- These Amendments Would Open The Door To A Dangerous Global Health Bureaucracy
These Amendments Would Open The Door To A Dangerous Global Health Bureaucracy
Authored by David Thunder via The Brownstone Institute,
The Covid pandemic gave the World Health Organisation and its partners unprecedented visibility and a tremendous amount of “soft” power to shape public health law and policies across the world. Over the past year or so, the WHO has been pushing hard to consolidate and expand its power to declare and manage public health emergencies on a global scale.
The primary instruments for this consolidation are a WHO Pandemic Accord and a series of far-reaching amendments to existing International Health Regulations (IHR). The target date for finalising both the IHR Amendments and the new Pandemic Accord is May 2024.
The net effect of the proposed text for the pandemic accord and the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations, would be to create a legal and financial basis for the emergence of an elaborate, internationally coordinated bio-surveillance regime and significantly strengthen the authority of the World Health Organisation to direct and coordinate the international response to global and regional public health threats.
It is not entirely clear why the WHO decided to negotiate a separate pandemic treaty that overlaps in significant ways with the proposed IHR amendments. In any case, most of the far-reaching changes to global health regulations are already contained within the IHR amendments, so that is what we will focus on here.
Even if the WHO failed to get a new pandemic treaty passed, the proposed amendments to International Health Regulations would be sufficient by themselves to confer unprecedented power on the WHO to direct international health and vaccination policies in circumstances deemed by the WHO to be a “public health emergency of international concern.”
The WHO wants the IHR amendments to be finalised on time for next year’s World Health Assembly, scheduled for 27 May – 1 June 2024. Assuming the amendments are approved by a simple majority of the delegates, they will be considered fully ratified 12 months after that, unless heads of State formally reject them within the designated opt-out period, which has been reduced from 18 to 10 months.
If ratified, they will come into effect two years after their announcement at the May 2024 World Health Assembly (i.e., around June 2026), as stipulated in the annex to Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) agreed to on 28th May 2022.
In other words, revisions to the International Health Regulations will pass by default rather than by formal acceptance by heads of State. The silence of heads of State will be construed as consent. This makes it all the easier for the revised IHR to pass without proper legislative scrutiny and without a public debate in the States that are subject to the new legal framework.
To get a flavour of how these changes in international law are likely to impact the policies of governments and citizens’ lives more broadly, it is sufficient to review a selection of the proposed amendments. While we do not know which of the amendments will survive the negotiation process, the direction of travel is alarming.
Taken together, these amendments to International Health Regulations would push us in the direction of a global public health bureaucracy with limited democratic accountability, glaring conflicts of interest, and significant potential for systematic harm to the health and liberties of citizens.
The amendments discussed below are drawn from a 46-page document hosted on the WHO webpage entitled “Article-by-Article Compilation of Proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) submitted in accordance with decision WHA75(9) (2022).” Because these changes are being negotiated largely outside the frame of national electoral politics, the average citizens is barely aware of them.
Should these amendments come into force, States will be bound by international law, in the event of a public health emergency (as defined by WHO) to follow the playbook of health policies determined by the WHO and its “emergency committee” of “experts,” leaving far less scope for national parliaments and governments to set policies that diverge from WHO recommendations.
Insofar as national States formally consent to the IHR amendments, their sovereignty would remain intact, from a legal perspective. But insofar as they are binding themselves to dance to the tune of political actors outside the scope of national politics, they would clearly lose their freedom to set their own policies in this domain, and health policy “gurus,” instead of representing their fellow citizens, would represent a global health regime transcending national politics and operating above national law.
Under a globally coordinated public health regime, activated by an international public health emergency declared by the WHO, citizens would be vulnerable to errors committed by WHO-nominated “experts” sitting in Geneva or New York, errors which could replicate themselves through a global health system with little resistance from national governments.
Citizens have a right to know that the amended regulations as they stand would give unprecedented power to a WHO-led global health regime and, by implication, its most influential financial and political stakeholders like the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, all of which are largely beyond the reach of national voters and legislators.
There are dozens of proposed amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations. Here, I will highlight eight changes that are of special concern because of their implications for the independence of national health regimes and for the rights of citizens:
States Bind Themselves to Follow WHO’s Advice as “The Guidance and Coordinating Authority” During an International Public Health Emergency
One of the amendments to IHR (International Health Regulations) reads, “States Parties recognize WHO as the guidance and coordinating authority of international public health response during public health Emergency of International Concern and undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations in their international public health responses.” Like many other treaty “undertakings,” the means for other parties to IHR to enforce this “undertaking” are limited.
Nevertheless, States party to the new regulations would be legally binding themselves to adhere to WHO recommendations and may lose credibility or suffer politically for failing to follow through on their international treaty commitments. This may seem “toothless” to some, but the reality is that this sort of “soft power” is what drives a good deal of compliance with international law.
Removal of “Non-Binding” Language
In the previous version of Article 1, WHO “recommendations” were defined as “non-binding advice.” In the new version, they are defined simply as “advice.” The only reasonable interpretation of this change is that the author wished to remove the impression that States were at liberty to disregard WHO recommendations. Insofar as signatories do “undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations in their international public health responses,” it would indeed appear that such “advice” becomes legally “binding” under the new regulations, making it legally difficult for States to dissent from WHO recommendations.
Removal of Reference to “Dignity, Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”
One of the most extraordinary and disturbing aspects of the proposed amendments to IHR is the removal of an important clause requiring that the implementation of the regulations be “with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons.”
In its place, the new clause reads that the implementation of the regulations shall be “based on the principles of equity, inclusivity, coherence and in accordance with their (the?) common but differentiated responsibilities of the States Parties, taking into consideration their social and economic development.” It is hard to know how any sane and responsible adult could justify removing “dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms” from International Health Regulations.
Expansion of Scope of International Health Regulations
In the revised version of Article 2, the scope of IHR includes not only public health risks, but “all risks with a potential to impact public health.” Under this amendment, International Health Regulations, and their main coordinating body, the WHO, would be concerned not only with public health risks, but with every conceivable societal risk that might “impact” public health. Workplace stress? Vaccine hesitancy? Disinformation? Misinformation? Availability of pharmaceutical products? Low GDP? The basis for WHO intervention and guidance could be expanded indefinitely.
Consolidation of a Global Health Bureaucracy
Each State should nominate a “National IHR Focal Point” for “the implementation of health measures under these regulations.” These “focal points” could avail of WHO “capacity building” and “technical assistance.” IHR Focal Points, presumably manned by unelected bureaucrats and “experts,” would be essentially nodes in a new WHO-led global health bureaucracy.
Other important aspects of this new global health bureaucracy would be the WHO’s role in developing global “allocation plans for health products” (including vaccines), the WHO’s role as an information hub for expanded disease surveillance and research units across the world, and the WHO’s role as a a lead player in an international network of actors devoted to combatting “false and unreliable information” about public health events and anti-epidemic measures.
Expansion of WHO Emergency Powers
Under the revised regulations, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, “based on the opinion/advice of the Emergency Committee,” may designate an event as “having the potential to develop into a public health emergency of international concern, (and) communicate this and the recommended measures to State parties…” The introduction of the concept of a “potential” public health emergency, along with the idea of an “intermediate” emergency, also to be found among the proposed amendments, gives the WHO much wider leeway to set in motion emergency protocols and recommendations. For who knows what a “potential” or “intermediate” emergency amounts to?
Entrenchment and Legitimation of an International Bio-Surveillance Regime
The old Article 23, “Health Measures on arrival and departure,” authorises States to require that travellers produce certain medical credentials prior to travel, including “a non-invasive medical examination which is the least intrusive examination that could achieve the public health objective.” In the new version of Article 23, travellers may be required to produce “documents containing information…on a laboratory test for a pathogen and/or information on vaccination against a disease.”
These documents may include WHO-validated digital health certificates. Essentially, this reaffirms and legally validates the vaccine passport regime that imposed prohibitive testing costs on unvaccinated citizens in 2021-23, and resulted in thousands and probably tens of thousands of people vaccinating just for the convenience of travelling, rather than based on health considerations.
Global Initiatives for Combating “False and Unreliable Information”
Both WHO and States bound by IHR, under the revised draft of IHR, “shall collaborate” in “countering the dissemination of false and unreliable information about public health events, preventive and anti-epidemic measures and activities in the media, social networks, and other ways of disseminating such information.” Clearly the misinformation/disinformation amendments entail a propaganda and censorship regime.
There is no other plausible way to interpret “countering the dissemination of false and unreliable information,” and this is exactly how anti-disinformation measures have been interpreted since the Covid pandemic was announced in 2020 – measures, it may be added, that suppressed sound scientific contributions concerning vaccine risks, lab origins of the novel coronavirus, and efficacy of community masking.
The joint effect of these and other proposed changes to International Health Regulations would be to enthrone the WHO and its director-general at the head of an elaborate global health bureaucracy beholden to the special interests of WHO patrons, a bureaucracy that would be operated largely with the cooperation of State officials and agencies implementing “advice” and “recommendations” issued by the WHO, which State parties have legally undertaken to follow.
While it is true that international treaties cannot be coercively enforced, this does not mean that international law is inconsequential. Under the newly amended regulations, a highly centralised public health bureaucracy would be propped up by lavish funding mechanisms and protected by international law. A bureaucracy of this sort would inevitably become entrenched and intertwined with national bureaucracies, and would become an important element of the policymaking architecture of pandemic planning and responses.
Though national States could, theoretically, bypass this bureaucracy and renege on their legal undertakings under IHR, taking a different path to that recommended by WHO, this would be rather strange, given that they themselves would have both approved and financed the regime they are boycotting.
In the face of opposition from one or more signatory States, the WHO and its partners could pressure such a State into complying with its edicts by shaming it into upholding its legal commitments, or else other States may reprimand “renegade” states for putting international health in jeopardy, and apply political, financial and diplomatic pressure to secure compliance. Thus, while IHR would operate upon State officials in a softer way than national, police-backed regulations, it would certainly not be powerless or politically inconsequential.
The impact of the new global health bureaucracy on the lives of ordinary citizens may be quite dramatic: it would erect a global censorship regime legitimated by international law, making challenges to officially sanctioned information harder than ever; and it would make international public health responses even more slavishly dependent on WHO directives than they were before, discouraging independent, dissenting responses such as that of Sweden during the Covid pandemic.
Last but not least, the new global health bureaucracy would put the fate of ordinary citizens – our national and international mobility, our right to informed consent to medication, our bodily integrity, and ultimately, our health – in the hands of public health officials acting in lockstep with WHO “recommendations.”
Apart from the fact that policy diversification and experimentation is essential to a robust healthcare system, and is crushed by a highly centralised response to health emergencies, the WHO is already riddled with internal conflicts of interest and a track record of catastrophically unsound judgments, making them singularly unqualified to reliably identify a global health emergency or coordinate the response to it.
