Today’s News 13th August 2022

• US: The New Real Hoaxes?
  US: The New Real Hoaxes?

  Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

  • The investigative reporting by these two organizations [the New York Times and the Washington Post] was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there.

  • For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer — for fraud.

  • The real hoax appears to have been the CCP’s ostensible good behavior and the now-hugely-discredited initial reporting on the virus.

  • Or how about the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up? Once again, On October 14, 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a critical story of possible extensive influence-peddling with senior intelligence officers in the CCP, Russia and Ukraine by the son of a presidential candidate. The contents of the laptop raised questions that the candidate at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, could be compromised. The entire subject was decisively pushed aside, along with the potential threat to national security that such an eventuality might entail.

  • Also not allowed during the January 6th hearings have been any witnesses for the defense, any cross-examination, or any exculpatory evidence.

  • One wonders, for instance if the January 6th Committee will consider the July 29, 2022 tweet by General Keith Kellogg, that on January 3, 2021, Trump, in front of witnesses, did indeed ask for “troops needed” for January 6. Kellogg wrote: “I was in the room.”

  • The January 6th Committee has also not released any information about government informants or FBI undercover law enforcement officers who might have been in the crowd, and Pelosi is also said to be blocking access to a massive quantity of documents. Finally, according to attorney Mark Levin, under the Constitution’s separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary. The entire proceeding is illegitimate and a usurpation of power.

  • Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system?

  Recently former US President Donald Trump challenged the award of Pulitzer Prizes to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their investigative reporting on alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

  

  The investigative reporting by these two organizations was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there.

  You have to hand it to them for this so-called “great reporting”: the Pulitzer Committee sure did.

  We now know, of course, the grand conspiracy pushed by these papers is nothing more than thoroughly debunked disinformation. For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer — for fraud.

  The intractability of the Pulitzer Committee is only the latest example of why so many Americans have been losing trust in their institutions, both public and private. Rather than admitting that these awards were a mistake, and that much of the reporting was not investigative reporting, but merely a recitation of fabrications put forward by political hacks for campaign purposes, the Pulitzer Committee announced that it will stand by its initial decision, facts be dammed.

  The Russia hoax is emblematic of the model built by the anti-Trump, anti-America First, anti-populist movement that the American people have experienced for the last six years. It embodies many of the characteristics that have frustrated Americans. It is a combination of influential forces — media, social media, political players, and government — that put forward information detrimental to one — oddly always the same — political viewpoint. In this instance, populists — believers in the rights, wisdom or virtues of the common people, according to Merriam Webster — who might embrace the concept of personal freedom espoused by the Constitution, a free market economy, economic growth, energy independence, school choice, equal application of the law and decentralized governance.

  Much of the material used to foster the Russia hoax originated from the discredited “Steele Dossier,” pedaled by former British spy Christopher Steele, funded by Clinton-linked opposition research firm FusionGPS, and pushed by Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman. This discredited information was shared widely — and often, it seems, with prior knowledge of its falseness — through the mainstream media and social media when it was leaked to the press early in 2017 just before Donald Trump was sworn in as president. The material contributed to the launching of the Mueller “Russiagate” investigation, which cast a shadow over the first two years of the Trump administration. Government officials were involved as CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and DNI James Clapper all lent their credibility to the supposed authenticity or seriousness of the Russian materials. All of this did tremendous damage to the effectiveness of the Trump administration, as it sought to govern, by putting it under a cloud of suspicion and illegitimacy from the outset.

  This, however, was not the only example. Consider the disrupted kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in her key swing state for presidential elections. “The FBI got walloped [in April]”, according to the New York Post, ” when a Michigan jury concluded that the bureau had entrapped two men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Those men and others were arrested a few weeks before the 2020 election in a high-profile, FBI-fabricated case….”

  The media, however, for the most part portrayed the kidnapping plot as the work of domestic terrorists, with the implied inference being they were right-wing Trump supporters. Whitmer went so far as to accuse Trump of being complicit in the plan, even though it emerged that these alleged plotters had also supposedly wanted to hang Trump. The FBI, it was later shown, had been heavily involved in the plot through informants and individuals it had placed in the group. By the time the case came to trial after the election, Biden had won Michigan’s electoral votes and the damage had been done.

  Consider, also, the COVID pandemic. The “facts” at the time were supposedly that it came from “nature” and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government had supposedly known nothing about its human-to-human transmissibility, even though it had “made whistleblowers disappear and refused to hand over virus samples so the West could make a vaccine.”

  The CCP, early on, was portrayed as a constructive player in controlling the spread of the virus, even as it was recalling and hoarding all of its Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This fiction was reinforced by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the World Health Organization, and other prominent participants – apart from Taiwan, which futilely tried to warn the WHO of the coronavirus’s fierce human-to-human transmissibility, only to be dismissed.

  The mainstream media and social media also quickly began parroting the “official” story line. Social media companies suspended the accounts of whoever might have had a different opinion and some were even canceled.

  For the 10 months leading up to the November 2020 election, the narrative was set: COVID-19 was a naturally occurring virus and the CCP was in the clear. Imagine how different the 2020 presidential election might have been if the debate was how the world would have held the CCP accountable for the leak and coverup of COVID from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Now in 2022, a lab-leak is considered the most “likely cause” of the coronavirus, but again the political damage, and a gigantic amount of non-political damage, has already been done. The real hoax appears to have been the CCP’s ostensible good behavior and the now-hugely-discredited initial reporting on the virus.

  Or how about the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up? Once again, On October 14, 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a critical story of possible extensive influence-peddling with senior intelligence officers in the CCP, Russia and Ukraine by the son of a presidential candidate. The contents of the laptop raised questions that the candidate at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, could be compromised. The entire subject was decisively pushed aside, along with the potential threat to national security that such an eventuality might entail.

  Discussion of Hunter Biden’s laptop with its reportedly incriminating information about the Biden family business dealings with the CCP, Russia, and other actors in what appeared to be a model of pay-for-play, was instantly shut down. Fifty-one former government intelligence officials , who we now know were perfectly well aware that the laptop was real – the FBI had been holding it for months — wrote a letter describing the contents of the laptop as having “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” designed to damage Joe Biden.

  NPR famously downplayed the story, and once again, if you used social media to post information originally reported by the New York Post, you were canceled.

  A year and a half after the election, the facts were finally “officially” accepted: Well, what do you know, it really was Hunter Biden’s laptop and the material on it “is real!”

  Once again, the leadership at the FBI, the media, social media, and former government officials had developed a hoax to damage their political opposition and the people who supported it.

  Finally, there is the January 6th Committee, a one-sided investigative body, sometimes called “the third (attempted) impeachment.” The Committee appears to have been put in place to stop Trump from running for office again. Before the proceeding even began, its outcome was predetermined: Trump was to be found guilty of — something. As Stalin secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria used to say during Soviet Russia’s reign of terror, “Find me the man and I’ll find you the crime.” So the US show trial commenced.

  Even its start was ominous. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in an unprecedented move, vetoed the committee appointments of Representatives Jim Banks and Jim Jordan. This rebuff led House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to pull his five Republican candidates from participating. Pelosi, it appeared, wanted only anti-Trump folks to serve on the Committee. Also not allowed during the January 6 hearings have been any witnesses for the defense, any cross-examination, or any exculpatory evidence.

  One wonders, for instance if the January 6th Committee will consider the July 29, 2022 tweet by General Keith Kellogg, that on January 3, 2021, Trump, in front of witnesses, did indeed ask for “troops needed” for January 6. Kellogg wrote:, “I was in the room:”

  “Great OpEd. Reinforces my earlier comment on 6 Jan Cmte. Has quote from DOD IG Report regarding 3 Jan 2021 meeting with Actg Def Secy Miller/CJCS Milley in the Oval on the 6 Jan NG request by POTUS on troops needed. I was in the room.”

