands and feet (vitamins B1, B2, B6, and B12 and folate deficiencies can all cause neuropathy)
    • Migraine-like headaches and light sensitivity

    Who Is at Risk?

    The risk factors that raise a person’s likelihood of niacin deficiency in the United States include the following:

    • Alcoholism (chronic alcohol consumption interferes with niacin absorption)
    • Limited diets (e.g., eating disorders or food insecurity)
    • Carcinoid syndrome
    • Liver cirrhosis
    • Inflammatory bowel disease
    • Hartnup disease
    • Inadequate riboflavin, pyridoxine, or iron intake
    • Certain medications

    People with Parkinson’s disease who are taking medications like levodopa might face a higher risk of developing or worsening a niacin deficiency. Levodopa is commonly prescribed to Parkinson’s patients to help increase dopamine levels in the brain, easing motor symptoms. It’s often paired with carbidopa to prevent levodopa from breaking down in the bloodstream before it reaches the brain. However, carbidopa can interfere with the body’s ability to make niacin naturally.

    Parkinson’s patients often experience systemic inflammation, which can compromise niacin levels. Adding dopaminergic medications like carbidopa/levodopa may further reduce the body’s natural niacin production, worsening a potential deficiency. For this reason, Parkinson’s patients on these medications may need to monitor their niacin levels to avoid deficiency.

    Toxicity

    Niacin was commonly prescribed for high blood lipid levels until statins were discovered. At high doses (generally 1 to 6 grams per day), niacin can increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and triglycerides. However, high doses can also lead to liver damage and failure, with a higher risk associated with the sustained-release form.

    Niacin at 50 or more milligrams per dose can cause a “flush,” which increases blood flow to the skin. It typically starts at the top of your head, turning your face bright red before spreading down your body, and is often accompanied by a warm, tingling sensation. If you want to avoid the flush, niacinamide is an alternative form of niacin. While it is not as effective, it does not cause the flushing effect.

    Timing also matters. To reduce the chance of niacin flushing, take supplements with food and start with a lower dose before working your way up.

    Even higher doses of niacin (3,000 milligrams a day) may lead to jaundice, abdominal discomfort, blurred vision, worsening of hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), and triggering of preexisting gout. Other risks are the formation of stomach ulcers and increased uric acid levels, which may increase the risk of gout.

    Also, if you’re allergic to aspirin, you may be sensitive to tartrazine, which is found in some forms of niacin. Avoid taking niacin without consulting your health care provider if you have liver problems or an active peptic ulcer. If you are pregnant, avoid taking niacin supplements altogether.

    Interactions

    Niacin may reduce the effectiveness of certain medications, including those that lower cholesterol (bile-acid sequestrants) and treat gout, as well as the antibiotic tetracycline. Certain anti-seizure medications (e.g., phenytoin and valproic acid) and the tuberculosis medication isoniazid may cause niacin deficiency in some people.

    Niacin supplements may increase the levels of carbamazepine and mysoline in the body. Niacin can also strengthen the effects of blood thinners and alpha-blockers (one type of blood pressure drug), thus increasing the risk of bleeding and low blood pressure, respectively.

    Combining niacin with statins may slow down heart disease progression while increasing the risk of muscle inflammation or liver damage. Therefore, if you are taking any of the medications mentioned above or regularly consuming alcohol, it’s essential to consult your health care provider before starting niacin supplements. Additionally, using nicotine patches alongside niacin may increase the risk or severity of niacin flush.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 20:55

  • Saudi Arabia Smashes Own Record For Most Executions In A Year
    Saudi Arabia Smashes Own Record For Most Executions In A Year

    Via Middle East Eye

    Saudi Arabia has executed 213 people so far in 2024, more than it has in any other calendar year on record, as the kingdom competes for a seat at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).

    According to the London-based rights group Reprieve, which documents the death penalty worldwide, the largest recorded figure prior to this year was 196 in 2022, followed by 184 in 2019. “As the world’s attention fixates on horror elsewhere in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is clearing death row with a bloodbath,” Reprieve’s deputy director, Harriet McCulloch, told MEE.

    Via Reuters/SPA

    “The Kingdom smashed its own grim record for most people executed in a year in the first nine months of 2024,” she added. “With 213 executions and counting, death row prisoners are at greater risk than ever before, their families desperately awaiting news of their fate in the news.”

    The executions are taking place under the government of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, the kingdom’s prime minister and de facto leader, who pledged in a 2018 interview to minimize capital punishment.

    Yet, Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s most prolific executioners. At least 1,115 executions have been carried out under Mohammed bin Salman’s rule between 21 June 2017 and 9 October 2024, a spokesperson for Reprieve told Middle East Eye. 

    In 2023, a joint report by the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Reprieve revealed that Riyadh’s execution rate has almost doubled since King Salman and his son, Mohammed bin Salman, came to power in 2015. Between 2015 and 2022, executions surged by 82 percent.

    ‘Poor record’

    On Wednesday, the HRC is due to hold elections for its 2025-2027 term, and Saudi Arabia is amongst the 19 candidates. “Today, UN member states should vote no – no to Saudi Arabia securing a seat on the council, and no to rising executions carried out with impunity,” McCulloch said.

    The HRC is the main intergovernmental body within the UN with the mandate to strengthen the protection and promotion of human rights around the world. Human rights activists have denounced Riyadh’s candidacy as contradicting the council’s raison d’etre.

    The criteria for electing its member countries include a requirement for members to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights” and to “fully cooperate with the Council.”

    UN Watch, an organization that monitors the UN’s performance against its own charter, has spearheaded calls for the reform of the HRC’s election system, which allows for states with a poor human rights record to become members. Two-thirds of the council’s members are non-democracies. On Tuesday, UN Watch said Saudi Arabia was “unqualified” for membership of the council.

    Additionally, according to Reprieve, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly lied to the UN about its use of the death penalty. On Wednesday, it told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women that it only uses the death penalty for the most serious crimes, and that its juvenile law seeks to negate the death penalty for minors. 

    This contradicts the kingdom’s track record of issuing death penalties for those facing allegations of crimes committed under the age of 18.

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

    Three clients of Reprieve and the ESOHR, Abdullah al-Derazi, Youssef al-Manasif and Abdullah al-Howaiti, were convicted based on confessions made under torture over alleged crimes committed under the age of 18.

    The official human rights authority in the kingdom, the Saudi Human Rights Commission, also falsely claimed that child defendant Mustafa al-Darwish, who was sentenced to death for protest-related offences, was over 19 at the time of the crimes. But Reprieve and ESOHR provided evidence that proved he was in fact under 18. Darwish was executed on 15 June 2021 despite the evidence.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 20:30

  • Watch: CNN's Anderson Cooper Struck In The Head By Debris During Hurricane Milton Coverage
    Watch: CNN’s Anderson Cooper Struck In The Head By Debris During Hurricane Milton Coverage

    Authored by Haika Mrema via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was covering Hurricane Milton as it landed in Florida on Wednesday when he was struck by debris during his broadcast.

    Anderson Cooper attends the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront in New York City on May 15, 2024. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery

    The 57-year-old, reporting live from Bradenton, Florida, was on a walkway explaining how the rapid hurricane winds were thrusting water from the Manatee River onto land when a large white object flew into the frame, hitting him.

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

    “[The wind] is now just whipping off the Manatee River. It is coming in from the north, I guess, northeast, and the water now is really starting to pour over,” Cooper told his viewers while soaked in water from the storm. “If you look at the ground–whoa!” he said as he was hit by the object.

    The news veteran stumbled slightly before pressing on. “That wasn’t good. We’ll probably go inside shortly,” he noted before drawing attention to the water spilling onto the ground.

    Later in the broadcast, Cooper picks up the object that struck him. “This came from the river, thankfully it’s just styrofoam,” he says before putting it back down behind a tree. “That’s just one of the things. We’re starting to see stuff that’s in the river itself ripping up and then getting airborne.”

    Responding to the circumstance, fellow CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins assured the audience that Cooper was in good condition.

    “I do want to note for everyone watching who is very concerned obviously about all of our correspondents and anchors on the ground, Anderson is OK,” Collins reported.