To start with, the WHO’s income stream depends on individuals like Bill Gates who have significant financial stakes in the pharmaceutical industry. How can we possibly expect the WHO to make impartial, disinterested recommendations about, say, the safety and efficacy of vaccines, when its own donors are financially invested in the success of specific pharmaceutical products, including vaccines?
Secondly, to allow the WHO to declare an international public health emergency is to create an obvious perverse incentive: given that a large part of the raison d’être of a WHO-led global health bureaucracy is to prevent, monitor, and respond to public health emergencies, and the activation of the WHO’s emergency powers depends on the presence of an actual or potential “public health emergency of international concern,” the WHO’s Director-General has an obvious professional and institutional interest in declaring potential or actual public health emergencies.
Third, the WHO wasted no time in praising China’s brutal and ultimately unsuccessful lockdowns, continues to support the censorship of their critics, repeatedly recommended community masking in the absence of plausible evidence of efficacy, failed to warn the public in a timely manner about the serious risks of mRNA vaccines, and has entered into a partnership with the European Union to extend the discriminatory and coercive Covid vaccine certificate system globally. These are certainly not people I would trust as custodians of my bodily integrity, health, informed consent, or mobility.
Republished from the author’s Substack
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 23:25 - Lack Of New China Stimulus Will Favor Bonds, Drag Stocks
Lack Of New China Stimulus Will Favor Bonds, Drag Stocks
By George Lei, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
Chinese leaders wrapped up a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday with no major surprises in public statements. Given that the the meeting was meant to set next year’s course for the world’s second-largest economy, the lack of emphasis on fixing real estate woes or stimulating domestic demand sent an ominous signal. Chinese stocks will likely extend their underperformance for the rest of 2023 and possibly into next year. Weak economic fundamentals, on the other hand, should keep supporting government bonds.
While macro policy is likely to continue the accommodative stance observed in 2H 2023, “the probability of bolstered stimulus is low,” JPMorgan analysts led by Chief China Economist Haibin Zhu wrote in a research report on Tuesday after the Central Economic Work Conference. They noted there was little extra news on tackling property-market risks or the potential spillover to local government debt in the readout, only a summary of recent policy announcements.
President Xi Jinping only attended the first half of the Dec. 11-12 meeting before heading to Hanoi for a visit on Tuesday, which might have explained the dearth of fresh initiatives. Most China observers, including Bloomberg Economics, now expect Beijing to stick with its “around 5%” GDP target set for 2023. There could, however, still be disappointments when the actual growth objective is unveiled in the first quarter.
The frequency of the phrase “high-quality development” in Tuesday’s readout more than doubled from a year ago, which reflects China’s focus on “hard technologies critical to lifting productivity, climbing the value chain and grabbing global market share,” Neo Wang, Lead China Macro Analyst at Evercore ISI told Bloomberg. “We expect 4.5%, instead of 5%, to be the anchor point of Beijing’s 2024 real GDP growth target,” he added.
The latest growth messages weren’t received enthusiastically by stock markets. The readout was released after equity trading closed on the mainland and in Hong Kong, and the FTSE China A50 Index futures initially jumped on the headlines before gains petered out. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon Index, which tracks US-traded Chinese companies, rose about 0.4% on Tuesday, lagging advances in the broader Nasdaq gauge.
The onshore benchmark CSI 300 index closed Tuesday about 2.4% above its 2023 low reached on Monday, and could revisit the bottom in the coming days and weeks as this year’s downtrend in equities appears far from over. Historically, the gauge tended to worsen a week after the release of the readouts, data complied by Bloomberg showed.
Status quo, however, favors Chinese government bonds. The 10-year yield on CGBs has fallen almost 20 basis points so far this year to around 2.65% and more declines are expected in 2024. The yield could drop toward a low of 2.3%-2.4% next year amid weak economic fundamentals and loose liquidity conditions, analysts at Guosheng Securities wrote in a report on Monday.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 23:05 - How Venezuelan Invasion Of Guyana Could Impact Tanker Shipping
How Venezuelan Invasion Of Guyana Could Impact Tanker Shipping
By Greg Miller of FreightWaves,
Shipping already faces fallout from two wars: trade shifts due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and vessel attacks off Yemen in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Could there be a third simultaneous war — and even more trade complications for shipping?
Venezuela is threatening to invade Guyana and annex Guyana’s oil-rich Essequibo region, claiming the jungle territory and its offshore areas were stolen from Venezuela in 1899. Essequibo comprises around two-thirds of Guyana.
Guyana has been a bright spot for crude tankers. Since offshore production began in 2019, crude exports have risen to 400,000 barrels per day (b/d), with projections for volumes to double by the end of 2025 and top 1 million b/d by 2027.
“In the unlikely event that Venezuela decides to go further than rhetoric and actually moves into Guyana, the oil production and exports from both countries will likely suffer,” said Erik Broekhuizen, manager of marine research and consulting at Poten & Partners, in a report on Saturday.
“Sanctions [on Venezuela] will be reimposed — and probably tightened — and international oil companies will move their assets out of Guyana, crippling the country’s production.”
Invasion would reduce Atlantic Basin exports
The positive spin for tankers on production cuts by OPEC is that these cuts reduce Middle East-to-Asia volume, which is replaced by Atlantic Basin-to-Asia volume. This increases tanker demand measured in ton-miles (volume multiplied by distance).
“I’m tempted to say it’s flat out positive,” said Lars Barstad, CEO of tanker owner Frontline (NYSE: FRO), on his company’s Nov. 30 conference call, referring to the latest round of OPEC cuts and the positive ton-mile effect.
“We’re seeing refinery capacity built up and continuing to be built up east of Suez. New oil production is coming from west of Suez. We’ve seen Brazil increasing production and new production coming out of Guyana. We’ve seen Venezuelan exports increasing,” he said, adding that OPEC cuts are also “great news for U.S. fracking and great news for U.S. production.”
In the Americas region, U.S. exports are averaging 4 million b/d this year, according to Kpler. The International Energy Agency put Brazilian exports at 1.8 million b/d. Colombia is at 400,000 b/d, according to Colombian oil company Ecopetrol. Venezuela is exporting 300,000-400,000 b/d, according to Frontline.
To the extent Atlantic Basin exports are being touted as a tanker-demand positive in light of OPEC cuts, a Venezuela-Guyana conflict would be a negative, potentially impacting around 11% of regional exports.
As Venezuela flounders, Guyana rises
“The oil industries of Venezuela and Guyana are a study in contrasts,” said Broekhuizen. “Venezuela boasts one of the largest oil reserves in the world, but its industry … is in bad shape after decades of mismanagement and corruption and — in recent years — ever-tightening sanctions.” Current Venezuelan production is less than a third of 2009 levels.
“In contrast to developments in Venezuela, Guyana’s oil industry has been a success story,” said Broekhuizen, adding that “the future for Guyana appears bright.”
Current output is via two floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels, the Liza Destiny and Liza Unity, with a third FPSO, the Prosperity, now ramping up.
Production is being handled by a consortium led by Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), with a 45% stake, together with partners Hess (NYSE: HES), with 30%, and China’s CNOOC, with 25%. Hess is in the process of being acquired by Chevron (NYSE: CVX). Guyana awarded exploration rights to eight additional offshore blocs in October.
Data from Vortexa cited by Poten & Partners shows that almost all of Guyana’s current exports are staying within the Atlantic Basin, with very little headed long-haul to Asia, at least so far.
Top buyers are Panama, the Netherlands and the U.S.
The destination of Venezuelan exports has changed significantly as a result of the temporary relaxation of U.S. sanctions.
Previously, most Venezuelan crude was shipped to China using tankers in the so-called “shadow fleet” — vessels outside the Western financial and insurance systems.
In more recent months, with U.S. sanctions temporarily suspended, the U.S. has replaced China as the largest buyer of Venezuelan crude.
Double negative for tanker demand
Frontline’s Barstad predicted that Venezuelan exports would increase to 600,000-700,000 b/d if sanctions are not reinstated. “One would assume that most of this Venezuelan oil will move short-haul on Aframaxes and potentially Suezmaxes to the U.S.” (Aframaxes carry 750,000 barrels, Aframaxes 1 million barrels).
But there is also an effect on demand for very large crude carriers (VLCCs, tankers with capacity of 2 million barrels).
“What we’ve seen recently is VLCC cargoes being built up, and some of them are pointing toward India,” said Barstad. He reported four to six VLCC loadings scheduled in Venezuela in late November through December.
“These are vessels that are then not available for U.S. exports, so we believe this will actually tighten up the Atlantic market.”
An invasion of Guyana by Venezuela would be a double negative for mainstream tanker demand. It would derail burgeoning exports from Guyana and inevitably lead to renewed U.S. sanctions, pushing Venezuelan cargoes back to the shadow fleet.
The caveat is that Venezuelan and Guyanese exports are much less important to crude tanker demand than U.S. and Brazilian exports, so downside would be limited. The potential shipping impact of a third simultaneous war would be much less significant than the consequences of the first two.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 22:45 - Better Parents Equals Healthier Teens
Better Parents Equals Healthier Teens
Authored by Timothy S. Goeglein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Earlier this year, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a statement on the alarming state of adolescent mental health—a crisis that was occurring even before the COVID-19 pandemic and has only gotten worse since.
(VGstockstudio/Shutterstock) Citing statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the APA wrote, “In the 10 years leading up to the pandemic, feelings of persistent sadness and hopelessness—as well as suicidal thoughts and behaviors—increased by about 40% among young people.”
There are many factors that have played a part in this increasing depression among America’s youth, but one of the primary ones that is agreed upon across the board is family disruption—particularly through divorce—and the lack of connection with parents. Unfortunately, academic studies often just demand more funding for adolescent mental health services, while never addressing the root cause of the problem: family breakdown and the need for children to have proper boundaries governing their lives.
Last month, the Institute for Family Studies issued an interesting report that provides further proof of the important role parents play in their child’s mental health. Jonathan Rothwell, who works for Gallup and is the author of the report, writes: “The most important factor in the mental health of adolescent children is the quality of the relationship with their caregivers. This, in turn, is strongly related to parenting practices—with the best results coming from warm, responsive, and rule-bound, disciplined parenting.”
He concludes, “Even though there are biological and genetic risk-factors for every disease, even mental health conditions, years of research have established that parenting—and the parent-child relationship—is of paramount importance to the well-being and psychological functioning of adolescents.”
And who are the parents who provide such a healthy environment for their teenage children? Not rich parents with the financial resources to give a teenager everything they want, but instead conservative parents who display affection and care for their children, while administering proper discipline to keep them on track when needed.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. Even former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, hardly a conservative by any means, recognizes the importance of providing children with proper boundaries, stating: “Our kids need a structure in their lives. And I say this as a father, and I’ve seen it with young men and women that come to my office, and we talk. They need a structure.”
It’s often conservative parents who provide that structure, along with the institutions to which they belong, which are often churches and other strong civic associations in their communities. This structure provides a safe cocoon for many teenagers away from the pernicious influences of social media (which 51 percent of teenagers report takes up nearly five hours of their day, according to a Gallup survey), negative peer pressure, and a culture that tells them “if it feels good, just do it” or “you do you,” regardless of the consequences.
