Today’s News 14th February 2024

• Land Of Spooks And Shills And Sheeple
  Land Of Spooks And Shills And Sheeple

  Submitted by Donald Jeffries via “I Protest”,

  Trust is a rare commodity in today’s world. Maybe it always has been. I remember trusting some older males who were relatives or neighbors, as a child. Then later as an adult, I’d hear from my sister and others about how these fine upstanding men had propositioned them, or touched them inappropriately.

  

  Moral trust is one thing. We all fail to some degree on this count, because we are all sinners. My head will probably always be turned by a good-looking female. It’s just instinctive. I remember a great comedy skit with Richard Pryor, where he was sitting in a crowd with his wife/girlfriend, who was glaring at him, upset over him checking out other women. Then his head turns again, and he tells her, “Can’t you see how strong that shit is? I know you’re gonna be mad, but I still can’t stop it!” While it bothers me when I attend a wedding where the divorced bride’s children from her first marriage are ringbearers or flower girls (mumbling to myself, “I can’t stop thinking she said ‘I do’ to someone else just five years ago’), I understand human weakness. Judge not lest ye be judged.

  It’s political trust that’s on my mind. If you listen to me Saturdays at 12 noon on “America Unplugged” with Billy Ray Valentine and Tony Arterburn, you may have heard our discussion this past Saturday on Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin. It was obvious by the comments in the chat, and later on YouTube, that most people disagreed with me. I was arguing that, whatever Carlson’s real motivations, I usually agree with what he’s saying over 90 percent of the time. Yes, I’m aware that his father was the head of Voice of America, and that he once tried to get into the CIA. That he scoffed at 9//1 “truthers” and other “conspiracy theorists.” Maybe his bow tie was too tight. Is he just playing the role of mainstream “skeptic?”

  I’m not accustomed to being the least skeptical person in the room about anything. I was a born skeptic. A doubter of all official narratives. But if the alt media is just going to attribute all good reporting, and sensible commentary to a hidden agenda, then what is the point of even addressing any issue? Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Rand Paul, RFK, Jr., all compromised. And oddly, they draw the attention (and ire) of many of us trying to provide an alternative to our state controlled media, far more often than the Joy Reids, Sunny Hostins, and Joe Scarboroughs do. Tucker Carlson’s father ran the Voice of America. A pretty, young female intern was found dead in Scarborough’s congressional office in 2001. Isn’t that a bit more incriminating?

  Then there is the guy Carlson was interviewing- Vladimir Putin. I don’t have to trust him to agree with his purported comments (and this is assuming they’re being translated accurately) about wanting peace with America. If he really did ban all GMO products, and put out an arrest warrant for any Rothschilds strolling into Russia, isn’t that something we’d all agree with? Maybe he has an agenda, too, but why do we focus so much more on him than say, Angela Merkel or David Cameron? Carlson was blasted from all sides for how he conducted the interview. What was he supposed to ask him? He put Putin on the record. At the very least, we got to see the Russian leader’s impressive knowledge of history. Compare that to our putrid politicians.

  In my book Hidden History, I delved into the background of the 1960s counterculture movement. Timothy Leary, the LSD guru who urged the impressionable hippies not to trust anyone over thirty (when he was older than thirty himself), was later outed as working for the CIA. So was Gloria Steinem, the face of “women’s lib” in the sixties and seventies. Her magazine MS was financed by the CIA. Murdered Black Panther Fred Hampton had a bodyguard who was an undercover government operative. So did Malcolm X. The guy cradling Martin Luther King’s head in his hands on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel was an undercover CIA asset. I gave lots of other examples of how undercover plants worked inside the Black Panthers and the Ku Klux Klan.

  More than a century ago, Lenin said that the best way to fight the opposition is to lead it. This has obviously been the case in America since at least the 1960s. I haven’t found any evidence, for instance, that the government infiltrated Huey Long’s Share our Wealth movement, or the America First Committee. But in my upcoming book The American Memory Hole, I’ll document the shocking extent to which American capitalism supported and financed the Bolshevik Revolution. There were plenty of spies during the War for Independence and the War Between the States. Things have never been exactly the way they seem.

  But if we become too jaded, and don’t trust anyone or anything, then reform becomes impossible. Things can never get better, unless maybe lightning strikes you in a laboratory at midnight, and you develop invulnerable super powers. Then you could adjust the world to your liking. Assuming you have noble intentions, like Superman. Working together is often difficult. Distrust can permeate small businesses and youth sports leagues. People are suspicious of their spouses. They wonder about the motives of the heirs to whatever they have to leave to others. I’ve watched enough Investigation Discovery programs to know that the world is full of husbands, wives, and children who will murder their closest loved ones for a modest inheritance.

  I have been told by several people that I can’t be sincere or legitimate, or else I wouldn’t be alive. Think about that; the only way for some people to believe you’re not co-opted is to become part of the Deep State Body Count. Once during an interview, someone in the comments noted that I was wearing a checked shirt, and there was a soccer ball paperweight in the background behind me. This, evidently, demonstrated that I was a high-ranking freemason. Miles Mathis, who has achieved some renown online for his “everything is fake” mantra, once wrote that both Dave McGowan (who was still alive at the time) and I were fake. He called us “ghosts.” Limited hangouts. Controlled opposition. When I emailed him and told him to check out my many video interviews, it didn’t phase him. By the way, he “doesn’t do interviews.”

  If I wanted to be cynical, I could name countless high-profile figures in alternative media that I am suspicious about. My spidey sense goes off whenever some character, who has no more charisma or knowledge (and often less) than the rest of us doing anti-establishment podcasts and writing anti-establishment blogs do, attracts a million followers on YouTube. You know who they are. They aren’t entertaining, and provide nothing different than untold numbers of us do. But I don’t just condemn then all with a blanket generalization. Maybe some of them are more interesting than I give them credit for. I’ve never been noted for liking things that become popular. Chicken wings. Gourmet cupcakes. Michael Jackson. “Friends.” “Casablanca.” The mullet. The Rock. The list is endless. I know my tastes are usually different from the masses.

  But in our world of often justified hyper paranoia, there should be room for redemption. Why, for instance, do Christians accept that a really bad man named Saul could be converted to St. Paul on the road to Damascus? Is it impossible to imagine that Tucker Carlson could really have been influenced by those he spoke to the past few years, and now honestly believes the government killed JFK, and that Building 7 is significant? Was it only Saul who could be redeemed? Pat Buchanan underwent a similar transformation in the early nineties, when he saw how our trade policies had devastated blue-collar workers in New Hampshire. But no one suspects that he was insincere, or compromised. Is it because Carlson has become much bigger? On the surface, they both seem to have identically transitioned from conservative to populist.

  It’s odd that I distrust all institutions, all authority, and yet can still perhaps naively trust individuals. You’d think my affinity for the world’s foremost cynic, Ambrose Bierce, would prevent that. I’ve been burned many times because of this. Women I adored. Men I admired. I did stop lending money to people a very long time ago. That lesson was pretty clear. Like millions of others, I was suckered into voting for Trump in 2016. So I took a chance on the remote possibility that he was sincere to at least some degree. Would it have been better to have voted for Hillary Clinton, the Queen of Corruption? What difference does it make, if they’re not even counting the votes?

  I’ve experienced this kind of widespread distrust in the JFK assassination research community. The fractionalization is worse than ever. The few who are trusted are the typical milquetoast, neocon types I have admonished for years. The same huge egos and difficult personalities we see in JFK research dominate other conspiratorial realms, like 9/11 truth. We see them everywhere in the alt media, lording their number of followers and subscribers over lesser mortals like the quarterback and the prom queen do in high school hierarchies. I’ve remarked before on how most of them are harder to communicate with than some genuine show business celebrities. For the record, my publicist was able to get ahold of Tucker Carlson’s producer.

  JFK researchers spend an inordinate amount of time trying to discredit conspiracy friendly witnesses. They literally ignore the laughable witnesses whose fanciful and inconsistent testimony was used by the authorities to buttress the official nonsense. Recently, some of them have launched an assault on the late Fletcher Prouty, the individual Oliver Stone based his “Mr. X” character (played by Donald Sutherland) on in JFK. They resent Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson stating publicly that there was a conspiracy, because they despise them personally and hate their politics. They don’t have the same vitriol for the Stephen Colberts and Jimmy Kimmels, who scoff at all “conspiracy theories.” Well, except for “Russiagate.”

  But in the alt media, as in society at large, Donald Trump is often the dividing line. Are you fer or agin his overblown personality? Because I belong to the smallest minority group in the world- the Trump Agnostics- I am inevitably caught in the crossfire. I came up with the Trumpenstein Project to explain both my perspective and what I believe was a genuine political psyop of epic proportions. But I still get called a “Trumpster” or a victim of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Trump exemplifies the problem with the alt media, because most of those who are “awake” to any appreciable degree, were or perhaps still are ardent Trump supporters.

  Whenever I watch a video or read something I find compelling, I often try to contact the person who was in the video or doing the writing. These are people unknown to the public, and frequently unknown to most in the alt media. They never respond to me. I don’t see them being interviewed elsewhere, so maybe they’re like Miles Mathis, above doing interviews. At least with the likes of me. And, of course, I wonder why these people aren’t shadow banned like me. They’re being allowed to grow a big following. But I don’t reflexively jump to the conclusion that this means they’re all being sponsored by intelligence agencies. Hired to control the “conspiracy” discourse, as Obama’s aide Cass Sustein proposed.

  I take people at face value, until proven otherwise. Roger Stone, for example, wrote the Foreword to my most successful book, Hidden History. I cringe at some of the things he says now. But he loved the book, and wrote a glowing Foreword. Whenever he’s mentioned me (which is very, very infrequently), he says complimentary things. Vivek Ramaswamy, suspected by many in the alt media of being the Republicans’ version of Barack Obama, was seen with my book Hidden History on the shelf behind him, while he interviewed Alex Jones. So he may be a disinfo agent, but I didn’t send him my book. What is he doing reading such subversive material? I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t like him just because of that.

  Maybe Tucker Carlson is good friends with Don Lemon and Hunter Biden. But he certainly raked them over the coals on his Fox News show. Donald Trump was friends with the Clintons. As Terry Reed (another guy I’d love to interview- amazed he’s still alive- but can’t find contact info) revealed in his book Compromised, seemingly sworn enemies Bill Clinton and Oliver North worked for the same team in Arkansas, when all those drugs were being funneled through Mena Airport. George W. Bush seems to be as fond of Michelle Obama as he was of gay prostitute/fake reporter Jeff Gannon, who visited the White House hundreds of times, including overnight stays. An alleged Mossad operative produced JFK and other Oliver Stone films.

  Perhaps no one is above board. Are we all hiding something? I’ve probably revealed too much of myself here on Substack. But I’m an open book. There aren’t any terrible skeletons in my closet. But I’ve had some relatives who worked for the CIA. I live in the same county where their Langley headquarters are. And the Agency’s library was one of the first to order my book Hidden History. So does that make me suspect? As I’ve said, the address of my childhood home was 3333. Hmm. Combined with the checked shirt, and soccer ball paperweight, we might have something there. One of my father’s hot cousins did marry Rutherford B. Hayes III. Maybe Miles Mathis will read this and conclude that I am a Jew, like seemingly everyone else.

