- Nixon Threatened To Reveal CIA's Involvement In Kennedy Assassination, Roger Stone Claims
Nixon Threatened To Reveal CIA’s Involvement In Kennedy Assassination, Roger Stone Claims
Authored by Roger Stone via Stone Cold Truth with Roger Stone,
A stunning, long-overlooked Nixon Watergate-era tape shows Richard Nixon warning CIA Director Richard Helms that he knows of CIA involvement in the murder of John F. Kennedy- “I know who shot John.”
This shocking new tape depicts Nixon increasingly besieged by Watergate but unaware that at least four of the Watergate burglars were still on the CIA payroll at the time of the break-in, and that the CIA had thus infiltrated the burglary team. Recently declassified documents reveal that Watergate Special Prosecutor Nick Akerman was aware of both the CIA’s advance knowledge and involvement in the break-in — but said and did nothing.
Senator Howard Baker, the Republican Leader on the Senate Watergate Committee and his counsel Fred Thompson himself, a future U.S. Senator from Tennessee, like Baker, stumbled on the CIA’s deep advanced knowledge and direct involvement in the Watergate break-in. Baker and Thompson both knew that at least four of the Watergate burglars were on the CIA payroll at the time of the break-in and that through CREEP Security Director James McCord, had infiltrated the burglary team. Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin stoutly refused to allow Baker and the Committee Republicans including Edward J. Gurney of Florida the right to publish a Minority Report which noted this stunning information regarding the CIA.
Nixon deeply distrusted the CIA because he knew that President Eisenhower had ordered the agency to give top secret briefings to both Nixon and Kennedy after both were the certain nominees of their parties. Nixon was sore that Kennedy utilized the information in their debates, attacking Nixon for being “soft” on communist Cuba, knowing full well that Nixon had chaired a working group as Vice President overseeing preparations for the “Bay of Pigs” invasion. Nixon, of course, could not reveal this upcoming attempt to topple Castro in the details.
White House Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman wrote that when he served as the White House Legal Counsel, Nixon ordered him to request that the CIA hand over all documents pertaining to John Kennedy’s murder. Nixon was furious when Richard Helms, the CIA Director, refused his presidential order to hand them over.
This stunning new Watergate-era tape captures an increasingly besieged Nixon desperately seeking to mobilize the CIA in his defense by threatening to expose their greatest secrets. Nixon also knew that Congressman Gerald Ford, as a member of the Warren Commission, had, at the explicit direction of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director, altered the official autopsy diagram for President John F. Kennedy; moving the marking from a bullet in his upper back to his neck in order to accommodate the single-bullet theory and to conceal the fact that Kennedy had been hit with more than the reported three shots.
Nixon was acutely aware of Ford’s act of treachery in concealing the truth about Kennedy’s murder and the CIA’s involvement in it.
White House Chief of Staff General Alexander Haig told me in an interview that “Nixon had Ford by the balls.”
The five-star General said, “Nixon had me tell Ford that is he (Nixon) was going down, he was taking everybody with him.”
Subscribe to Stone Cold Truth here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 23:40 - The Vinyl Comeback Continues
The Vinyl Comeback Continues
Continuing one of the more surprising comebacks of the digital age, vinyl album sales in the United States have grown for the 17th consecutive year.
As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, according to Luminate, 43.5 million LPs were sold in the U.S. last year, up more than 48-fold compared to 2006 when the vinyl comeback began.
You will find more infographics at Statista
So how big is vinyl’s comeback really?
Should we all dust off our old record players to prepare for the analog future of music?
According to Luminate’s 2022 Year-End Music Report, LPs accounted for 43 percent of album sales in the United States last year, which is quite substantial.
Factoring in streaming and downloads of single tracks, however, that number drops to less than 5 percent of album equivalent music consumption, which puts things in perspective.
However big or small the impact of rising LP sales on the music industry’s bottom line may be, it’s fascinating to witness a hundred year-old technology come back from near extinction. Physical goods, it appears, still hold value for many people, even in the digital age.
Interestingly, vinyl LPs appear to have become a bit of collectors’ item for fans, who listen to music digitally but still want to own a physical object: according to Luminate, only 50 percent of vinyl buyers actually have a record player.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 23:20 - Pelosi Punts Stocks, Takes Huge Losses In Tesla, Salesforce And PayPal
Pelosi Punts Stocks, Takes Huge Losses In Tesla, Salesforce And PayPal
Now-former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has filed her latest periodic transaction report detailing recent stock trades – and she booked a ton of year-end losses.
For starters, Pelosi booked $854,000 in losses on PayPal
She also took a $733,000 loss in Salesforce, Inc.
Pelosi also took a $511,000 loss in Tesla.
Pelosi also took smaller losses in Roblox Corporation ($235,836), Netflix ($129,000), Disney ($114,138), and Alliance Bernstein ($11,500).
Interestingly, Pelosi also sold $2.6 million worth of Google parent Alphabet ($GOOGL), but doesn’t list details of a gain or loss, as was the case with her losses.
Is Nancy taking advantage of “tax loopholes for the rich” to avoid paying her fair share?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 23:10 - What Is The US "Gas Stove Ban" Really About?
What Is The US “Gas Stove Ban” Really About?
Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,
What sounds like overeach in itself, is actually a cover for something potentially far, far worse…
The Biden administration is apparently looking to ban gas stoves, calling them a “hidden danger”. But while that sounds bad enough, a deeper dive shows – as usual – it’s not really about what they say it’s about.
Talk of banning gas stoves and “unregulated indoor air quality” could be a Trojan horse designed to get even more “smart” monitoring technology into your home.
Let’s jump in.
ARE GAS STOVES DANGEROUS?
Well, according to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the New Scientist and million other outlets and pundits who started talking about it in the last two days, yes.
Earlier this week near-identical articles from the National Review, Bloomberg and CNN detail how the US Consumer Product Safety Commission will be opening “public comment on the dangers of gas stoves sometime this winter”.