The Gallup Familial and Adolescent Survey, 2023, which Mr. Rothwell cites, bears this out. According to the parents surveyed, more than 60 percent or more of very conservative and nearly 60 percent of conservative parents have a higher quality relationship with their adolescent children. Conversely, only 50 percent of liberal parents and approximately 55 percent of very liberal parents do.
But there’s also another factor at play: Adolescents whose parents have strong, healthy marriages—which provides them with stability and trust—are more likely to be emotionally healthy as well. Nearly 65 percent of married couples who have a strong relationship with their spouse report they have good relationships with their teenagers, compared to a little over 40 percent who don’t have a high-quality relationship with their marital partner.
So, what’s the takeaway? Despite what the culture says, teenagers want a strong, loving relationship with their parents, and a relationship that provides the guardrails they need to successfully navigate the minefields of adolescence. Secondly, “the kids aren’t alright” when their parents aren’t either. No amount of money or any government program can heal a troubled heart.
If values are “caught” and not “taught,” as it has been said, so is happiness and security. And it’s conservative homes, with their strong emphasis on the importance of faith and familial ties, that allow adolescents to prosper. That is an important reminder to us all if we want to solve the teenage mental health crisis that our nation presently faces.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 22:05 - At Grocery Stores, Customer Marketing Data Is Becoming The Product
At Grocery Stores, Customer Marketing Data Is Becoming The Product
For years we have been writing about how hedge funds have been buying any type of data they can get their hands on to try and anticipate moves in the American consumer and, by proxy, the market.
And now the latest spot they could be buying their data from could wind up being your grocery store. Everybody knows that we are now accustomed to putting our phone numbers or email addresses into a computer almost literally every time we buy something – but few people know why they really do it and even fewer feel they have control over what retail establishments do with such data.
Consumers feel powerless about the data-grab. A new study from the University of Pennsylvania showed that “79% of Americans feel they have little control over what marketers can find out about them”, according to CNBC.
The same survey found that over half of adults in the United States, approximately 56%, are unclear about the meaning of “privacy policy.” A common misconception among these individuals is that such policies assure that a company will not distribute their personal data to third parties unless consent is explicitly given.
Lead researcher Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems & Industries at the Annenberg School for Communication said: “People don’t feel that they have the ability to protect their data online — even if they want to.”
Among other things, the Penn survey revealed:
- Only around 1 in 3 Americans knows it is legal for an online store to charge people different prices depending on where they are located.
- More than 8 in 10 Americans believe, incorrectly, that the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) stops apps from selling data collected about app users’ health to marketers.
- Fewer than one in three Americans know that price-comparison travel sites such as Expedia or Orbitz are not obligated to display the lowest airline prices.
- Fewer than half of Americans know that Facebook’s user privacy settings allow users to limit some of the information about them shared with advertisers.
R.J. Cross, director of Public Interest Research Group’s Don’t Sell My Data campaign, told CNBC: “Retailers today are doing just about everything they can to get as much information about you as possible, because that’s a whole new revenue stream for them.”
“Almost every single company that you’re shopping at today is in the business of selling your data, and you and your data are their latest product,” Cross continued.
And the market for data on what you buy is growing exponentially.
As of 2021, the data brokerage industry was estimated to be worth around $319 billion, with projections suggesting it could exceed $545 billion by 2028, CNBC wrote.
Traditionally, retailers relied on purchasing information from data brokers to understand consumer behavior. However, in a shift towards greater efficiency, these retailers are now bypassing intermediaries and are gathering consumer data firsthand through various methods, including loyalty schemes, location tracking, mobile app usage, and digital receipt analysis.
Refive founder and CEO Mitul Jain concluded: “My face is part of the data that’s being captured, my behavior, and all of that gives off many more pieces of information about me, my age, my gender, my ethnicity. And all of these pieces of information can then again be combined together with all these other little tidbits that I’ve been leaving behind from my shopping journey.“
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 21:45 - Are Hordes Of Military-Age Chinese Men Being Brought Into The US In An Attempt To Destabilize Our Society?
Are Hordes Of Military-Age Chinese Men Being Brought Into The US In An Attempt To Destabilize Our Society?
Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
Over the past couple of years, vast numbers of illegal immigrants from China have been pouring over our southern border. Most of them are military-age men. So why has there been such a dramatic spike? Is some sort of a coordinated effort going on that we don’t know about? In this article, I am going to try to make some connections. Taken on their own, some of the stories that I am about to share with you may not seem that significant. But when you step back and take a look at the bigger picture, it becomes clear that something very unusual is happening. Could it be possible that hordes of military-age Chinese men are being brought into this country in an attempt to destabilize our nation?
Let’s start by taking a look at an incident that just happened in Michigan. A “Chinese national” was arrested after he “spray-painted swastikas on Hanukkah decorations”…
On Thursday, 27-year-old Jaifeng Chen was arrested in Arizona after he allegedly spray-painted swastikas on Hanukkah decorations and the wall outside of the Chabad of Kalamazoo in Michigan.
The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety said that the FBI worked in coordination with other law enforcement agencies in Arizona to locate and ultimately arrest the Chinese national. He was also booked on an unrelated charge on Nov. 27, according to WTVB. Chen is now in federal custody.
Needless to say, this is the sort of thing that can greatly inflame racial tensions in our current political environment.
So why was a Chinese national doing this?
Was he directed to do so by whoever he is working for?
In California, a “Chinese national” was just arrested for being involved in a large scale gift card scam…
Buyers of gift cards from retail locations are being warned to pay attention to their purchases.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s “Operation Bad Elf” has led to over 250 arrests for felonies and misdemeanors involved with big retail locations.
One of those arrested was a Chinese National Ningning Sun who had in his possession thousands of Target and Apple gift cards. Some of those he had stolen from a Sacramento Target store.
The investigators involved in Operation Bad Elf saw Sun take the gift cards off the shelf and put them in his coat. Then he put a replacement set of cards back on the racks.
Was this “Chinese national” acting alone, or was he a part of a larger network?
If he was part of a larger network, who was directing it?
Speaking of large networks, it is being reported that hundreds of “illegal Chinese-owned marijuana growing operations” have been popping up all over the state of Maine in recent years…
Hundreds of illegal Chinese-owned marijuana growing operations have been popping up across Maine over the past three years.
On Tuesday, Nov. 28, local law enforcement shut down an illegal marijuana grow that was being operated in a building located behind a licensed marijuana cultivation facility in Franklin County.
Officers from the Wilton Police Department were assisting investigators from the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) during a routine follow-up inspection of a licensed facility in Wilton when they raided the illegal operation, authorities said in a press release posted on social media.
Is there some common denominator that connects all of these growing operations?
And where did the funding for all of these “Chinese-owned” growing operations come from?
I would really love to get answers to those two questions.
Let me give you another example. Do you remember that secret bio-lab in the Sacramento area that was shut down by authorities earlier this year? At that time we were told that it had been run by a Chinese company, and now a Chinese national that has several different identities has been arrested. The following comes from the official website of the U.S. Justice Department…
Jia Bei Zhu, aka Jesse Zhu, aka Qiang He, aka David He, 62, a citizen of China who formerly resided in Clovis, was arrested today on a criminal complaint for manufacturing and distributing misbranded medical devices in violation of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) and for making false statements to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
“As part of his scheme, the defendant changed his name, the names of his companies, and their locations,” U.S. Attorney Talbert said. “The disarray at the Reedley lab led to the glare of publicity he was trying to avoid, and the ensuing investigation unraveled his efforts to circumvent the requirements that are designed to ensure that medical devices are safe and effective.”
If you don’t remember this particular case, a secret bio-lab in the Sacramento area had been conducting unauthorized experiments involving COVID, HIV, hepatitis, herpes and a whole bunch of other infectious diseases…
“Certain rooms of the warehouse were found to contain several vessels of liquid and various apparatus,” court documents said. “Fresno County Public Health staff also observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material.”
Hundreds of mice at the warehouse were kept in inhumane conditions, court documents said. The city took possession of the animals in April, euthanizing 773 of them; more than 175 were found dead.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the substances and detected at least 20 potentially infectious agents, including coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis and herpes, according to a Health and Human Services letter dated June 6.
Was this just a single rogue bio-lab?
Or is there a network of them around the nation?
And who is ultimately behind these efforts?
There are so many unanswered questions.
But what we do know is that large groups of Chinese nationals are regularly intercepted as they attempt to cross into the United States. One recent video of this phenomenon received quite a bit of attention on social media…
And it also appears that these migration efforts are highly coordinated.
In fact, a Muckraker reporter recently discovered a hotel in Colombia that functions as a central hub for Chinese migration activity…
An unbelievable report out of Colombia reveals Chinese military-age men using a hotel as a dedicated migration hub ahead of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border en masse.
A Muckraker reporter explained that the Cabańas Rio Mayo Hotel in Pasto is brimming with Chinese foreign nationals preparing to journey through the Darién Gap to America as part of a sophisticated “migration network.”
The reporter dispelled the notion that this is simply a coincidental gathering of Chinese nationals by pointing out the signs posted around the hotel come with a Chinese translation, indicating this is a common meeting hub for the Chinese migrants.
Additionally, the reporter described that WhatsApp directives by smugglers to the Chinese nationals specifically mention Pasto as a safe staging area ahead of their trek to America’s southern border.
Muckraker also interviewed one of the Chinese migrants who revealed that the Chinese Communist Party has embedded “plainclothes” secret police throughout the U.S. to facilitate and monitor the Chinese nationals entering the country.
This is super suspicious.
At a time when rumors of a coming war with China are reaching a crescendo, efforts are being made to bring military-age Chinese men into this country on an industrial scale.
Secret Chinese Hotel Exposed – MILITARY AGED US-BOUND CHINESE STAGING AT COLOMBIAN HOTEL, CHINESE POLICE IN AMERICA
In Pasto, Colombia, Muckraker found a hotel packed to the brim with military-aged Chinese nationals who were headed to the United States.
During our stay at the… pic.twitter.com/1cWS1otfkZ
— Muckraker.com (@realmuckraker) December 5, 2023
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Ultimately, it is difficult to prove that all of the things that I have discussed in this article are connected.
Yes, military-age Chinese men are coming into this country in far larger numbers than ever before.
And yes, military-age Chinese men are being caught committing illegal acts all over the nation.
Is all of this evidence of some sort of a giant plot to destabilize the United States?
After reviewing the evidence, many will come to that conclusion, but I can’t prove it 100 percent.
But without a doubt, conflict with China is coming.