  I will form an alliance with anyone, if they profess to be working towards something good. I’ll be able to determine pretty quickly if they have a nefarious agenda. I was able to ferret out that conspiracy whereby young, half clothed women friend or follow old guys like me. I never even took them up on their offer to send me pictures. Rob Reiner, for example, is a typically “Woke” leftist. But he’s doing good work on the JFK assassination. If he ever lowered himself to my level, I’d be happy to work with him on that common cause. Julian Assange believes the 9/11 fairy tale. But that doesn’t detract from the great work Wikileaks did, or make him any less of a political prisoner. Rosie O’Donnell is even more “Woke” than Reiner, but she was publicly telling the truth about 9/11, and got essentially “cancelled” because of it.

  There are tiers to the alternative media. You can choose to believe or not believe that I am in the legitimate tier, where honest voices struggle to get a larger platform. The one where shadow bans are common. I would be shocked if anyone I associate with regularly in the alt media wasn’t in the legitimate tier, too. Tucker Carlson would be in the top tier of this world, alongside Alex Jones and now Elon Musk. All suspect because of their backgrounds, or in Jones’s case due to his refusal to focus attention on the power that Zionism wields in this country, and stubborn support of Trumpenstein. Harrison Smith told me, however, that Jones never pressures him about what he can and can’t say, and indeed Smith is a very ardent anti-Zionist.

  I believe that the information is what’s important, not the personality. I don’t care where truth comes from; if it awakens people to the corruption, tyranny, and injustice all around us, then it’s a good thing. Let’s say hypothetically that someone I usually find to be odious, Bill Maher, held up one of my books on television and said, “This is a great book! Read it!” Would I reject that kind of endorsement, because I’ve found Maher to be so offensive so much of the time? Now, of course, Maher is about as likely to do that as Joe Biden is to come out tomorrow and declare that he’s being controlled by the Illuminati. Or that Hillary Clinton will be struck with a sudden pang of guilt and demand to be put in public stocks and pilloried.

  Just as the JFK assassination research community will ultimately never threaten that particular official lie because of its continuous dysfunction, the conspiracy analysis media in general, the alt media, will never overtake the state controlled mainstream media because of all the infighting, distrust, and accusations. We have to be able to talk with the Tucker Carlsons and Elon Musks, along with the Flat Earthers and Holocaust skeptics. I can respect all views, unless they advocate murder or extreme violence. The common goal should be for us to make the sleeping Americans realize that there is a vast conspiracy afoot to deny us all our civil liberties, and cover up the multitude of official crimes committed by the conspirators.

  Tucker Carlson responded to all the vitriol directed at him by stating, “I’m not defending Russia. I’m defending my own country. A weak central government in [Russia] with the world’s largest nuclear stockpile is insane. You’re a freaking nutcase. If you desire that, and we are run by nutcases, the president and that poisonous moron to Victoria Nuland.” Sounds reasonable to me. Just about every other mainstream journalist in America 2.0 despises free speech, hates anything virtuous or traditional, and is overtly anti-White. They cheer on political prosecutions and denial of true process. They shill for every discredited government narrative from JFK to the 2020 election. They demonize dissent. Carlson doesn’t do any of that. What is he being paid to promote? That the government killed JFK? That January 6 was a false flag?

  I will continue to believe in some things. It certainly seems hopeless, but we have to live our lives as if there is hope. Frank Capra left his impact on me. I still think the Kennedys were heroic figures. We need heroes. Crusaders for liberty and justice. If a politician speaks up for peace, even if they may be betrothed to Israel like all the others, I support them. How could I not? I always support peace. If we micro analyze potential motives, we will probably always find something to question. If you stay committed to the truth, then eventually the disinfo agents will sort themselves out. No one is perfect. I’ve yet to find anyone that I agree with about everything. Well, maybe Huey Long. Just because QAnon was an obvious psyop, that doesn’t mean that there couldn’t someday possibly be some real white hats.

  To say that the alt media eats its own is a massive understatement. Too many seem almost to instantly reject anyone who agrees with them. Kind of like Groucho Marx refusing to join any group that would have him for a member. I’m flattered when someone agrees with me, so I simply don’t get this line of thinking. If what they’re saying sounds too good to be true, it probably is, to paraphrase the old chestnut. As I’ve said, I have my own suspicions about many big names in the alt media, but I’d be happy to appear on any of their shows. I’d be courteous and respectful, and I wouldn’t alter my comments. My views are going to be the same, whether I’m ranting on “I Protest,” or being interviewed by Rachel Maddow. Again, it’s the information, stupid.

  If accepting people at face value (until proven otherwise) loses me supporters, so be it. I obviously know the names of the high profile swamp creatures, and accept their lifetimes of crime and corruption at face value. If Barack Obama suddenly started singing the praises of Huey Long, I would recognize a psyop. And would understand instantly that there was an obvious nefarious agenda behind it. Tucker Carlson hasn’t demonstrated that he’s a swamp creature, with a record of crimes and perhaps a Body Count behind him. I focus on the obvious villains, both in politics and the kept press. But like JFK noted in his timeless American University “peace” speech, I recognize that people with views I abhor can still love their children.

  Mark Lane was my mentor. I patterned my own civil libertarianism after his. He was a Jew. And he later became not only the counsel for the “anti-Semitic” Liberty Lobby, but best friends with the man who headed it, Willis Carto. So does that mean Lane wasn’t a real Jew? Or that Carto wasn’t a legitimate historical revisionist and critic of Israel? Because they were such strange bedfellows, were they both government operatives? I’ve heard from many who suspect Lane was working for the government. Wasn’t he Jim Jones’ attorney? How did he escape the Kool-Aid? Most people are impressed that I was with his Citizens Committee of Inquiry as a teenager, but some snort that I must be a government agent, too.

  Ultimately, it all comes down to good versus evil. God versus Satan. I don’t know how many of those supporting a Satanic agenda are actually Satanists. But some are. They flash those unnatural hand signals like someone is ordering them to. But some Satanists probably don’t walk the walk any more than many Christians. That’s why I keep talking about Frank Capra’s film Meet John Doe. People realizing their neighbor is a pretty good person. People coming together for the most basic common purpose; to be good neighbors and try to follow the Golden Rule. I still think national John Doe Clubs could work. But I still have a lot of naive idealism alongside the populism.

  It’s good to be skeptical. No one is more skeptical than I am. But we shouldn’t turn away a potential comrade (not to sound like a commie), exclusively because of his background, or what he once said or did. Or because he doesn’t focus on Israel. Or because he doesn’t talk about all the conspiracies we do. Just as in the general business world, or on ridiculous “reality” shows like Big Brother, we can form alliances that are favorable in some sense. To push truths like Oswald being a patsy, or 9/11 being an inside job, or COVID being a giant psyop. To support free speech. The way they do in Congress when they want to push through some awful legislation. I don’t normally quote Rodney King, but can’t we all just get along, people?

  Subscribe to “I Protest” by Donald Jeffries

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 23:40

• Where Tuning Into The Radio Is More (& Less) Popular
  Where Tuning Into The Radio Is More (& Less) Popular

  To mark World Radio Day, Anna Fleck created the following chart looks at data from Statista’s Consumer Insights macro survey on where radio lovers reside.

  Of the selected countries, it was most common in Austria and Germany for people to say they listened to the radio for at least for 11 hours per week, at around 17 and 16 percent, respectively.

  This is considerably more than countries such as Mexico and South Korea, where less than five percent of respondents considered themselves to be heavy listeners.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  World Radio Day 2024 is observed on February 13.

  This year’s motto is “Radio: A century informing, entertaining and educating.”

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 23:20

• Higher Education Reform, Civic Thought, And Liberal Education
  Higher Education Reform, Civic Thought, And Liberal Education

  Authored by Peter Berkowitz via RealClear Wire,

  For decades, American colleges and universities have desperately needed reform. The urgency of the moment may create openings to mitigate the damage and restore the basic elements of liberal education.

  

  Over the last few months, turmoil on campus has provoked outrage among wealthy donors, members of Congress, parents of college and college-bound students, and no small number of ordinary citizens. The sympathy exhibited by students and faculty for Hamas’ barbaric Oct. 7 attacks on Israelis, mostly civilians, along with the vacillating and mealy-mouthed response of many elite university administrators to students’ championing jihadist genocide threw into sharp relief how badly higher education has lost its way.

  Notwithstanding the recent intensification of interest, clear and constant signs of decay have been apparent since the 1990s. The decline can be traced back beyond the politicization of teaching and scholarship stemming from the upheavals of the 1960s to at least the mid-century subordination of the university curriculum and scholarly research to the imperatives of progressive politics.

  The tenuring of the 1960s generation in the late 1980s and the population of the faculty ranks with their students and their students’ students over the last 40 years, however, has accelerated the deterioration.

  Our colleges and universities have been policing speech. They have been curtailing due process, particularly concerning allegations of sexual misconduct. They have been relaxing to the point of eliminating core curriculum requirements. And they have been packing course offerings, particularly in the humanities, with classes aimed at indoctrinating students in leftist articles of faith: The one and only prism for viewing moral and political life is the distinction between oppressor and oppressed, chief among oppressors on the global scene is the United States, and chief among oppressors within the United States are white people.

  Responsible higher education reform must consider the depth and breadth of the dysfunction. And the remedies must accord with the governing aim of liberal education, which is to cultivate citizens who understand the principles that undergird, and who can contribute to the maintenance of, free and democratic political institutions.

  Now may be just the time for concerted action. It is already being led by the one campus minority that campus authorities permit faculty and students to revile.

  “Conservatives have an extraordinary opportunity to reform higher education,” husband-and-wife team Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey write in “Follow the Left’s Example to Reform Higher Ed,” which appeared recently in the Wall Street Journal. “Universities face a perfect storm of falling enrollments, souring public opinion and political scrutiny. They need friends. Prudent administrators should be eager to work with those whose opinions they might previously have ignored.”

  Senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute and research fellows at the University of Texas’ Civitas Institute, the Storeys urge conservatives to take a page from the left’s playbook and “think academically.” Professors on the left, the Storeys observe, “create new disciplines” such as women’s studies to address topics “overlooked by existing modes of inquiry.” These new disciplines give rise to new “ways of thinking” which, in turn, give birth to and are eventually supported by academic associations, professional journals, dedicated funders, and freshly minted students.

  Those on the right, advise the Storeys, should follow suit: “To make enduring change in the academy, conservatives must identify important areas that aren’t getting attention and create programs to study them.”

  The Storeys offer encouraging news on that front. Conservative reform has commenced, mainly in the neglected area of civic education. With Arizona State University’s School of Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL) – launched by the Arizona legislature in 2016 and, until recently, led by founding director Paul Carrese – as a model, public-university initiatives in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah, North Carolina, and Ohio are well underway.

  The Storeys call the model informing these programs “Civic Thought.” It encompasses the wide range of issues with which responsible citizens must grapple – “everything from war to education.” Establishing such programs requires partnerships among “trustees, donors and policymakers.” They must cooperate to identify and hire scholars with learning in the humanities and social sciences and with the administrative skills to design curricula, recruit faculty, and create and maintain communities devoted to learning and scholarship.