The articles claim:
The emissions have been linked to illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions. More than 12 percent of current childhood asthma cases are linked to gas stove use, according to peer-reviewed research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health last month.
Now would be a good time to talk about the phrase “linked to”. It’s always a good one to look out for in any mainstream publication. Journalists love it because it implies causation without stating it.
Consider, one hundred per cent of serial killers have been linked to the ingestion of water and the wearing of shoes.
If this manipulative use of language were not evidence enough of an agenda, the rather premature deployment of the race card proves it:
Senator Cory Booker (D., N.J.) and Representative Don Beyer (D., Va.) wrote a letter to the agency last month urging the commission to address the issue and calling the harmful emissions a “cumulative burden” on black, Latino and low-income households.
SO, WILL THEY BAN THEM?
Actually, probably not.
Considering that, according to Bloomberg, some 40% of US homes use gas stoves to cook, an outright ban would be impractical to the point of madness. You can’t criminalise 40% of the country. It would be almost unenforceable.
Perhaps they might try a “phasing out”, as they plan for petrol cars in California.
But most likely of all is that this was never really about banning stoves in the first place.
OK, SO WHAT’S IT REALLY ABOUT?
What we’re seeing here looks to be your classic bait-and-switch. Having established a “problem”, the powers that be suggest a solution they have no intention of ever carrying out (the more unreasonable the better).
When this measure is inevitably rejected by the public, the government will then proceed to suggest – or pay an NGO to suggest to them – a “compromise” measure.
The compromise is no compromise at all, of course, but actually what they wanted to do from the beginning. Nevertheless, the whole process is sold in the media as a victory for whichever party happens to be in opposition, and cited as evidence that “the system works”.
Tellingly, as I am writing this, Biden has already “ruled out a ban due to backlash”, and Vox were already using the “compromise” a lot in an article they published yesterday.
However, what that “compromise” would be in this case isn’t clear at first, you have to do a little digging.
One clue is present in the National Review article [emphasis added]:
The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers argues that cooking produces harmful emissions regardless of the kind of stove used. “Ventilation is really where this discussion should be, rather than banning one particular type of technology,” Jill Notini, a vice president at the association, told Bloomberg. “Banning one type of a cooking appliance is not going to address the concerns about overall indoor air quality. We may need some behavior change, we may need [people] to turn on their hoods when cooking.”
And you’ll find another in the abstract of the original report on “Cooking With Gas, Household Air Pollution, and Asthma: Little Recognized Risk for Children”, published in the Journal of Environmental Science in April 2021:
The impact [of gas stove cooking] on children can be substantial because […] indoor air is unregulated.
“Ventilation is where this discussion should be”, after all “cooking produces harmful emissions regardless of the kind of stove” and a ban wouldn’t address “concerns about overall indoor air quality” which is currently “unregulated”.
Do you see where this is going?
It’s not about gas stoves, and it’s not about asthma – it’s about “indoor air pollution”, and more importantly how they plan on “regulating” it.
In one of those startling coincidences we’ve all got so used to witnessing in modern geopolitics, just as the US is talking about indoor air quality because of gas stoves, other countries around the world are doing the same thing for totally different reasons.
Singapore is considering new regulations on indoor air quality too, but because of formaldahyde.
Last month The Conversation was running articles claiming “indoor air pollution kills”, while Sir Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical officer, was “demanding action on indoor air pollution”.
On Monday, in a Guardian lifestyle piece purportedly about scented candles, Svetlana Stevanovic calls indoor air quality a “going concern”.
Two days ago The Tyee, an “independent” Canadian magazine which receives some funding from the Canadian government, ran an op-ed headlined:
We Need a Revolution in Clean Indoor Air
Which attempts to link improving indoor air quality to “ending Covid” (whilst making sure to sufficiently fluff the vaccines, of course).
Just yesterday the Irish Times published an article about the dangers of poor indoor air quality.
In a rather interesting piece of timing, the air hygiene technology company AeroClean and Molekule, a market leader for air purifiers, finalised a public stock merger…also just yesterday.
Two days ago it was announced IKEA would be selling their own smart air monitors, the same day Samsung announced their new “smart air purifier”.
Earlier today Chinese tech giant Xiaomi issued a media release about their new smart air monitoring technology.
A recent report expects the global air monitor technology market to swell to nearly 6 billion dollars in the next three years.
But I’m sure this is all just a coincidence.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAD?
Well, if I had to guess I would suggest some new “smart” technology is coming that will monitor air quality and indoor C02 emissions. Like smart electricity and water meters, but for your air.
Interestingly, the World Economic Forum agrees with me, publishing an article on their website last July headlined “Indoor air pollution: What causes it and how to tackle it”, which claims:
indoor air pollutants can now be detected with more precise, efficient, and compact sensors thanks to advances in environmental sensing technology. As a result, intelligent home systems may soon use sensors like these to keep track of indoor air quality and notify the ventilation system before dangerous levels are reached.
As part of “backing down” from the stove ban, they will introduce a new bill which sees “smart air monitors” become mandatory in all new-build houses, hotels and rented accommodation.
Just like smart electricity meters, smart air monitors would almost certainly be used to harvest huge amounts of data and give states or corporations the ability to control your home.
If your “indoor air” isn’t “clean” enough; if you use your stove too much, burn too many scented candles or emit too much co2, expect to get penalized in some fashion until you learn how to be more responsible.
More smart technology, more monitoring, and ultimately more control.
So, while it’s possible the gas stove ban talk will resolve itself into the cliche new tax or fines or some other petty scheme for bilking the many out of their wages, the signs are certainly there it might be something more sinister.
Meanwhile, expect to keep seeing reports on gas stoves damaging the climate, or stories about poor indoor air quality making covid worse.