    “Just obviously understandably difficult to establish a connection when you’re seeing what’s happening with the wind and the rain. And obviously the deteriorating conditions by the minute.”

    Hurricane Milton, once classified as a Category 5, made landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm before weakening to a Category 1, with 90 mph winds, as it traveled across the Sunshine State. As of Thursday evening, more than 100 homes were destroyed by the surge, and 2.7 million homes and businesses were left without power.

    “Extremely dangerous category 3 Hurricane Milton makes landfall near Siesta Key Florida,” the National Hurricane Center wrote on Wednesday. “Life-threatening storm surge, extreme winds, and flash flooding occurring over the central Florida Peninsula.”

    Over the weekend, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for most of Florida’s counties as Hurricane Milton headed toward the state.

    “The storm was significant, but thankfully, this was not the worst-case scenario,” the governor said at a briefing on Thursday, noting the storm’s weakened state before landfall and that the surge “as initially reported has not been as significant overall as what was observed for Hurricane Helene.”

    Later in the briefing, DeSantis warned Florida residents to “be cautious of hazards” as people begin to clean up following the storm.

    “We have post-storm fatalities, almost every storm, and a lot of these fatalities are avoidable,” he said. “Please be cautious of down power lines, don’t touch them. Don’t remove tree debris that may be entangled with down power lines.

    “Standing water can conceal down power lines, and other hazards, so please be mindful. And never walk through storm waters.”

    DeSantis said that storm waters can carry infectious bacteria.

    “I think everyone responded very quickly. I’m proud of everybody’s hard work. We got more work to do, but we will absolutely get through this,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 20:05

  • Where Obesity Is Most Prevalent In The US
    Where Obesity Is Most Prevalent In The US

    Obesity is a major public health issue in the United States, affecting millions of Americans and placing a significant strain on the healthcare system.

    Nationally, as Statista’s Felix Richter reports, the U.S. has one of the highest obesity rates in the world, with over 40 percent of adults classified as obese.

    This far exceeds the global average, making the U.S. a leader in obesity prevalence among developed nations. Obesity is linked to numerous health complications, including heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers, leading to higher mortality rates and increased healthcare costs.

    However, obesity rates within the U.S. vary considerably between states.

    Infographic: Where Obesity Is Most Prevalent in the U.S. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to CDC data, southern and midwestern states, such as Mississippi, West Virginia and Alabama, consistently rank among the highest in obesity prevalence, often exceeding 40 percent.

    In contrast, states like Colorado and Hawaii have significantly lower obesity rates, with Colorado and DC the only states/districts with obesity rates below 25 percent.

    These disparities may be influenced by factors such as income, education, access to healthcare, cultural attitudes toward diet and exercise and even geographical factors that affect lifestyle habits.

    Economic inequality plays a major role, as people in lower-income areas often have limited access to healthy foods and safe spaces for physical activity.

    Additionally, educational disparities can affect awareness of healthy lifestyles, with lower obesity rates typically seen in states with higher levels of educational attainment.

    Climate and geography also contribute, with states that offer more opportunities for outdoor recreation, such as Colorado, generally reporting lower obesity rates than regions with harsher climates or fewer recreational options.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 19:40

  • Trump's Toughest Foe Could Be Harris Lawyer Marc Elias
    Trump’s Toughest Foe Could Be Harris Lawyer Marc Elias

    Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations,

    If Donald Trump gets past Kamala Harris on Nov. 5, he’ll likely face a fiercer opponent in court – her campaign attorney, Marc Elias, who has vowed to fight the election outcome in every close state she loses.

    The longtime Democratic Party lawyer has already filed more than 60 preelection lawsuits to stop Trump from becoming president again by combatting what he calls Republican “voter suppression” efforts such as requiring voters to provide identification at the polls. Echoing a standard Democratic talking point, Elias maintains that such requirements are “racist” strategies designed to make it harder for minorities to vote.

    At the same time, Elias has been sending letters to election officials in Georgia and other key swing states threatening legal action if they uphold challenges to voter rolls to remove noncitizens and other ineligible registrants. Some Georgia officials complain that his intimidation tactics are interfering with county registrars’ ability to check the qualifications of voters.

    If Trump is declared the winner, the hard-charging attorney threatens to overturn his election by deploying an army of more than 75 lawyers to sue for ballot recounts in several swing states. Trump, in turn, has threatened to lock Elias up for election interference, as ABC News moderator David Muir pointed out in last month’s presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris.

    Elias symbolizes the growing impact of lawfare on U.S. elections as both parties are turning increasingly to the courts to gain an edge. According to a newly disclosed Republican National Committee memo, the Trump campaign has filed or joined 123 election lawsuits in 26 states, 82 of which are in battleground states, to combat what it describes as voter fraud. It has also hired thousands of lawyers to fend off what a Trump lawyer expects will be “an onslaught of litigation” from the Harris campaign contesting the results of the election. Of course, that army of lawyers will also be used to push recounts should Trump lose.

    Election experts say that these GOP efforts – fueled, in part, by Trump’s claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election – are playing catch-up. Democrats have long been at the forefront of strategies to use the court to impact elections, and no one has been more important to that cause than Elias, who keeps a sign behind his desk that warns: “BEWARE OF ATTACK DEMOCRAT.” 

    To many Democrats, he is a hero. The headline of a 2022 profile of Elias in the New Yorker called Elias, “The First Defense Against Trump’s Assault on Democracy.”

    Conservatives tend to see Elias in a much different light. “Mr. Elias is part of a massive and well-funded partisan leftist operation notorious for using lawfare to undermine election integrity,” says Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “Making it easier to steal elections is the antithesis of ‘democracy.’”

    Nevertheless, in the expanding world of lawfare, Elias, a 55-year-old graduate of Duke University’s law school, continues to stand apart. While scoring many victories in the courthouse, he has also worked closely with campaigns on partisan efforts that have little to do with jurisprudence.

    More Than a Courtroom Partisan

    As general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, he helped lead the effort to manufacture and leak spurious “opposition research” claiming to reveal illicit ties between Trump and Russia.

    Elias later testified that he was worried – then as now – that Trump was a threat to democracy: “I received information that was troubling as someone who cares about democracy.” That “information” turned out to be a fictitious “dossier” linking Trump to the Kremlin crafted by former British spook and FBI informant Christopher Steele, who huddled with Elias in his Washington office. 

    “Some of the information that was in it I think has actually proved true. It was accurate and important,” Elias testified in a closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill in December 2017, according to a declassified transcript. Actually, Steele’s allegations proved to be a collection of improbable rumors and fabricated allegations invented by Steele’s top researcher and a Clinton campaign adviser.

    Nonetheless, the disinformation was fed to the FBI and media, igniting criminal investigations (including illegal electronic surveillance), congressional probes, and a media frenzy that crippled Trump’s presidency with bad press for years.

    In a parallel operation against Trump, Elias worked with his then-law partner Michael Sussmann and Clinton campaign officials – including Jake Sullivan, who is now President Biden’s national security adviser – to develop misleading evidence of a “secret hotline” between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that allegedly used a “back channel” connection between email servers at Trump Tower and Russian-owned Alfa Bank. These false allegations were posted on social media and brought to the attention of the FBI, triggering a separate criminal investigation targeting Trump and his campaign. Like other Russiagate probes, it was eventually discredited.

    But the damage was done. By spreading fake Russian dirt on Trump, Elias was able to create scandals that dogged Trump for years, tarnishing his electability. The Democratic lawyer’s machinations, however, drew scrutiny from other investigators and hurt his own reputation – albeit temporarily.

    During his probe of Russiagate, Special Counsel John Durham found Elias intentionally sought to conceal Clinton’s role in the dossier. According to court records, Elias acted as a cutout for more than $1 million in campaign payments for the dossier. By laundering its payments through a law firm, the Clinton campaign and Elias were able to claim attorney-client confidentiality when Durham sought their internal emails (the assertion of that privilege also blocked investigators from accessing communications between Elias and Steele’s immediate employer, the Washington-based opposition research firm, FusionGPS). But their shell game got the Clinton campaign in trouble with the Federal Election Commission, which later fined it and the Democratic National Committee $113,000 for misreporting the purpose of the payments as “legal expenses,” rather than opposition research, in violation of FEC laws.