  The ambitious, multi-arena reform contemplated by the Storeys – I take part in a small way as a member of the Academic Advisory Board at the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center – has great potential. By re-grounding higher education in the principles of individual freedom, reasoned inquiry, and self-government, civic thought programs can put our colleges and universities in the service of – rather than in opposition to – the public interest.

  At the same time, salutary higher education reform must dodge several temptations and pitfalls. The Storeys rightly advise conservatives to learn from the left’s success in working within the academy. However, conservative reformers must also recognize and repudiate the left’s abuses of academic institutions, which have fueled the progressive takeover of university curriculum and administration and degraded higher education.

  First, conservatives should reject the left’s conceit – common in women’s studies, African American studies, and many of the other fashionable “studies” – that neglected topics require the creation of new methods of inquiry and new modes of thinking. Down that path lie pretentious jargon, obfuscatory discourse, and the erection of barriers to criticism and accountability. Nothing more is necessary for the flourishing of civic thought than the conscientious application of the traditional forms of inquiry in the humanities, the best of contemporary social science, and the experimentation and rigor of the natural sciences to the challenges of freedom and democracy.

  Second, conservatives should reject the left’s penchant for affirmative action. Notwithstanding that they are often a small and despised minority on campus, conservatives should not seek to make or receive appointments based on political beliefs or party attachments. To inquire into the voting preferences of candidates for faculty positions is antithetical to the university’s mission. Faculty hiring must concentrate on scholarly accomplishment, classroom excellence, and curricular need. As it happens, programs in civic thought will attract a disproportionate number of conservatives to their faculty. That’s because these days conservatives are disproportionately drawn to the topics at the heart of civic thought and essential to the formation of well-educated citizens: political philosophy; political economy; jurisprudence; foreign affairs and national security; religion; and constitutional, diplomatic, and military history.

  Third, conservatives should reject the left’s conviction that higher education’s aim is to prepare students to change the world. Understanding the world comes first, particularly for teachers and students. University programs in civic thought should not seek to mold conservative political activists to counter the progressive political activists that many African American studies, women’s studies, and the like endeavor to produce. Rather, programs in civic thought should strive to form more thoughtful citizens, whether of the left, center, or right.

  Fourth, conservatives should reject the left’s compartmentalization of the curriculum. While short-term advantage may be derived from emulating the left’s leveraging of academic proclivities and protocols to create new disciplines, civic thought should not seek status as a separate field of study like literature, political science, physics, much less like women’s studies, African American studies, and the like. Instead, civic thought should bring to bear on the myriad challenges of citizenship in a free society – including the status of minorities, the role of women, and changing sexual mores – the wisdom that is gleaned from, and the toleration and humility that are developed by, study of history, languages, literature, the principles of politics and economics, and the leading opinions about ethics and faith. Such intellectual exploration begins close to home with one’s nation, broadens into a study of one’s civilization, and eventually encompasses other peoples, nations, and civilizations. Civic thought must be grounded in liberal education.

  Fifth, conservatives should reject the left’s politicization of teaching and learning. Conservatives should not conceive of civic thought programs as conservative, at least in the narrow partisan sense of furthering a right-wing political agenda. Civic thought programs should be conservative in the larger sense – devoted to preserving the treasures of Western civilization and other civilizations and transmitting them to the next generation. Such preservation and transmission, it must be emphasized, can only be accomplished by those who have learned to weigh the evidence, seek out and grasp the truth in contending opinions, and craft persuasive arguments. Conservatives should emphasize that civic thought programs are the best means in the present circumstances for restoring a traditional liberal education, one which serves the public interest by forming young men and women capable of exercising their rights effectively and preserving and improving free and democratic institutions.

  The extent of the disrepair of U.S. colleges and universities and the urgency of the moment necessitate the recovery of the traditional principles of liberal education to guide the long, arduous work of higher education reform.

  Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 23:00

• The Nuts And Bolts Of Replacing Candidate Biden, Before Or After The Convention
  The Nuts And Bolts Of Replacing Candidate Biden, Before Or After The Convention

  Following a week in which special counsel Robert Hur soberly reported that President Biden is a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties” — a man who couldn’t remember when his term as vice president began or ended, or even “within several years” when his son Beau died — scrutiny of Biden’s fitness for office has reached a fever pitch across major media, with some earnestly examining off-ramps for Biden’s shaky re-election bid. 

  The special counsel report was bad enough by itself, but Biden himself poured gasoline on the fire last week:

  • He twice mistakenly referred to the dead male German chancellor Helmut Kohl when he was describing a discussion with living female Angela Merkel

  • He cited a conversation he had with François Mitterand — the French president who died 27 years ago — when that conversation was actually with President Emmanuel Macron

  • At a press conference meant to bolster confidence in his mental health, Biden referred to Egyptian President Sissi as the president of Mexico

  WATCH: Joe Biden says he recently met with “Mitterand from Germany.”

  Mitterand was the FRENCH President between 1981 and 1995.

  He also died in 1996. pic.twitter.com/W0YPBDp69n

  — Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) February 5, 2024

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  The week also brought a damning NBC News poll, which found 62% of registered voters have “major concerns” about whether Biden has the requisite mental and physical strength for a second term. Only 34% had major concerns about Trump’s capacity, though he’s just four years younger than the 81-year-old Biden.  

  On Monday, Politico examined avenues by which the Democratic Party might navigate toward a different candidate. First, note that the expiration of most ballot-filing deadlines means it’s too late for a heavyweight to enter the Democratic primary, and the obscure Rep. Dean Phillips challenge campaign — which has emphasized Biden’s weakness as a candidate — hasn’t gained any traction. 

  Politico‘s Charlie Mahtesian and Steven Shepard also think it’s unlikely we’ll see a floor revolt by Biden delegates at the Democratic Convention. Rather, they focus on a scenario in which Biden sees the primary process all the way through, and then — under mounting public, media and political pressure — announces he will not seek re-election after all and is releasing his delegates to vote for someone else at the national convention, which will be held in Chicago Aug. 19 to 22. Biden might well endorse a candidate, but his delegates wouldn’t be obliged to vote for his pick.

  Helmut Kohl, Mitterand, now Sisi as “the President of Mexico”.

  Biden has now thoroughly left the building.pic.twitter.com/Hv5BYoUUpA

  — Julian Sayarer (@JulianSayarer) February 9, 2024

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

  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s been running an odd non-campaign of his own — to include debating then-GOP hopeful Ron DeSantis — would be among the top contenders, along with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. It could all make for great entertainment, writes Politico: 

  The Democrats’ convention, typically a staid affair, would be filled with drama. While Democrats stripped their so-called “superdelegates” of most of their power after 2016, those current and former party leaders and elected officials would get a vote on a potential second ballot at the convention.

  That would give them significant sway in picking a nominee in a floor fight, but perhaps at the expense of reopening the 2016-era controversy about the role played by party elites in stifling Bernie Sanders’ chances at the nomination

  One thing Politico didn’t note is that the convention is already likely to feature high drama, in the form of protests by Democrats and others infuriated by the Biden administration’s blank-check backing of Israel’s unbridled destruction of Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of southern Israel. A floor-fight for the nomination could mean there’s chaos both inside and outside Chicago’s United Center.  

  🚨#BREAKING: Pro-Palestine Protesters are Clashing with Metro DC Police Outside Democratic National Committee Headquarters
  ⁰📌#Washington | #DC⁰
  Currently Hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters have gathered outside the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in Washington,… pic.twitter.com/sNEzM2wRIC

  — R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 16, 2023

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

  While a Biden pre-convention withdrawal would make for quite a spectacle, things would really get wild if Biden were to be nominated at the convention only to subsequently die, resign or be disabled. In that scenario, party rules direct the party chair to “confer with the Democratic leadership of the … Congress and the Democratic Governors Association” and then report to the approximately 450-member Democratic National Committee, which would then choose a new nominee.  

  The chaos wouldn’t be confined to the Democratic Party: States would be forced to scramble to produce new ballots. Ballots for overseas military service members are shipped just a couple weeks after the late-August Democratic convention, and in-person voting kicks off on Sept. 20 in Minnesota and South Dakota.     

  None of this is to say that Biden won’t keep mumbling, shuffling, blank-staring and gaffing his way all the way to the Nov 5 general election finish line. However, after last week, fewer people are willing to wager that Biden will be the Democratic nominee:

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 22:40

• The One Border Question Dems Can’t Answer
  The One Border Question Dems Can’t Answer

  Authored by Frank Miele via RealClear Wire,

  Conservative Republicans have managed to defeat the fake border security bill wrapped in a political ploy inside of a Ukraine bailout bill. Of course, no Republican should have ever imagined that giving open-border Democrats everything they asked for was a smart strategic position, but that’s what they very nearly did.

  

  Republicans had already passed a real border security bill within a few months of taking control of the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections. HR-2 actually secured the border – by demanding that the Biden administration finish the border wall, ending Biden’s power to process aliens who don’t enter at ports of entry, and shutting off the federal spigot that funds NGOs who aid and abet illegal aliens (“inadmissible non-U.S. citizens”) by providing lodging and other resources.

  Moreover, HR-2 shut down the ability of the Biden administration to grant asylum to the millions of migrants who don’t meet the legal criteria for asylum. But those are just a few of the vital components of HR-2, which is indeed a border security bill.

  If Democrats really wanted border security, they would have passed HR-2 in the Senate last year. But even if they didn’t want to give Republicans a win with HR-2, Democrats still could have incorporated the language of HR-2 in their grand compromise to prove that they really meant it when they said they wanted to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.

  Instead, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell teamed up with his buddy Chuck Schumer to use their fake border security bill as a fig leaf to cover up their real goal – freeing billions of dollars to go to Ukraine and Israel.

  McConnell sent his sacrificial lamb, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, into the lions’ den of lean and hungry Democrats as his chief negotiator to craft a “compromise” border bill, but he was apparently instructed not to involve House Speaker Mike Johnson or any other border hawks in his negotiations. Moreover, the contents of the bill were kept secret until three days before Schumer intended to bring it to a vote in the Senate.

  By that time, it was obvious what the game was. Democrats and their media allies created a narrative that Trump had ordered Republicans to vote against the bill in order to give him a political issue in November. This is just the latest instance where Democrats have gotten the cart before the horse. Trump does not give anyone orders; he just listens to the people and provides them a voice. It is the people who spoke out against this fake border bill, and any Republicans foolish enough to vote against the people are at risk of following former Speaker Kevin McCarthy out the door.

  The people’s voice was mocked throughout the process. When details of the border bill were leaked to the media, Lankford characterized them as Internet rumors and dismissed them. “Wait for the text of the bill to be released,” he repeatedly said.

  But when the text was released, it was just as the people had feared. Most importantly, the centerpiece of the bill was a provision that ordered the president to shut down the border if illegal entries exceeded 5,000 a day on average for seven days. Our masters in the media tell us that doesn’t mean up to 5,000 illegal entries per day would be allowed, but let’s be realistic.

  First of all, the U.S.-Mexican border is not controlled by the Border Patrol; it is controlled by the Mexican cartels. If the human traffickers need to keep border crossings under 5,000 a day in order to keep doing business, then they will do just that.