  While purportedly examining in detail every decision and action by Trump and his team, the Committee refuses to question Pelosi, among the leading figures responsible for the security of the Capitol. She reportedly “turned down” requests for greater security. According to the Federalist:

  “Four days after the riot, former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned his post in the aftermath, told The Washington Post his request for pre-emptive reinforcement from the National Guard ahead of Jan. 6 was turned down. Sund said House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, overseen by Pelosi, thought the guard’s deployment was bad “optics” two days before the raid…. Despite the Associated Press and Washington Post’s best efforts to run interference for the speaker, suddenly exonerating her of duties overseeing Capitol security, the riot on Jan. 6 was a security failure Pelosi owns. If the “speaker trusts security professionals to make security decisions,” then why, as the police breach unfolded, did Irving feel compelled to seek the speaker’s approval to dispatch the National Guard, as The New York Times reported? How could Pelosi also order the extended shut down of the Capitol to visitors, citing coronavirus, and install metal detectors in the House chamber?”

  The Committee has not evaluated the performance of the Capitol Police or other law enforcement agencies, but it has targeted the “private records of individuals with no connection to the violence.”

  The January 6th Committee has also not released any information about government informants or FBI undercover law enforcement officers who might have been in the crowd, and Pelosi is also said to be blocking access to a massive quantity of documents. Finally, according to attorney Mark Levin, under the Constitution’s separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary. The entire proceeding is illegitimate and a usurpation of power. The Committee’s narrative is clear: Donald Trump is responsible for the events of January 6, now let us manufacture the evidence to prove it.

  This article has not even delved into the 28 states that “changed voting rules to boost mail-in ballots.” Some States apparently omitted both state law and the need for states’ legislatures to be the sole arbiters of election law, as required by the Constitution; the $400 million spent by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; the 2000-plus “mules” and the algorithms that sent conservative emails to spam while emails with liberal content went through to the addressees.

  Is it any wonder that many Americans have lost faith in their institutions and leaders? Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system? The media, social media, government officials and others have been complicit in undermining our rule of law and possibly even subverting an election.

  *  *  *

  Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 23:55

• Americans Spend Much More On Pharmaceuticals
  Americans Spend Much More On Pharmaceuticals

  When it comes to the expenditure on pharmaceuticals across OECD countries, the United States spends much more than other industrialized nations that are part of the organization.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  In 2019, the average American racks up costs of $1,376 for medications after adjusting for purchasing power parity, almost 2.5 times the OECD average of $571 and still 47 percent more than the next biggest spender, Germany. Canada and Japan followed in third and fourth place, both with spending that was around 40 percent higher than average, at $811 and $803, respectively. The OECD members with the least spending on pharmaceuticals and were Mexico and Costa Rica, while spending was also below average in many Eastern European and Scandinavia nations.

  Prescription drugs made up the bulk of pharmaceutical spending in most countries. English-speaking nations on the list, including the United States, Canada, Australia and the UK, shared the characteristic of above-average spending on over-the-counter meds despite their overall expenditure levels diverging quite a bit.

  Government and government-mandated insurance covered 55 percent of total pharmaceutical spending across OECD nations, with the share as high as 80 percent in Germany and France. That number was 70 percent in the United States. Across Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, out-of-pocket spending often hovered around 50 percent, hitting as much as 97 percent in Costa Rica.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 23:30

• Victor Davis Hanson: FBI, RIP?
  Victor Davis Hanson: FBI, RIP?

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

  The FBI is dissolving before our eyes into a rogue security service akin to those in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

  

  Take the FBI’s deliberately asymmetrical application of the law. This week the bureau surprise-raided the home of former President Donald Trump — an historical first.

  A massive phalanx of FBI agents swooped into the Trump residence while he was not home, to confiscate his personal property, safe, and records. All of this was over an archival dispute of presidential papers common to many former presidents. Agents swarmed the entire house, including the wardrobe closet of the former first lady.

  Note we are less than 90 days out from a midterm election, and this was not just a raid, but a political act.

  The Democratic Party is anticipated to suffer historical losses. Trump was on the verge of announcing his 2024 presidential candidacy. In many polls, he remains the Republican front-runner for the nomination — and well ahead of incumbent President Joe Biden in a putative 2024 rematch.

  In 2016 then FBI Director James Comey announced that candidate Hillary Clinton was guilty of destroying subpoenaed emails — a likely felony pertaining to her tenure as secretary of state. Yet he all but pledged that she would not be prosecuted given her status as a presidential candidate.

  As far as targeting presidential candidates, Trump was impeached in 2020 ostensibly for delaying military aid to Ukraine by asking Ukrainian officials to investigate more fully the clearly corrupt Biden family — given Joe Biden at the time was a likely possible presidential opponent in 2020.

  The FBI has devolved into a personal retrieval service for the incorrigible Biden family. It suppressed, for political purposes, information surrounding Hunter Biden’s missing laptop on the eve of the 2020 election.

  Previously, the FBI never pursued Hunter’s fraudulently registered firearm, his mysterious foreign income, his felonious crack cocaine use, or his regular employment of foreign prostitutes.

  Yet in a pre-dawn raid just before the 2020 election, the FBI targeted the home of journalist James O’Keefe on grounds that someone had passed to him the lost and lurid diary of Ashley Biden, Biden’s wayward daughter.

  At various times, in Stasi-style the FBI has publicly shackled Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro, swarmed the office of Trump’s legal counsel Rudy Giuliani, and sent a SWAT team to surround the house of Trump ally Roger Stone. Meanwhile, terrorists and cartels walk with impunity across an open border.

  FBI Director Christopher Wray last week cut short his evasive testimony before Congress. He claimed he had to leave for a critical appointment — only to use his FBI Gulfstream luxury jet to fly to his favorite vacation spot in the Adirondacks.

  Wray took over from disgraced interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe. The latter admitted lying repeatedly to federal investigators and signed off on a fraudulent FBI FISA application. He faced zero legal consequences.

  McCabe, remember, was also the point man in the softball Hillary Clinton email investigation — while his wife was a political candidate and recipient of thousands of dollars from a political action committee with close ties to the Clinton family.

  McCabe took over from disgraced FBI Director James Comey. On 245 occasions, Comey claimed under oath before the House Intelligence Committee that he had no memory or knowledge of key questions concerning his tenure. With impunity, he leaked confidential FBI memos to the media.

  Comey took over from Director Robert Mueller. Implausibly, Mueller swore under oath that he had no knowledge, either of the Steele dossier or of Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned Christopher Steele to compile the dossier. But those were the very twin catalysts that had prompted his entire special investigation into the Russian collusion hoax.

  FBI legal counsel Kevin Clinesmith was convicted of a felony for altering an FBI warrant request to spy on an innocent Carter Page.

  The FBI, by Comey’s own public boasts, bragged how it caught National Security Advisor-designate General Michael Flynn in its Crossfire Hurricane Russian collusion hoax.

  As special counsel, Mueller then fired two of his top investigators — Lisa Page and Peter Strzok — for improper personal and professional behavior. He then staggered their releases to mask their collaborative wrongdoing.

  Mueller’s team deleted critical cell phone evidence under subpoena that might well have revealed systemic FBI-related bias.

  The FBI interferes with and warps national elections. It hires complete frauds as informants who are far worse than its targets. It humiliates or exempts government and elected officials based on their politics. It violates the civil liberties of individual American citizens.