And when war with China finally erupts, the Chinese will already have thousands upon thousands of military-age men pre-positioned inside the United States ready to cause chaos.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 21:25 - "There Is No More Money": Milei Announces 54% Devaluation Of Argentina Peso As "Shock Therapy" Plan Begins
“There Is No More Money”: Milei Announces 54% Devaluation Of Argentina Peso As “Shock Therapy” Plan Begins
How does a modern country climb out of an insurmountable debt hole, especially if it is already in debt to the IMF and a technical default is not an option (especially since said country has already defaulted nine times).Well, in the case of Argentina which check all of the above boxes, and it has already tried hyperinflation multiple times (like right now for example), the only other option is currency devaluation. Which is precisely what the country’s new president, Javier Milei, announced as the first step of his shock therapy to rescue the insolvent south American nation.
As Bloomberg reports, the new administration weakened the official exchange rate to 800 pesos per dollar, a 54% devaluation, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said in a televised address after the close of local markets on Tuesday. That compares with a 366.5-per-dollar level before the address.
“There is no more money,” Caputo said repeatedly in the recorded video, adding that Argentina needs to solve its “addiction” to fiscal deficits. If only domestic, US addicts to fiscal deficits were watching.
Other measures announced including halving the number of ministries, cutting transfers to provinces and suspending public works. The government will also reduce subsidies on transport and energy sectors, among others. At the same time, Argentina will boost certain social welfare programs, which in a few years time will surely grow to become the biggest fiscal addiction in the country under whoever is president then.
The dramatic first steps follow a somber inauguration speech on Sunday, when Milei warned that Argentines will have to endure months of pain while he works to pull the country from the economic crisis inherited from his predecessor. The devaluation is a necessary step since hyperinflation alone won’t fix the country’s debt problem: inflation is already running at more than 140% annually, and prices are expected to jump between 20% and 40% in the months to come, the president said.
The government had closed Argentina’s export registry Monday, a technical step that often foreshadows a currency devaluation or major policy change. The central bank also announced Monday the official currency market would operate with limited transactions — a restriction it said it will lift on Wednesday.
To be sure, nobody was surprised by the announcement, as a devaluation was long seen as inevitable. In the run-up to Milei’s inauguration, markets were signaling a currency drop of about 27% in the first week of the new government, while investment banks like JPMorgan and local private advisory firms suggested it could weaken about 44% . Grocers had already increased prices and banks were offering sharply weaker retail exchange rates hours before the Tuesday announcement. The question now is how many more times the currency will be devalued, and if Venezuela is any indication of what to expect, the answer is “lots.”
Argentina’s previously administrations had for years slowed the peso’s decline in the official market through currency controls and import restrictions in an attempt to protect dwindling reserves. That hodgepodge of capital controls has spurred at least a dozen exchange rates, hampering business and restricting investment in South America’s second-largest economy. On the campaign trail, Milei pledged to scrap the currency altogether, replacing it with the US dollar, however it now appears that that will be one of the many campaign promises he renegs on.
On Dec. 7, the prior administration had let the peso slip by about 5%, while simultaneously limiting the amount of greenbacks banks could hold in order to prevent them from hoarding dollars. The government had been burning reserves to keep the currency largely steady at 350 per dollar since the August primary vote, when Milei’s surprise showing sent markets into a tailspin. In parallel markets, that rate is about 1,000.
Since being spooked by his emergence in the August primary, investors have changed tack on the firebrand libertarian, cheering on his first steps as president-elect — namely, his decision to pick Wall Street veterans for some of the main cabinet positions while distancing himself from more radical proposals including dollarizing the economy and shuttering the central bank. In many ways, so far Milei is signaling that life under the libertarian will be “more of the same” only this time it will be even more painful (but at least the people have been warned). In any case, as he begins his four-year term, the rally will be put to the test.
And speaking of regime continuity, economy minister Caputo previously served as finance chief in the administration of Mauricio Macri, when he negotiated a $16.5 billion deal with holdout bondholders, allowing Argentina to return to international capital markets (if only for a very brief period of time). During the currency run in 2018, Macri tapped him to take over at the central bank, but he only served for a few months before unexpectedly stepping down amid tensions with the International Monetary Fund.
Finally, for those who are wondering who is really calling the shots in Argentina, Caputo has tapped longtime colleague Santiago Bausili, a Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan veteran, to run Argentina’s central bank.
Like we said, more of the same.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 21:05 - Last Rights: The Death Of American Liberty
Last Rights: The Death Of American Liberty
This is the first chapter of James Bovard’s new book: “Last Rights: The Deeath of American Liberty”
CHAPTER ONE: TYRANNY COMES TO MAIN STREET
Americans today have the “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, wiretapped, injected, censored, injected, ticketed, disarmed, beaten, vilified, detained, and maybe shot by government agents. Politicians are hell-bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. Is America becoming a Cage Keeper Democracy where voters merely ratify the latest demolition of their rights and liberties?
“We live in a world in which everything has been criminalized,” warned Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. There are now more than 5,200 separate federal criminal offenses, a 36% increase since the 1990s, along with tens of thousands of state and local crimes. More laws mean more violators who can be harshly punished on command, resulting in the arrests of more than 10 million Americans each year. Thanks to the Supreme Court, police can lock up anyone accused of “even a very minor criminal offense” such as an unbuckled seatbelt.
The Founding Fathers saw property rights as “the guardian of every other right.” But today’s politicians never lack a pretext for plundering private citizens. Despite being charged with no crime, half a million Americans have been robbed by government agents on the nation’s sidewalks, highways, and airports in recent decades. Federal law enforcement agencies arbitrarily confiscate more property from Americans each year than all the burglars steal nationwide. The IRS pilfered more cash from private bank accounts because of alleged paperwork errors than the total looted by bank robbers nationwide. Federal bureaucrats blocked landowners from farming or building on a hundred million acres of their own property because of puddles, ditches, or other suspected wet spots.
Police have killed more than 25,000 citizens since the turn of the century, but the federal government does not even bother compiling a body count. SWAT teams use battering rams and flash-bang grenades to attack 50,000 homes a year, routinely terrorizing people suspected of dastardly crimes like spraying graffiti or running poker games. Cops in many cities have been caught planting guns on hapless targets, while corrupt police labs fabricated tens of thousands of bogus drug convictions. Police unions have more sway over government policy than anyone on the wrong end of a baton or Taser. Despite perpetual promises of reform, most police who brutalize private citizens still automatically receive legal immunity. Federal Judge Don Willett derided the “Constitution-free zone” courts created where “individuals whose constitutional rights are violated at the hands of federal officers are essentially remedy-less.”
Gun owners are America’s fastest-growing criminal class. One state after another is enacting “Show us the gun and we’ll find the crime” laws. Judges and politicians are justifying mass disarmament in the name of “freedom from fear” — as if no one will be safe until government controls every trigger. Federal agencies consider all 20+ million marijuana users who own firearms to be felons (unless their last name is Biden). Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden both retroactively outlawed widely-owned firearm accessories, creating new legions of potential jailbirds. At the same time many federal agencies are stockpiling automatic weapons, Biden calls for banning semiautomatic pistols and rifles owned by 50 million Americans.
Politicians and bureaucrats exploited the COVID‑19 pandemic to forbid any activities they chose, from going to church to buying garden seeds. Governors in most states effectively banned hundreds of millions of citizens from leaving their homes. Shutting down entire states was the equivalent of sacrificing virgins to appease angry viral gods. In Los Angeles, citizens were prohibited from going outside for a walk or bike ride. Tens of thousands of small businesses were bankrupted by shutdown orders, while federal “relief” spurred a $600 billion worldwide fraud stampede. Most Americans suffered COVID infections despite government decrees that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito labeled “previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty.” Government officials endlessly invoked “science and data” to sanctify their power. But many pandemic policies were simply Political Science 101, using deceit and demagoguery to domineer humanity.
Government decrees are blighting more lives than ever before. Vague laws convert bureaucrats into czars who dictate as they please. More than a thousand occupations have been closed to anyone who fails to kowtow to absurd state licensing requirements, from fortune tellers in Massachusetts to anyone rubbing feet in Arizona. Tens of thousands of drivers have been injured and hundreds killed thanks to red light traffic ticket cameras notorious for multiplying collisions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made it a federal crime to refuse to hire ex-convicts. The Americans with Disabilities Act has spurred half a million “discrimination” lawsuits, including by narcoleptics who fell asleep on the job and by a deaf guy outraged about missing captions on porn videos.
Schoolchildren are being sacrificed on an altar of social justice. From No Child Left Behind to Common Core, federal dictates have subverted academic standards and squandered billions of hours of kids’ lives. Teacher unions have worked to destroy local control of education, prevent teacher accountability, deny parents any voice in their children’s education, and pointlessly shut down schools during the pandemic. In lieu of literacy, government schools are redefining gender and indoctrinating kids with values that many parents detest. When mothers and fathers raised hell at school board meetings, the Biden administration and the FBI labeled them as terrorist suspects.
Politicians are increasingly dividing Americans into two classes — those who work for a living and those who vote for a living. Subsidy programs have multiplied even faster than congressional ethics scandals. Federal aid propelled college tuition increases that turned ex-students into a new debtor class endlessly clamoring for relief. Farm subsidies wreak chaos in markets while providing a gravy train for affluent landowners. Federal mortgage policies have been “wrecking ball benevolence,” whipsawing the housing market and spawning the 2007–08 collapse that reduced the net worth of black and Hispanic households by 50%. The number of handout recipients has more than doubled since 1983, and the feds are now feeding more than 100 million Americans. Government grants are eventually followed by government restrictions, and dependence often turns into submission. The ultimate victim of handouts could be democracy itself: politicians cannot undermine self-reliance without subverting self-government.
While politicians boast of bestowing freebies, taxes have become a financial Grim Reaper. The Internal Revenue Service is Washington’s ultimate sacred cow because it delivers trillions of dollars to allow politicians to work miracles (or at least get re-elected). Americans are forced to pay more in taxes than their total spending on food, clothing, and housing. Tax codes have become inscrutable at the same time the IRS pummels people with ten times more penalties than in earlier decades. The Biden administration is racing to hire 87,000 new IRS agents and employees to squeeze far more money out of both rich and poor taxpayers. Inflation has become the cruelest tax as the dollar’s purchasing power fell 17% since Biden took office, fleecing any citizen with a savings account.
The federal government is generating so many absurdities nowadays that even cynics cannot keep up. The Transportation Security Administration epitomizes Washington’s boneheaded command-and-control approach to modern perils. TSA’s Whole Body Scanners doused tens of millions of travelers with radiation while taking nude pictures of them. TSA’s groin-grabbing “enhanced pat-downs” spark thousands of sexual assault complaints from women every year. TSA terrorist profiles have warned of travelers who are either staring intently or avoiding eye contact, or who fidget, yawn, or sweat heavily; anyone who is whistling and/or staring at their feet; Boston blacks wearing backward baseball caps; and anyone who “expresses contempt” for TSA Security Theater antics.