    The Durham probe, which Elias insists was “politically motivated,” nonetheless raised ethical issues with the D.C. Bar and Elias’ former law firm, Perkins Coie, reportedly leading to their breakup in August 2021, when Elias suddenly left the powerhouse after almost 30 years. The firm, which Elias had joined fresh out of law school in 1993, grew “increasingly uncomfortable” with the unwanted scrutiny the Durham probe invited on it, according to published reports. The veteran prosecutor exposed questionable billing practices by the firm. Durham also revealed the Democratic firm had set up an FBI workspace within its Washington offices, further calling into question the FBI’s impartiality in investigating Trump. 

    In late 2021, Elias opened his own firm, the Elias Law Group, but soon lost major clients who reportedly grew weary of his aggressive tactics and go-it-alone style. Last year, the DNC severed its 15-year relationship with Elias; then more recently, the Biden campaign parted company with him. In 2020, Elias had quarterbacked Biden’s legal team that fought Trump’s claims in court that the election had been stolen. He also beat back GOP measures to ensure election integrity after Democrats took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to dramatically loosen rules for voting – including allowing ballot harvesting, drop boxes, and ballots arriving up to four days after Election Day to still be counted.

    Top Democratic Party officials were said to sour on Elias after he filed election-related lawsuits without consulting with them, some of which backfired with unfavorable – and lasting – rulings. Biden’s team reportedly also became frustrated with his fees. Elias billed the DNC and Biden campaign more than $20 million during the 2020 election cycle.

    But Elias has since taken on other clients – including Kamala Harris – who have more than made up for the loss in revenue. So far in this election cycle, the latest FEC filings show the Elias Law Group has received a total of more than $22 million in disbursements from a host of major Democratic and anti-Trump clients. In addition to the Harris For President campaign, where he’s in charge of recounts and post-election litigation (it’s not known if he also has a hand in opposition research, as he did in 2016), Elias has signed retainer agreements with the:

    • Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
    • Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
    • [Democratic] Senate Majority PAC
    • Stop Trump PAC
    • The Lincoln Project

    Elias has also been retained by Mind The Gap, a political action committee set up to help Democrats take back the House. Mind The Gap was founded by Barbara Fried, the mother of convicted crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried. In a lawsuit filed last year, Fried, a Stanford law professor, is accused of orchestrating a potentially illegal scheme to funnel political contributions from her son to her PAC.

    Among Elias’ other clients are Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, a leader of House efforts to impeach Trump who, records show, is shelling out a six-figure retainer for Elias as he runs for an open U.S. Senate seat in California, and Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman, who previously served as Schiff’s chief counsel during the first Trump impeachment. 

    Elias also represents Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who polls show is narrowly leading GOP challenger Bernie Moreno in his race for reelection, according to the RealClearPolitics Average. That race could determine control of the Senate.

    The business of political lawfare – or “protecting democracy,” as Elias calls his job – has made the super lawyer super-rich. The most recent property records show Elias lives in a $2.6 million mansion in Great Falls, Va., and FEC records show he has the wherewithal to donate generous sums to his party, including a combined total of at least $65,000 in gifts to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

    “Aggressive Bully”

    Elias first earned his reputation as a fierce and effective advocate in 2009, when he won an eight-month recount battle to get his client, Al Franken, elected to the Senate. He also scored a series of victories against the Trump campaign in 2020.

    “My team and I beat [Trump] in court 60-plus times,” Elias boasted on X last month, in his trademark brashness. “Here is my message to the GOP: If you try to subvert the election in 2024, you will be sued and you will lose.” 

    Representing Biden electors in Arizona, for example, Elias in late 2020 defeated a post-election Trump lawsuit alleging voter fraud in Maricopa County by arguing at trial the plaintiff showed the court only “garden variety errors” but provided “no evidence about misconduct, no evidence about fraud, no evidence about illegal votes.”

    But Elias’ aggressive posture has also backfired.

    In 2016, he sued Arizona to strike down two laws that, he argued, made it harder for blacks and Hispanics to vote. One banned the practice of partisans going door-to-door and collecting mail-in ballots and bringing them to a polling place, and the other canceled ballots that were cast at the wrong precinct. Elias argued the measures violated a key part of the Voting Rights Act – Section 2 – prohibiting states from passing voting laws that discriminate based on race. After a lower court in Arizona refused to block the measures prior to the election, Elias appealed and won a favorable ruling from the liberal U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But in the case, Brnovich v. DNC,  the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Arizona, ruling that the state’s ballot-integrity measures lacked discriminatory intent. 

    UCLA law professor Rick Hasen speculates that the conservative Supreme Court used the Brnovich case as “an opportunity to weaken” Section 2, which Democratic voting-rights lawyers have relied on as a tool for civil rights enforcement. Regardless of the justices’ motives, the Brnovich decision does establish a precedent whereby voting rules resulting in only small disparities for voters of color can no longer be challenged. Some Democrats complain that Elias’ loss in Arizona opened the door for all red states to impose “restrictions” on voting.

    “Marc didn’t listen to such criticism and he brought an extremely weak Voting Rights Act case in Arizona to disastrous results,” Hasen wrote in a recent blog. “It is fine to be zealous in one’s advocacy,” he added, “but one need not be an aggressive bully.”

    Elias has also aggravated judges. He’s been disciplined for filing frivolous lawsuits and motions. In 2021, for instance, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sanctioned Elias for refiling a motion that was previously rejected by a lower court “without disclosing the previous denial.” The appellate court ordered him to pay attorneys’ fees and court costs incurred by opponents in the Texas election case over his “duplicative” motion.

    “Using lawfare as Elias does is legal – unless the litigation is frivolous,” said Paul Kamenar, general counsel for the National Legal and Policy Center in Washington.

    Elias and an attorney representing him did not reply to requests for comment. But in a previous interview, he dismissed the criticism that he is unnecessarily belligerent, arguing that the “existential threat Trump poses to democracy” demands tough action. He acknowledged that he can be brusque but explained he discarded lawyerly circumspection and restraint after Trump’s 2016 election “radicalized” him. 

    “And so I became a much more polarized person and a more polarizing lawyer,” Elias told The New Yorker.

    In a recent column for his Democracy Docket website, Elias attacked Trump as another “Hitler” who is “plotting to overthrow American democracy.” He even warned that a reelected Trump “is almost certain to convert the military into his personal domestic police force” and “seize voting machines [and] control ballot counting,” even though state laws govern elections.

    Still, he denies filing groundless grievances over voting rules. He insists many of the tighter rules imposed by Republicans serve no legitimate purpose. And he doesn’t buy their argument that they’re needed to stop fraudulent voting because, as he claims, voter fraud is rare (or, more precisely, rarely prosecuted).

    Anti-Trump War Room

    “Republicans are working every day to make it harder to vote,” Elias recently posted on X. “They are also planning to subvert the elections when they lose.”

    Noting the GOP’s flurry of preelection lawsuits, including in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, and North Carolina, Elias recently told MSNBC that Republicans will do anything to push Trump over the top because he cannot win on his own. “He is set to lose to Kamala Harris,” Elias claimed, “and Republicans know that their only way of winning this election is by intimidating voters, making it hard for voters to participate in the process, and by setting up a structure after the election for them to be able to engage in the kind of frivolous and harassing litigation and ultimately the kind of tactics we saw in 2020 – but on a much wider scale.”

    To combat this, “My law firm is litigating 66 voting and election lawsuits in 23 states,” he said on X, with most of them concentrated in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. “And we are winning!” By comparison, Elias filed 20 voting-related lawsuits in 14 states at this point in the 2020 election cycle, making him more than three times as litigious this time.

    His anti-Trump legal war room includes a for-profit operation he founded in 2020 called Democracy Docket LLC, which employs 16 and is housed in the same office as his law firm, records show. The digital platform tracks several hundred voting-related cases and publishes a weekly organ distributed to more than 225,000 paid subscribers (at $120 a year), who include lawyers, politicians, and journalists.