  The FBI’s highest officials now routinely mislead Congress. They have erased or altered court and subpoenaed evidence. They illegally leak confidential material to the media. And they have lied under oath to federal investigators.

  The agency has become dangerous to Americans and an existential threat to their democracy and rule of law. The FBI should be dispersing its investigatory responsibilities to other government investigative agencies that have not yet lost the public’s trust.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 23:05

• "Boom Time Over": Rolex Prices Crash In China
  “Boom Time Over”: Rolex Prices Crash In China

  China’s second-hand luxury goods market crashed in the last two months amid economic turmoil that has curbed discretionary spending among wealthy folks. 

  Financial Times said prices for some of the most popular brands of luxury watches and designer handbags (such as Rolex watches and Hermès bags) on secondary markets have plunged between 20% to 50% since Shanghai imposed strict Covid lockdowns earlier this year. 

  China’s deflating property bubble and President Xi Jinping’s controversial zero-Covid policy in Shanghai and dozens of other regions have sent the economy into a tailspin, denting consumer sentiment. 

  With China’s economy decelerating, Watcheco, an industry portal for used luxury watches, said the price of second-hand Rolex Submariners has crashed by 46% since March. Luxury bag shops in Shanghai and Hangzhou have slashed the prices of Hermès Birkin bags by 20% over the same period. 

  

  FT noted luxury goods resellers and pawnshops report business owners who accumulated large inventories of luxury goods, expecting boom times, are now liquidating those items to raise cash to pay down debt and fund operations. This is just more evidence of the terminal phase of the so-called ‘bullwhip’ effect. 

  “The boom time is over: We are entering a correction period that could last for a long time,” James Wang, a seller of second-hand luxury watches in the eastern city of Nanjing, warned. 

  Wang said in just the last month, he bought six Patek Philippe and 29 Rolex Submariner watches from distressed shop owners, compared with no Patek Philippes and five Rolex Submariners in 1Q22. 

  “Patek Philippe says you never actually own its watch, but merely look after it for the next generation,” he said. “That’s not the case in a business crisis.”

  Shaun Rein at China Market Research, a Shanghai-based consultancy, said there is “very weak consumer confidence … probably the weakest I’ve seen in my 25 years in China.” 

  Both official and independent data show that China’s economy deteriorated further in July and is set for more turmoil in the months ahead as the real estate sector downturn intensifies. 

  The Rolex bubble in China on the second-hand market for Submariners jumped 240% in the six months leading up to Shanghai’s lockdown earlier this year — now prices are reversing. 

  Besides China, second-hand luxury watch prices are cooling worldwide, as we noted in June: Investors’ Clock Out’ Of Rolex Bull Market As Demand Cools. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 22:40

• Alex Berenson: White House Demanded Twitter 'Kick Him Off Platform'
  Alex Berenson: White House Demanded Twitter ‘Kick Him Off Platform’

  Authored by Alex Berenson via Unreported Truths (emphasis ours),

  

  Biden Administration officials asked Twitter to ban me because of my tweets questioning the Covid vaccines, even as company employees believed I had followed Twitter’s rules, internal Twitter communications reveal.

  In a White House meeting in April 2021, four months before Twitter suspended my account, the company faced “one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform,” a Twitter employee wrote.

  The employee recounted the meeting discussion afterwards on Twitter’s internal Slack messaging system. The message, and others, make clear that top federal officials targeted me specifically, potentially violating my basic First Amendment right to free speech.

  The First Amendment does not apply to private companies like Twitter. But if the companies are acting on behalf of the federal government they can become “state actors” that must allow free speech and debate, just as the government does.

  Previous efforts to file state action lawsuits against the government and social media companies for working together to ban users have failed. Courts have universally held that people who have been banned have not shown the specific demands from government officials that are necessary to support state action claims.

  In my case, though, federal officials appear to have gone far beyond generically encouraging Twitter to support Covid vaccines or discourage “misinformation” (i.e. information that the government does not like).

  Instead, top officials targeted me personally.

  Andrew Slavitt, senior advisor to President Biden’s Covid response team, complained specifically about me, according to a Twitter employee in another Slack conversation discussing the White House meeting.

  “They really wanted to know about Alex Berenson,” the employee wrote. “Andy Slavitt suggested they had seen data viz [visualization] that had showed he was the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the persuadable public.”

  According to an interview he gave to the Washington Post in June 2021, Slavitt worked directly with the most powerful officials in the federal government, including Ron Klain, President Biden’s chief of staff, and Biden himself.

  The Slack conversations also show the pressure Twitter employees felt internally to respond to the government’s questions about whether the company was doing enough to suppress “misinformation” about Covid and the vaccines. An employee writes that the questions at the meeting were “pointed” but “mercifully, we had answers.”

  (From Twitter’s internal Slack channel)

  

  

  At the time, employees said internally they did not believe I had broken the company’s rules. “I’ve taken a pretty close look at his account and I don’t think any of it’s violative,” an employee wrote on the Slack conversation a few minutes after the “really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off.”

  But the pressure on Twitter to take action against me and other mRNA vaccine skeptics steadily increased after that April meeting, and especially in July and August, as the government began to consider the unprecedented step of mandating Covid vaccines for adults.

  On July 16, 2021, President Biden complained publicly that social media companies were “killing people” by encouraging vaccine hesitancy. A few hours after Biden’s comment, Twitter suspended my account for the first time.

  On August 28, 2021, barely four months after the meeting, Twitter banned me – for a tweet that it has now acknowledged “should not have led to my suspension.”

  I obtained the message and other documents related to Twitter’s censorship of me as part of my lawsuit against Twitter over my August 2021 ban. I filed the suit in federal court in San Francisco in December 2021. Twitter and I settled it last month, when Twitter restored my account and acknowledged it had erred in banning me.

  The documents contain other revelations, including emails showing that other reporters asked Twitter to take action against me; I will report on those in the future.

  More messages, emails, and internal documents are expected.

  Subscribe here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 22:15

• Public Trust In The FBI Is Plunging
  Public Trust In The FBI Is Plunging

  The FBI raided former U.S. President Donald Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, where they reportedly opened up a safe, following a search warrant for classified documents believed to have been removed from the White House.

  

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck notes, the raid has fueled anger from Trump’s supporters, dozens of whom gathered outside the Mar-a-Lago home that night. Several Republicans have condemned the investigation body, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said in a statement:

  “I’ve seen enough. The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.”

  So what do Americans actually think of the FBI?

  According to the most recent survey by Gallup on the topic, public trust in the FBI has fallen in recent years.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Where 57 percent of U.S. adults said that the FBI was doing either an “excellent” or a “good” job in 2019, this fell to 44 percent in 2021.

  This change mostly comes down to a drop in trust from the Republican side, which saw a fall from 46 percent to 26 percent over the two years.

  Democrats, on the other hand, have maintained higher levels of confidence, at a level 66 percent.

  Trump is currently facing several investigations, including into his role in the January 6 riot, as well as his business practices.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 21:50

• The Attempt To Prosecute Donald Trump Is Unleashing More Than Our Political System Can Handle
  The Attempt To Prosecute Donald Trump Is Unleashing More Than Our Political System Can Handle

  Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  With the recent FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Florida home, the Democrats and the Biden administration have raised the political stakes to a level from which this country as we have known it may never return. All one can say to those that are demanding a criminal prosecution of the former president is: Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.

  

  Although the raid ostensibly was to see if Trump took classified documents from the White House when he left in a chaotic move in January 2021, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy believes the Biden administration was again attempting to find that proverbial “smoking gun” tying Trump to the January 6 Capitol riot. Whether or not Attorney General Merrick Garland is able to grab the brass ring and prosecute Trump after yet one more fishing expedition is another story, although I doubt that any president has seen as many resources used to investigate him as has Donald Trump, but the Department of Justice has not filed charges yet.