  But there is one question that completely destroys the Democrat and globalist Republican talking point that the “5,000 a day” number is somehow being misunderstood by Harvard Law School graduates like Sens. Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton.

  Here’s how NBC described the provision:

  “DHS could close the border if Border Patrol encountered 4,000 or more migrants on average over seven days. The border would have to be shut down if those encounters reached a seven-day average of 5,000 or if they exceeded 8,500 in a single day.”

  Now, here’s the question that Democrats have no answer to: If the border can be shut down when more than 5,000 illegal immigrants cross per day, then why can’t it be shut down immediately, right now?

  The answer is obvious – because Joe Biden and the Democrats don’t want to shut down the border. Instead, they have sanctioned the invasion of our country by millions of non-citizens. With this bill, they attempted to codify that invasion and they thought they could get Republicans to just look the other way. Maybe a few years ago, that would have worked. But this is the new Republican Party, tired of playing Charlie Brown and being humiliated time and again by Democratic Party Lucys.

  If you need more evidence that the Senate bill is the opposite of what Sen. Lankford claims, get this:

  According to NBC, “The border couldn’t be shut down … for more than 270 days in the first year. And the bill would give the president the power to suspend a border closure ‘on an emergency basis for up to 45 days if it is in the national interest.’”

  Under what possible justification would these supposed proponents of border security allow the border to remain open to invaders for the other 95 days a year? Under the typical scenario of 10,000 border crossers per day under Biden, that would allow nearly 1 million illegal crossings per year. Add that to 4,000 crossers a day allowed for 270 days per year under Lankford’s bill, and you are authorizing at least 2 million migrants to enter the country and stay indefinitely, and that’s just between ports of entry. Remember, the bill doesn’t account for the people who show up at airports and border crossings and demand asylum.

  Perhaps the craziest admission that the border bill is a con job is that Orwellian provision that Biden could open the border on an emergency basis “if it is in the national interest.”

  It is never in the national interest to replace the border with a sign proclaiming, “Welcome Stranger. Mi Casa Es Su Casa.” But apparently, it is in the interests of the Democratic Party. Think about that, and stop blaming Republicans for refusing to be duped one more time.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 22:20

• CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say
  CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag via Public substack,

  Last year, John Durham, a special prosecutor for the Department of Justice (DOJ), concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should never have opened its investigation of alleged collusion by then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and Russia in late July of 2016.

  

  Now, multiple credible sources tell Public and Racket that the United States Intelligence Community (IC), including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.

  The new information fills many gaps in our understanding of the Russia collusion hoax and is supported by testimony already in the public record.

  Until now, the official story has been that the FBI’s investigation began after Australian intelligence officials told US officials that a Trump aide had boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damning material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

  In truth, the US IC asked the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies, say sources close to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) investigation. The Five Eyes nations are the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

  After Public and Racket had been told that President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had identified 26 Trump associates for the Five Eyes to target, a source confirmed that the IC had “identified [them] as people to ‘bump,’ or make contact with or manipulate. They were targets of our own IC and law enforcement — targets for collection and misinformation.”

  Unknown details about the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and raw intelligence related to the IC’s surveillance of the Trump campaign are in a 10-inch binder that Trump ordered to be declassified at the very end of his term, sources told Public and Racket.

  If the top-secret documents exist proving these charges, they are potentially proof that multiple US intelligence officials broke laws against spying and election interference.

  …

  “They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” a source close to the investigation said. “They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. The MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up.”

  The IC, a source said, considered the 26 Trump campaign people identified to “bump” or “reverse target,” or manipulate through confidential human sources (CHSs), to be easy marks because of their relative inexperience.

  Doing so was illegal, both because US law prohibits such intelligence gathering unless authorized by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant and because the weaponization of the IC for political purposes constitutes election interference.

  …

  Subscribers to Public substack can read the astonishing full report here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 22:00

• Over 70% Of Service Members Say They Felt 'Coerced' Into Taking COVID-19 Vaccine: Survey
  Over 70% Of Service Members Say They Felt ‘Coerced’ Into Taking COVID-19 Vaccine: Survey

  Over 70% of individuals serving in the US military who responded to an Epoch Times survey said they felt “coerced” into taking the COVID-19 vaccine and/or booster after the Pentagon issued a 2021 mandate to do so.

  

  The survey, conducted last fall, spanned all branches of the military and included both enlisted and officer ranks. The average length of service was around 16 years.

  Out of the 229 participants, 169 were active duty service members. Eighty-seven percent, or 199, were unvaccinated against COVID-19. Of the 30 who were vaccinated, only two said they had wanted to do it.

  Twenty out of 30 individuals who acknowledged taking a COVID-19 vaccine claim they were injured by it. Ninety-three percent of the participants said they know someone they believe has been injured by one. –Epoch Times

  One 20-year Army combat veteran told the outlet that he opposed the mandate.

  “I’m not a lab rat and neither are the people I work with,” he said, adding “While holding out [from taking the vaccines], I was forced to wear a mask and was often singled out for being unvaccinated.”

  After bringing his concerns to his command, “I was simply told: ‘I don’t make the rules.’”

  He added that if he hadn’t gotten vaccinated, he would have been prohibited from coming home to see his family at a time when his wife was at risk of a serious medical concern that might require his presence at a moment’s notice.

  “You can see I had no choice but to take the shot,” he said. “At the same time I would be prevented from being with my wife, my orders to deploy were also being threatened.”

  More via the Epoch Times;

  Like Officer Johnson, a majority of survey participants said they were “coerced” into receiving a vaccine and/or boosters. Nearly 95 percent of those who objected to the mandate said they faced reprisals, including verbal threats of punitive legal action, loss of promotion, and exclusion from career-enhancing schools.

  Officer Johnson reluctantly took the first round of vaccine at a local pharmacy chain store.

  After the mandate was rescinded in January 2023, Officer Johnson still faced roadblocks to his career advancement.

  “With a general officer memorandum of reprimand in my record for initially refusing the vaccine, I was not promoted to a higher rank,” he said.

  “Even though I have since taken the vaccine, I’m losing monthly income and hundreds of thousands of dollars over my lifetime in retirement pay for not being able to promote.”

  Almost half of the participants in the survey said they were also “financially harmed by noncompliance” with the mandate.

  Officer Johnson said he knows others in a similar predicament, including some who were forced to retire or separate from the Army long before finishing their career. Nearly 90 percent of the survey’s participants said they know someone who was separated or forced to leave military service because of the mandate.

  “Like many of them, I’ve been shot at and deployed [to a combat zone] by an organization that turned on me, and that has caused quite a bit of emotional and psychological trauma,” he said. “Having spent my adult life in service to my country, my experience has been absolutely destructive to my morale and physical well-being.”
  Calls for Accountability

  Master Sgt. Asher Grove (a pseudonym) has served in the Air Force for nearly 20 years. While investigating the COVID-19 vaccines, he said, he identified potential adverse risks that were never made known to service members.

  According to the survey, only 3 percent were informed by qualified medical personnel of known risks associated with the vaccines, including damage to reproductive health for females and increased risk of heart disease.

  With past immunizations, he was given “a fact sheet,” he said. With a pre-existing health concern and guidance from God, he adamantly opposed receiving any COVID-19 vaccine.

  After both his religious accommodation and medical exemption requests were denied, he was “slapped with a letter of reprimand.”

  “This was the only real coercion I faced, that I’d get continue to get in trouble for taking objection to the vaccine,” he said.
  Ultimately, it was an appeals court in Ohio that upheld an injunction to protect members of the Air Force from being punished for refusing the vaccines that prevented any further negative impact on his career. Sadly, he said, many other service members were forced to retire or separate prior to the injunction.

  “DOD leaders should be held accountable in the manner [the mandate] was enforced,” he said. All 229 participants of the survey agreed with that proposition.

  “Trust in leadership suffered greatly when people were forced to do something they should have never been forced to do.

  “Having witnessed so many people oppose the vaccine for religious concern and more, I was able to witness the greatest battle I’ve seen in my life.

  “It wasn’t a battle fought on a foreign field, but it was a battle against good and evil in our own country.”

  For him, the rescission of the vaccine mandate in January 2023 was “a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done so this never happens again.”

  The DOD, Department of the Army, and Department of the Air Force didn’t respond by press time to requests by The Epoch Times for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 22:00

• Waste Of The Day: Despite Targeted Funding, California Prisons Didn’t Fix Disciplinary Process
  Waste Of The Day: Despite Targeted Funding, California Prisons Didn’t Fix Disciplinary Process

  Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via RealClear Wire,

  Topline: California’s prison system received $34 million to institute reforms related to staff misconduct allegations. Although new rules were put forward, the process never changed because prison staffers continued to operate under the old rules.

  

  Key facts: Inmates can file reports with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) if they believe they have been mistreated. If the mistreatment stems from a prison employee, the issue is addressed by a team from another prison to avoid bias.

  

  In 2021, the state inspector general found that prison staffers were the ones determining if a misconduct allegation against themselves or their colleagues was worth flagging for investigation, presenting an obvious conflict of interest.

  The department requested $34 million from the state in its 2022 budget to “restructure its staff misconduct allegation screening.” The rule changes were made on paper, but prison staffers kept following the old system anyway, leading the state inspector general to criticize the $34 million in “wasted resources” in a Jan. 29 report.

  As a result, 595 allegations of misconduct against prison staff were classified as “routine grievances” and investigated by the same prisons where the misconduct may have occurred.

  The process “resulted in a wasteful duplication of efforts and misallocation of resources” because investigative work had already begun on some of the 595 cases before they were reclassified, according to the IG.

  The drawn-out process also caused the statute of limitations to expire on 127 cases, 22 of which could have caused a prison employee to be fired had the case been investigated.

  Background: While it’s impossible to quantify the dollar cost of the misallocated resources on top of the wasted $34 million, CDCR’s budget doesn’t have excess funds to spare. The department spent almost $2.5 billion just to pay outside vendors in 2022, according to OpentheBooks.com.

  The 2023-24 budget allocates $14.5 billion for the department, more than any other state prison system.

  Supporting quote: “This reassignment complied with regulations and was shared with the Office of the Inspector General in advance,” CDCR Secretary Jeffrey Macomber wrote in his response to the IG report. “Of note, the reassigned grievances amounted to less than one-third of one percent of all grievances reviewed by the Department in calendar year 2023.”

  Critical quote: “The department’s attempt to downplay the impact of its decision by pointing out that it only affected a small percentage of grievances ignores the impact its decision had on the incarcerated people whose allegations of staff misconduct were not reviewed in compliance with the department’s current regulations,” the IG wrote in the report.

  Summary: $34 million is a lot of money just to rewrite the rules of a bureaucratic process, especially if the process is never actually changed.

  The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 21:40

• Hezbollah Chief Threatens More Displacement Of Northern Israel Residents As France Delivers Peace Plan
  Hezbollah Chief Threatens More Displacement Of Northern Israel Residents As France Delivers Peace Plan

  France has issued a written proposal to Lebanon which seeks to de-escalate the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon’s south, which stands on the precipice of becoming a broader and deadlier war.