    A sister operation, Democracy Docket Legal Fund, supports election litigation to protect the voting rights of primarily minority voters. Another spinoff, the Democracy Docket Action Fund, raises money for voting rights lawsuits. According to the Capital Research Center, the two organizations are bankrolled by millions of dollars in so-called dark money, including from leftwing billionaire George Soros – whom Elias has called “a hero.” Through these vehicles, Elias has virtually “unlimited funding” to challenge any voting law in any state if he thinks it will help his party and his Democratic clients win elections, according to Americans for Public Trust, a government watchdog group based in Alexandria, Va.

    While Elias publicly claims he’s “defending free and fair elections,” it’s clear from his actions behind the scenes that his motives are purely partisan, critics say. Last month, he sent a letter to Virginia state election officials threatening to sue them if they don’t remove Cornel West, the presidential nominee of the leftwing Justice for All Party, from the state ballot. Elias is also trying to keep West, a progressive black college professor, off the ballot in 15 other states, including key battlegrounds. These efforts clearly have nothing to do with voting rights. Elias is simply worried West will bleed off enough votes from his Democratic client Kamala Harris to cost her victories in states where she is leading by razor-thin margins against Trump.

    In a column he wrote last year for Democracy Docket, Elias admitted: “A vote for No Labels, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West or any other third-party candidate is effectively a vote for Trump.” 

    In addition, Elias is quietly working with immigrant advocacy groups that want to make it possible for noncitizens to vote. In August, for example, Elias stepped in to represent El Pueblo in its quest to stop North Carolina’s State Board of Elections from removing noncitizens from voter registration rolls as required by a 2023 law. An estimated 325,000 “unauthorized” immigrants reside in the state.

    RealClearInvestigations has learned that Elias supports another group that provides “compassionate” pro-bono legal services to immigrants who have entered the United States, many illegally.

    Elias and his wife Brenley, also a lawyer, are listed as “donors” on a mailing list kept by Just Neighbors, which partners with Justice for Our Neighbors, operating in the D.C.-Maryland area. The group’s website says it provides free lawyers to help illegal immigrants get out of detention, obtain asylum status, and avoid deportation. “Populations served: Individuals who are not in legal immigration status,” the website states, and “individuals with criminal histories.”

    It’s not known if the Eliases have actually provided pro-bono legal services to illegal aliens. Elias and an attorney representing him did not respond to requests for comment.

    Nevertheless, as more than a dozen jurisdictions run by Democrats now allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections, the push to redefine who is eligible for the franchise promises to become an ever more potent and divisive issue in American politics. Much of this debate will almost certainly be hashed out in the courtroom battles and behind-the-scenes political maneuvering that are Marc Elias’ special practice. 

    Paul Sperry is an investigative reporter for RealClearInvestigations. He is also a longtime media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Sperry was previously the Washington bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily, and his work has appeared in the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Houston Chronicle, among other major publications.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 19:15

  • Stockman On Whether Trump Can Bring The US Empire Home
    Stockman On Whether Trump Can Bring The US Empire Home

    Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

    As should be evident by now, Donald Trump is about 90% bombast and 10% substance when it comes to policy matters. But every now and then one of his word bombs finds its mark, as this one did when he dissed the presumptuous little pissant who shuttled-in from Kiev last week to embark upon still another American treasure hunt. Referring to Zelensky, the Donald averred,

    “…(he’s) the greatest salesman in history. Every time he comes into the country, he walks away with 60 billion dollars.”

    My god, times are indeed desperate when the once and former Peace Party of America is represented by the likes of Kamala “lethal force” Harris and Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who saw fit to conduct a photo op ghoulishly signing artillery shells that are designed to blow to smithereens anyone in their glide path—man, woman, child or combatant. That is to say, we’ve reached the point, apparently, where the only hope to stop Washington’s vile War Machine is Donald J. Trump.

    Still, we dare not be naive. Trump did not spend a lifetime delving deep into world history or thinking about how to promote a peaceful Taftian approach to an America First foreign policy in the world of 2024. The Donald’s sole preoccupation and expertise all along has been the promotion of The Donald.

    Indeed, he actually had so little regard for the cause of world peace that he saw fit to populate his last administration with its sworn enemies—John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Mad Dog Mattis, Gina Haspel, Nikki Haley and Victoria Nuland, among a legion of other neocons and hawks. And when these warmongers brought him the transparently false flag “gas attack” on Douma in 2018 he didn’t hesitate to order “bombs away”.

    Then again, what did the tiny god-forsaken hell-hole in Syria, with a GDP equal to 7.3 hours of annual US output and no blue water Navy or long range Air Force, have to do with the security of the US Homeland? Or with Making America Great Again?

    Absolutely nothing, of course. The Douma bombing that Trump sanctioned was actually just another spasmodic strike of the War Machine attempting to enforce a US Imperium that is bankrupting America and making the world a far more dangerous place then it would otherwise be.

    But this week’s contretemps at the Scranton munitions factory may be just what the doctor ordered to transform the Donald into the statesman who finally brought the Empire Home, and thereby at least slowed the nation’s headlong rush to fiscal Armageddon. That’s because for the Donald, policy positions are mainly a club to attack opponents and enemies.

    So by coming to the ultra-swing state of Pennsylvania 40 days before what is likely to be the closest election in US history, Zelensky and his Deep State and military-industrial complex patrons have become the Donald’s mortal enemies. And about that we should know one thing by now without doubt.

    To wit, the Donald is an angry, egomaniacal hot mess who gives the idea of holding a grudge a wholly new definition. So if elected, he will surely do all in his power to defenestrate Zelensky and cause the Deep State War Machine to suffer a humiliating defeat in Ukraine by flying to, say Budapest, and cutting a deal with Putin that does end the Ukraine proxy war very quickly indeed.

    And he can do just that because the election interference of the once and current clown of Ukraine was so blatant that even the neocon hawks who dominate GOP national security policy on Capitol Hill have had their water shut-off by the revulsion of their own rank and file. For instance, Senator Ted Cruz, who ordinarily sports a very blackish plume of hawkish feathers, had this to say:

    “Who the hell is Zelensky to be trying to interfere in our election? the arrogance of this guy,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday in his “Verdict” podcast. “And the guy, I’ve got to say, is an absolute moron for coming to the U.S. six weeks before the election and attacking Trump and Vance. 

    “This is just dumb on his part, because if Trump wins, he’s got a huge problem that just got bigger,” Cruz added.

    The underlined phrase tells you all you need to know. The vast GOP majority is bolting from the authorized neocon position, leaving perhaps the likes of Lindsay Graham all by his lonesome out on the bleeding edge of the war paint parade.

    Still, it just keeps getting better. The Dems have slid so far into the TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) tank that they are positioning themselves as bellicose, latter day McCarthyites. Yet these kinds of attacks by their presidential candidate are only sure to fire-up the GOP’s partisan juices, meaning there will be precious little Republican resistance to the Donald’s likely Inauguration Day actions to end the proxy war on Russia.

    Harris in her remarks took a veiled swipe at Trump and Vance, saying “some in my country” would “force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory.”

    “These proposals are the same of those of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” she said. “And let us be clear: They are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”

    Puleeese. There is nothing very “sovereign” about a tyrannical administrative unit put together by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev that had no prior organic national history of its own among the Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Swedish, Austrian, Mongol and Turkish Empires that contested the Ukrainian steepes over the centuries before 1920. Nor would its partition today amount to anything remotely akin to “surrender”. In fact, quieting the guns, drones, tanks, artillery shells and warplanes along the line of contact in Ukraine would bring peace to the region, even as it spared what remains of the Ukrainian military age population and economic infrastructure from the senseless carnage now rampant all across the land.

    Better still, the morning after the impending Trump-Putin territorial partition, which will likely carve away the Donbas and the Black Sea rim from a demilitarized, NATO-free rump of Ukraine, the dog that doesn’t bark will literally change the course of history. That is to say, the Baltics will not be invaded; Poland will not be occupied; the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin will not be entered by Russian troops; and the Benelux, France and England will slouch merrily onward toward socialist economic and moral decay without any assist from Vlad Putin, at all.

    Stated differently, yet again no dominoes are destined to fall when the Washington War Party is forced once more to pack up the Empire and go home from the hideously misbegotten adventure in Ukraine. And by now it is deeply familiar with retreat, as in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and various lesser sites of previous imperial failure and humiliation.