  Understand that anyone reading this article has committed a federal crime at some point, perhaps more than once. I adopted four children from overseas, and while I was not involved in the details (done through legitimate and registered adoption agencies), I can be held criminally responsible if anyone paid bribes in the countries where the adoptions took place. Even if investigators could not prove someone paid bribes, they could still charge me with a crime on a mere pretext. And the charges would stick, and most likely a federal jury would vote to convict.

  Remember that Democrats wanted Amy Coney Barrett’s adoption of two children from Haiti investigated. While the demands were overtly political, it was clear that the Democrats believed in using criminal law to achieve political purposes in her case, but using the law that way hardly is limited to operatives of the Democratic Party.

  (Lest one believe I exaggerate, read this account about lobster importers charged with federal crimes for allegedly violating Honduran lobster regulations—with the attorney general of Honduras telling the FBI there was no violation. A federal jury convicted the men, and they were sent to federal prison for eight years.)

  Anyone who has Democrat friends on social media knows that they are obsessed with having Trump charged, convicted, and thrown in prison. Because I spent many years researching and writing about federal criminal law, I can say that if federal authorities wish to charge someone with a crime, nothing, not even the law itself, stands in their way. So, if the Biden administration really wants to charge Trump with something, the FBI will have no trouble cooking up something to order.

  Furthermore, if the DOJ were to charge Trump with something, he would be tried in Washington, DC, facing a jury made up entirely of DC Democrats that almost surely will have decided guilt even before the trial begins. While the feds already know this, they also know something else: if they file criminal charges against Trump, they know they will be unleashing a mix of anger and political forces that they cannot control. If one believes there is a red-blue divide in the United States now, the public anger from those who have supported Trump will dwarf anything we saw January 6, 2021.

  We also are hearing the usual “no one is above the law” platitudes from David French and Nancy Pelosi, as though the DOJ had never placed its thumb on the scales when engaged in other investigations and prosecutions of politicians and politically connected people. One journalist who does understand what is happening, someone who called out the bogus “Trump Dossier” that turned out to be a dirty Hillary Clinton campaign trick is Matt Taibbi, a man of the Left but also someone interested in the truth.

  Not surprisingly, Taibbi has weighed in on this latest development and he sure doesn’t sound like the New York Times. He writes:

  We’ve reached the stage of American history where everything we see on the news must first be understood as political theater. In other words, the messaging layer of news now almost always dominates the factual narrative, with the latter often reported so unreliably as to be meaningless anyway. Yesterday’s sensational tale of the FBI raiding the Mar-a-Lago home of former president Donald Trump is no different.

  As of now, it’s impossible to say if Trump’s alleged offense was great, small, or in between. But this for sure is a huge story, and its hugeness extends in multiple directions, including the extraordinary political risk inherent in the decision to execute the raid.

  He continues:

  The top story today in the New York Times, bylined by its top White House reporter, speculates this is about “delayed returning” of “15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives.” If that’s true, and it’s not tied to January 6th or some other far more serious offense, then the Justice Department just committed institutional suicide and moved the country many steps closer to once far-out eventualities like national revolt or martial law.

  The editors of the NYT, CNN, David French and his fellow “Never Trumpers,” and most of Twitter really don’t care if Trump really committed a crime or not. They want him in jail for purely political reasons. These are the same people that insisted that the Hunter Biden laptop affair was nothing more than a “Russian disinformation” effort, and since it involves Hunter and his famous father, Joe, it is clear that there will be no effort by the FBI or Merrick Garland, or anyone else in the DOJ, to investigate beyond something cursory, enough to have the authorities claim “there is no there there.”

  At this time, we have no idea if Trump violated federal criminal laws or if we are looking at yet another bogus investigation, a road we have been down before. This is not to defend Trump’s presidency or agree with his insistence that the Democrats stole the 2020 election. The former president’s postelection antics certainly do not speak well of his character or the prospect of another run for the presidency.

  But we should not fool ourselves about the consequences of the jihad against Trump and the never-ending “jail to the chief” efforts of America’s political elites. Sooner or later, other people will be in power, and since the elites have shown no restraint in pursuing Trump and his allies, one can be sure that no one else will show restraint, either. If the political classes have not yet turned the USA into a Third World country, they are well on their way to finishing the job.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 21:25

• These Are The Most (And Least) Livable Cities In The World
  These Are The Most (And Least) Livable Cities In The World

  Pandemic restrictions changed the livability of many urban centers worldwide as cultural sites were shuttered, restaurant dining was restricted, and local economies faced the consequences. But as cities worldwide return to the status quo, many of these urban centers have become desirable places to live yet again.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop notes, this map uses annual rankings from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) to show the world’s most livable cities, measuring different categories including: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

  

  A Quick Note on Methodology

  The ranking attempts to assess which cities across the globe provide the best living conditions, by assigning a score on 30 quantitative and qualitative measures across the five categories with the following weightings:

  1. Healthcare (20%)
  2. Culture & Environment (25%)
  3. Stability (25%)
  4. Education (10%)
  5. Infrastructure (20%)

  Of the 30 factors within these categories, the qualitative ones are assigned as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable, or intolerable by a team of expert analysts. Quantitative measures are given a score based on a number of external data points. Everything is then weighted to provide a score between 1-100, with 100 being the ideal.

  Ranked: The 10 Most Livable Cities

  Of the 172 cities included in the rankings, many of the most livable cities can be found in Europe. However, three of the top 10 are located in Canada: Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto.

  Vienna has been ranked number one many times, most recently in 2019. According to the EIU, the Austrian capital only fell out of the top slot during the pandemic years because its famous museums and restaurants were shuttered.

  

   

  Only one Asian city, Osaka, makes the top 10 list, tying with Melbourne for 10th place. Notably, not a single U.S. city is found in the top ranks.

   

  Editor’s note: Two cities tie for both the #3 and #10 ranks, meaning that the “top 10” list actually includes 12 cities.

  Ranked: The 10 Least Livable Cities

  Some of the least livable cities in the world are located across Africa and Central Asia.

  

   

  Many of the least livable cities are within conflict zones, contributing to the low ratings. However, these regions are also home to some of the world’s fastest growing cities, presenting many opportunities for ambitious residents.

   

  The Biggest Changes in Ranking

  Let’s take a look at the cities that moved up the global rankings most dramatically compared to last year’s data.

  Moving Up: The 10 Most Improved Cities

  

   

  Here’s a look at the cities that fell the most in the rankings since last year’s report.

   

  Moving Down: The 10 Cities That Tumbled

  

   

  According to the report, a number of cities in New Zealand and Australia temporarily dropped in the ranking due to COVID-19 restrictions.

   

  It’s also worth noting that some Eastern European cities moved down in the rankings because of their close proximity to the war in Ukraine. Finally, Kyiv was not included in this year’s report because of the conflict.

  Urbanization and Livability

  As of 2021, around 57% of the world’s population lives in urban centers and projections show that people worldwide will continue to move into cities.

  While there are more amenities in urban areas, the pandemic revealed many issues with urbanization and the concentration of large populations. The stress on healthcare systems is felt most intensely in cities and restrictions on public outings are some of the first measures to be introduced in the face of a global health crisis.

  Now with the cost of living rising, cities may face pressures on their quality of life, and governments may be forced to cut spending on public services. Regardless, people worldwide continue to see the benefits of city living—it’s projected that over two-thirds of the global population will live in cities by 2050.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 21:00

• World Economic Forum Calls For Merging Of Human And AI Intel To Censor "Hate Speech" & "Misinformation"
  World Economic Forum Calls For Merging Of Human And AI Intel To Censor “Hate Speech” & “Misinformation”

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Despite the fact that no one asked, the World Economic Forum is now advocating for the merger of human and artificial intelligence systems to censor “hate speech” and “misinformation” online before it is even allowed to be posted.