  The French plan calls for Hezbollah to remove its fighters a full 10km from the border, after which the governments of Lebanon and Israel would enter negotiations on expanding a buffer zone “in a gradual way”. The document calls for these talks to begin 10 days after Hezbollah’s draw back from the border.

  

  The ultimate goal, according to the proposal, would be to achieve ceasefire based on an de-escalation zone which expands 30km from the border up to the Litani River, based on the similar 2006 peace plan which settled the war then.

  The document emphasizes that this conflict “risks spiraling out of control” while urging the implementation of “a potential ceasefire, when the conditions are right” and calls for delineating deconflicted land between the two sides.

  However, just hours after the French plan was reported in international press, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah gave a televised speech Tuesday and warned that Hezbollah will not stop its attacks on Israeli troops until the assault on Gaza is ended.

  He additionally threatened the further displacement of residents of Northern Israel, according to Reuters. This has been a key issue for Israeli leadership, given dozens of communities had to be evacuated since last October, and some 80,000 Israeli citizens have been forced out of their homes due to the Hezbollah rocket and mortar barrages.

  Nasrallah in the speech appeared to indirectly complain about French and Western delegations coming to Beirut while talking peace plans:

  Nasrallah complained about the international delegations that came to Lebanon in recent weeks in an attempt to calm the situation, saying that they were only concerned with protecting Israel and refused to address Hezbollah’s demands.

  “The front in southern Lebanon is a front of support, assistance, solidarity, and participation in weakening the Israeli enemy until it reaches the point where it is convinced that it must stop its aggression,” the Hezbollah leader, who is seen as close to Iran, vowed. “This front will only stop when the aggression against Gaza stops within an agreement with the Palestinian resistance.”

  Included in the speech was hint at massive escalation against northern Israel…

  ⚡️Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: The israeli Minister of Security must realize that if we war is launched against us, there will be two million displaced settlers from the north, not just the hundred thousand currently evacuated.

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) February 13, 2024

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

  “Lebanon is in a strong and proactive position,”  Nasrallah insisted. However, Lebanese authorities will see it differently, and are worried on a daily basis that the conflict will spread to engulf the entire country, as happened in 2006. Israel is also in a tough spot – given the rising pressure to do something definitive about the emptied northern communities – while Israeli citizens remain internally displaced.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 21:20

• The 'No-Coiner' Texts Arrive: A Bull Market Beckons
  The ‘No-Coiner’ Texts Arrive: A Bull Market Beckons

  Authored by Santiago Varela via Bitcoin Magazine,

  The subtle shift in social media conversations. The mentions in the mainstream media: “Bitcoin will now be available for Wall Street investors!”. All the text messages arriving with questions about bitcoin from your no-coiner friends. Bitcoiners know that this is the signal. The bull market is officially here before the 2024 halving. This is a letter and a brief guide with nice tools for all those people who have been asking questions about bitcoin in the last couple days.

  “Bitcoin… Should I buy it?”

  “What is the best way to buy some?”

  “When should I buy it?”

  “How much do I buy?”

  “What strategy do I use to accumulate?”

  “Do I keep it? How long?”

  Gradually and then suddenly. That weird magic internet money you spend your free time researching is all anyone wants to talk about now. Your coworker, usually oblivious to anything outside his immediate domain, starts peppering you with questions about exchanges and wallets. Your high school and college friends text you asking for advice.

  

  The no-coiner texts are more than just a social phenomenon. They’re a barometer of market sentiment, a bellwether signaling the rise of a new wave of interest. When the questions shift from “What is Bitcoin?” to “How do I buy it?” you know something fundamental has shifted.

  This isn’t just FOMO (fear of missing out). It’s recognition. People are starting to see what we’ve seen all along: a monetary revolution unfolding before our eyes. The limitations of the old system, the fragility of fiat currencies, are becoming painfully obvious. And Bitcoin, that beacon of sound money and individual sovereignty, shines ever brighter in the growing darkness.

  The questions, of course, are varied. “Should I buy now?” asks the cautious one, still scarred by past price swings. “What exchange should I use?” queries the practical one, seeking a secure path to entry. And the adventurous one, eyes gleaming with gold rush fever, wants to know about leverage and trading strategies.

  There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, of course. Each journey into Bitcoin is unique, shaped by individual circumstances and risk tolerance. But for those drawn to the flight to quality, let’s go step by step.

  “SHOULD I BUY BITCOIN?”

  This is not investment advice. Before investing any money, I would suggest that you invest time doing your own research about how to use the Bitcoin network appropriately. That said, the world’s largest asset manager is very bullish on Bitcoin. According to a BlackRock paper from 2022, they believe that an 84.9% bitcoin allocation is the optimal strategy.

  Additionally, Fidelity published a paper titled Introduction to Digital Assets For Institutional Investors and they mention Bitcoin 73 times. After that, they published a paper titled Bitcoin First: Why investors need to consider Bitcoin separately from other digital assets.

  Again, that doesn’t mean you should trust them with your eyes closed. I encourage everyone to do their own research. This is simply a little bit of context about what giants in the asset management industry are saying lately. There are open source tools that can help you make your own conclusions. Any person can access and understand how to use these tools for their personal wealth management. In fact, you can play with the models and adjust anything if you know some programming in Python. Finally, the Bitcoin network has so many unique characteristics that make it like no other asset we’ve seen before. Bitcoin rocks!

  “WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO BUY SOME?”

  It depends on individual needs, priorities and trade offs. On one side, you need to choose the level of responsibility that you’re comfortable with. On another side, you need to decide on the level of ownership that you want to have over your wealth.

  For example, there will be individuals that prefer to give up absolute ownership because they’d rather have a third-party as the custodian of the bitcoin. Long time bitcoiners value absolute ownership and therefore they prefer to be the custodians of their own bitcoins even if that implies more responsibility for them. Holding your own keys is the only way to really own any bitcoin. That’s why they say: “Not your keys, not your bitcoin”. If you really want to be your own bank, you can’t delegate the responsibility of holding your keys to anyone else.

  There is no doubt that not everyone prefers the big responsibility of holding their bitcoin. The same thing happened with other assets like gold. Not everyone feels comfortable storing gold in their homes and they send their gold to third-party custodians that have big gold vaults. In cyberspace there are also technicalities that will make some individuals feel unable to keep up with the big responsibility of holding value without the help of a third-party.

  Ask yourself the following questions: Do you value absolute ownerships? Do you value privacy? Are you comfortable with the responsibility of holding your keys safely? How much trust do you have in a third-party to custody your wealth? Are you an individual or institutional investor? If you are an institutional investor, are there regulations preventing you from owning real bitcoin? The following diagram from River can help you decide which is the best way for you to buy and hold bitcoin.

  

  In conclusion, there are three different alternatives depending on individual needs. First, owning real bitcoin with a hardware wallet that you own the keys to. Second, buying paper bitcoin and having a third-party do the custody for you. Third, buying a Bitcoin ETF and having your broker keep it for you. After all, you can use a mix of different strategies either to diversify your exposure or invest from different platforms.

  “WHEN SHOULD I BUY IT?”

  Approximately every four years there is an event called the Halving. A halving implies that the amount of bitcoins put into circulation is cut into half. This is known as the Block Reward or Block Subsidy. In 2023, the Block Reward was equivalent to 6.25 Bitcoin coins. The Block Reward refers to the number of coins issued every 10 minutes. This means that 900 bitcoins were created each day.

  In 2010, the Block Reward was 50 coins. During a Halving, the Block Reward is halved, marking significant epochs in the life of the Bitcoin network. We are currently in the 4th epoch (Epoch IV), which began in 2020 and will end in 2024.

  Therefore, with the Halving in 2024, the monetary issuance will decrease to 3.125 coins every 10 minutes. This halving is expected to occur around April and in other words, a halving causes an anticipated decrease in the growth rate of the monetary base. The halving and the Epoch are crucial considerations for those interested in investing in Bitcoin. In the following graph you can visualize this:

  

  *Graph created by the author with data from a Nasdaq library in R Studio. The data is from December 2010 to December 2023.

  The following charts contain Bitcoin price data for each epoch separately (from Epoch I to Epoch IV, respectively). What’s intriguing about these four charts is that they help us visualize a clear pattern that repeats in each epoch. These charts can be valuable to anyone interested in investing in Bitcoin, as they assist us in visualizing a very distinct cycle that repeats every four years.

  

  *Graph created by the author with data from a Nasdaq library in R Studio. .

  It is important to mention that we do not know if the four year cycle will continue forever. In the last few years there have been new conversations that suggest that the four year cycle will not always be like that. A popular argument is that the halving will be priced in with anticipation for future epochs when people become more aware of this phenomenon.

  There are currently 19.7 billion bitcoins in circulation out of the 21 million that there will ever exist. This means that 93% of the total bitcoins already exist and there is less than 7% of them to be mined. However, the last bitcoins will be mined around the year 2140 and miners will live off of transaction fees after that.

  

  *Source: https://medium.com/swlh/the-mathematics-of-bitcoin-89e7ab59edc

  “HOW MUCH DO I BUY?”

  Once you have decided to buy bitcoin, the next step is to ask yourself how much you want to invest. Remember the advice from that Blackrock publication? You don’t have to be that aggressive and invest 84% of your portfolio in bitcoins. You can begin little by little. In this section, I will use a wonderful open-source tool created by Raphael Zagury (Chief Investment Officer of Swan Bitcoin) and I would suggest everyone to play with the models in the platform by yourself. You can find this dashboard at https://nakamotoportfolio.com/.

  In the Nakamoto Portfolio website, you can personalize a portfolio to meet your needs or you can check out default portfolios templates that are already there for you to analyze. Let’s check out a very simple and traditional portfolio:

  

  This portfolio has 60% of its wealth invested in the S&P 500 Index (SPY), 20% in a regular gold trust (GLD), and the other 20% in a Vanguard Bond Market ETF (BND). The time frame used to analyze this portfolio is between January 2018 and January 2024. The green line shows us the actual results that this portfolio would`ve had during that time span. The results tell us that this portfolio would have had an annual return of 8.73%. The total return for the six year period is 65%. The daily volatility of this portfolio is 0.67% and the annualized volatility is 12.85%.

  Now let’s focus on the three lines below the green line that represents the original portfolio. These lines give us the results of the original portfolio if they would have had 1%, 5% and 10% of the portfolio in Bitcoin for those six years. Just by having 1% in Bitcoin, the total returns of the portfolio would go from 65% to 71%. The annualized volatility would only increase to 12.91%. A position of 5% in Bitcoin would increase the returns all the way to 94% with the volatility at 13.55%. Finally, a position of 10% in Bitcoin would take the returns all the way to 123% and the volatility would only increase to 15.12%. This exercise illustrates perfectly why exposure to Bitcoin (even minimum exposure) is ideal for any portfolio.

  Ray Dalio, the famous investor from Bridgewater Associates, created a portfolio designed to perform well across different economic conditions. This investment strategy is known as the All Weather Portfolio. This portfolio template is available on the Nakamoto Portfolio website to analyze the results of Bitcoin exposure. The following image demonstrates the benefits of adding Bitcoin to a portfolio like this one.