The usual bought-and-paid-for columns that support every new normal narrative.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 23:00 - Where 'Military-Style' Weapons Are Banned In The US
Where ‘Military-Style’ Weapons Are Banned In The US
An so-called assault weapons and high capacity magazine ban has come into effect in Illinois after the state legislature voted for the law and governor J.B. Pritzker signed it this week.
During the signing ceremony, Pritzker mentioned the mass shooting the state saw last year at a July 4 parade in Highland Park near Chicago as a reason to pass concrete legislation instead of paying lip service to improvements and sending “thoughts and prayers”.
2022 saw a slew of mass shootings that rocked the United States, also including those at a supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y., at a primary school in Uvalde, Texas, at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., and a Cheasapeake, Va., Walmart, among others. Semiautomatic rifles, often of the AR-15 style, were used in the majority of 2022 mass shootings.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, Illinois joins eight states and the District of Columbia in implementing such a ban on ‘military-style’ weapons.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The vast majority of U.S. states do not restrict the sale of assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, according to Giffords Law Center.
Seven more states currently have restrictions in place that fall short of an assault weapons ban, including bans on high-capacity magazines in five states.
Large capacity magazines are capable of holding up to 100 rounds, while states that restrict these magazine usually only allow ten to 15 rounds per magazine.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 22:40 - What We Know About Robert Hur, Special Counsel Probing Biden’s Handling Of Classified Documents
What We Know About Robert Hur, Special Counsel Probing Biden’s Handling Of Classified Documents
Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Robert K. Hur, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to lead the probe into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, is a former federal prosecutor with a “long and distinguished career,” according to Garland.
“As U.S. Attorney, [Hur] supervised some of the Department’s more important national security, public corruption, and other high-profile matters,” the attorney general noted in announcing Hur’s appointment on Jan. 12.
Then-U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert Hur delivers remarks during Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s farewell ceremony at the Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building in Washington on May 9, 2019. Hur was appointment special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified records on Jan. 12. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Hur held the role of U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland from April 2018 until February 2021. He was appointed to that role by former President Donald Trump, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate in March 2018.
Adding that he would ensure Hur received all of the necessary resources to perform his investigation, Garland continued, “I am confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this Department.”
Hur’s appointment as special counsel follows a tumultuous week for the Biden administration as new details regarding the classified documents discovered at President Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home and former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington continue to come to light.
“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment,” Hur said in a Jan. 12 statement released by the Justice Department (DOJ). “I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service.”
A ‘Distinguished Career’
A graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Law School and former law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Hur joined the DOJ’s Criminal Division in 2003, where he served as counsel and special assistant to then-Assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray.
Wray, who is now the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has come under scrutiny in recent months for his leadership as fears of political bias against conservatives have escalated in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach and the bureau’s August raid of former President Donald Trump’s home.
While working for Wray, Hur worked on counterterrorism, corporate fraud, and appellate matters.
Between 2003 and 2018, Hur went back and forth between the Justice Department and private law practice at King & Spalding, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney from November 2007 to January 2014 and principal associate deputy attorney general from June 2018 to April 2018.
In the latter role, Hur served as the principal counselor to then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, assisting with oversight of the National Security, Civil, Criminal, and Antitrust divisions, all 93 U.S. attorneys’ offices, and the FBI.
Rosenstein is noteworthy for his involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation—particularly for appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel and signing off on the application to spy on former Trump associate Carter Page.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 22:20 - Most Expensive And Cheapest Appliances To Use By Region
Most Expensive And Cheapest Appliances To Use By Region
Wholesale power prices jumped last year and are yet another cost burden on consumers’ wallets. A new study breaks down the cheapest and most expensive household appliances to use based on geographical region.
Jonathan Merry, CEO of MoneyTransfers, revealed the biggest electricity users in American homes are air conditioners. The average AC unit costs consumers up to $1,062 per year. While the cost per kilowatt differs a few cents across the country, this can translate into cost-savings by region.
For example, consumers in the Midwest who run air conditioners for eight hours a day benefited the most from lower power prices and saw a $200 reduction in their energy bill than those in the West, with an average annual cost of $826.
Electric heaters, tumble dryers, washing machines, fridge freezers, and dishwashers were found to be other appliances that cost the most to run, but there are cost benefits to living in certain parts of the country where appliances are cheaper to operate.
Another example of the cost savings of living on a cheaper power grid is a tumble dryer costs up to $8.64 per month in the West but only $6.72 monthly in the Midwest.
Cheapest and most expensive appliances to run per year by region.
And average monthly costs to run appliances by US region.
“Many households are looking for ways to save money on their energy bills amidst the rising cost of living worldwide – and our hope is that this data will educate people on what everyday household appliances have the biggest impact on energy usage,” Merry said.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 22:00 - Johnstone: Western Journalists Are Cowardly, Approval-Seeking Losers
Johnstone: Western Journalists Are Cowardly, Approval-Seeking Losers
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,
Research conducted by New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics into Russian trolling behavior on Twitter in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election has found “no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.”
Which is to say that all the years of hysterical shrieking about Russian trolls interfering in US democracy and corrupting the fragile little minds of Americans — a narrative that has been used to drum up support for internet censorship and ever-increasing US government involvement in the regulation of online speech — was false.
And to be clear, this isn’t actually news.
It was established years ago that the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency could not possibly have had any meaningful impact on the 2016 election, because the scope of its operations was quite small, its posts were mostly unrelated to the election and many were posted after the election occurred, and its funding was dwarfed by orders of magnitude by domestic campaigns to influence the election outcome.
What’s different this time around, six years after Trump’s inauguration, is that this time the mass media are reporting on these findings.
“Journalists” do this thing where they hype Party propaganda when needed, and then when the story is no longer relevant they quietly publish the truth about how they were totally lying. This way they can say “we DID report the facts!”