  

  A report published to the official WEF website ominously warns about the peril of “the dark world of online harms.”

  But the globalist body, run by comic book Bond villain Klaus Schwab, has a solution.

  They want to merge the ‘best’ aspects of human censorship and AI machine learning algorithms to ensure that people’s feelings don’t get hurt and counter-regime opinions are blacklisted.

  “By uniquely combining the power of innovative technology, off-platform intelligence collection and the prowess of subject-matter experts who understand how threat actors operate, scaled detection of online abuse can reach near-perfect precision,” states the article.

  After engaging in a whole host of mumbo jumbo, the article concludes by proposing “a new framework: rather than relying on AI to detect at scale and humans to review edge cases, an intelligence-based approach is crucial.”

  “By bringing human-curated, multi-language, off-platform intelligence into learning sets, AI will then be able to detect nuanced, novel abuses at scale, before they reach mainstream platforms. Supplementing this smarter automated detection with human expertise to review edge cases and identify false positives and negatives and then feeding those findings back into training sets will allow us to create AI with human intelligence baked in,” the article rambles.

  NEW – Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum proposes to automate censorship of “hate speech” and “disinformation” with AI fed by “subject matter experts.”https://t.co/A4JDrh7RaK pic.twitter.com/LYqFhik3Wk

  — Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) August 11, 2022

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

  In other words, your free speech will probably get censored before you’re even able to post it on social media sites. Some are calling it “preemptive censorship.”

  Or as the WEF puts it, “Trust and safety teams can stop threats rising online before they reach users.”

  No doubt that a central part of such “misinformation” will be strident denunciation of the WEF itself, given that the organization is notorious for blocking its critics on Twitter.

  Many would ask why the World Economic Forum, amidst a cost of living crisis, upcoming energy rationing and a global recession, is concerning itself with any of this.

  Why don’t they just stick to the economy?

  “It’s never a sure bet if this Davos-based elite’s mouthpiece comes up with its outlandish “solutions” and “proposals” as a way to reinforce existing, or introduce new narratives; or just to appear busy and earn its keep from those bankrolling it,” writes Didi Rankovic.

  “No – it’s not the runaway inflation, energy costs, and even food security in many parts of the world. For how dedicated to globalization the organization is, it’s strangely tone-deaf to what is actually happening around the globe.”

  *  *  *

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

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behinds the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 20:35

• White House Warns Of Dangers As Congress Members Take Unauthorized Trips To Ukraine
  White House Warns Of Dangers As Congress Members Take Unauthorized Trips To Ukraine

  What could go wrong? It’s being widely reported that some Congressional members are taking unauthorized trips to Ukraine following complaints that the White House stopped approving them. 

  The Hill reports Friday that “At least one Democrat and six Republican lawmakers, including Fitzpatrick, have traveled to Ukraine independently between April and July.” This is in reference to Pennsylvania Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, who in May went to Odesa and Kyiv, but without waiting for Biden administration approval. 

  

  The White House has meanwhile warned of serious security risks for these “off the books” trips. Concerning Fitzpatrick, The Hill writes, “The former FBI agent, who helped stand up Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2015, traveled with Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), relying on a network of personal contacts and the Ukrainian government to ensure his safety.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 20:10

• The Frogs Will Boil Themselves
  The Frogs Will Boil Themselves

  Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

  There’s a well-known old fable that describes a frog being boiled alive. It states that if a frog is dropped in boiling water, it will hop out. But if it’s placed in lukewarm water, it will be comfortable. Then, if the heat is turned up slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be boiled to death.

  In political terms, this translates into a slow increase, say, the slow rise of taxation or the gradual removal of freedoms.

  But there’s another way to boil the electorate of a country: have them become willing participants in their own demise.

  

  This method is a common practice in many countries, particularly the US. Americans have repeatedly been conned into begging for their second amendment rights to be diminished.

  The method is to make use of the media to shine a light on the horrific murder of innocents through the use of firearms.

  In recent years, this effort has been ramped up through regular senseless massacres of people, particularly children, in public places, such as schools and movie theatres.

  Whether or not these incidents are actually created by the ruling elite is a moot point. What matters is that their proliferation has been extremely effective in providing the media will the fodder to repeatedly ask, “When is the Government going to make the possession of guns illegal so that the killing will stop?”

  Many citizens are wary of such suggestions, but countless others quickly take the bait and demand that the Government “do something.”

  Eventually, this becomes a point of pride for many citizens — a badge of righteousness — for standing up for those who have been victims.

  Through such efforts, the US constitution has slowly lost its ability to serve as a limitation to Government power. A proliferation of laws that redefine what the Constitution means has, over time, eviscerated the Constitution.

  Not surprisingly, those who support this effort are largely liberal, which creates a backlash from those who are conservative and vehemently oppose any erosion of the Constitution.

  Those who are liberal may reinforce their beliefs by watching propaganda networks on television and regularly pump up the dangers of the Constitution. Likewise, conservatives have their propaganda network, which can be counted on to reinforce their views.

  Whichever side Americans take on such issues, they would be wise to keep an eye out for what may be the next development in this wrangle.

  Those who dutifully watch the liberal “news” networks may soon see pundits despairing that the failings of the aging Constitution must be dealt with. It must be updated if it is to serve changing needs. After all, the Founding Fathers cannot be blamed that they didn’t foresee the existence of AK-47s. Surely, it falls to the present administration to “correct” the failings of the well-intentioned old document.

  Conservatives, of course, are likely to be more cautious, but what we may see is for the pundits on their favoured network to express frustration that the Left is seeking to erode traditional values and must, at some point be stopped, or the country will be destroyed. There can be no question that the Founding Fathers were correct — that unless the Constitution and its amendments are not clarified once and for all as to what they were meant to express, American liberty is at stake.

  Americans, like citizens of most countries, love a good battle between good and evil. Every four years, a massive three-ring circus is staged in which the political leader is decided and both sports teams – Democrats and Republicans – go all out in seeking a victory on the playing field.

  However, in most cases, neither candidate is trustworthy or qualified for the job, but this is of no importance. The essence of the battle is not to select a wise and capable leader but to win.

  Similarly, once the populace has been wound up on both sides to believe that only a pitched battle can “re-establish the Constitution” or “modernise the Constitution,” the battle shall be met.

  At present, this eventuality may seem mere speculation. But then, the media campaign has not yet begun.

  At present, all that exists is pundits in the media bemoaning the injustice of the present situation.

  What is needed is the prediction of pundits that, whatever side an individual takes on the issue, his side is sure to win.

  On the liberal side, social warriors must come out daily in the media with demands for change and the certainty of success once the battle has begun. On the conservative side, pundits need to guarantee that the battle will be won once and for all, but that the situation is in dire need of immediate attention, or all may be lost.

  The result will not be immediate, but, with repetition, eventually, the American people on both sides of the fence may well not only suggest, but demand that the matter be sorted.

  At that point, the Government may announce that a Constitutional Review will be undertaken. It would not matter that most of those making the demand are the pundits on the media networks. What would be presented would be that “a majority of Americans demand that the review take place as soon as possible.”

  Although at the time, the propaganda may imply that the review will be focused on one part of the Constitution, such as the Second Amendment, Americans will soon discover that the entire document is up for grabs. Under the terms of the review, all facets of the Constitution may be questioned.

  Then what would the outcome be?

  Each side will hope that their elected representatives will emerge as the heroes, but that is not how politics works.