    Yet, hopefully, this time will be different. Perhaps this time a one-off defeat can be transformed into a history-making pivot away from Empire and the Warfare State to a renewal of America’s pre-1914 commitment to “no entangling alliances” and peaceful commerce with the rest of the world.

    In that context, Donald Trump may become history’s paladin of salvation from the boot heels of the American Empire, but it will be up to the “Rescue the Republic” team led by Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard to ensure that the entire hegemonic framework of national security policy which spawned this calamity will be discredited, repudiated and abandoned in favor of a non-interventionist foreign policy consistent with America’s Republican tradition and future economic health and survival.

    Needless to say, the one and only place to start is by “starving the beast” on the Pentagon and Langley side of the Potomac. That is to say, only be exploring what it would take to cut the defense budget by 50% can the outlines of a 21st century Fortress America national security policy be appreciated.

    Such a deep cut in the Pentagon’s current hideously bloated budget would still leave $450 billion per year to insure the security and liberty of the American homeland. Not only is that more than enough, but the number itself has an uncanny level of historical verisimilitude.

    As it happens, that was the level of the defense budget in today’s dollars of purchasing power when Bobby Kennedy’s uncle gave his powerful American University speech in June 1963. This soaring oration was delivered at the height of the cold war when the Soviet Union was still at the peak of its industrial and military vigor and just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world had looked into the abyss of nuclear Armageddon.

    Needless to say, the conventional politicians of the time were in a mode of full-throated anti-Soviet belligerence, yet JFK saw fit to make the greatest peace speech ever delivered by an American president. He well understood that at the then current level of defense spending, America had more than enough military capacity and deterrence power to discourage any would be aggressor, but that an adequate defense capability was but a pre-condition for the true security of a peaceful de-militarized world:

    I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

    Since then there have been two huge changes in global geopolitics that have made the world far, far less threatening than the one JFK had faced months earlier during October 1962. To wit:

    • The massively militarized, economically autarkic Soviet Empire has disappeared into the dustbin of history.

    • The incipient militarized state in Red China under Mao failed five decades ago and was turned outward and transformed into a commercial export powerhouse by Deng Xiaoping after the early 1990s.

    These epochal changes have profound significance for America’s homeland security. In the absence of a massively militarized autarkic state foe capable of global military power projection, the way is once again clear for a far more modest Fortress America national security posture.

    To the point, today’s Russia is but a shadow of the Soviet Union with a GDP of just $2 trillion versus the $50 trillion of Europe and North America. And rather than absorbing upwards of one-third of GDP as in Soviet times, Russia’s paltry $60 billion defense budget prior to its special operation in Ukraine amounted to just 3.5% of GDP.

    Even more importantly, Soviet Russia was a closed system with virtually no economic commerce with the world outside the communist bloc. Therefore it had nothing to lose economically in the event of an aggressive military assault on the west and the global conflagration which would have ensued.

    To the contrary, China’s very economic modus operandi depends upon $3.5 trillion per year of exports to the outside world. The material prosperity in China that has given the ruling communist party an extended lease on life would collapse in a few months if Beijing even attempted a military assault on Western Europe or the United States. So PLA bombing of 4,000 Walmart stores in America will never happen. Nor will Chinese marines ever be landing on the California shores.

    Accordingly, the United States today does not need a globalized, two-and-one-half war fighting capability that even JFK thought necessary in the early 1960s. Yet Washington continues to stand-up twice JFK’s military budget in real terms and maintain a global network of bases, power projection capabilities, alliances, commitments, interventions and occupations that were not even necessary in 1963.

    As a practical matter, America’s ostensible “enemies” today have no offensive or invasionary capacity at all. Russia has only one aircraft carrier—a 1980s era vessel which has been in dry-dock for repairs since 2017 and is equipped with neither a phalanx of escort ships nor a suite of attack and fighter aircraft—and at the moment not even an active crew.

    Likewise, China has just three aircraft carriers—two of which are refurbished rust buckets purchased from the remnants of the old Soviet Union, and which carriers do not even have modern catapults for launching their strike aircraft.

    Indeed, invasion of the American homeland would require a massive conventional armada of land, air and sea-based forces many, many times larger than the military behemoth that is now funded by Washington’s $900 billion defense budget. The logistical infrastructure that would be needed to control the vast Atlantic and Pacific Ocean moats surrounding North America and to sustain an invasion and occupation force of the US mainland is so mind-mindbogglingly vast as to be scarcely imaginable.

    For want of doubt, the graphic below compares Washington’s 11 carrier battle groups, which cost about $25 billion each including their escort ships, suites of aircraft and electronic and missile capabilities, with those of the other major powers. Self-evidently, none of the non-NATO countries shown in the red area of the graphic—China, India, Japan, Russia or Thailand—will be steaming their tiny 3, 2 and 1 carrier battle groups toward the shores of either California or New New Jersey any time soon. An invasionary force that had any chance at all of surviving a US fortress defense of cruise missiles, drones, jet fighters, attack submarines and electronics warfare would need to be 100X larger.

    Yet there is no GDP in the world—$2 trillion for Russia, $3.5 trillion for India or $18 trillion for China—that is even remotely close in size to the $50 to $100 trillion GDP that would be needed to support such an invasionary force without capsizing the home economy.

    At the same time, the 11 US carrier battle groups, which will cost upwards of $1.2 trillion over the next decade, would have no role in a continental Fortress America defense at all. They would be sitting ducks in the blue waters, and far less effective than aircraft and missile defenses based in the North American interior.

    In short, these massively expensive forces have no purpose other than global power projection and the conduct of wars of invasion and occupation abroad. That is, they are white elephant military accoutrements of a day gone by, not even remotely relevant to a proper Fortress America defense in 2024.

    In today’s world, in fact, the only theoretical military threat to America’s homeland security is the possibility of nuclear blackmail. That is to say, a First Strike capacity so overwhelming, lethal and effective that an enemy could simply call out checkmate and demand Washington’s surrender.

    An absolutely invulnerable triad (air, sea and land-based) nuclear deterrent can be funded for just $75 billion per year, or barely 6% of the current national defense budget. Much of the rest has nothing to do with securing the American Homeland behind the great Atlantic and Pacific Ocean moats from conventional attack and, in fact, is useful mainly for power projection abroad and operating the now obsolete global network of cold war alliances and bases stretching across the globe.

    *  *  *

    The amount of money the US government spends on foreign aid, wars, the so-called intelligence community, and other aspects of foreign policy is enormous and ever-growing. It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point. It could cause the most significant disaster since the 1930s. Most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video with all the details. Click here to watch it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 18:25

  • Coast Guard Rescues Man Floating On Cooler 30 Miles Off Florida Coast
    Coast Guard Rescues Man Floating On Cooler 30 Miles Off Florida Coast

    30 Miles!!!!

    A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew on Thursday rescued a man spotted floating on a cooler in the sea, dozens of miles off Florida’s Gulf Coast after Hurricane Milton struck.

    The Coast Guard said an Air Station Miami helicopter crew rescued the captain of a fishing vessel called “Capt. Dave” 30 miles off Longboat Key.

    He was transferred to Tampa General Hospital to undergo further treatment, officials said in an Oct. 10 statement.

    As The Epoch Times’ Katabella Roberts reports below, the Coast Guard said the man survived because he was wearing a life jacket and had an emergency position locator beacon and a cooler.

    “This man survived in a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,” Dana Grady, the St. Petersburg command center chief of the U.S. Coast Guard, said.

    The captain of the fishing vessel and a crew member first reported needing assistance about 20 miles off John’s Pass in Florida on Monday. A Coast Guard Station Sand Key rescue boat crew and an Air Station Clearwater rescue helicopter crew were deployed to the scene, according to the Coast Guard.

    The captain and the crew members were rescued and brought back to Air Station Clearwater in “good condition.”

    The boat was left adrift and “salvage arrangements were to be made,” the Coast Guard said.

    On Wednesday, the owner of the fishing vessel informed the Coast Guard that the captain had returned to the boat at about 3 a.m. to make some repairs but had failed to check in.

    “Watchstanders were able to make radio contact with the captain who reported the rudder was fouled with a line and became disabled during his transit back to port,” the Coast Guard said.

    At the time of the rescue operation, the weather was “quickly deteriorating” as Hurricane Milton approached, with waves reaching six to eight feet and winds of around 30 mph, according to the Coast Guard.