  

  Another interesting portfolio to check out is the Diversified Bond Portfolio. This is a conservative investment strategy for risk-averse individuals. This portfolio includes a mix of Treasury with High Yield ETFs. According to Mr. Zagury, “a Bitcoin allocation is the perfect implementation of a bond portfolio. Even at small amounts, it has the potential to increase risk-adjusted returns.” The following image contains a brief summary of the impact that Bitcoin exposure can have on the Diversified Bond Portfolio. I suggest for everyone to try out the Nakamoto Portfolio by themselves to play with different numbers, portfolios, strategies, etc. There are YouTube tutorials and Twitter Threads to help anyone that is interested in using this wonderful tool.

  

  “WHAT STRATEGY DO I USE TO ACCUMULATE?”

  Once you have decided that you want to buy some bitcoin and you have decided on the amount of exposure that you want, the next step is to decide how you want to approach this accumulation phase. What strategy do you want to buy bitcoin? On one hand, you can buy it all at once. On the other hand, you can buy little by little.

  There are two main strategies for bitcoin accumulation: Lump-sum Investing and Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA). A lump-sum strategy implies investing all available funds at once. The DCA strategy allocates funds over regular intervals. For example, someone that decides to buy $100 worth of bitcoin each week (no matter the price) is following a DCA strategy. This is a popular strategy among bitcoiners that want to stack sats consistently. Each strategy has its own pros and cons. However, the best strategy depends on the particular needs and preferences of each individual.

  The Nakamoto Portfolio website also has a tool where anyone can run the numbers and compare which strategy works better for their particular situation. Check out the BTC Cost Averaging Simulator. According to Swan´s Nakamoto Portfolio, “lump-sum investing has historically outperformed DCA strategies. This is primarily due to Bitcoin’s explosive upward price movements. But DCA can lead to significant outperformance during bear markets. For instance, investors who bought at all-time highs but employed DCA afterward were able to break even significantly quicker. While DCA has potential drawbacks, such as reduced returns in consistently rising markets, it remains a popular method for managing risk and promoting disciplined investing.” After all, most people use a mix of both of these strategies and that might be the best way to go.

  “DO I KEEP TT? FOR HOW LONG?”

  Again, that comes down to individual needs, priorities, information, etc. However, this asset should be considered a long-term investment strategy. That means holding your bitcoin for a very long time, regardless of price fluctuations. Many Bitcoin enthusiasts believe that bitcoin will eventually become a global reserve currency, and therefore, they are willing to hold it through the ups and downs of the market. There is a popular saying amongst bitcoiners that changes “hold” into “HODL” (Hold On For Dear Life!). Take a look at awesome bitcoin comics that might also give you some advice…

  

  Other investors prefer trading their bitcoin on a frequent basis. This strategy involves buying bitcoin during the dips and selling during the highs. It sounds too cool but in reality this decentralized market is very difficult to predict. Very rarely do traders get to outsmart the market. Time in the market is more important than timing the market.

  I encourage readers to take the next step, whether it’s researching Bitcoin on their own, starting a Bitcoin investment plan, or joining the Bitcoin community. Start your Bitcoin journey today! Dive into the resources, explore the Nakamoto Portfolio, and don’t hesitate to ask questions. Bitcoin awaits those who dare to step into the future. As Bitcoin continues its ascent, how will the world adapt to this new paradigm of sound money and individual sovereignty? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: the future is orange.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 21:00

• Problem Of Rafah Is 'Over A Million Civilians & 10,000 Hamas Operatives'; IDF Says
  Problem Of Rafah Is ‘Over A Million Civilians & 10,000 Hamas Operatives’; IDF Says

  China has continued showing its disapproval of Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, which has also been consistent with Russian denunciations, and of course Iran’s position too.

  China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday issued a scathing condemnation of the Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and urged Tel Aviv to immediately halt all operations. It comes a day after an elite Israeli counterterror team was able to free two Israeli hostages during high-risk operations there.

  

  “China is closely watching the developments in Rafah,” a foreign ministry spokesperson stated. “We oppose and condemn acts against civilians and international law. We call on Israel to stop military operations as soon as possible, do everything possible to avoid casualties among innocent civilians, and prevent a more devastating humanitarian disaster in Rafah.”

  Regional reports say that Monday alone saw over 40 airstrikes on Rafah, which reportedly killed more than a hundred people. There are common estimates that over one million refugees have surged into the city bordering Egypt during the last months of intense fighting elsewhere in the Strip.

  A Hamas statement had described the “The Nazi occupation army’s attack on the city of Rafah tonight … which [has] claimed the lives of more than a hundred martyrs so far, is considered a continuation of the genocidal war and the attempts at forced displacement it is waging against our Palestinian people.”

  A bigger full ground invasion is still expected, with humanitarian groups also warning of a looming humanitarian catastrophe, already as the Palestinian death toll since Oct.7 is close to 30,000 – according to Gaza health ministry figures.

  Israel, following recent days of pressure from Washington and other allies, has sought to assure that it will seek to evacuate those civilians willing to leave Rafah before the full assault begins. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi in a Tuesday press briefing said, “We know that it is more difficult for us to fight in an environment where there are over a million people and another 10,000 Hamas operatives.”

  “In previous parts of the war, we sought to isolate the population. We have the capabilities to do it. We did it in Gaza City. We did it in Khan Younis. We did it in the central camps [of Gaza],” Halevi said.

  Meanwhile an interesting new gaffe out of President Biden…

  Biden refers to “our military operation in Rafah.” He corrects himself to say “the major military operation in Rafah”, but this is yet another occasion where his flubs reveal the truth. Every Israeli massacre in Gaza is a joint Genocide Joe production. pic.twitter.com/PI2hPS95m8

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) February 12, 2024

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  “I am saying here that the residents of Rafah will be allowed to evacuate the area. It is not right for the citizens, for the residents, for the families, to be in the area of ​​fighting. When will it happen? How will it happen? We will decide when the time comes,” he added.

  But some have accused Israeli officials of simply floating false hopes and rhetoric in order to calm Western allies, particularly the US. In Europe there’s a move to prevent more arms from reaching Israel amid accusations of mass human rights violations, also as the Netherlands has been forced by a court to temporarily halt transfers of F-35 parts.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 20:40

• US CBDC & The Western Sanctions Against Russia
  US CBDC & The Western Sanctions Against Russia

  Authored by ‘Sundance’ via The Last Refuge,

  I made the notation during the Tucker Carlson interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin knows everything below in this article about Russian Sanctions and the formation around a dollar-based U.S. CBDC. Unfortunately, Tucker Carlson does not know the specifics of how it is being constructed.

  As I continue deep meetings and very granular discussions about the lessons within the EU that can be applied to the USA, it is worth revisiting this previously password protected post.

  I went to the EU, because deep inside all of my research on Russia, things did not make sense.  I was very prepared and organized to expect everything sketchy, and what I found surprised me.  Putting boots on the ground, I now have a completely clear and different view.

  

  Let me start by saying everything we have read about the Western sanctions against Russia is false.  What sanctions might exist do not have any impact, and Eastern Europe has no intention to anger Putin.  When Brussels threatens to kick Hungary out of the EU/NATO, I can almost hear Viktor Orban saying, “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”  Hungary doesn’t even use or rely on the €uro for domestic financial transactions; they still retain their own national currency, the Hungarian forint or HUF.

  First things first with the Western financial sanctions- specifically the SWIFT exchange.  It is true you cannot use VISA, Mastercard or any mainstream Western financial tools to conduct business in Russia; however, the number of workarounds for this issue are numerous.  One of those tools is the use of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin; and within that reality, you find something very ominous about the USA motive.

  Crypto users are likely familiar with stories like Binance and the US regulatory control therein.  Factually, outside the USA Binance is being used to purchase and trade crypto without issue, but inside the USA it is regulated.  That brings me to the MEXC crypto exchange, a Mexican version, again available globally but not allowed in the USA.  The same applies to Metamask, used all over Europe but not permitted in the USA.  Start to ask yourself, why all these crypto exchanges are available to the rest of the world but not the USA, and you start to suspect the Russian sanctions, just like the Patriot Act, are something else entirely.

  Then there’s app wallets.  You might be familiar with Apple Pay as a process to handle transactions from your iPhone.  Apple Pay is linked to your bank account.  Well, the “wallet feature” exists on other apps also, like Telegram; however, you can find the wallet feature, but if you try to use it from a USA cell phone… “This feature is not allowed in your region.”  Why are digital wallets available for the rest of the world but blocked by the U.S. government?

  

  This brings me to several crypto conversations in the EU at various cafes with people who have a deep understanding. 

  The commonly accepted bottom line, the Western sanctions, organized by the Biden administration and US Treasury, were not intended to put financial walls around Russia; they were designed to put control walls around the USA. 

  Russia was the useful justification.

  Here’s how it really looks from the outside looking at the USA.  The same way the Patriot Act was not designed to stop terrorism but rather to create a domestic surveillance system. So too were the “Russian Sanctions” not designed to sanction Russia, but rather to create the financial control system that will lead to a USA digital currency.

  Now, does the exploding debt and seeming govt ambivalence take on a new perspective?  It should, because that unspoken motive explains everything.  This is not accidental folks.

  Again, the western sanctions against Russia are not having an impact against Russia; they are having a quiet impact in the USA that no one is permitted to talk about.

  LOGISTICS

  Despite popular opinion to the contrary, it is entirely possible to travel all over Europe without being tracked.  If you pick an entry point into the EU (Schengen Area), once inside, you can travel without any national checkpoints or passport checks.  It is also entirely possible to fly all over the EU without ever giving a passport number when you book the flight.  The trick is to know which airline.  You are a name on a passenger manifest, nothing more.

  Bottom line, travel around the EU is less controlled, tracked and monitored, than travel inside the USA. 

  

  Yes, let me emphasize; freedom of travel is greater in the EU than it is in the USA.  This was completely unexpected.

  GROUND REPORT

  You might ask how I know the Russian sanctions are ineffective – here’s an example. 

  After doing advanced research, I went to three separate banks as a random and innocuous customer.  I put my reason in the kiosk at each bank, got my ticket number and sat down to listen to the conversations. When my ticket number came up on the digital board, I just ignored it and sat for hours listening to conversations.  No one ever noticed or questioned me – not once.

  At every one of the banks, the majority of the customers, at the “new account” desk, were foreign nationals asking about setting up business accounts to trade with Russia. In every bank the conversations were friendly and helpful, with the bank staff telling the customers exactly how to set up their account to accomplish the transactions.  No one was saying no; instead they were explaining how to do it in very helpful detail.

  Within Russia, there are now 3rd party brokers with international accounts, an entirely new industry, which creates a layer of transactional capability for the outside company to sell goods into Russia.  A Samsung TV travels from South Korea to the destination in the RU with the financial transaction between manufacturer and retailer now passing through the new ‘broker’ intermediary. Essentially, that process is what was happening in the banks for small to medium sized companies.

  Back to the crypto and digital wallet angle.  In addition to financial/transactional brokers for durable goods into Russia, there is now an entire industry of selling telephone id’s with EU phone numbers to process the transactions that are blocked by the USA sanction regime.

  Meaning, a person could buy a phone and register a phone number from within the EU, and then go back to the USA and access all the blocked/restricted financial processes [Binance (non-US), Metamask, MexC, Telegram digital wallet etc].  This would permit them to do untracked financial transactions into and out of Russia from the USA without the USG knowing about them (sanction workaround).