  In truth, elected leaders do not seek to serve the public but to dominate them. Invariably, their recommendations for change will be whatever transfers greater power to themselves.

  Both Democratic and Republican members will argue forcefully for the rights of the American citizen. However, in the end, a “compromise” shall be made — one in which the rights of the populace are diminished and the Government has new powers to allow it to bypass the electorate in the future.

  If this does occur, the public will, in effect, “boil themselves.” They will have demanded that the Government act, and, when the dust has settled, each side will claim some sort of victory but will fail to understand that they have brought about their own loss of rights.

  It is hoped that, when the day comes that a Constitutional Review is proposed, Americans refuse to take the bait.

  *  *  *

  Economically, politically, and socially, the United States seems to be headed down a path that’s not only inconsistent with the founding principles of the country, but accelerating quickly toward boundless decay. In the years ahead, there will likely be much less stability of any kind. That’s exactly why New York Times bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent new report titled Doug Casey’s Top 7 Predictions for the Raging 2020s. Click here to download the free PDF now.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 19:45

• Apollo Readies Large Cap Direct Loan Fund
  Apollo Readies Large Cap Direct Loan Fund

  As the old adage goes, “if you can’t beat them, join them…”

  That appears to be exactly what Apollo Global Management is doing, after the asset manager has spun up its first ever dedicated fund for large-cap direct loans.

  The firm is looking to “fill the gap left by banks pulling back from financing buyouts,” according to a Thursday morning Bloomberg wrap up of the news. 

  The newly formed venture is going to be called Apollo Origination Partners, and it’ll be the first in a series of funds that will make direct loans to companies with at least $100 million in earnings, the report says. The fund raised $2.35 billion to get started.

  

  John Zito, Apollo’s deputy chief investment officer of credit, told Bloomberg: “The number of firms who can do $1 billion deals is shrinking. We’re financing these sponsors in ways that they used to access the syndicated market. Now they’re accessing the private market.” 

  Wall Street has pulled back on this type of funding as concerns about inflation, raising rates and recession have loomed. 

  Apollo has already handled 11 transactions of at least $1 billion each, this year through July, the report says. 

  The company is stress testing new loans using the assumption that there could be a recession anytime with the next four to six quarters. Loans come with first-lien collateral protection, and Apollo is looking for “well capitalized” borrowers who have sticky customer bases with recurring revenue. 

  “Everyone wants capital right now. We’re leaning into our deepest sponsor relationships,” Zito said.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 19:20

• House Democrats Pass Inflation Reduction Act, Sending It To Biden's Desk
  House Democrats Pass Inflation Reduction Act, Sending It To Biden’s Desk

  Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  House Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act in a strictly party-line vote on Aug. 12, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk for final approval.

  The 220-207 vote came as little surprise, as Democrats have been outspoken in their support for the package while Republicans have come out strongly against the legislation. Four Republicans did not vote.

  The bill was passed by the Senate on Aug. 7 using the reconciliation process, which rendered it immune to the filibuster.

  On July 27, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced that he had reached a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to pledge his support for the $700 billion spending bill, which Democrats claim will bring in $725 billion in new revenue to the federal government and reduce the deficit by around $292 billion annually.

  The Inflation Reduction Act was the product of a year of harried negotiations, compromises, and disappointments for Democrats as they tried to pass the much larger $1.75 trillion Build Back Better (BBB) Act.

  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) barreled ahead with the vote even though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had not given its final scores yet, meaning that the actual effect the bill will have on federal revenues, spending, the deficit, and national debt are largely unknown.

  Republicans and Democrats alike have pointed to hundreds of economists who either support the bill or oppose it.

  There is no consensus among the experts, and without CBO numbers, analysts can do little more than make an educated guess about the effects it will have.

  Floor Debate

  Prior to the vote, Republicans and Democrats debated the bill for about three hours on the House floor.

  Democrats portrayed the bill as a timely one which will help reduce inflation and lower costs for American families. Republicans, on the other hand, contended that the bill would only worsen the situation, and blasted Democrats for moving the partisan bill through Congress without proper bipartisan consideration.

  “For too long, too many people in this country have felt like the work that happens in Washington isn’t meant to help them,” Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who led Democrats’ caucus during the floor debate, said in his party’s opening remarks. “And for a long time, they’ve been right.”

  “At the end of the day, this is not a complicated vote—it comes down to what your values are,” McGovern continued.

  “This is a historic bill,” McGovern said, encouraging others to support the legislation.

  Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) echoed McGovern’s support for the bill in his opening remarks.

  “The legislation before us today is a big deal for American families and a big deal for our planet,” he said. “The Inflation Reduction Act will lower health care and energy costs for working families. This legislation finally makes the wealthiest corporations start paying their fair share in taxes, and it ensures that rich tax cheats start paying what they owe.”

  Yarmuth said that the bill was fiscally responsible, fully paid-for, and had been endorsed by top U.S. economists.

  “Not one American family making less than $400,000 per year will see their federal tax bill increased by this legislation—not by a penny,” Yarmuth insisted. However, some critics of the legislation have described this oft-repeated claim as misleading, saying that it ignores the trickle-down effects that raising corporate taxes will have on consumer prices and wages.

  In his opening remarks for Republicans, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) blasted Democrats for the haste with which they’ve moved the bill through Congress, with no Republican input.

  He also mocked the title of the bill, saying that “you would need a nanometer [or a] micrometer” to measure the effect that the legislation will have on inflation.

  “This is the second time we’ve seen this legislative vehicle. The Democrats tried to push through partisan budget reconciliation—what does that mean? That means there is zero input from the Republican side of the aisle. And why is that important? You have a House and a Senate that are almost evenly-divided!

  “It’s 50-50 in the Senate—they relied on the vice president’s vote to get this across the finish line,” Burgess said, adding that Democrats barely have a majority in the House.

  “So don’t try to tell people that this has been an exercise that was well thought-out, that has come through the committees of jurisdiction, where people have had input—no! No Republican has had any input into this travesty that we have in front of us today.”

  Burgess said the Inflation Reduction Act is a reconfigured Build Back Better Act, and that the Democratic senators cut a deal with themselves

  “I stress again,” Burgess emphasized, concluding his remarks. “This bill had no Republican input and it will have a negligible effect on inflation.”

  Budget Committee Ranking Member Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who has been outspoken in his opposition to the bill, opened Republicans’ remarks during the floor debate.

  “This week we found out inflation remains at a 40-year high, with inflation having risen 13.7 percent since Biden became president,” Smith began. “Real wages have decreased by 4.5 percent. Americans are suffering.

  “Are we here debating how to alleviate that suffering? No. We are here to debate what Democrats call the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’—which everyone from the Congressional Budget Office, to 230 different economists, [and even] Sen. Bernie Sanders, have said will not reduce inflation.

  “When you strip away the sunset policies, this bill spends $745 billion and adds over $46 billion to our debt. It adds $54 billion to our debt in just the first five years.”

  Democrats’ claims that the bill will reduce the deficit, Smith noted, point to provisions which will not even begin to go into effect until 2029.

  “So lots of spending up front, lots of debt up front—and maybe savings eight years from now.”

  What’s In the Bill

  Included in the bill’s $700 billion in new spending is an $80 billion appropriation to the Internal Revenue Service—six times the agency’s current budget—as well as an array of new climate policies and tax incentives for individuals and corporations who switch to renewable energy sources and low-emission vehicles.

  Broken down, the roughly $80 billion appropriation to the IRS will go toward “necessary expenses for tax enforcement activities … to determine and collect owed taxes, to provide legal and litigation support, to conduct criminal investigations (including investigative technology), to provide digital asset monitoring and compliance activities, to enforce criminal statutes related to violations of internal revenue laws and other financial crimes … and to provide other services.”