    Air Station Miami airplane crews fly over Florida’s west coast looking for people in distress and assessing damage, on Oct. 10, 2024. Courtesy of Mike O’Keefe/U.S. Coast Guard

    The captain was instructed by the Coast Guard to put on a life jacket and “stay with the boat’s emergency position indicating a radio beacon.”

    The Coast Guard lost communication with the captain at about 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday.

    Search and rescue teams eventually spotted him adrift with the cooler at about 1:30 p.m. on Thursday.

    The Coast Guard shared video footage of the rescue on social media platform X.

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

    It shows the captain kneeling on the cooler as a Coast Guard helicopter from Air Station Miami approaches. A crew member is then lowered into the water before swimming toward the captain. The video ends before he is hoisted out of the sea.

    The rescue came after Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, on Wednesday evening as a powerful Category 3 storm, bringing with it powerful winds, deadly storm surges, and flooding.

    At least 10 people are believed to have died in the storm. Search and rescue operations are continuing.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 18:00

  • P. Diddy And US Attorney Damian Williams: Let The Games Begin
    P. Diddy And US Attorney Damian Williams: Let The Games Begin

    Authored by Nick Braynt via nickbryantnyc.com,

    Andre Damian Williams Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, once again has the distinction of covering up child sex trafficking. He received that distinction for overseeing a federal grand jury that didn’t indict Sean “Diddy” Combs on a single count of child sex trafficking and/or molestation. 

    Before I address Williams’ new offenses against children, I should offer a reminder about his prior offenses. Williams was appointed the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in December of 2018, and he became the point-man for the Epstein cover-up. He was slated to oversee the trial of Jeffrey Epstein, but Epstein became preoccupied with his death. Williams, however, oversaw the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, which was a travesty of justice even before it commenced: Federal prosecutors only indicted Maxwell on one-count of child trafficking, even though her and Epstein had trafficked children for approximately 25 years. Moreover, the federal prosecutors were aware of over 30 child Epstein trafficking victims, but they only called four victims as witnesses, and those victims had been exclusively molested by Epstein and Maxwell. The federal prosecutors were aware of various Epstein procurers (pimps) and numerous perpetrators. But the prosecutors’ flagrant objective was a cover up of the procurers (pimps) and perpetrators in the Epstein network. One-count of child trafficking carries a 15-year to life sentence, and Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years. 

    In the wake of Maxwell’s trial, Williams said the following with a straight face: “Today’s sentence holds Ghislaine Maxwell accountable for perpetrating heinous crimes against children. This sentence sends a strong message that no one is above the law and it is never too late for justice. We again express our gratitude to Epstein and Maxwell’s victims for their courage in coming forward, in testifying at trial, and in sharing their stories as part of today’s sentencing.” His statements were rather ironic, because he just facilitated the cover-up of the largest child trafficking network ever acknowledged by US law enforcement. The cover-up of a crime is aiding and abetting that crime, so Williams is guilty of aiding and abetting child trafficking.

    Williams’ offenses against children were again on display as he oversaw the Combs’ grand jury that returned the following indictments against Combs.

    • One count of racketeering conspiracy 
    • One count of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion
    • One count of transportation for purposes of prostitution

    Two of the sexual assault lawsuits that are pending against Combs were filed by minors. One of those lawsuits was filed by Liza Gardner who alleges that Combs raped her when she was 16 years old. A second lawsuit, filed by “Jane Doe,” alleges that minions of Combs flew her from Detroit to New York City when she was 17 years old, where Combs plied her with alcohol and took turns raping her with two other men. The latter is a blatant case of the interstate sex trafficking of a minor, but it seems to have been overlooked by Williams and his cadre in the Southern District. Either Williams thought she was lying or he’s covering up Combs’ child trafficking. 

    Combs is charged with one count of “racketeering conspiracy” but, thus far, his co-conspirators haven’t been indicted. Ghislaine Maxwell, too, was indicted on multiple conspiracies:

    • One count conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts
    • One count of conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts 
    • One count of sex trafficking conspiracy

    Though Maxwell was indicted on multiple conspiracies, Williams’ office didn’t indict one of her co-conspirators. Combs has also been indicted on conspiracy, but his co-conspirators have not been indicted. Is the Combs’ case history repeating itself?

    According to a BBC article, “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces more than 100 new assault allegations,” a Texas-based attorney, Tony Buzbee, is representing “more than 100” alleged victims of Combs. And he maintains that 25 of the alleged victims he is representing were minors when they were molested by Combs et al, including an alleged victim who was nine years old at the time. Like Epstein, Buzbee believes that Combs had connections to Mount Olympus. “The names will shock you,” he said at a press conference. Combs engaged in the trafficking of adults and minors for years. Also like Epstein, how could Combs pull off such heinous crimes for years without a little help from his friends in state and/or federal law enforcement?

    Combs is now on suicide watch. The federal corrections officers at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center excelled at ensuring Epstein’s death either by gross negligence or outright malfeasance. Combs is incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. So perhaps Combs jailers in Brooklyn will prove to be more competent than Epstein’s jailers in Manhattan?

    Epstein and Maxwell had a penchant for hidden cameras and blackmail, and they molested children for 25 years. Combs also had a penchant for hidden cameras and a penchant for blackmail. Lil Rod’s sexual assault lawsuit filed against Combs was our first inkling of P. Diddy’s hidden cameras and blackmail.

    But, since then, numerous sources have stated that Combs homes had clandestine cameras. The New York Post reported the following: “One of the Department of Homeland Security agents who helped raid Diddy’s Florida abode claimed that the music mogul had rooms that were clearly ‘dedicated to sex’ with cameras all around. ‘So if you were in those sex parties, you were being recorded from every possible angle, including angles you wouldn’t have known about,’ the source said, referring to the sometimes days-long orgies he called “freak offs” where drugged-up victims were allegedly forced to have sex with male prostitutes.”

    A former bodyguard for Combs, Gene Deal, divulged that he had an affinity for blackmailing the high and mighty. He said: “I don’t think it’s only celebrities gonna be shook. He had politicians in there; he had princes in there. He also had a couple of preachers in there.”

    Suge Knight, the incarcerated, former CEO Death Row Records, has stated that Combs is an FBI informant, and that’s the reason he’s been given a Get Out of Jail Free card for his heinous crimes over the years. Granted, Knight and Combs are antagonistic towards each other, and Knight certainly isn’t a cherub, but sometimes the truth has a way of percolating on the streets. Knight also believes that Combs might be an endangered species, because of the secrets he harbors.

    U.S. Attorney Damian Williams isn’t a cherub either, nor is he your average U.S. Attorney. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is a position whose occupants have included future judges, senators, cabinet members, and a New York City mayor. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is considered to be the most powerful federal law enforcement official in Manhattan. 

    According to 28 U.S. Code § 544, a U.S. attorney takes an “oath to execute faithfully his duties.” But Williams disregarded his oath when he facilitated the cover-up of the Epstein/Maxwell trafficking network. So, what would motivate the most powerful federal law enforcement official in Manhattan to disregard his or her oath, especially for such egregious crimes? Williams cherishes his power and doesn’t want to lose it and/or Williams himself is compromised and/or Williams and his family has/have been threatened.

    Williams has spent a lot of time among political shakers and movers. He worked for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Williams was then a “body man” for the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe. In politics, a body man is a ubiquitous personal aide or assistant. 

    Former Virginia Governor Terry McAullife has certainly been tainted by allegations of corruption. Quoting the New York Times: “Mr. McAuliffe is a walking symbol of the wretched excess of the Clinton years. He raised millions in special-interest money for President Clinton’s campaign.” McAuliffe founded a company, GreenTech Automotive, which the Virginia Economic Development Partnership concluded was a visa-for-sale scheme. McAulliffe resigned from the company. The FBI scrutinized $120,000 donation made to McAulliffe’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign by Chinese national Wang Wenliang. McAulliffe initially denied knowing Wang until a preponderance of evidence linked him to Wenliang, who also donated $2 million to the Clinton Foundation.