Truly bad people. https://t.co/NlIkeIpVKy
— ⚡David Angelo⚡ (@MrDavidAngelo) January 9, 2023
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The Washington Post has an article out with the brazenly misleading headline “Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters“. Anyone who reads the article itself will find its author Tim Starks acknowledges that “Russian accounts had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior,” but the insertion of the word “little” means anyone who just reads the headline (the overwhelming majority of people encountering the article) will come away with the impression that Russian trolls still had some influence on 2016 voters.
“Little influence” could mean anything shy of tremendous influence. But the study did not find that Russian trolls had “little influence” over the election; it failed to find any measurable influence at all.
Starks does some spin work of his own in a bid to salvage the reputation of the ever-crumbling Russiagate narrative, eagerly pointing out that the report does not explicitly say Russia definitely had zero influence on the election’s outcome, that it doesn’t examine Russian trolling behavior on Facebook, that it doesn’t address “Russian hack-and-leak operations,” and that it doesn’t say “doesn’t suggest that foreign influence operations aren’t a threat at all.”
None of these are valid arguments. Claiming Russia definitely had no influence on the election at all would have been beyond the scope of the study, the report’s authors do in fact argue that the effects of Russian trolling on Facebook were likely the same as on Twitter, the (still completely unproven) “Russian hack-and-leak operations” were outside the scope of the study, as is the question of whether foreign influence operations can be a threat in general.
What Starks does not do is make any attempt to address the fact that mainstream news and punditry was dominated for years by claims that Russian internet trolls won the election for Donald Trump. He does not, for example, make any mention of his own 2019 Politico article telling readers that the Russian Twitter troll operation ahead of the 2016 election “was larger, more coordinated and more effective than previously known.”
Starks also does not take the time to inform The Washington Post’s readership about the false reporting this story has received over the years from his fellow mainstream news media employees, like The Washington Post’s David Ignatius and his melodramatic description of the St Petersburg troll farm as “a sophisticated, multilevel Russian effort to use every available tool of our open society to create resentment, mistrust and social disorder” in an article hysterically titled “How Russia used the Internet to perfect its dark arts“. Or The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg in her article “Yes, Russian Trolls Helped Elect Trump“, in which she argues that it looks increasingly as though the Internet Research Agency “changed the direction of American history.” Or NBC’s Ken Dilanian (a known CIA asset), who described Russian trolling on Twitter in the lead-up to the election as “a vast, coordinated campaign that was incredibly successful at pushing out and amplifying its messages,” a claim that was then repeated by The Washington Post. To pick just a few out of basically limitless possible examples.
Starks and his editors could easily have included this sort of information in the article. It would have greatly helped improve clarity and understanding among The Washington Post’s audience if they had. It would have been entirely possible to clearly spell out the fact that all those other reports appear to have been incorrect in light of this new information, or at least to acknowledge the fact that there is a glaring difference between this new report and previous reporting. It would do a lot of good for awareness to grow, especially among Washington Post readers, that there’s been a lot of inaccurate information circulating about Russia and the 2016 election these past several years.
But they didn’t. And nobody else in the mass media has done so either. Even The Intercept’s report on the same story, despite having the far more honest headline “Those Russian Twitter bots didn’t do $#!% in 2016, says new study,” doesn’t name any names or criticize any outlets for their inaccurate reporting on Russian trolls stealing the election for Donald Trump.
Indeed, it’s very rare in the west to see mainstream journalists hold other mainstream journalists accountable for their false reporting, facilitation of propaganda, or journalistic malpractice, unless it’s journalists whose approval they don’t care about like members of the opposite political faction or independant media reporters. This is because western journalists are worthless, obsequious cowards whose entire lives revolve around seeking the approval of their peers.
How interesting that this is coming out now. Will the Washington Post address the countless stories they wrote hyping Russian influence on the 2016 race? The Pulitzer they won for such coverage? https://t.co/NKVV58SB8Q
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 9, 2023
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The most important reporting a journalist can do in the western world today is help expose the lies, propaganda and malpractice of other western journalists and news outlets. But that is also the last thing a western journalist is ever likely to do, because western journalists seek praise and approval not from the public, but from other western journalists.
You can see this in the way they post on Twitter, with their little in-jokes and insider references, how they’re always cliquing up and beckoning and signaling to each other. Twitter is a great window through which to observe western journalists, because they really lay it all out there. Watch their bootlicking facilitation of status quo power, their ingratiating tail-wagging with each other, the way they gang up on dissenters like zealots burning a heretic. To see what I’m talking about you have to pay attention not to their viral tweets that go off but to all the rest that receive little attention, because the ones that take off are the ones the public are interested in. If you watch them carefully it becomes clear that for most of them the intended audience of the majority of their posts is not the rank-and-file public, but their fellow members of the media class.
Look at this Twitter conversation between Australian journalists right after the Ecuadorian embassy cut off Julian Assange’s internet access in 2018 for a good illustration of this. Former ABC reporter Andrew Fowler (now a vocal supporter of Assange) questions ABC’s Michael Rowland for applauding Ecuador’s move, and ABC’s Lisa Millar rushes in to help Rowland argue that Assange is not a journalist and doesn’t deserve the solidarity of journalists, and that Fowler is putting himself on the outside of the groupthink consensus by claiming otherwise. Millar and Rowland are part of the clique, Fowler is being ostracised from it, and Assange is the heretic whose lynching they’re braying for:
Western journalists have a freakish herd-like mindset that makes the derision and rejection of their class the most nightmarish scenario possible and the approval of their class the most powerful opiate imaginable. They’re terrified of other journalists turning against them, of being rejected by the people whose approval they crave like a drug, of being kicked out of the group chat. And that’s exactly what would happen if they began leveling valid criticisms at mass media propaganda in public. And that’s exactly why that doesn’t happen.