  In addition, the funds would go to hire tens of thousands of new IRS agents to further aid enforcement of the new tax rules—which likely will mean far more audits across the board.

  Unsurprisingly, the effort to expand the IRS is not popular with Republicans, who have generally opposed such efforts in the past.

  “Democrats are scheming to double the size of the IRS by hiring an army of 87,000 new agents to spy on Americans,” wrote House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in an Aug. 4 tweet.

  The bill also includes a series of new taxes.

  The most substantial of these is a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations that make more than $1 billion per year. Though the law currently sets the tax rate for U.S. corporations at 21 percent, many megacorporations end up paying a substantially lower rate after exemptions, write-offs, and tax code workarounds are taken into account.

  The effect that this new tax requirement will have on consumer prices and workers’ wages is disputed. But Preston Brashers, a senior tax policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, predicted in an interview with The Epoch Times that the new tax would cause prices to surge and wage growth to slow or stagnate.

  In a compromise with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to win her support, Democrats also added a 1 percent excise tax on corporate stock buybacks, a practice commonly used by retirement account managers to increase the value of clients’ retirement portfolios.

  In addition the bill would, for the first time ever, allow Medicare Part D to negotiate with prescription drug manufacturers, who will have no choice under the legislation but to enter negotiations or face a massive 95 percent excise tax as punishment.

  While private insurers have long had the ability to haggle with drug manufacturers, such negotiations have been voluntary for both parties. But under the Inflation Reduction Act, drug manufacturers would not be permitted to refuse negotiations upon receiving an offer from the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

  These mandated price controls, the CBO has warned in the past, could greatly reduce medical innovation in the United States—meaning the number of new, life-saving drugs coming to market every year could shrink by as much as 50 percent.

  In the worst case, the CBO warned in a 2019 letter to Democrats discussing the same policy included in the Inflation Reduction Act, pharmaceutical companies may simply pull out of the U.S. market entirely rather than accept price controls or the excise tax (pdf).

  What’s Next for the Bill

  Because the bill has already been passed by the Senate, it will not need to go back to the upper chamber. Instead, it will now go directly to Biden’s desk for approval, which he has vowed to give.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 18:55

• Popeyes Appears To Be Calling It Quits In China
  Popeyes Appears To Be Calling It Quits In China

  What would a U.S. presence anywhere be without fast food fried chicken? 

  Perhaps this is why Popeyes is in focus by the Global Times, after it was reported that the fast food chain shut down 7 of its 9 stores in mainland China. 

  The brand “apparently failed to gain ground” in China, the report says, while sister brand Tim Hortons – originally a Canadian brand – has continued to make an “ambitious expansion push”.

  Four outlets in Shanghai have closed, according to the report. They are unable to be reached by phone and only two additional locations – one in Huangpu District and one in Pudong New Area – remain.

  

  Popeye’s also formerly had two stores in Hangzhou, East China’s Zhejiang Province and one store in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province, the report says. 

  A member of Popeyes’ staff confirmed to Global Times that the locations had been shuttered, and that they were unsure about their future: “We were not informed whether the stores will be closed permanently or opened later. We haven’t received any specific notice nor the reason for the closure.”

  Popeyes first started to expand in China at the worst possible time, May 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. The company’s initial success – with customers waiting in line as early as 4AM – had led the brand to believe it could expand to 1,500 stores in 10 years. 

  Restaurant Brands International still has Tim Hortons – referred to as “Tim’s China” – and Burger King with a strong presence in mainland China. RBI is still aiming for more than 2,750 Tim Hortons stores in China by 2026.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 18:30

• Mister Market Handing Out Roses Will Eventually Change His Mind
  Mister Market Handing Out Roses Will Eventually Change His Mind

  By Ven Ram, Bloomberg Markets Live commenator and analyst

  Just when you thought owning beta isn’t working anymore, out pops Mister Market and serenades you with a bouquet of roses.

  If you had taken a deep breath at the start of the second half of the year and kept your faith in the broader market, you would have got one-period price returns of some 11% on the S&P 500 and about 15% on the Nasdaq 100. You would, of course, take that any day. And especially in a milieu where inflation — despite the brouhaha we have seen since the release of US inflation data for July — is running rife and the Fed is nowhere near done with its hiking cycle.

  We have already heard from Charles Evans and Neel Kashkari that the Fed will keep going into next year and that the monetary authority has no intention to start slashing rates as the market seems to be thinking. By year-end we will likely be witness to the Fed rate being somewhere between 3.50% and 4% given that the Fed still needs to get into restrictive territory to engineer a soft landing. And lest it should be forgotten, the top end of the rate penciled in by Fed members for next year is 4.40%. Now juxtapose that with what stocks are yielding, and you will know their recent hubris may be tested in the months to come: the S&P promises an earnings yield of 5.4% and the Nasdaq just 4.1%.

  

  If you are going to own equities for the foreseeable future, would you rather not demand a bigger risk premium than a wafer-thin margin over where the Fed rate is likely to be? And don’t forget the rebound in real yields that we have seen this month, which has been nothing short of stunning, which will act as a drag on equities. At the moment, both the major stock benchmarks are sorely in need of a reality check — especially everyone’s favorite technology stocks.

  Owning beta has its advantages, but it may be easy to be swept up by a false sense of complacency. Mister Market seems to be thinking that this summer will last all-year long, but when the reality dawns, we know he can turn whimsical before you have time to pare your positions.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 18:05

• Rent Is Becoming A Crisis In The U.S.
  Rent Is Becoming A Crisis In The U.S.

  The growing rental crisis in the U.S. has shown no signs of stopping.

  That was the topic of a new Bloomberg report this week that highlighted the stories of numerous Americans struggling to meet their rental obligations. 

  The cost of rent in the U.S. is moving higher at the highest pace in three decades, the report notes, blowing past a median of $2,000 per month for the first time ever. Rents are now above where they were prior to the pandemic in most major cities.

  Areas just outside cities, which saw a large influx of new renters during the pandemic, have seen their rents rise disproportionately higher. People returning to large cities, post-pandemic, have also not helped prices cool off.

  Additionally, rising interest rates have now deterred some would-be buyers, who are now becoming renters. Tight inventory continues to lead to bidding wars, even in the rental market, the report says. 

  

  Kate Reynolds, principal policy associate at the Washington-based Urban Institute, said: “It’s pretty much the perfect storm for renters right now. Those renters and their landlords don’t have a place to turn if they’re unable to pay the rent.”

  At the same time, renters are trying to cope with the affects of inflation nearly everywhere else in their lives. 

  Bloomberg notes that people of color and those with lower incomes are most disproportiately affected by the rise in rents:

  In the US, about 58% of households headed by Black adults rent their homes, along with nearly 52% of Latino-led households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data. In comparison, about a quarter of households led by non-Hispanic White adults, and a little under 40% of Asian-led households, are rentals. Some 54% of renters earn less than $50,000, and the annual median household income among renters is about $42,500, below the national median of $67,500, according to Zillow.

  Single family rents were up by a record 14% in May from the year prior this year. In some cities, like Miami and and Orlando, rents skyrocketed 40% and 25%, respectively. Las Vegas rents were up 16.7% in May from the year prior. 

  

  Cities like Atlanta have also seen rents rise 14.8% from a year prior. People moving from the West or the Northeast to the South have also boosted rents. 

  Duluth, Georgia resident Karla Kelley said: “We’re getting a lot of people from the Northeast or from the West Coast. To them, these rents are not huge.”

  40% of all households that are not current on their rent say they are likely to be evicted or foreclosed within the next two months. This represents about 5.4 million households, according to the report. 