  [DISCLAIMER: in the interest of my own legal risk, I did not do this; I’m just explaining.]

  I am not smarter than the U.S. intelligence community, so what does this mean?

  This means the U.S. government knows exactly why the Russian economy is thriving, the Ruble is stronger against the dollar, and there is nothing -not one thing- visible or different on the ground in Russia that an ordinary Russian citizen would notice.  In fact, the Russian economy is doing fine, better than before the Ukraine conflict initiated, albeit with new financial industries created by the sanctions.

  

  If the US government knows this, then why the sanctions?

  Asked and answered. 

  The Western sanctions created a financial wall around the USA, not to keep Russia out, but to keep us in. 

  The Western sanction regime, the financial mechanisms they created and authorized, creates the control gate that leads to a U.S. digital currency.

  

  In essence, the Ukraine war response justified a system that creates a digital dollar.

  I will have more, but for now just think about this aspect.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 20:20

• "Rapes, Robberies, & Shootout" At Darién Gap As Biden's Border Crisis Spreads Chaos
  “Rapes, Robberies, & Shootout” At Darién Gap As Biden’s Border Crisis Spreads Chaos

  As migrants from Central America surge north in hopes of reaching the US southern border, there’s a dangerous stretch of border between North and South America that legacy media outlets refuse to cover horror stories. 

  Let’s begin with data from an independent, non-profit newsroom, The New Humanitarian that shows a record number of migrants crossed the treacherous jungle corridor connecting Colombia and Panamá – known as the Darién Gap – in 2023. These figures also show that Darién Gap migrant crossings have exponentially surged under President Biden’s first term. 

  

  “2023 has broken all records. It has been a huge, terrible maelstrom,” Elías Cornejo, who runs Fe y Alegría, an NGO promoting education and social advancement for migrants in Panamá, told The New Humanitarian. 

  Cornejo continued: “And we expect a new increase [in 2024].”

  

  Meanwhile, NGO Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, recently reported a sevenfold increase in sexual attacks across the Darién Gap. 

  Given all the chaos, Real America’s Voice correspondent Ben Bergquam and his team are reporting from the Darién Gap this past weekend. They encountered cartel thieves and robbers terrorizing migrants.  

  “There you go, Democrats. This is your open borders right there,” said Bergquam, referring to the chaos unfolding in the jungle, including rapes, robberies, and shootouts. 

  Bergquam and his team, accompanied by armed guards, tracked and intercepted cartel thieves. They came across countless migrants who warned about cartel members leaving a trail of destruction, including raping and robbing. 

  The reporters then found themselves in a firefight as armed guards assaulted the thieves, leaving one of them dead while two others were arrested. The men were preying on migrants, armed with pistols and condoms. 

  “It’s never-ending … You can say all you want Biden administration that the borders aren’t open. But this video tells the truth,” Bergquam said. 

  In an X post, Bergquam wrote: 

  *This is all by design by the open borders globalists/Democrats who have realized they can cash in on the “refugee game” through the Office of Refugee Resettlement – training illegals who don’t qualify for asylum how to say the right words to get in, aka “immigration fraud.” This is not a natural migration. This is a coordinated for profit invasion organized by international NGOs (Catholic Charities, etc) at the expense of American citizens and every country the invasion passes through.

  Darien Gap, Panama Recap Part 3: RAPES, ROBBERIES AND SHOOTOUT IN THE JUNGLE!

  Law & Border only on Real America’s Voice News @RealAmVoice. Sponsored by https://t.co/hZR7SAvMa6 promo code: RAV

  *Stay tuned! Later this month we will be back with footage you won’t see anywhere… pic.twitter.com/PnXJfNdsX3

  — Ben Bergquam – Real America’s Voice (RAV-TV) News (@BenBergquam) February 11, 2024

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  Those who survive the two-week trek through the jungles end up on the southern US border in weeks, if not months later.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 20:00

• Diversity Training Increases Prejudice An "Activates Bigotry" Among Participants, New Study Says
  Diversity Training Increases Prejudice An “Activates Bigotry” Among Participants, New Study Says

  Authored by Lee Harding via The Epoch Times,

  Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training is divisive and counter-productive and can even serve to increase prejudice among participants, a new study by a Canadian professor says.

  

  David Haskell released his study for the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy on Feb. 12. The social scientist and associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University says DEI training does more harm than good and calls his findings a “reality check.”

  “A growing number of high-profile cases suggest that diversity workshops and their supporting materials regularly promote questionable claims—particularly about the overarching, malicious character of the majority population. Similarly, hostility toward those who challenge DEI claims is part of the pattern,” Mr. Haskell wrote.

  “The national and international research shows there is often a disconnect between the evidence and the claims of DEI advocates.”

  In an extreme example, Richard Bilkszto, a 60-year-old Toronto District School Board principal who had challenged DEI claims, took his own life on July 13, 2023. His lawyer, Lisa Bildy, suggested that harassment he received following DEI training in 2021 directly contributed to his death. A Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) ruling confirmed that he had been the subject of “workplace harassment and bullying.”

  Claims that Canada and other Western countries are “systemically racist” are not borne out by a statistical analysis of “differences in outcomes,” Mr. Haskell’s paper states. It cites foundation colleague Matthew Lau, who wrote: “The data on disparities in income, educational attainment, occupational outcomes, and public school test scores show that, on average, Asians are doing better than the white population.”

  The paper also argues that the purported positive results of DEI training are as questionable as its premise and that a focus on “implicit bias, white privilege, and micro-aggressions” do not foster harmony.

  “To ‘prove’ the effectiveness of DEI instruction, proponents often point to surveys conducted before and after workshops that show, following training, participants are much more likely to articulate answers that align with the pro-DEI ideas,” Mr. Haskell wrote.

  “This type of methodology has drawn criticism and has proven to be unreliable.”

  In an annual review of psychology published in 2022, U.S. research psychologists Patricia Devine and Tory Ash criticized DEI proponents’ “proxy measures for success that are far removed from the types of consequential outcomes that reflect the purported goals of such trainings.”

  The authors concluded, “Implementation of DT [diversity training] has clearly outpaced the available evidence that such programs are effective in achieving their goals.”

  Positive Results Negligible

  Numerous systemic reviews and meta-analyses reviewed by Mr. Haskell similarly found that positive results from DEI training are “undetectable or negligible.”

  In their annual review of psychology published in 2009, then-Harvard professor Elizabeth Paluck and then-Yale professor Donald Green examined 985 studies and found, “Due to weaknesses in the internal and external validity of existing research, the literature does not reveal whether, when, and why interventions reduce prejudice in the world.”

  A subsequent meta-analysis by Ms. Paluck, Mr. Green, and two other researchers, published in 2021, reviewed 418 experiments reported in over 300 manuscripts from 2007 to 2019 and found support for DEI as dubious as before. “Although these studies report optimistic conclusions, we identify troubling indications of publication bias that may exaggerate effects,” the co-authors wrote.

  Mr. Haskell said the harms of DEI are more clear than its benefits.

  “DEI instruction has been shown to increase prejudice and activate bigotry among participants by bringing existing stereotypes to the top of their minds or by implanting new biases they had not previously held,” he wrote.

  In 2018, Harvard sociologist Frank Dobbin and colleague Alexandra Kalev published “Why Doesn’t Diversity Training Work? The Challenge for Industry and Academia” in the journal Anthropology Now.

  “Hundreds of studies dating back to the 1930s suggest that anti-bias training doesn’t reduce bias, alter behaviour or change the workplace,” the authors wrote. “Field and laboratory studies find that asking people to suppress stereotypes tends to reinforce them–making them more cognitively accessible to people.”

  As far back as 1994, Neil Macrae at UK-based University of Aberdeen and fellow researchers wrote in a paper for a social psychology journal that the strategy of repressing stereotypic thoughts can have a “rebound effect.”

  “When people attempt to suppress unwanted thoughts, these thoughts are likely to subsequently reappear with even greater insistence than if they had never been suppressed,” they wrote.

  ‘Isolation and Demoralization’

  Mr. Haskell said DEI training can create a sense of “isolation and demoralization” in people belonging to the “dominant culture” because they are depicted as “fundamentally depraved (racist, sexist, sadistic, etc.)” while other groups are depicted “as important and worthwhile.”

  In a 2020 study, Musa al-Gharbi, a sociologist and assistant professor at New York-based Stony Brook University, found that this “clear double-standard” leads many from the dominant group to “walk away from the training believing that themselves, their culture, their perspectives and interest are not valued at the institution.”

  “The training also leads many to believe that they have to ‘walk on eggshells’ when engaging with members of minority populations,” he wrote. “As a result, members of the dominant group become less likely to try to build relationships or collaborate with people from minority populations.”

  Erin Cooley, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at New York-based Colgate University, found in a 2019 paper that among social liberals, learning about white privilege “reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty.”

  In an interview with The Epoch Times, Mr. Haskell explained the logic behind this outcome.

  “They were even more hostile toward poor whites, because those people must be categorically lazy … [or] dysfunctional because they have privilege. Why are they not successful?” he said.

  “Of course, white privilege completely ignores the thousands of other variables that go into every person, white or black or indigenous. There are so many things that can cause social and economic distress.”

  Mr. Haskell said those of Asian descent often succeed in the West due to their high rates of two-parent families and emphasis on hard work, higher education, and personal responsibility. Yet, because this success challenges DEI doctrines of white dominance, Asians get reclassified as whites.

  “School boards in the United States, under the influence of DEI ideology and training, they began to deny the existence of Asians and simply call them white. They put them all into one category,” he said.

  “White was the catch-all term for oppressor. And so the better you do, the more oppressive you are.”

  Asians Reclassified

  In a 2023 submission to the U.S. Supreme Court, students of Asian descent were shown to need entrance exam scores 450 points higher than black people to have the same chance of admission at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The combined highest score of math and verbal skills was 1,600, so Asians needed to be nearly perfect.

  In the summer of 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the racial quotas as unconstitutional and in violation of federal civil rights law. Mr. Haskell argues in his paper that Canada is different.

  “Canada has no such legislation; in fact, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our human rights laws allow for discrimination against the majority population. This constitutional allowance has now resulted in employment postings that, in the name of DEI, explicitly promote reverse or ‘recycled racism.’”

  In the interview, Haskell said the riots following the death of George Floyd “opened the spigot larger than ever before on DEI spending.” He hopes his analysis will empower business, government, post-secondary institutions, and public schools to reverse course.

  Haskell said DEI trainers are well-paid to do what they do and may sincerely believe they are doing good work despite the findings he outlines. However, he believes proponents at the highest level use DEI instruction “to destroy the existing society.”

  “They just want to be able to place blame in the absence of evidence, and that’s what they’re doing,” Haskell said.

  “We have a real history in the West of snake oil being passed off as scholarship. And this is just another example of that in a long, long line of con games.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 19:40

• House Impeaches Mayorkas In Historic Vote
  House Impeaches Mayorkas In Historic Vote

  Exactly a week after a failed attempt, the House has impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, under whose tenure more than 10 million illegal immigrants have entered the US – doubling the existing population of migrants.