Federal surveillance leaves no refuge for dissent. Government agencies are secretly accumulating mountains of data that could be used for “blackmail, stalking, harassment and public shaming” of American citizens, according to a 2023 federal report. The National Security Agency has stalked Americans via their cellphones, covertly installed spyware onto personal computers, and treated anyone “searching the Web for suspicious stuff” like a terrorist suspect. The Patriot Act spurred the illegal seizure of personal and financial information from tens of millions of Americans. Customs agents can seize and copy the cellphones, laptop drives, and private papers of any American crossing the U.S. border. The Drug Enforcement Administration is building a secret nationwide network of license plate scanners to track every driver. Federally funded “fusion centers” are stockpiling Suspicious Activity Reports on tourists who photograph landmarks, “people who avoid eye contact,” and anyone “reverent of individual liberty.” The FBI’s “terrorist warning signs” include hotel guests using “Do Not Disturb” signs and the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.
At the same time spying on citizens skyrocketed, Washington dropped an Iron Curtain around itself. The government is committing more crimes than citizens will ever know. Whistleblowers and journalists are hounded as if exposing official lies is a heresy against democracy. Every year, the federal government slaps a “secret” label on trillions of pages of information — enough to fill 20 million filing cabinets. Any document which is classified is treated like a holy relic that cannot be exposed without damning the nation. Self-government has been defined down to paying, obeying, and wearing a federal blindfold. There are plenty of laws to protect government secrets but no law to protect democracy from federal secrecy.
The First Amendment is becoming a historic relic. Federal Judge Terry Doughty recently condemned the Biden administration for potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” That verdict was ratified in September 2023 by a federal appeals court ruling slamming the White House and federal agencies for actions that resulted in “suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.” Federal agencies pirouetted as a “Ministry of Truth,” according to the court rulings. Censorship converts citizens into captives. Federal censorship tainted the 2020 and 2022 elections, suppressing tens of millions of tweets, YouTube videos, and Facebook posts from conservatives and Republicans. White House officials even ordered Facebook to delete humorous memes, including a parody of a future television ad: “Did you or a loved one take the COVID vaccine? You may be entitled…”
Rather than the Rule of Law, we have a government of threats, intimidation, and browbeating. “Government of the people” defaulted into “government for the people,” which degenerated into perennially punishing people for their own good. Twenty-five years ago, Supreme Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned against permitting federal agencies “the extraordinary authority… to manufacture crimes.” Entrapment schemes proliferate as G-men fabricate crimes to justify budget increases. The FBI, pretending that rosary beads could be extremist symbols, is targeting traditional Catholics across the nation because of their conservative moral values. The FBI entitles its legions of confidential informants to commit more than 5,000 crimes a year, dragging many unlucky bystanders to their legal doom. The number of inmates in federal prison increased 500% since 1980, and America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Politicians are more anxious to control citizens than to protect them. More people are busted each year for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined, while the futile War on Drugs causes more fatalities than ever before.
Every recent administration has expanded and exploited the dictatorial potential of the presidency. Former President Richard Nixon shocked Americans in 1977 when he asserted during a television interview: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” But Nixon’s slogan is the Oval Office maxim for the new millennium. Presidents now only need to find a single federal lawyer who says, “Yes, Master!” President George W. Bush’s lawyers secretly decided that neither federal law nor the Constitution could limit the power of the president, who could declare martial law or authorize torture at his whim. President Barack Obama claimed a prerogative to assassinate Americans he labeled terrorist suspects. President Donald Trump boasted of “an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice Department.” In 2022, President Biden proclaimed that “liberty is under assault.” But he was referring solely to a few court rulings he disapproved, not to the federal supremacy he championed for almost 50 years in the Senate and the White House.
The authoritarian trendline in American political life is more important than the name or party of any officeholder. “One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it,” as Thomas Jefferson warned during the American Revolution. Unfortunately, there are a hundred precedents in favor of government now for each precedent in favor of liberty. There is a “No harm, no foul” attitude towards violating the Constitution, and Washington almost always hides the harm. The sheer power of federal agencies such as the FBI is becoming one of the gravest perils to American democracy.
Elections are becoming demolition derbies that threaten to wreck the nation. Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” Nowadays, politics seems hell-bent on multiplying hatred. Enraged activists are increasingly tarring all their opponents as traitors. Many of the protestors who spent years vehemently denouncing Trump were not opposed to dictators per se; they simply wanted different dictates. More than half of Americans expect a civil war “in the next few years,” according to a recent survey.
Americans are indoctrinated in public schools to presume that our national DNA guarantees that we will always be free. But few follies are more perilous than presuming that individual rights are safe in perpetuity. None of the arguments on why liberty is inevitable can explain why it is becoming an endangered species. Yet many people believe that liberty will inevitably triumph because of some “law of history” never enacted by God, a convocation of cardinals, or even the Arkansas state legislature. Presuming that freedom is our destiny lulls people against political predators.
Federal Judge Learned Hand warned in 1944: “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.” But Americans are more likely to encounter liberty in history books instead of their own lives. Many young people are unaware of bygone eras when Americans could travel without being groped, buy a beer or smoke a cigar without committing a federal offense, or protest without being quarantined in an Orwellian “free-speech zone.” Is the spirit of liberty dead? Almost a third of young American adults support installing mandatory government surveillance cameras in private homes to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.”
We have an Impunity Democracy in which government officials pay no price for their crimes. Americans today are more likely to believe in witches, ghosts, and astrology than to trust the federal government. Washington’s legitimacy is in tatters thanks to a long train of bipartisan perfidy. If government is lawless, elections merely designate the most dangerous criminals in the land.
At a time when foreign democracies are collapsing like dominos, can America avoid becoming the “elective despotism” the Founding Fathers dreaded? The first step to reviving liberty is to recognize how far politicians have stretched their power. But nothing can safeguard freedom except the bravery of citizens who refuse to be shackled.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 20:45 - Chinese Spies Offer Pilot $15 Million To Steal US-Made Chinook Helicopter And Land On PLA Carrier
Chinese Spies Offer Pilot $15 Million To Steal US-Made Chinook Helicopter And Land On PLA Carrier
Chinese intelligence officials offered a Taiwanese army pilot millions of dollars to steal a US-made transport helicopter and land on a Chinese aircraft carrier.
The South China Morning Post reported Lieutenant Colonel “Hsieh” was offered $15 million by Chinese spies to steal a Boeing CH-47 Chinook and land on a People’s Liberation Army Navy aircraft carrier during a military drill near the self-ruled island.
The plan to steal the Chinook came to an abrupt end when Taiwanese authorities arrested Hsieh in August for allegedly spying for Beijing.
In an indictment revealed by the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors Office on Monday, “Lieutenant Colonel Hsieh was asked to fly the helicopter at low altitude along the coastline to the Chinese Communist carrier which would be staging drills close to the waters 24 nautical miles [44km] off [Taiwan].”
According to prosecutors, the lieutenant colonel suggested that the PLA stage war drills near the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung so that he would not have to cross the Median line that separates the island and the mainland in the Taiwan Strait. The idea behind this would minimize any risk of the helicopter being intercepted by Taiwan’s Air Force jets.
The indictment also said Hsieh spoke with Chinese spies in July about the defection, including a plan to help his family immigrate to Thailand.
SCMP noted that prosecutors arrested Hsieh following a “tip” but did not explain further how he was caught.
“I feel pained, too, to have discovered a case like this, and those allegedly involved should be dealt with according to the law,” said Chiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwan’s defense chief, during a session with lawmakers in Taipei’s parliament on Monday.
The good news is that the US hasn’t stationed fifth-generation F-35 stealth jets on the island, which, presumably, the communist regime would be eager to steal.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 20:25 - Canadian Medical Schools Asked To Shift From "Medical Expertise" To Anti-Racism & Social Justice Training
Canadian Medical Schools Asked To Shift From “Medical Expertise” To Anti-Racism & Social Justice Training
There is a major controversy brewing in Canada over a proposal in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons that schools shift from emphasizing “medical expertise” in favor of teaching “anti-racism” and social justice values.
An organization of physicians called Do No Harm is opposing the recommendation of the interim report by the college’s Anti-Racism Expert Working Group.
The report states that the new emphasis should center around “values such as anti-oppression, anti-racism, and social justice, rather than medical expertise.”
By “de-centering medical expertise,” the anti-racism experts suggest courses focusing on “anti-racism,” “anti-oppression,” “social justice and equity,” “inclusive compassion,” and “decolonization.”
That includes the perils of capitalism and other “power structures”:
“Anti-racism is deeply rooted in anti-oppression, which analyzes the world through the lens of power, including the historical and ongoing structures of racism, white supremacy, settler colonialism, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and more. Anti-racism and antioppression call for action on the manifestations of oppression based on race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, immigration status and more. “
In a separate report, the group has also opposed U.S. medical schools filtering out applicants who opposed DEI values.
The group states that it found that “the admissions process at 50 of the top-ranked medical schools found that 36 asked applicants their views on, or experience in, DEI efforts” to “screen out dissenters.”
Most U.S. medical schools currently have some DEI and diversity courses incorporated into their curriculums. Some now give an alternative hippocratic oath pledging social justice and anti-racist action.
It is not clear how much of the traditional curriculum would be displaced under the recommendation in Canada.
With a kid in his first-year of medical school at Georgetown, I am amazed at the overwhelming burden on these students in taking these medical courses. The first year curriculum seems an all-consuming effort to cover the basic medical jargon, training, and science. I cannot imagine shoe-horning other subjects into that dense coverage or what would be jettisoned to make room for the new emphasis.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 20:05 - IBM Slapped With Federal Civil Rights Complaint After Racist CEO's "Obviously Illegal" Hiring Practices Leak
IBM Slapped With Federal Civil Rights Complaint After Racist CEO’s “Obviously Illegal” Hiring Practices Leak
IBM has been hit with a federal civil rights complaint after James O’Keefe posted video leaked by an insider of CEO and Chairman Arvind Krishna outlining racist business practices.
“On December 11, 2023, a tape of IBM Chief Executive Officer and Board Chairman Arvind Krishna was released on X.4 In the video, Krishna promises to fire, demote, or deny bonuses to corporate executives who either fail to meet the corporation’s racial and national origin hiring quotas or who hire too many Asian individuals,” reads a letter from America First Legal Foundation.
BREAKING: A Federal civil rights complaint filed today against IBM for racial discrimination against white and Asian Americans and promising to fire, demote and deny bonuses to execs who fail to meet their illegal race, sex-based hiring decisions.
LETTER: https://t.co/edEJBRuqR3 pic.twitter.com/j4RdzuEQdp
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 12, 2023
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The letter references the below video of Krishna admitting to using coercion to fire people and reduce their bonuses if they don’t discriminate in the hiring process.
“You got to move both forward by a percentage that leads to a plus on your bonus,” Krishna said, referring to hiring hispanics. “and by the way if you lose, you lose part of your bonus.“
He also said that “Asians are not an underrepresented minority in tech in America…I’m not going to finess this, for blacks we should try to get towards 13 percent.”
Meanwhile IBM subsidiary chairman Paul Cormier of Red Hat says in the recording that they’ve terminated people unwilling to engage in racial discrimination.