The western media class is a cloistered, incestuous circle jerk that only cares about impressing other members of the cloistered, incestuous circle jerk. It doesn’t care about creating an informed populace or holding the powerful to account, it cares about approval, inclusion and acclaim from its own ranks, regardless of what propagandistic reporting is required to obtain it. The Pulitzers are mostly just a bunch of empire propagandists giving each other trophies for being good at empire propaganda.
A journalist with real integrity would spurn the approval of the media class. It would nauseate and repel them, because it would mean you’ve been aligning yourself with the most powerful empire in history and the propaganda machine which greases its wheels. They would actively make an enemy of the mainstream western press.
Journalists without integrity — which is to say the overwhelming majority of journalists — do the opposite.
US Military Thanks And Praises Retiring CNN “Journalist” For Her Service
“The US military has such adoration for Barbara Starr because she is a war propagandist, just like the rest of the mainstream western news media who report on US foreign policy.”https://t.co/jD6xiyFQn6
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) December 21, 2022
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None of this will be news to any of my regular readers, who will likely understand that the role of the mass media is not to inform but to manufacture consent for the agendas and interests of our rulers. But we shouldn’t get used to it, or lose sight of how odious it is.
It’s important to be clear about how gross these people are. You can never be sufficiently disdainful of these freaks.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 21:40 - China Still Dominates The Rare-Earth Market
China Still Dominates The Rare-Earth Market
Rare earth elements (REE) are metals used in many of today’s key technologies, such as wind turbines, phone screens and even electric motors.
As this infographic from Statista’s Martin Armstrong reveals, anyone who needs one of these 17 chemical elements will have a hard job sourcing them from anywhere but China.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The People’s Republic has the world’s largest reserves of these not so rare metals.
According to analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey, around 44 million tons of REO (rare earth oxides) lie dormant in the Chinese soil.
The second largest stockpile is in Vietnam, but according to geologists’ estimates, it is only half as large as China’s, at 22 million REO tons. Likewise, more than 20 million tons are believed to lie hidden beneath Russian and Brazilian ground.
While not catapulting it to a rare earth superpower, Sweden just announced the discovery of what could be the largest known deposit in Europe – an area estimated to contain over one million metric tons of REO.
Currently, rare earths are being mined nowhere in Europe, with 98 percent of rare earths used in the EU in 2021 imported from China.
China is responsible for around 61 percent of global mine production and thus mines by far the largest share of the elements traded on the world market.
The United States, on the other hand, while the second largest producer, is a small player relatively speaking with a market share of around 15.5 percent.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 21:20 - 'Normalization' Of Emergency Use Authorizations Concerns Health Experts
‘Normalization’ Of Emergency Use Authorizations Concerns Health Experts
Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an unprecedented number of emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for drugs, tests, and medical devices since the beginning of the pandemic.
Medical syringes and FDA logo displayed in the background are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 2, 2021. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Between March 2020 and June 2021, more than 600 EUAs were authorized, according to Fortune.
This has caused concern among healthcare professionals, with some studies claiming that overreaction by regulators may have led to a decline in industry standards (1, 2).
As clarified in the journal Yale Medicine, “An EUA can only be granted when no adequate, approved, available alternatives exist, and when the known and potential benefits outweigh the potential risks. A EUA also only lasts as long as the public health emergency for which it was declared.”
Prior to 2020, the public health emergency that allowed the highest number of EUAs was the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, with 22 EUAs overall for personal protective equipment (PPE), antivirals, and diagnostic tests. The only emergency-authorized vaccine prior to the 2020 pandemic was the anthrax vaccine.
Given the drastic increase in EUAs, experts worry that this time, the FDA has gone too far.
The Normalization of EUA Drugs and Lack of Informed Consent
Cardiologist Dr. Jack Askins has pointed out that the unprecedented onslaught of emergency authorizations in drugs, vaccinations, medical devices, COVID tests, and PPE has normalized EUA drugs and products as being fully FDA-approved rather than being investigational.
Prof. Linda Wastila from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, whose expertise is in pharmacotherapy and drug policy, told The Epoch Times that the torrent of 600 EUAs makes it very difficult for healthcare professionals to remain informed of the approval statuses of new drugs.
For example, Askins previously told The Epoch Times that he noticed some of his colleagues who prescribe Paxlovid lacked adequate awareness of the many interactions and contraindications Paxlovid has with other drugs.
Paxlovid can interact with 43 different drug classes and over 550 active drug ingredients.
Even before the pandemic, it was hard for clinicians and pharmacists to keep up, given that around 40 novel therapeutics are approved by the FDA yearly, not counting generic drugs.
Wastila said that compared to traditional FDA-approved products, there has been less informed consent with the EUA products during the pandemic.
Informed consent is defined as “the process in which a health care provider educates a patient about the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention,” and patients must make their own voluntary decision.
Informed consent is especially important with EUA products as they are investigational products. Articles on EUAs have compared taking these products to participating in experimental trials (1, 2).
Signage is seen outside of the Food and Drug Administration headquarters in White Oak, Maryland, on Aug. 29, 2020. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters) Part of informed consent is letting patients know that what they are taking is experimental and that they have the right to refuse.
But Askins highlighted that very few patients were provided informed consent when they took EUA products such as the vaccine.
He said that three patients, each of whom received the bivalent booster as a fourth shot, were admitted to his clinic. He asked all three if they were given information on the potential risks and the emerging data on concerns and problems with it.
“All three said no,” he said, “I do not think they understand emergency use authorization versus full FDA approval.”
It also should be noted that EUAs do not come with long-term safety data.
While drugs fully approved by the FDA come with a densely written package insert on side effects and drug mechanisms, for many EUA products, such as the COVID-19 vaccines, these sections are left blank.
A Johnson & Johnson spokesperson said this was intentional, leaving it to consumers to search online for the most up-to-date information on safety and effectiveness as the data is published.
However, Wastila sees this lack of information as potentially dangerous.
“To me at least, [it] conveys the fact that they don’t really know whether a product is safe and effective when it’s an EUA product.”