  

  With a vote of 214-213, Mayorkas is the first cabinet official to be impeached since the 1870s.

  🚨 BREAKING: Disgraced Biden DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas has officially been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives over his “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust.” pic.twitter.com/63mUmdXwPj

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 14, 2024

  Last week’s effort to impeach Mayorkas failed by one vote because three Republicans voted with all the Democrats against the move. The vote was made possible only by the return of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who missed last week’s vote while undergoing treatment for blood cancer, according to The Hill.

  Mayorkas was accused of demonstrating a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law,” and “breaching the public trust,” which Democrats suggested was nothing more than disagreements over policy or performance failings, but not impeachable crimes.

  “Secretary Mayorkas is a danger to every American,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) on X. “I’m voting to impeach him.”

  Secretary Mayorkas is a danger to every American.

  I’m voting to impeach him. pic.twitter.com/8T3VR5wK8Q

  — Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) February 13, 2024

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  The GOP leaders moved to hold the vote before their majority potentially shrinks even further, with a closely watched special election Tuesday in New York to replace expelled Republican Rep. George Santos. The race is considered a tossup.

  Republicans continued the impeachment effort after rejecting an effort in the Senate to craft a bipartisan border deal to address many of the same issues House conservatives are raising. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) called the Senate’s deal—which paired aid for Ukraine with changes to border policy—dead on arrival, eventually leading most Republicans in the House and Senate to criticize the bill as insufficient. On Tuesday morning, the Senate passed a $95.3 billion package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that excluded border-policy changes. –WSJ

  Meanwhile, what’s this?

  HUGE: @JudicialWatch just found the documents showing Mayorkas PERSONALLY rejected Secret Service protection for @RobertKennedyJr. This is simply despicable. That it took a federal FOIA lawsuit to force out this information speaks volumes. https://t.co/c2BbLGhz7Q https://t.co/qcDJ34G6hW

  — Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 13, 2024

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 19:27

• Israel Blocks Flour Bibi Promised Biden Would Enter Gaza, Latest In Growing Rift
  Israel Blocks Flour Bibi Promised Biden Would Enter Gaza, Latest In Growing Rift

  There are more problems than meets the eye between the Biden White House and the Israeli government, at a moment Biden continues losing his progressive base over what they see as his ‘blank check’ support to Israel, while civilian bodies pile up in Gaza.

  A fresh Tuesday Axios report begins as follows: “Israeli ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is blocking a U.S.-funded flour shipment to Gaza because its recipient is the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), two Israeli and U.S. officials told Axios.”

  

  There are emerging reports of deep “frustration” in the White House in its dealings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He reportedly made a personal commitment to Biden in a phone call to allow in US humanitarian aid to the Strip unhindered, and in particular this flour shipment.

  But Israel has accused external aid organizations, especially the UNRWA – which is the prime body distributing aid – of colluding with Hamas terrorists.

  Ironically enough, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has already “thanked” the Israeli government for giving the greenlight for the flour shipment, setting up the US for political embarrassment at a sensitive moment Biden is looking to ease the concerns of his domestic voting base over his Israel policy.

  According to more from Axios, “Smotrich blocked the transfer of the flour after he was notified that it was destined for UNRWA, the primary aid group in Gaza. He ordered the Israeli customs service not to release the shipment as long as UNRWA is the recipient.”

  At this point the flour is being held up by Israeli customs, upon direct orders from Smotrich’s office. Smotrich explained, “There is a consensus inside the Israeli cabinet of the need to prevent the aid from reaching Hamas and I will use my authority to make sure this is the case.”

  The Biden administration has actually already backed the Israeli accusations against the UNRWA, having temporarily cut off aid to the UN organization, but this is yet another instance of the White House talking out of both sides of its mouth, evidenced especially in the following Monday exchange in a press briefing…

  AP’s Matt Lee: What leverage is US using?

  State Dept spox Matt Miller: “The words of the President…matter”

  Lee: “Over the top?’ That’s leverage?”

  (2 days after Biden called Israel’s behavior “over the top,” it attacked the last refuge for 1.5 million Palestinians—killing 90+) pic.twitter.com/pEOKbQlCsb

  — Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) February 12, 2024

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  President Biden has been attempting to simultaneously support America’s closest ally in the Middle East against Hamas while condemning the massive civilian casualties (which Palestinian sources say are in the multiple tens of thousands of dead). He’s seeking House approval for billions more in defense aid to Israel over the next year.

  Last week Biden called Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip “over the top” – but has refused to attach conditions on the weaponry deployed in Gaza. The US has also of late sanctioned select Israeli settlers, a move which Israel has condemned. The US is under pressure internationally, being accused especially by European officials of aiding and abetting war crimes and mass civilian deaths.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 19:20

• AMZN Shares Slide As Bezos Continues To Sell – Total Now $4BN
  AMZN Shares Slide As Bezos Continues To Sell – Total Now $4BN

  Amazon’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos has sold another $2bn worth of the company’s stock, bringing the total value of shares he has offloaded in the past week to $4bn, according to regulatory filings.

  

  An Amazon filing on Tuesday showed that Bezos, who stepped down as the Seattle-based company’s chief executive in 2021 but remains executive chair, sold 12mn shares for about $2bn between Friday and Monday. 

  AMZN shares are down 4% from their highs at yesterday’s open…

  

  As we detailed last week, though the market was raging higher to end the week, following excellent earnings reports from the likes of Amazon and Meta, there was at least one person that isn’t going to be a buyer: Jeff Bezos.

  The Amazon founder disclosed on Friday 2nd Feb that he plans to sell up to 50 million shares over the next 12 months, according to Bloomberg. The haul will put him close to being the richest person in the world, the report says. 

  The stock’s surge following its earnings on Thursday already is catapulting Bezos’ wealth higher. It’s up almost $13 billion on Friday, bringing him within $5.7 billion of the top spot held by Elon Musk, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bezos has not held the position of the wealthiest individual according to this index since 2021, the report added. 

  

  Bloomberg notes that the distance in net worth between Bezos and Musk is closing as Amazon and Tesla exhibit divergent trajectories. Amazon’s stock has surged amidst a tech rally that propelled US stock indices to record levels, while Tesla has faced challenges from regulatory investigations, price cuts, falling margins and increasing competition. 

  The 60 year old Bezos will offload 50 million Amazon shares by January 31, 2025, per a recent regulatory filing. These shares would amount to approximately $8.6 billion at current market prices.

  Amazon’s latest 10-K detailed the impending share sales by Bezos and other directors and high-ranking officers.

  Should Bezos execute this sale, it would be his initial divestment of Amazon shares since 2021. Notably, he acquired a single share in May, marking his first purchase since 2002, though the reason remains undisclosed.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 18:44

• ZeroHedge Debate: The Fate Of The US Dollar
  ZeroHedge Debate: The Fate Of The US Dollar

  ZeroHedge presents the latest debate in our series aimed at bringing long-form discussions on controversial topics back into the ideologically-siloed and echo-chambered media landscape.

  We hope you enjoy this in-depth discussion on the various aspects of what many consider the most important question in all of finance – so much so that Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk have both asked it in just the past few days: what is the fate of the (weaponized) US dollar, and will it remain the world’s reserve currency?

  Our panelists include such media luminaries as Jim Rickards and Bob Murphy on one side, and Michael Every and Brent Johnson on the other, with Adam Taggart moderating.

  We hope our readers find this debate educational and informative, and as always we urge our premium subscribers to submit questions to the panelists.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 18:24

• Study Finds Handwriting Increases Brain Connectivity
  Study Finds Handwriting Increases Brain Connectivity

  Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In our digital age, laptops and smartphones have become appendages for students and professionals alike. But new research suggests we may want to take a break from all that typing.

  

  A recent study from Norway found that the old-school art of handwriting engages parts of the brain that tapping on a keyboard does not. The intricate movements involved in handwriting activate more regions of the brain associated with learning than typing does.

  Handwriting vs. Typing

  A new study published in Frontiers in Psychology and led by Audrey van der Meer, a neuroscience researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, examined the differences between handwriting and typing. Ms. Van der Meer and her team analyzed the neural networks involved in both activities to uncover their respective impacts on brain connectivity.

  “We show that when writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns are far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard,” she said in a press statement. “Such widespread brain connectivity is known to be crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, is beneficial for learning.”

  The researchers used high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs) to collect data from 36 university students. Participants were prompted to either write or type words displayed on a screen by pressing keys with one finger.

  Results showed connectivity between different brain areas increased substantially when writing by hand. In contrast, typing did not produce a comparable boost in connectivity.

  “Our main finding is that writing by hand is excellent brain stimulation for people of all ages,” Ms. Van der Meer told The Epoch Times. Writing on a touchscreen with a digital pen yielded more neural network activity versus typing on a keyboard, she added. “The more connections in the brain during a task, the more the brain is used to its full potential.”

  Why Handwriting Remains Essential

  The meticulous letter formation and precise movements of handwriting substantially boost the brain’s connectivity patterns involved in learning, according to Ms. Van der Meer. This implies that the benefits observed with digital pens may also apply to traditional pens and paper. In contrast, the repetitive key-tapping of typing was less mentally stimulating.

  She pointed out this likely explains why children taught to read and write on tablets often struggle to differentiate between mirror-image letters. The researchers recommend that young children receive at least some handwriting instruction. “Forming letters by hand is a complex fine motor skill that challenges the young brain.”

  Children first taught via tablets also tend to have poorer spelling and letter recognition, likely because they lack the motor experience of handwriting each letter, Ms. Van der Meer said.

  However, the researchers don’t advise abandoning tech. They suggest a balanced approach, using handwriting for lecture notes to optimize learning while leveraging keyboards for extensive writing tasks. The findings underscore adapting teaching methods to take advantage of both traditional and digital writing tools.

  Study Limitations

  The research doesn’t paint a full picture, said Dr. Juliann Paolicchi, a pediatric neurologist with Northwell Health’s Lenox Hill Hospital and Staten Island University Hospital, who wasn’t associated with the study.

  The researchers used high-frequency EEGs to record brain activity. This EEG method has poor spatial resolution, limiting its ability to pinpoint specific brain region functions. “For spatial brain function, a far more sophisticated analysis is found with PET imaging, which provides a direct picture of brain regions involved in a function,” Dr. Paolicchi said.

  Second, the typing group used just one finger. Dr. Paolicchi emphasized touch typing properly with both hands is far different from “hunt and peck” typing with one or two fingers. “When taking notes in a classroom, which is the model that the researchers were trying to recreate, touch typing is far more common with students than one-digit hunt and peck,” she noted.

  Cursive Writing Returning to Schools

  Cursive writing is making a comeback in many U.S. states after being dropped over a decade ago.

  When the Common Core State Standards were introduced in 2010, they explicitly referenced learning keyboard skills in grades 3 through 5. The standards require fourth graders to type a full page in one sitting. As a result, cursive was largely abandoned in most school districts.

  However, this trend is now reversing, according to data from MyCursive.com, which tracks cursive writing requirements nationwide. Currently, 21 states mandate some form of handwriting education. Most recently, California passed a law in October 2023 making cursive handwriting mandatory from first through sixth grade.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/13/2024 – 18:20

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