    In addition to aiding purportedly corrupt, political heavyweights, Williams received substantial funding from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Williams parents immigrated from Jamaica to the United States, which made him eligible for the fellowship. Thirty Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships are awarded every year with a selection rate of 1.2%. Each fellow receives up to $90,000 in funding toward their graduate education. Williams attended Yale Law School on a Soros fellowship. (Prior to attending law school, Williams graduated with a BA in economics from Harvard.)

    Peter Soros is the son of Paul & Daisy, and nephew of George Soros. Peter is on the Board of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, and he also has the distinction of being circled twice in Epstein’s “Black Book.” Epstein’s house manager Alfredo Rodriquez purloined the Black Book, and he circled those who he perceived as being in cahoots with Epstein with regards to pedophilic pandering. Peter Soros reportedly being in cahoots with Epstein and also on the Board of an organization that gave William’s a substantial fellowship could be a very bizarre coincidence or it could be something more ominous.

    If, or until, Williams indicts Combs on multiple counts of child trafficking, he will play the same role that he played for Epstein regarding the coverup of child trafficking and abuse.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 17:40

  • Boeing Slashes 10% Of Workforce, CEO Warns "Hard To Overstate The Challenges We Face"
    Boeing Slashes 10% Of Workforce, CEO Warns “Hard To Overstate The Challenges We Face”

    In what some have called a panic/desperation negotiating tactic, Boeing has announced (late on a Friday afternoon) that it will slash its workforce by 10% as the pummeled planemaker struggles with a cash-crunch amid a drawn-out strike and ongoing quality control (to put it nicely) issues.

    In a memo to employees, CEO Kelly Ortberg noted that the reductions will include executives, managers and employees, warning that:

    “Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together.”

    Boeing ended 2023 with 171,000 employees.

    The company said it expects to report third quarter revenue of $17.8 billion, and a loss per share of $9.97, according to preliminary figures.

    The company unveiled the measures and the earnings figures as it seeks to get its negotiations with labor unions back on track.

    Boeing has made two offers for higher wages, both of which were turned down by workers.

    About 33,000 employees at its main Seattle-area facilities have been on strike for a month now, devastating production and draining Boeing’s reserves.

    The latest talks collapsed earlier this week, with no clear path when and how they might resume.

    Boeing shares tumbled after hours, erasing the day’s gains…

    Ortberg also said the company has notified customers that the first deliveries of the 777X are now expected in 2026, citing the ongoing work stoppage and flight test pause.

    Read the full press release below:

    “While our business is facing near-term challenges, we are making important strategic decisions for our future and have a clear view on the work we must do to restore our company,” said Kelly Ortberg, Boeing president and chief executive officer.

    “These decisive actions, along with key structural changes to our business, are necessary to remain competitive over the long term. We are also focusing on areas that are critical to our future and will ensure we have the balance sheet necessary to invest, support our people and deliver for our customers.”

    Commercial Airplanes expects to recognize pre-tax earnings charges of $3.0 billion on the 777X and 767 programs. The company now anticipates first delivery of the 777-9 in 2026 and the 777-8 freighter in 2028, resulting in a pre-tax earnings charge of $2.6 billion. This schedule and resulting financial impact are based on an updated assessment of the certification timelines to address the delays in flight testing of the 777-9, as well as anticipated delays associated with the IAM work stoppage. Commercial Airplanes also plans to conclude production of the 767 freighter and recognize a $0.4 billion pre-tax charge on the program, which also reflects impacts from the IAM work stoppage. Beginning in 2027, the company will solely produce 767-2C aircraft in support of the KC-46A Tanker program. Commercial Airplanes expects to report third quarter revenue of $7.4 billion and operating margin of (54.0) percent.

    Defense, Space & Security expects to recognize pre-tax earnings charges of $2.0 billion on the T-7A, KC-46A, Commercial Crew, and MQ-25 programs. The T-7A program pre-tax charge of $0.9 billion was driven by higher estimated costs on production contracts in 2026 and beyond. The KC-46A program pre-tax charge of $0.7 billion reflects the decision to conclude production on the 767 freighter and impacts of the IAM work stoppage. Results also include unfavorable performance on other programs. Defense, Space & Security expects to report third quarter revenue $5.5 billion and operating margin of (43.1) percent.

    Finally, a quick thought for all the other corporations out there…

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

    Live by the capitalist sword, DEI by the socialist sword…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 17:20

  • Kamala Unwinding…
    Kamala Unwinding…

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    “…we are facing a catastrophic collapse of governance. With democracy reduced to a tragedy or a farce (probably both things)…”

    –  Ugh Bardi

    “As the US increasingly resembles ancient Rome, being president is more and more dangerous. Something around 35 emperors met violent deaths, most from people in and around their courts. In other words, members of the Roman Deep State. An ugly situation is brewing in and around Washington DC.” 

    – Doug Casey

    Don’t kid yourself: Kamala Harris does not want to be President of the United States. She doesn’t even want the ceremonial stuff, the incessant shuffling from one photo op to the next, the tedious Easter egg rolls, the prayer meetings, the turkey pardonings, the tiresome state banquets for men in strange headgear who are unfamiliar with using the fork and knife, and forbidden to sip chardonnay…

    It’s obvious she has been played for a chump, that she was sandbagged into play-acting “the candidate” by an odd coalition of the distraught and the desperate — that is, the many agency blobsters who fear prison and the perfidious politicians such as Pelosi, Schumer, Mitch the Turtle, the Clintons, and Obama, paid to cover for the blob, often doing it badly, who fear the judgment of history, as well as the loss of their fortunes. Distraught and desperate characters make foolish decisions.

    About thirty seconds after “Joe Biden” vowed to stay in the 2024 race, a delegation of these panicked pols paid him a call and passed him the black spot, knowing he could not credibly front for the massive election cheat underway. He was barely able to front for the previous one in 2020, when every lever of power got pulled to-the-max to conceal the truth about the steal, and to severely punish those who dared to murmur doubts about the election’s freeness and fairness.

    How did they decide that Kamala would do any better? I assure you we will find out when the party explodes in recriminations sometime after November 5. It will probably turn out to look like the 2017 movie, The Death of Stalin, a frantic vaudeville of scheming buffoons oblivious to mundane doings of the suffering nation they pretend to serve. Unlike Nikita Khrushchev in 1953, Kamala did not prevail among this gang of squabbling clowns by force of personality or guile. She was merely a default setting as veep, arrived at to present the illusion of continuity and solidarity where none existed. She was not even involved in the backstage action. I doubt that anyone even asked her if she wanted the assignment — she was only notified after-the-fact. Thus, all the drinking.

    The outstanding question: will the Democratic Party actually go ahead and attempt to execute an election steal despite growing evidence of a developing Trump landslide that might obviate it? The works are already in motion. The mail-in ballots went out long ago and early votes are getting cast by the day. The overseas ballots that require no US address or voter verification are flooding in by the millions and four years of open borders has 10-million illegal aliens (at a minimum) dispersed around the nation, great gobs of them planted in swing states, processed through the DMVs and social services — with the requisite automatic voter registration — their ballots already pre-bundled for harvest.

    It could go a few ways.

    One is, just let’er rip, harvest all those fake votes, stuff the drop-boxes, flood the zone, and do it all right in America’s face as if to say: we can do whatever we want. . .  to get whatever we want. . . and you can’t stop us.

    That is probably the point where blue America finds out exactly what the Second Amendment was designed for.

    You might also expect a whole lot of state-organized resistance, especially in the populous red ones, Texas, Florida, real court cases over fraud this time, contested certification.

    Or, the election could come out a hopeless unresolvable muddle. There’s no precedent for this and no provision in the Constitution, but you can imagine the Supreme Court having to decide a necessary do-over minus all recent gimmicks, paper ballots only, voters with proof of citizenship only, all voting on one re-scheduled election day before January 1.

    This novelty would be something apart from the clunky Congressional machinery established for settling electoral college disputes, since it is predicated on various states’ inability to determine their electoral college vote in the first place, based on patent irregularity and fraud.

    You could also imagine a period of disorder so deep and grave that the regime behind “Joe Biden” declares martial law. . . or, alternately the military — the martial institution — has to take matters into its own hands, shoving aside even “Joe Biden” and his filthy retinue.