All of this comes on the heels of IBM canceling advertising on @elonmusk X platform just weeks ago: “IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X”
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 12, 2023
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As an aside, this comes as Krishna, a racist, was Reelected as a Class B Director of the New York Fed.
X owner Elon Musk said that the release was “Extremely concerning and obviously illegal,” to which O’Keefe replied: “Elon, this was an insider at IBM who came to me with the CEO recording inspired by what you said telling both IBM and Disney to F off.”
Elon, this was an insider at IBM who came to me with the CEO recording inspired by what you said telling both IBM and Disney to F off.
We should think about the best way to foster more whistleblowers and how to protect them if / when they lose their jobs. https://t.co/1mgeb4HBtf
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 12, 2023
IBM pulled their ads from X because they have “zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination.” And yet their internal practice is to penalize people who don’t discriminate enough. https://t.co/8wKvV9tibr
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) December 12, 2023
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“Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits IBM from discriminating against an employee or an applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; to limit, segregate, or classify employees or applicants in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or to discriminate against any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” reads the letter from America First.
O’Keefe encourages people fired from IBM or Red Hat in connection with this issue to contact him.
Read the full letter below:
December 12, 2023
Timothy Riera, Director (acting)
Jeffrey Burstein, Regional Attorney
New York District Office
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
33 Whitehall Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10004Investigation Request: International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”)
Dear Mr. Riera and Mr. Burstein:
America First Legal Foundation (“AFL”) is a national nonprofit organization working to protect the rule of law, due process, and equal protection for all Americans. We write pursuant to 29 C.F.R. § 1601.6(a) seeking issuance of a Commissioner’s charge for an inquiry into individual or systemic discrimination by International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”). IBM is a publicly traded corporation headquartered at 1 New Orchard Road, Armonk, NY 10504.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits IBM from discriminating against an employee or an applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; to limit, segregate, or classify employees or applicants in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or to discriminate against any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in admission to or employment in any program established to provide apprenticeship or other training. However, the evidence is that IBM is knowingly, intentionally, and systematically engaging in such unlawful employment practices.
On December 11, 2023, a tape of IBM Chief Executive Officer and Board Chairman Arvind Krishna was released on X. In the video, Krishna promises to fire, demote, or deny bonuses to corporate executives who either fail to meet the corporation’s racial and national origin hiring quotas or who hire too many Asian individuals. Also, Paul Cormier, the chairman of IBM subsidiary Red Hat, admits employees who failed to meet or comply with the corporation’s unlawful racial and national origin quotas were terminated.
A Commissioner’s charge is particularly appropriate here because there is ample reason to believe that IBM has knowingly and intentionally violated federal law and intends to continue doing so. Krishna, Cormier, and others in management have embedded immoral and unlawful employment practices into the corporation’s culture. For example, IBM’s 2022 ESG report acknowledges that ‘A modifier for diversity results is included in the annual incentive program for our executives globally and is based on improvement in executive representation for women globally and U.S. underrepresented minority (URM) groups (specifically Black and Hispanic) for our executives in the U.S.’
Discrimination based on immutable characteristics such as race, color, national origin, or sex ‘generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone.’ More broadly, IBM’s employment practices foment contention and resentment–they are ‘odious and destructive.’ It truly ‘is a sordid business, this divvying us up’ by race or sex.
Thank you in advance for your consideration. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
/s/ Gene P. Hamilton
Gene P. Hamilton
America First Legal Foundation”Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 19:45 - Portland Officials Propose To Re-Ban Public Drug Use, Governor To Declare "Fentanyl Emergency"
Portland Officials Propose To Re-Ban Public Drug Use, Governor To Declare “Fentanyl Emergency”
Authored by Stephen Katte via The Epoch Times,
Portland’s Central City Task Force (PCCTF) has proposed to restore a ban on illicit drug use in public areas as part of the city’s long-term plan to solve its “most pressing challenges.”
The PCCTF was launched in August to address issues like homelessness, public safety, drug use, and crime in Portland after the Oregon Health Authority warned in May that, on average, three residents are dying every day from an unintended drug overdose.
Task force co-chairs Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Dan McMillan, president and CEO of The Standard insurance company, recently released the task force’s action plan of ten priority recommendations for 2024, including banning controlled substances and reducing barriers to prosecuting large drug trades.
The task force said that state lawmakers should restore law enforcement’s ability to prosecute for attempting to deliver illicit drugs to another party based on the amount.
More police and increased “law enforcement responses around the Central City” are also suggested.
Portland passed measure 110, the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, in November 2020 with 58 percent voter support. After becoming law, illicit drugs such as fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin were decriminalized, allowing small amounts to be carried for personal use.
The city has since been grappling with increased homelessness and substance abuse, both of which critics contend have been exacerbated by Measure 110 and the decriminalization of hard drugs. Portland City Council voted unanimously on Sept. 6 to ban substances such as fentanyl and heroin from being used in public amid the ongoing opioid and public health crisis.
Authorities in Oregon seized tens of thousands of fentanyl pills in Multnomah County back in August, marking the largest illegal drug bust in county history, according to officials. Upon closer inspection of the seized drugs, authorities found 58,000 individual fentanyl pills and 16 pounds of fentanyl powder. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, can prove deadly as it is many times more potent than heroin, elevating overdose risk.
Other proposals from the PCCTF to combat the spiraling drug issues facing the city include ramping up existing infrastructure for effective and speedy implementation of a drug public use ban, while also declaring a tri-government fentanyl emergency for Oregon, Multnomah County, and the City of Portland. As part of the proposal, these areas would declare a 90-day emergency on fentanyl and establish a command center led by the state to deal with the ongoing fentanyl crisis.
Gov. Kotek, a Democrat, announced on Dec. 11, after the action plan by the PCCTF was released, that she will declare a statewide fentanyl emergency and expects leaders in both Portland and Multnomah County to do the same, saying that “Times of crisis can lead to a desire for drastic change.”
Between 2020 to 2021, the number of unintentional fentanyl deaths across the state more than doubled from 226 to 508, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Overdoses in the state continued to increase between November 2021 to November 2022, when deaths surpassed the national average by sevenfold, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ms. Kotek said that confronting the challenges facing the city and the broader state will require “the hope and fortitude of an entire community.”
“We have a set of concrete recommendations, some the first of their kind, others that tap into Portland’s strengths in innovation, collaboration, art, and culture,” she said.
“The reward for a strong start is more work. I am committed to this effort and excited to see this work unfold,” the governor added.
Mr. McMillan also believes solving ongoing issues in the region will require a united effort, an idea that he says the task force has been discussing since day one.
“When the Governor and I convened the task force in late summer, it was under the theory that Portland’s challenges don’t solely rest on the shoulders of government, community, or business and that you need diverse, and sometimes unlikely, partnerships to get big things done,” Mr. McMillan said.
Among the other recommendations by the PCCTF are increasing homeless shelter capacity and deploying more counseling and direct support services for unhoused people. Cosmetic changes are also on the agenda, such as removing plywood barriers and fences erected around federal buildings to protect them from vandalism during the waves of social justice protests that erupted after the in-custody death of George Floyd. Ms. Kotek and McMillan said the use of barriers “sends the wrong signal to visitors.”
A moratorium on new taxes and targeted tax relief has been suggested as well. The PCCTF said that “Portland is the second highest taxed city in the nation; we trail New York City by only a fraction.”
To reduce the tax pressure on residents, the task force is proposing that elected officials agree to a three-year pause, through 2026, on any new taxes and fees.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 19:25 - McLayoffs Incoming: McDonalds Embracing Google's AI For Online Ordering
McLayoffs Incoming: McDonalds Embracing Google’s AI For Online Ordering
The American worker’s plan to phase themselves out of the job market once and for all is almost complete. At least, that’s what the case looks to be like at McDonald’s. The fast food restaurant, which has already adopted self-serve kiosks in store, is now tapping Google’s AI for its online ordering experience.
In a press release out late last week, McDonald’s said the partnership “is a significant step for McDonald’s in advancing its restaurant technology platform to become the most sophisticated and productive in the industry.”
Because that’s what you look for when you want a hamburger…
Brian Rice, McDonald’s Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer, commented: “We see tremendous opportunity for growth in our digital business and our partnership with Google Cloud allows us to capitalize on this by leveraging our size and scale to build capabilities and implement solutions at unmatched speeds.”
He added: “Connecting our restaurants worldwide to millions of datapoints across our digital ecosystem means tools get sharper, models get smarter, restaurants become easier to operate, and most importantly, the overall experience for our customers and crew gets even better.”
Yeah, and the less minimum wage-making human meat suits we have littering the floors of our kitchen, the more efficient and cheaper things get. After all, AI doesn’t even have to take bathroom breaks!
The chain says the partnership will help it roll out “significant advancements to its restaurant and customer platforms”.
” With a consistent approach, McDonald’s expects to deploy innovations with much greater speed and agility. McDonald’s will use edge computing from Google Cloud to power these new platforms, bringing information storage and high powered computing into individual restaurants,” the press release says.
Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “Through this wide-ranging partnership, Google Cloud will help McDonald’s seize on new opportunities to transform its business and customer experiences, empowering restaurants worldwide with the latest technologies for near-term impact.”
“Pairing the iconic brand, size and scale of McDonald’s with Google Cloud’s deep history in AI and technology innovation will redefine how this industry works and what people expect when they dine out,” he continued.
All of that is nice, but all we’ve been looking for over the last 3 decades is to get no onions on our burger when we specifically ask for no onions. Has AI solved that problem yet?
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 19:05 - How Did The US Government Become So Big?
How Did The US Government Become So Big?
Authored by John Carroll via The Mises Institute,
How big is the federal government?
Two measures are the number of civilian employees (nearly two million) and the number of agencies (now exceeding 440).
These numbers barely hint at their massive meddling into business activities and the personal lives of Americans.
While government was relatively small and less intrusive during its first hundred years, the Constitution held defects. In part, they resulted from the unavoidable compromises of consensus. The founders knew this, and some had anticipated civil war decades before the first shots were fired. Many other problems emerged during the great expansion of the nineteenth century due to the industrial revolution, the growth of America’s land area, and several political factors, mostly unanticipated. As population grew from about five million in 1800 to more than seventy-six million in 1900, government gained accordingly.
It was during the early twentieth century that the government acquired many extraconstitutional powers to intervene in our lives. This was accompanied by a great expansion of its jurisdiction and cost: new agencies, more government workers, more taxes. To give you a hint of this growth, here is an excerpt from the Congressional testimony of Doctor Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute in 2005:
We come, then, to the nub of the matter. Search the Constitution as you will, you will find no authority for Congress to appropriate and spend federal funds on education, agriculture, disaster relief, retirement programs, housing, healthcare, day care, the arts, public broadcasting—the list is endless. That is what I meant at the outset when I said that most of what the federal government is doing today is unconstitutional because it is done without constitutional authority. Reducing that point to its essence, the Constitution says, in effect, that everything that is not authorized—to the government, by the people, through the Constitution—is forbidden. Progressives turned that on its head: Everything that is not forbidden is authorized.