The Erosion of Drug Safety Standards
Dr. David Bell, formerly a medical officer with the World Health Organization, said that the overuse of EUAs during the pandemic has lowered drug safety standards put in place to protect patients.
EUA products are very different from FDA-approved drugs. However, public health agencies’ encouragement to use EUAs has blurred the separation between EUAs and FDA-approved drugs.
Wastila fears that EUA is replacing FDA approval as the norm.
“[EUAs] have lost all meaning,” said board-certified internist and nephrologist Dr. Richard Amerling. “People don’t hear ‘emergency use;’ they only hear ‘authorized.’”
Askins argued that there has been intentional public messaging from the FDA to make EUA appear just as safe and equivalent to a fully tested and licensed product.
In August 2021, the FDA approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine under the label of Comirnaty.
Having an FDA-approved vaccine should have nullified the EUA for other COVID-19 vaccines, or at the very least, the Pfizer EUA vaccine.
Yet, the Pfizer EUA vaccine remains on the U.S. market. The FDA also wrote that for the Pfizer vaccine, “doses distributed under the EUA are interchangeable with the licensed doses.”
COVID-19 vaccine vials marked Comirnaty in Berlin, Germany, in a file image. (Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images) An order issued in November 2021 by Judge Allen Windsor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida rejected this claim, stating that while the two versions may be medically interchangeable, they are not legally interchangeable.
Judge Windsor’s order also mentioned that FDA officials could not prove that Comirnaty vaccines even exist in the United States.
Nevertheless, the full FDA approval of Comirnaty has led many health providers to assume that the Pfizer injections being administered are the licensed versions.
Wastila recounted an experience at her former local pharmacy.
She was picking up some antibiotics and, while chatting with the pharmacist, she asked about the uptake of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
“[The pharmacist] goes, ‘Oh, they’re great. Everyone’s so happy that they’re FDA approved,’” Wastila recounted. “That’s literally a quote from the pharmacist’s mouth.”
“I said, ‘They’re not FDA approved, though.’ She goes, ‘Oh, Pfizer is.’”
So Wastila asked to see an unopened package of the vaccine, and the pharmacist showed the doctor a vial.
The pharmacist presented an EUA vaccine; it did not have the Comirnaty label, which would be printed according to labeling requirements.
Wastila told the pharmacist that the pharmacy was still using the EUA vaccines.
“[The pharmacist] was just like kind of amazed,” said Wastila, “But there’s no informed consent if even your dispensers aren’t aware that it is EUA or FDA approved.”
More Emergency Declarations and EUAs Likely To Come
Health experts argue that COVID-19 pandemic management has already lowered the standards for future emergency declarations and EUAs.
Dr. Robert Malone, biochemist and one of the inventors of the mRNA drug platform, said that monkeypox, which was declared a public health emergency in August 2022 with no deaths in the U.S. at the time, is a good example of this reduced standard.
Given that the disease almost exclusively affects men who have sex with men, a specific population demographic, and has led to 20 deaths in the United States thus far, Bell and Wastila both said that it was ludicrous that it was deemed a public health emergency.
“Now the cat’s out the bag, [public health emergency declarations] can be used really easily now because there are precedents [such as] COVID-19 and monkeypox that were not very severe,” Bell said.
The smallpox vaccine, commercially labeled as JYNNEOS, was also rapidly given EUA approval in a matter of days.
The FDA wrote that it was “inferred” that a smallpox vaccine would be effective against monkeypox, given that both viruses are from the same family.
However, according to a statement made by the CDC on Oct. 19, 2022, there was no data on the effectiveness of JYNNEOS or ACAM2000, an alternative to JYNNEOS, for monkeypox.
A sign announcing monkeypox vaccination is set up in Tropical Park by Miami-Dade County and Nomi Health in Miami, Fla., on Aug. 15, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) The vaccine also has cardiological side effects. Pooled data across 22 studies showed that of the more than 7,800 people vaccinated, six developed cardiac-related adverse events that were determined to be causally related to vaccination.
Concerns have been raised about the respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV, in children. Though the virus has not been declared a national public health emergency, declarations have been made in Oregon and Colorado, and some health experts have urged a national declaration.
“We’ve had RSV and the flu every year, and all of a sudden, it’s become a big issue again, and it’s because we’re afraid of every viral infection, [we’re] normalizing being fearful of every contagion,” said Wastila.
Loss of Trust in Public Health
As a pharmacotherapy professor who is in contact with pharmacists and staff working with the FDA, Wastila confessed that the pandemic has been a “rude awakening” for her.
“Physicians, dispensers, and pharmacists just blindly follow the safety and effectiveness of a product just because it has the FDA seal of approval, even if that ‘approval’ is an EUA.”
Though financial backdoor dealings have been suspected and discussed for decades, Malone argues that the pandemic has brought “corruption” to the surface.
Financially, 65 percent of the FDA’s budget comes from pharmaceutical companies, with a large proportion of this money coming through sponsorship for drug approval applications.
Comparing major drug regulators on conflicts of interest, according to data by Maryanne Demasi (The Epoch Times) The 1992 Prescription Drug User Fee Act, also known as the PDUFA, requires pharmaceutical companies to pay the FDA for drug approvals.
Wastila said that after speaking to colleagues and students who work in the FDA, she senses that the PDFUA may have established “a culture of entitlement” from the drug companies to have their drugs approved and marketed.
“The sponsors feel like, hey, we’ve paid for this,” she said, “It’s like a pay-for-play situation.”
Many members of drug evaluation boards also receive financial payments from drug companies.
When evaluating a drug, there needs to be “zero conflict of interest,” said Amerling. “Declaring that you have a financial conflict of interest doesn’t make it go away.”
Bell said that the low uptake of vaccines in children under five years of age is a sign that people no longer trust public health agencies.
“They [The FDA] were unable to produce any solid data showing that there’s an all-cause benefit to those children,” said Bell.