    Appalling to consider, I’m sure, but these things happen in history, and the Party of Chaos has set enough mischief in motion to wreck the election and wreck the country. Call it catastrophizing, if you will. There it is.

    But to step back from that abyss, it appears that Mr. Trump’s momentum accelerates by the day, that he is becoming, at last, an implacable, irresistible juggernaut who will, perforce, overcome all the gimmicks, traps, and frauds arrayed against him. Kamala seems to think so. Have you ever seen such resignation, such loserdom-in-action as her recent performance on CBS’s 60-Minutes, or her pitiful admission on ABC’s The View that she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently beyond the excellent management of national affairs under “Joe Biden” (and herself as veep). Surely that said it all. She has nothing, brings nothing.

    Long ago, she was a pretty girl with a law degree and an infectious laugh on the fringes of local politics in San Francisco.

    The winds of fortune blew her this way and that way until she ended up way over her head, used by the reprobates around her as a mere device to stay out of jail.

    She ends as an historical prank on her own country.

    It must be deeply demoralizing to be used like that in front of the whole world.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 17:00

  • Money-Market Fund Assets & Small Bank Deposits Surge To Record Highs… As Stocks Soar
    Money-Market Fund Assets & Small Bank Deposits Surge To Record Highs… As Stocks Soar

    For the third week in a row (and 9th week in the last 10), money-market funds saw inflows (+$11.3BN), pushing total AUM to a new record high ($6.474TN), even as stocks surged to new record highs…

    Source: Bloomberg

    …and also for the third week in a row, US banks saw total bank deposits (seasonally adjusted) rise (by $53.2BN), well above pre-SVB levels…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, deposits soared by a huge $123.9BN to the highest since Jan 2023 (before the SVB crisis)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Perhaps even more stunning, excluding foreign deposits, domestic US banks saw a massive $99.2BN deposit inflow (SA) in the week-ending Oct 2nd – the biggest weekly deposits inflow since May 2021. On an NSA basis, domestic deposits rose $178BN…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Large banks saw $55.5BN of inflows (SA) and/or $123.3BN inflows (NSA). Small banks saw $43.7BN of deposits inflows and/or $54.7BN inflows (NSA). This is a new record high for Small Bank deposits…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On the other side of the ledger, large banks saw loan volumes shrink by $1.9BN while small banks saw loan volumes rise by $4.3BN…

    Source: Bloomberg

    At the same time, banks are unwinding (can’t roll because the facility is closed) their loans from The Fed’s bank bailout facility…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Bank reserves at The Fed ticked up modestly last week but remain drastically decoupled from their historically tight relationship with US equity market capitalization…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, as we detailed here, below the surface of soaring bank stocks, something serious is going on in the financial system plumbing.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 16:40

  • Bitcoin, Bullion, & 'Biggest Shorts' Blast Higher To End 'Bad Data' Week
    Bitcoin, Bullion, & ‘Biggest Shorts’ Blast Higher To End ‘Bad Data’ Week

    Goldilocks it wasn’t… as inflation macro data surprised to the upside and growth macro data to the downside (we love the smell of stagflation in the morning)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    … but that didn’t stop stocks soaring for the fifth straight week, with Small Caps exploding higher today (back into the green for the week)…

    …as “most shorted” stocks saw a massive squeeze higher today…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Of course, a market wrap would not be complete without discussing the shitshow in Shanghai as Chinese stocks witnessed the greatest volatility since their meltdown in 2015, capping almost $500 billion of combined losses in mainland and Hong Kong markets, as investors demanded even more stimulus than authorities in Beijing have already pledged.

    The CSI 300 Index’s weekly trading range – the gap between high and low prices – surged above 600 index points this week for the first time since July 2015.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Back then, Chinese markets witnessed an exodus of foreigners driven by mounting economic concerns and a government crackdown on traders which only exacerbated the panic.

    Source: Bloomberg

    This time, the turbulence is driven by sluggish consumer demand that threatens even the scaled-down growth ambitions of the country. The index’s 10-day and 20-day realized volatility also rose to a nine-year high.

    Notably, the rise in macro surprise data has come as financial conditions have loosened to their ‘easiest’ since Nov 2021…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Today saw the 45th all-time-high of the year, but none of the prior 44 have occurred alongside this elevated a level of volatility; this will be the first week of the year where the VIX has closed above 20 every day, and so ongoing elevated risk is expected as we progress through October…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The vol term structure is notably upward-sloping into the election now (and the coincidental FOMC meeting)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Treasury yields were very mixed today and on the week the short-end dramatically outperforming (practically unch on the week as the long-end blew out)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    After a huge flattening last week, the yield curve steepened by the most since the start of August this week with 2s10s dropping to inversion to start the week and steepening to erase the post-payrolls plunge by the end…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Rate-cut expectations rose modestly this week (with all the focus on 2025 as 2024 remains priced for less than 2 full rate cuts now)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The dollar rallied for the second straight week, testing up to August’s highs before stalling a little today…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Despite the dollar strength, Gold extended yesterday’s rebound to end the week higher, finding support at $2600 once again…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Oil was flat today holding on to gains on the week (with WTI back above $75)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Bitcoin exploded back higher today (from $59,000 to $63,000), to end the week solidly in the green (after testing near one-month lows)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Is this the start of Bitcoin’s rip on the back of surging liquidity…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, this weekend represents the two year anniversary from the bear market lows. The S&P is up 66% from the lows in October 2021, helped by and endless supply of liquidity from global central planners…]

    Source: Bloomberg

    BUT… the last week or two has seen liquidity start to contract a little (even as stocks soared to record-er highs)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Will the money-printers get back to work… or will stocks sink into the election (which Trump is now leading in all the prediction markets – but not the polls)?

    Source: Bloomberg

    There’s no bears left…

    Source: Bloomberg

    …well maybe some…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 16:00

  • San Francisco To Shutter 9% Of Public Schools As Budget Crisis Explodes
    San Francisco To Shutter 9% Of Public Schools As Budget Crisis Explodes

    San Francisco is gearing up to shut down 9% of its public schools in a desperate move to fix a massive budget deficit. With student enrollment plummeting and pandemic relief funds drying up, the city is set to close or merge 11 out of its 121 schools, leaving the future of thousands of students and teachers hanging in the balance.

    Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle 2019

    The proposal, which was announced late Tuesday, comes as the school district faces a whopping $113 million in cuts by 2026, or risk a dreaded state takeover. “Without a balanced budget and a plan to consolidate our resources, we risk a state takeover,” warned Superintendent Matt Wayne, adding that such a takeover would “further deplete resources directed to our schools, erode our collective decision-making power, and likely compound educational disparities for our most vulnerable students.”

    The schools on the chopping block serve about 2,000 kids, while another two will merge with other locations, according to local reports. And it’s not just the school closures – San Francisco’s school district has already been slashing jobs and cutting back on school supplies. Things could get worse when the final list of schools is voted on next month by the school board, Bloomberg reports.

    This is the latest blow to a city grappling with skyrocketing homelessness and a fentanyl crisis. San Francisco’s public school enrollment has plunged by over 4,000 students in the last seven years – costing the district $80 million. By 2032, they’re expecting to lose another 4,600 students thanks to falling birth rates and demographic shifts.

    Feeding the ‘Doom Loop’

    The planned school closures are more than just a budgetary issue – they are a reflection of the larger economic “doom loop” San Francisco finds itself trapped in. As described by the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s economic ecosystem is spiraling as the decline of core public services like schools accelerates a broader exodus of residents and businesses.

    Sophie D’Amato/The Chronicle

    Thanks to crime, filth, and the pandemic – downtown SF has seen a sharp reduction in foot traffic as remote work has left office buildings and businesses empty. This shift has eroded the city’s tax base, leading to budget shortfalls across vital services. Now, with the closure of schools, families may be even more likely to leave the city, taking their children and spending power with them.

    The doom loop is driven by a vicious cycle: diminished public services push people and businesses away, shrinking the tax revenue the city relies on to fund those very services. The closure of schools, much like the rise in homelessness and the overdose epidemic, threatens to further compound the fact that San Francisco is a city in decline, locked in a downward spiral.

    As San Francisco’s public institutions falter, the question looms – how much longer can the city sustain these losses before it hits a tipping point?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/11/2024 – 15:45

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