Almost fourteen years have elapsed since Doctor Pilon’s testimony. Today, the federal government is far larger and more intrusive, having enlisted the support of Big Tech, Big Pharma, academia, the legacy media, and others. But still, how did the government grow so large?
A Fateful Error
It actually began during America’s founding, according to Professor Randy Barnett of George Mason University. In his most recent book, Our Republican Constitution, he cites the principal-agent dilemma that arose after the 1787 constitution was ratified: The adoption effectively dissolved the Articles of Confederation and the Continental Congress. In turn, this deprived the states of an active forum to oversee the new government. Furthermore, there was no provision in the Constitution for an independent plenary tribunal to adjudicate disputes concerning federalism. No wonder then that several delegates refused to sign the final draft. In his last work, The Rise and Fall of Society, Frank Chodorov wrote this about the charter’s signers:
“The ink was hardly dry on the Constitution before its authors, now in position of authority, began to rewrite it by interpretation, to the end that its bonds would loosen . . . to extend the power of the central government.”
Some readers might respond that the states now had the Senate as their forum for overseeing legislation. Although members of the Senate were to be appointed by their respective state legislatures, and the Senate body held veto power over bills, the small states were outnumbered. Importantly, Senate bills were subject to defeat by the House of Representatives, in which a few densely populated commercial states reigned supreme.
Exploiting the Stealth Clauses
Federalist delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention openly stated their desire for a strong central government. In private communications with these colleagues, Alexander Hamilton expressed hope that the new government would eventually consolidate, with the states losing power and importance over time.
It should not be surprising then that the final draft Constitution held expressions that were capable of more than one interpretation. I shall refer to these as stealth clauses because they have been employed by federal courts to produce outcomes that were clearly unintended using customary meanings at the time of founding. Let us examine a few cases and consider their consequences.
How the Courts Boost Federal Power
First of all, courts do not base their decisions exclusively on the text of the Constitution with its amendments. No, instead they refer to the Constitution Annotated, a publication weighing many pounds. The Constitution Annotated is comprised of an amended Constitution annotated with analyses of all federal Court decisions since the federal judiciary opened for business. Constitutional lawyers depend on this publication to employ the rule of stare decisis, which serves to honor judicial precedents of like cases.
Murray Rothbard discussed the issue at length in his work Anatomy of the State. In the chapter “How the State Transcends Its Limits,” he quotes from The People and the Court by Professor Charles L. Black Jr.:
The prime and most necessary function of the [Supreme] Court has been that of validation, not that of invalidation. What a government of limited powers needs, at the beginning and forever, is some means of satisfying the people that it has taken all steps humanly possible to stay within its powers. This is the condition of its legitimacy, and its legitimacy, in the long run, is the condition of its life. The court, through its history, has acted as the legitimation of the government.
It should be noted that the court is biased to favor Congress (the justices call it deference) in these cases. This is common knowledge and is openly conceded by judicial appointees and by justices in their official opinions. Indeed, Chief Justice John Roberts provided the key defense for the Affordable Care Act, even though that law was opposed by twenty-six attorneys general during a court challenge.
The earliest event that my research uncovered was not a court case but a dispute between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton was promoting his ambitious plan to improve the new nation’s financial condition; it would require Congress to charter a bank modeled after the Bank of England. Jefferson believed this was unconstitutional; the Constitution did not even mention banks.
But Hamilton convinced President George Washington that the Constitution was not meant to cover everything the nation might need in the future, and to meet this need, Article I, Section 8 ended by granting power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” (emphasis mine) the enumerated federal powers granted by the Constitution. So, the “bank law” was passed by Congress and signed into law, creating the First Bank of the United States.
Of all stealth clauses, the commerce clause was almost the last to be exploited. Article I, Section 8 states that “Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce among the several states.”
In the case Wickard v. Filburn, a poor Ohio farmer was fined $117 for planting more wheat than his allotted 111 acres under a New Deal law. The government claimed his infraction “affected” market prices of wheat, even though he planted it just for family use. The false principal established after the Supreme Court upheld this case had a profound outcome. Almost all federal agencies could be disbanded if the case were overturned.
In a case under the New Deal’s National Recovery Act, a poor immigrant operated his dry-cleaning shop in New Jersey. He was fined one hundred dollars for charging five cents less than was allowed by the National Recovery Act to dry-clean a garment. He was jailed for a second infraction, while his family struggled to pay the fine.
In both of these cases, the government claimed that the violations affected interstate commerce, even though that was patently false. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court upheld both cases. Clearly, government inspectors chose to prosecute the innocent citizens to serve as examples and create fear in others.
The Constitution refers to general welfare in two places, the preamble and the taxing and spending clause. These references have been used as justification for a number of measures that were surely not envisioned by the framers. One example was adoption of the prohibition amendment. Another was the Social Security Act and countless other measures passed for the “general welfare.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 18:45 - NObamacare? Americans Are Skipping Doctor Visits Due To Costs
NObamacare? Americans Are Skipping Doctor Visits Due To Costs
Twenty-eight percent of U.S. adults were forced to skip or delay medical care in 2022 because they could not afford to pay for it, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Board.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, this is an increase from the 24 percent in 2021 and the highest share of U.S. adults since before the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, was introduced back in 2014.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Dental care was the most frequently missed form of healthcare, having been skipped due to costs by 21 percent of respondents in the prior 12 months to the survey. It was followed by seeing a doctor or specialist (16 percent), forgoing prescription medicine (10 percent), follow-up care (10 percent), mental health care or counseling (10 percent). Respondents could select multiple answers to this question.
According to the FRB, the increase in the share of people delaying or avoiding medical care is likely at least partly due to high inflation in the U.S., as patients tried to find ways to cut back on expenses. This matches up to the data in the report, which shows that those with a higher family income and more of a buffer zone were less likely to have skipped or delayed medical care. For those with a family income of less than $25,000, 38 percent of adults went without some form of medical care because of the costs, versus just 11 percent of adults making $100,000 or more.
Similarly, family income seems to correlate with reported levels of health. The FRB explains that for those with an income at $25,000 per year or less, 75 percent of respondents said they were in good health. For those earning $100,000 plus, the figure was 91 percent.
Other surveys tell the same tale. For example, Gallup researchers found that there had been a 12 percentage point increase in the share of Americans reporting that they or a family member had postponed medical treatment between 2022 and the year before, bringing the latest figure to 38 percent – the highest level since 2001. In this study, lower-income adults, younger adults and women in the U.S. were more likely than other respondents to say they or someone in their family have delayed care for a serious medical condition. Meanwhile, a 2023 survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that 46 percent of those with low or average incomes had skipped or delayed needed care because of the cost.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 18:25 - China's Promise Of Reform Yet To Impress Traders
China’s Promise Of Reform Yet To Impress Traders
Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,
Stock index futures in the FTSE China A50 are so far up a little (amid some volatility) as the 2023 Central Economic Work Conference takes place in China.
Like many government announcements – in China or elsewhere – they’re just talk, and not all may work as intended, or even be properly followed through.
That’s why watching the hard data is key to know for sure that any promulgated reforms are actually working.
One of the best in China is real M1 growth, a broad measure of money supply.
It leads the economy, and has caught most of the cyclical ups and downs in China over the last two decades.
It has yet to show a convincing sign of turning up, but when it does it will be much surer sign reforms in China working.
Obviously the stock market may bottom before that, which is why looking for signs of capitulation in breadth, collectively a group of indicators that show how broad index gains are distributed, is equally as important for investors as tracking potential reforms and following the money.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 18:05 - Ready To Rumble: Lawsuits Against Censorship-Industrial Complex Heat Up After Musk Kicks Open The Floodgates
Ready To Rumble: Lawsuits Against Censorship-Industrial Complex Heat Up After Musk Kicks Open The Floodgates
It took the richest man in the world to begin dismantling the censorship-industrial complex; a tightly connected network of government agencies, think tanks, private media platforms, and activist organizations whose goal is to censor, control, and bankrupt free speech platforms under the guise of battling ‘hate speech’ and ‘misinformation’ that run counter to prevailing establishment narratives.
One of these entities, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, is a dark money organization run by an alleged former British intelligence operative.
We know all this because just over a year ago, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk disseminated the “Twitter Files” to a small group of independent journalists, from which we learned that the Biden administration collaborated with Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, ban Donald Trump, and that the FBI essentially had its entire arm up Twitter’s ass in order to shape and control narratives.
Here we go!! 🍿🍿 https://t.co/eILK9f3bAm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022
We also learned about the aforementioned relationships between the censorship-industrial complex.
Let the games begin!
In August, Musk kicked off what has become several lawsuits against anti-free speech advocates, filing a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which X has accused of “actively working to assert false and misleading claims encouraging advertisers to pause investment on the platform.”
CCDH Director Imran Ahmed “X is a free public service funded largely by advertisers,” according to a Twitter blog entry. “Through the CCDH’s scare campaign and its ongoing pressure on brands to prevent the public’s access to free expression, the CCDH is actively working to prevent public dialogue.”
In October, Consortium News sued NewsGuard – a company which assigns scores to websites alleging to rank their credibility, for “acting jointly or in concert with the United States to coerce news organizations to alter viewpoints” regarding Ukraine, Russia and Syria, and has impsed a form of “censorship and repression of views” that diverge from US policies and those of its allies. The Biden administration was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Then in November, X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters, after threatening to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against the left-leaning activist group “and all those who colluded” with them in a disinformation campaign and advertiser boycott against the social media platform.
The lawsuit, just filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division, alleges the organization’s tactics were manipulative and deceptive.
The suit claims:
Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to drive advertisers from X. Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.
Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations have revealed.
Following the lawsuit, Texas AG Ken Paxton announced an investigation into Media Matters for potential fraudulent activity.
Last week, the state of Texas, the Daily Wire and The Federalist sued the US State Department for conspiring with Newsguard to censor American media companies, and that the government agency funded censorship technology designed to bankrupt domestic media outlets which have disfavored political opinions. Read the 67-page complaint here.
Congress authorized creation of the Global Engagement Center expressly to counter foreign propaganda and misinformation. Instead, the agency weaponized this authority to violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech.
— Texas Attorney General (@TXAG) December 6, 2023
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Let’s get ready to Rumble…
On Nov. 30, streaming video platform Rumble sued two liberal activists who they allege worked in conjunction with Media Matters to lie about their source of ad revenues, thereby causing material damage to their reputation, as well as the destruction of more than $185 million from their market cap – despite the fact that Rumble notified them that they were incorrect.
Nandini Jammi (@nandoodles), Claire Atkin (@catthekin) – founders of “Check My Ads,” and nine anonymous individuals who work for Media Matters and Dewey Square, a “hyper-partisan public affairs agency.”
For example, Jammi was salivating over the opportunity to further demonetize X before Musk’s decision to reinstate Alex Jones to the platform.
I was part of the effort to get Alex Jones kicked off every major tech and marketing platform in 2018. Even @Apple won’t fuck with him.