For healthcare professionals and members of the public who once trusted the FDA, some feel that they no longer have a place to go for advice on treatments.
Amerling said this would force clinicians to be very conservative with their treatment.
As the Chief Academic Officer at The Wellness Company, Amerling educates doctors to prescribe only medications with a safety record of at least several years.
“Don’t be that person to jump on the bandwagon with a new product,” he said, “Post-marketing experience can reveal unanticipated adverse events, and you’re not going to see them even with the initial studies, even if they’re well done.”
“When medium and long-term risk is unknown, it’s best to err on the side of caution, especially if benefits are small.”
Wastila added that there has been a considerable information gap on drug safety since the pandemic, with little scrutiny from drug regulators.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 21:00 - These Are North America's Biggest Sources Of Electricity By State And Province
These Are North America’s Biggest Sources Of Electricity By State And Province
On a national scale, the United States and Canada rely on a very different makeup of sources to generate their electricity.
The U.S. primarily uses natural gas, coal, and nuclear power, while Canada relies on both hydro and nuclear. That said, when zooming in on the province or state level, individual primary electricity sources can differ greatly.
In the infographic below, Visual Capitalist’s Selin Oğuz takes a look at the electricity generation in the states and provinces of these two countries using data from the Nuclear Energy Institute (2021) and the Canada Energy Regulator (2019).
Natural Gas
Natural gas is widely used for electricity generation in the United States. Known as a “cleaner” fossil fuel, its abundance, coupled with an established national distribution network and relatively low cost, makes it the leading electricity source in the country.
In 2021, 38% of the 4120 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity generated in the U.S. came from natural gas. Not surprisingly, more than 40% of American states have natural gas as their biggest electricity source.
Here are some states that have the largest shares of natural gas-sourced electricity.
In Canada, natural gas is only the third-biggest electricity source (behind hydro and nuclear), accounting for 11% of the 632 TWh of electricity produced in 2019. Alberta is the only province with natural gas as its main source of electricity.
Nuclear
Nuclear power is a carbon-free energy source that makes up a considerable share of the energy generated in both the U.S. and Canada.
19% of America’s and 15% of Canada’s electricity comes from nuclear power. While the percentages are close to one another, it’s good to note that the United States generates 6 to 7 times more electricity than Canada each year, yielding a lot more nuclear power than Canada in terms of gigawatt hours (GWh) per year.
As seen in the map, many states and provinces with nuclear as their main source of electricity are concentrated in the eastern half of the two countries.
In the U.S., Illinois, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina are top producers in terms of GWh/year. Illinois and South Carolina also have nuclear as their primary electricity source, whereas Pennsylvania’s electricity production from natural gas exceeds that from nuclear.
The vast majority of Canada’s nuclear reactors (18 of 19) are in Ontario, with the 19th in New Brunswick. Both of these provinces rely on nuclear as their biggest source of electricity.
Renewables: Hydro, Wind and Solar
Out of the different types of renewable electricity sources, hydro is the most prevalent in North America. For example, 60% of Canada’s and 6% of the U.S.’s electricity comes from hydropower.
Here are the states and provinces that have hydro as their biggest source of electricity.
Wind and solar power collectively comprise a small percentage of total electricity generated in both countries. While no state or province relies on solar as its biggest source of electricity, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota rely primarily on wind for their electricity, along with Canada’s Prince Edward Island (PEI).
Coal and Oil
Coal and oil are emission-heavy electricity sources still prevalent in North America.
Currently, 22% of America’s and 7% of Canada’s electricity comes from coal, with places such as Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia still relying on coal as their biggest sources of electricity.
Certain regions also use petroleum to generate their electricity. Although its use for this purpose is declining, it is still the biggest source of electricity in both Hawaii and Nunavut.
Over the next few years, it will be interesting to observe the use of these fossil fuels for electricity generation in the U.S. and Canada. Despite the differences in climate commitments between the two countries, lowering coal and oil-related emissions may be a critical part of hitting decarbonization targets in a timely manner.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 20:40 - The Tyranny Of Minorities
The Tyranny Of Minorities
Authored by Bill King via RealClearPolitics.com,
We hear a great deal today about the “protection of democracy.”
For Democrats, it is all about voter suppression and election denial, and for Republicans, election fraud. But the great irony, and far greater threat to democracy, comes from both political parties as they routinely thwart the will of the majority of American people to satisfy their primary base voters and the special interests that finance their parties.
Neither really give a tinker’s damn about what the majority of Americans want.
Case in point. In 2019, Texas passed a near total ban on abortion after fertilization. The law became effective on the overturning of Roe v. Wade. There is an exception for a serious health risk to the mother but there is no exception for cases of rape or incest.
A recent University of Texas poll showed that only 13% of Texans thought there should be no exception in cases of rape or incest. 87% supported such an exception up to six weeks into the pregnancy and 64% up to twelve weeks. Only 29% supported the exception at any time during the pregnancy.
Yet, the Texas legislature passed a bill without a rape/incest exception, notwithstanding that 87% of Texans think the law should include one. How can that be described as anything other than undemocratic?
Of course, the same is true with Democrats. Polling has consistently shown that a supermajority of Americans oppose President Biden’s immigration policies since he was elected. Nonetheless, it took him two years to even acknowledge there was a problem and then offer only half-hearted measures.
On issue after issue, contrary to the popular media narrative that Americans are hopelessly divided and polarized, the truth is a majority of Americans agree with centrist, common-sense policies. Morris Fiorina, in his book, Unstable Majorities, uses American National Election Survey data going back over five decades to show that “normal Americans continue to be centrists.”