  And as we have documented on this site many times over, people are now turning to debt to try and cover their costs – including their housing costs. Credit card balances were up $46 billion in Q2 of this year and 30% of Americans have admitted to using credit cards or loans to meet “spending needs in the prior week”. This number was up from 23% in early January.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 17:40

• Five Lingering Questions In The Wake Of The Mar-a-Lago Raid
  Five Lingering Questions In The Wake Of The Mar-a-Lago Raid

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Former President Donald Trump has waived any objections to the release of the warrant and property receipt after the filing of a motion by the Justice Department. The motion, however, did not seek the release of the most important document in this controversy: the supporting FBI affidavit. That is the document that would reveal what the FBI told the magistrate about the prior communications with the Trump team and the specific allegations of the status of the documents in question.

  

  There are reports that the documents involved material of the highest possible classification dealing with nuclear weapons. There is no question that the former President has no authority to retain classified material and that the government has a legitimate right to retrieve such material.

  We should see the warrant and property list relatively soon in light of the DOJ motion and the Trump waiver. My greatest interest is the specificity of the information. Here are a few questions as we wait for the warrant and list:

  1. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the DOJ would have used other less intrusive means if they were possible. Yet, it would seem that such options were not just possible but obvious, including the use of a second subpoena. Moreover, even if a raid was necessary, it is not clear why the DOJ would descend upon Mar-a-Lago with such a massive show of force rather than send a few agents over with the warrant.

  2. If the FBI believed that there was nuclear-related information in the resort, it certainly did not seem to move with dispatch. The last communication, according to the Trump team, was in June. Even after securing a warrant, there was reportedly a delay in executing the warrant. Why?

  3. If the FBI suspected that high-level material was retained at the resort, did they identify the material to the Trump team and demand its return? It is hard to imagine the Trump Team telling the FBI to pound sand if such a demand was made. Yet, such a denial would readily support a showing of probable cause. Moreover, adding a lock to the door of a storage room would not be viewed as a sufficient for material at the apex of classification levels.

  4. Did the warrant specifically identify the material or the classification level? If the warrant sought the recovery of any possible classified evidence, it would again raise what was stated in the affidavit and the reason why such material was not acquired in the June subpoena despite the reported cooperation of the Trump team.

  5. There remains the role of the confidential informant and what the person shared with the DOJ. Was there evidence of active concealment of the material or merely a statement of additional documents being stored at the resort?

  It is highly unlikely that all of this information will be contained in just the warrant and the list. Given the growing controversy over the necessity of the raid, this is one circumstance where the release of the affidavit is warranted. Rather than allow such questions to fester and grow, early and total transparency would seem in the public interest.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 17:15

• NYC Warns "Polio Circulating" City After Virus Found In Sewage
  NYC Warns “Polio Circulating” City After Virus Found In Sewage

  Health officials have detected poliovirus in wastewater from New York City, suggesting the virus is circulating undetected across the metro area. 

  The New York State Department of Health and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced their findings about the virus known to cause permanent paralysis and even death. 

  “The risk to New Yorkers is real but the defense is so simple — get vaccinated against polio … With polio circulating in our communities there is simply nothing more essential than vaccinating our children to protect them from this virus, and if you’re an unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated adult, please choose now to get the vaccine,” Dr. Ashwin Vasan, the New York City health commissioner, stated in a Department of Health press release. 

  UPDATE: NYSDOH & @nychealthy wastewater monitoring has identified poliovirus in samples in NYC. Now is time for every adult & child to get immunized against polio & be up to date with immunization schedules, especially those in the greater NY metro area. https://t.co/aOJNV1lP0I pic.twitter.com/i9GIRULDQS

  — NYSDOH (@HealthNYGov) August 12, 2022

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

   A polio case identified in Rockland County, just north of NYC, in late July was “just the very, very tip of the iceberg” and an indication there “must be several hundred cases in the community circulating,” Dr. Jose Romero, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told CNN on Wednesday. 

  Besides an emerging polio threat, main stream media and government have been drumming up monkeypox and COVID virus doom stories to keep people in a perpetual state of fear.  

  … and, of course, the government is offering polio booster vaccines. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 16:50

• Grocery Inflation Hits Highest Level In 43 Years Despite Biden’s 'Zero' Inflation Messaging
  Grocery Inflation Hits Highest Level In 43 Years Despite Biden’s ‘Zero’ Inflation Messaging

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

  

  While the annual pace of inflation in the United States eased slightly in July, a deeper dive into the numbers reveals that some of the categories that hit everyday Americans especially hard in the pocketbook have soared, with the price of groceries jumping to the highest level since 1979.

  The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Aug. 10 that the headline pace of inflation, as reflected in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) ticked down from a recent peak of 9.1 percent in June to 8.5 percent in July.

  The month-over-month CPI inflation figure came in at 0 percent, meaning the overall pace of price growth stayed flat between June and July, prompting President Joe Biden to take a victory lap saying that the “economy had zero percent inflation in the month of July.”

  Republicans and some economists objected to the White House messaging on “zero” inflation by arguing that Biden was cherry picking the data by focusing on the 0 percent month-over-month pace of growth, while overlooking that the year-over-year rate of inflation—which tends to be the more commonly reported figure—remained at an eye-watering 8.5 percent.

  “It’s a bogus math trick. This is the overall one-month index change. Overall that means that the big drop in fuel oil and gas (following previous massive monthly increases) swamped the huge increases everywhere else,” wrote Jeffrey Tucker, president of the Brownstone Institute think tank and columnist for The Epoch Times.

  But while the annual 8.5 percent pace of inflation was, indeed, a slowdown from the prior month, several categories the BLS uses to calculate the price index soared, with one key gauge hitting a multi-decade high.

  The food-at-home index, which represents food purchased in places like grocery stores for consumption at home, jumped by an annual 13.1 percent, which is the fastest pace since March 1979.

  “Consumers are getting a break at the gas pump, but not at the grocery store,” Bankrate Chief Financial Analyst Greg McBride told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “Food prices, and especially costs for food at home, continue to soar, rising at the fastest pace in more than 43 years.”

  

  In Monthly or Annual Terms, Food Inflation Soars

  Some of the sharpest year-over-year jumps in food purchased for consumption at home include flour (+22.7 percent), chicken (+17.6 percent), milk (+15.6 percent), bread (+13.7 percent), and eggs (+38 percent).

  And even though the overall month-over-month CPI index growth came in at 0.0 percent, the vast majority of food-at-home items that make up the index also saw month-over-month increases, including potatoes (+4.6 percent), coffee (+2.7 percent), peanut butter (+3.5 percent), chicken (+1.4 percent), and eggs (+4.3 percent).

  The cost of shelter also rose in both annual and monthly terms, climbing 5.7 percent over the year and 0.6 percent over the month.

  Experts say that the lagging nature of the shelter component of the price index means inflationary pressures are likely to stay high for at least several more months.

  “Shelter costs are still rising at a knee-buckling pace, and accounted for 40 percent of the increase in the core CPI,” McBride said. “Change in rent prices, in particular, tend to lag increases in home prices so we can expect to see continued moves higher for months to come in what is the biggest component of the inflation index.”

  The so-called “core” CPI inflation measure, which excludes food and energy and is viewed as a better gauge of underlying price pressures, remained unchanged in July at 5.9 percent in annual terms, and up 0.3 percent in monthly terms.

  The fact that core CPI rose over the month suggests inflation could stick around for longer and maintain pressure on the Fed to keep hiking rates aggressively, despite stocks and other risk assets rallying following Wednesday’s relatively soft inflation print.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 08/12/2022 – 16:25

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