If Elon brings him back, I can’t emphasize how *easy* it’s going to be to convince the last of X’s advertisers to drop him. https://t.co/1XL9ggcfra
— Nandini Jammi (@nandoodles) December 11, 2023
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And now, Rumble is suing…
So, Janni publicly decried that they were shifting their sights to Rumble. They despise what Rumble stands for. If this isn’t evidence of malicious intent I am not sure what is. As per the complaint, they launched a disinformation campaign to demonetize Rumble and they bragged… pic.twitter.com/yDFri4F7zR
— Tracy Beanz (@tracybeanz) December 12, 2023
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Interestingly, Media Matters is accused of similar manipulation as the X lawsuit, namely that they manipulated Rumble’s platform to show Netflix ads next to a user-generated video expressing antisemitic views, which Media Matters staff ‘repeatedly refreshed,’ which caused ‘Rumble’s advertising system to serve different advertisements until Media Matters found one that it could use as fodder for its public pressure campaign.”
“As it turned out, the Media Matters employee engaging in this tactic was the only one to actually view the Netflix ad on the video.”
And so, as the lawsuits against the censorship complex begin to fly, one can’t help but feel that the tide may actually be turning – or at least, said censors will think twice before spouting defamatory claims about platforms that allow divergent opinions.
Rumble suing @nandoodles.
First @elonmusk suing @CCDHate and @mmfa, then Consortium news suing @NewsGuardRating, then Texas suing Biden State Department, now Rumble suing @nandoodles and her liberal echo chamber
The tide is turning against the censorship industrial complex https://t.co/b2n9NL0Axs
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 12, 2023
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Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 17:45 - Trump Predicts He Can Win Deep Blue State
Trump Predicts He Can Win Deep Blue State
Authored by Catherine Yang and Eva Fu via Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Former President Donald Trump headlined the New York Young Republican Club’s annual Gala on the evening of Dec. 9, telling the cheering audience that so many people had come out to support him that he had seen the spillover crowd on his drive to the Wall Street location.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the New York Young Republican Club’s annual Gala at Cipriani’s Wall Street in New York on Dec. 9, 2023. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) “It is great to be back in New York, and it’s a true honor to address the oldest and largest Young Republican Club in the United States,” he said.
“I want to express my tremendous gratitude to all of you for being one of the very first organizations in the entire nation to endorse my 2024 [run]. It’s happening, it’s happening. You shouldn’t have had to wait this long. But you know, things like that happen.
“I’m telling you, this is a place that can be won.“
He revealed that his optimism stemmed from the fact that the majority of his supporters are average Americans. According to President Trump, the bulk of his campaign funds hasn’t come from megadonors but from regular people and families who give an average of $61, adding up to “millions and millions of dollars each week.”
“We’re taking in numbers that nobody’s ever seen before,” President Trump said.
“And if we win New York … then we win the election very, very easily.
“If we win New York and we’ll counter all of the cheating that will go on, because we have to catch them.”
Contrasting Campaigns
The former president made several references to alleged election fraud during the 2020 general election and then noted that he initially hadn’t planned to make President Joe Biden a major campaign point. But then “once I got indicted, the first time, and then the second, third, fourth … what’s happened is, since they’ve done it, the gloves are off.”
President Trump ran through his campaign, contrasting it to the Biden administration’s policies.
He touted his record on foreign policy and said he would end the wars in Ukraine and Israel without sending U.S. soldiers into war. The former president also touted his border plans, which had gotten him elected in 2016, and said he would reinstate travel bans and add ideological screening in the immigration process.
“If you want to abolish Israel, if you want to sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country, and you are not getting in,” President Trump said.
He also criticized President Biden’s economic and energy agendas, which he said have put the country on the brink of a depression.
“While Biden is devastating opportunities for young Americans, I will fight for young Americans like no president has ever fought before,” the former president said.
President Trump mocked his political opponent’s speech wherein President Biden said “MAGA extremists” needed to be stopped, using a popular abbreviation for “Make America Great Again,” a campaign slogan of President Trump’s.
“Yeah, I’m extreme about making America great again,” he said.
President Trump also criticized the establishment media, which he said have taken part in “waging an all-out war on American democracy … with one hoax, witch hunt, and abuse of power after another,” pushing back on recent reports and commentary in several media outlets that have pushed a narrative that President Trump would threaten democracy.
“No, I’m not a threat; I will save democracy,” he said. “I’m running to liberate America. We want to liberate America, because we’re the country that’s in a lot of pain. … This is a righteous crusade to rescue our nation from a very corrupt political class.”
Lawsuits
Speakers also included Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). President Trump at length thanked his supporters and allies in the audience, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who’s President Trump’s codefendant in a racketeering case that accuses both of them of interfering with the 2020 election in Georgia.
“He’d go to the different legislatures and talk to legislators, and they all agreed with him,” he said. “But then the courts would hold them back, because judges didn’t have the courage to do what they should have done. But Rudy is a warrior, he’s a brave guy, and he’s a brilliant man.”
President Trump faces a total of 91 criminal charges in four separate jurisdictions and dozens more civil lawsuits on top of that.
In New York, he’s currently on trial for fraud. On the afternoon of Dec. 10, he announced that he was no longer planning to testify before the defense rests its case the coming week.
New York Attorney General Letitia James had brought the civil suit against President Trump and his Trump Organization, claiming that he defrauded the state by artificially inflating his net worth and depriving banks of some $250 million in interest.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, presiding over a bench trial, found President Trump guilty a week ahead of the trial and ordered the dissolution of the president’s holding companies. An appeals court has since paused that order, and the defense is expected to be mounting an appeal as they streamline their case for trial to end it quickly.
“The whole world is watching my trial where I’ve been proven innocent every day,” President Trump said at the gala. “The case going on right now in New York State Supreme Court is a ridiculous, never-brought-before case.”
He suggested that the several cases against him didn’t present unwinnable odds, noting that his poll numbers rise whenever new legal action against him is announced and that he’s faced greater odds before.
In October 2016, President Trump said his chances had looked bad, and he called on nearly a dozen advisers to ask what he should do. Every single person—with the exception of Steve Bannon, who told him that he would win “100 percent”—told him to resign, even though he was the party nominee, he said.
“If we lose, we lose,” President Trump said that he thought. “It’s horrible, but it’s not historic. … I didn’t like the concept of that.
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“Nobody felt we could win. … and now they’re starting to say that we can.
“So we’re going to give it a shot. I’ll tell you what, I’ve never seen enthusiasm like I’m seeing right now.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 17:25 - Zelensky Dubiously Pledges 'Victory' While Biden Says 'Don't Give Up Hope'
Zelensky Dubiously Pledges ‘Victory’ While Biden Says ‘Don’t Give Up Hope’
(Update1710ET): Simply judging by the below somewhat chaotic scene of Zelensky at the White House, the Ukrainian leader is no longer the star of the show as he was in the war’s first year. Gone are the days of the press pool fawning over him or being in awe at his presence. Instead the press primarily peppered Biden with questions.
Even Biden’s words struck a more dour tone than previous meetings with Zelensky: “I don’t want you giving up hope,” the US President told Zelensky. “We’re going to stay at your side.” This after Zelensky dubiously tried to push a message of “Ukraine can win” – a narrative which as the Financial Times noted Ukrainian citizens themselves are in increasing disbelief of. Biden still gave out another $200 million of what’s left before DoD funding runs dry for the year…
BIDEN TO REPORTERS: “Hush up, OK?! I got one more thing to say. I’ve just signed another $200 million drawdown from the Department of Defense for Ukraine…”
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) December 12, 2023
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Perhaps not having much left that’s original to say at this point, as the Russia-Ukraine war grinds on approaching the end of a second full year, Biden said that if Congress fails to approve his defense funding package it would be a “Christmas gift” to Putin. He also said that Russia has failed to subjugate Ukraine. Further, the following statements were issued:
- BIDEN: WE ARE COMING TO THE END OF OUR ABILITY TO HELP UKRAINE
- BIDEN: PUTIN IS BANKING ON THE US FAILING TO DELIVER FOR UKRAINE
GOP SPEAKER: THE US AND UKRAINE DO NOT HAVE A STRATEGY TO WIN WAR pic.twitter.com/9oPokZRPkF
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) December 12, 2023
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During the Q&A in the post-meeting presser, both Zelensky and Biden rejected the idea of Ukraine ceding territory for the sake of achieving permanent ceasefire and peace. Notably, Zelensky went so far as to call this “insane”.
More from their meeting in the Oval Office:
* * *
Amid ongoing meetings between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and lawmakers and US defense officials on Capitol Hill Tuesday, one thing is becoming clear: no breakthrough is expected in terms of GOP Congressmen being swayed to push through Biden’s $106 billion defense aid package.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) was among those that are unmoved. He said after senators heard Zelensky’s appeal: “It is striking to me that we’re in this place in this last week here and we’re hearing from the president of Ukraine again but we’ve yet to hear from our own president about the border, our border,” Schmitt said.
Image source: AP “The Democrats are not interested in engaging on this in any meaningful way and the issue’s not going away” – and he emphasized further, “nothing changes. The fact that he’s here, it’s the same old stuff, there’s nothing new that came out of that.”
“I just think if you listen to the people back home, they’re not interested in a blank check for Ukraine when they see 12,000 people coming across our open southern border,” Schmitt said.
Zelensky called it “friendly and candid conversation” – which also suggests there was no particular breakthrough. He continued on X, “I informed members of the U.S. Senate about Ukraine’s current military and economic situation, the significance of sustaining vital U.S. support, and answered their questions.”
Both Senate leaders Chuck Schumer (D) and Mitch McConnell (R) accompanied him in the meeting, as both have been on record as strongly advocating for more urgent Ukraine aid. Additionally, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut held out hope that a border security deal could be completed by Christmas. “I will stay here as long as it’s necessary to get to get this done,” he said in a statement to The New York Times. “I think we can finish this in the Senate and get a bill to the House before Christmas.”
He claimed that Democrats have “stretched” themselves toward making legitimate compromises “that are outside of the Democratic comfort zone.”
Senator J.D. Vance is also among Republican Senators pushing back hard…
WATCH: @JDVance1 SLAMS Zelensky’s bid for more aid
“Zelensky comes to town and demands that the taxpayer give him another $61 billion, and by the way, if you want to secure your border first, you are actually a ‘Putin puppet.’ I think it’s disgraceful. I think it’s grotesque.”🔥 pic.twitter.com/OrL0PyP8ZH
— Senator Vance Press Office (@SenVancePress) December 12, 2023
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Zelensky emphasized his recent theme of ‘support us or we lose to Putin and Europe is threatened’ message to senators. He and his officials have been sounding a note of desperation of late. He even reportedly told the US lawmakers that Ukraine is considering conscription of men over 40, according to Bloomberg.
Schumer, in a post-meeting press conference said that Zelensky “made clear, and we all made clear, that if we lose, Putin wins, and this will be very, very dangerous for the United States.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 17:10
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