Both Democrats and Republicans are correct: Our democracy is under siege. But it is not under siege from voter suppression, election denial, or election fraud. It is under siege because our historic two-party system has been perverted by primaries that seek to discourage participation by anyone but “true believers,” by computer-driven gerrymandering, and by a media industry that profits by pandering to the extremes of the ideologic spectrum. As Jason Altmire so vividly explained in his book Dead Center, any elected official that tries to buck the system is punished, frequently by being voted out of office by primary voters. As result, our two legacy parties represent the views of the voters that show up for their primaries, not the views of the majority of Americans.
When it comes to threats to our democracy, both parties should be reciting the words of the great American philosopher, Pogo (aka Walt Kelly): “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 20:20 - How Do You Feel About Religion?
How Do You Feel About Religion?
How do you feel about religion?
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, depending on which country you are in, this question is more or less likely to be met with a shrug or even an objection to religious belief.
In China, the highest percentage of people among the 56 countries and territories included in the Statista Global Consumer Survey is non-religious or atheist, the latter describing people rejecting the idea that there is a God.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Among European countries, Germany ranks high for the share of its non-religious and atheist population, which stands at around a third of survey respondents aged 18 to 64.
Even in a country often associated with religiousness – Italy – a quarter of people between these ages are not religious today.
Religion has a somewhat stronger hold on the United States, Russia and Brazil, while in South Africa, the non-religious are in the single digits at just 9 percent of adults under the age of 65. In India, finally, being non-religious or atheist is virtually unheard of, with just two percent of survey respondents saying they fell into one of the two categories.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 20:00 - What The January 6 Videos Will Show
What The January 6 Videos Will Show
Authored by Julie Kelly via AmGreatness,
The jury trial of Richard Barnett, the man famously photographed with his feet on a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office on January 6, 2021, is underway in Washington, D.C.
Nearly two years to the date of his arrest, Barnett finally had a chance to defend himself in court on multiple charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding.
But it was not the fiery, outspoken Barnett who provided the most jaw-dropping testimony in the trial so far.
To the contrary, one of the government’s own witnesses confirmed under defense cross-examination that “agents provocateur” were heavily involved in instigating the events of January 6.
Captain Carneysha Mendoza, a tactical commander for U.S. Capitol Police at the time, testified Wednesday how a group of agitators destroyed security barriers and lured people to Capitol grounds that afternoon:
Defense Counsel Brad Geyer: Isn’t it true that you had a lot of people, a large quantity of people walking down two streets that dead-ended at the Capitol?
Mendoza: Yes, sir.
Geyer: And would it be fair to say that at least at some of the leading edges of that crowd, they contained bad people or provocateurs; is that fair?
Mendoza: It’s fair.
Geyer: Dangerous people?
Mendoza: Yes.
Geyer: Violent people?
Mendoza: Yes.
Geyer: Highly trained violent people?
Mendoza: Yes.
Geyer: Highly trained violent people who work and coordinate together?
Mendoza: Yes
It was a stunning admission, representing the first time a top law enforcement official stated under oath (to my knowledge) that a coordinated, experienced group of agitators engaged in much of the mischief early that day. Under further questioning, Mendoza acknowledged those same individuals “pushed through barriers, removed barriers, threw barriers over the side, removed fencing, and eased the flow of people into places where they shouldn’t be.” This happened around 1:00 p.m., the same time the joint session of Congress convened to debate the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Hiding the pivotal role of still unidentified—and uncharged—agitators on January 6 is just one reason why the government has successfully sought to conceal thousands of hours of footage captured by the Capitol police’s security system before, during, and after the protest.
As I explained in May 2021, Capitol police immediately designated roughly 14,000 hours of surveillance video as “security information” that should not be released to the public.
Thomas DiBiase, general counsel for Capitol police, the technical owner of the video trove, signed an affidavit in March 2021 objecting to the widespread dissemination of footage “related to the attempted insurrection.” DiBiase claimed the agency wanted to prevent “those who might wish to attack the Capitol again” from accessing interior views of the building.
The Department of Justice subsequently labeled the footage as “highly sensitive government material” subject to strict protective orders in court proceedings. Defendants must comply with onerous rules before viewing any surveillance video associated with their case.
There are, of course, exceptions for any party helping to enforce the “insurrection” narrative. For example, the House committee handling Donald Trump’s post-January 6 impeachment was allowed to use portions of the super-secret reel. So, too, was HBO in producing its January 6 documentary. The January 6 select committee aired extensive if highly selective surveillance footage during their televised performances.
And that brief clip of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) running in a hallway on January 6? It was clearly an image intended to mock his alleged cowardice that day. And, of course, it was Capitol surveillance video.
If it’s safe to place the video in the hands of Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the biggest deceiver in Congress, and random HBO film producers, then it’s safe to place all the footage in the hands of the American people. Which is why calls by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to fully release the surveillance video are a welcome, and necessary, step in providing a complete account about the events of January 6 to the public.
(The Committee on House Administration, now under Republican control, is one of two congressional committees with access to the full library of video.)
The recordings, Gaetz said in an interview this week, “would give more full context to that day rather than the cherry-picked moments that the January 6 committee tried to use to inflame and further divide our country.”
That demand undoubtedly will be met with fierce resistance by the same lawmakers, government agencies, and media organizations incessantly bleating about the need to “tell the truth” about what happened before and on January 6.
So, what exactly will the tapes reveal?
The footage, which captured the inside and outside of the building, will show how many agitators and/or federal assets were staged at various locations early in the day. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) might finally get an answer to the question that FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to answer during a congressional hearing last year—whether FBI informants disguised as Trump supporters were planted inside the building prior to the initial breach.
To that end, the video could show who instructed two men how to open the two-ton Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol Building, creating an access point for hordes of protesters.
Ditto for entry points at other locations.
Will the video identify the individuals who erected the “gallows” featuring an orange noose allegedly built to “hang” Vice President Mike Pence? Just like the identity of the suspect who allegedly planted the pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC, no one has been identified or charged with constructing that stage on government property—another unanswered question the footage will answer.
The public undoubtedly will be shocked to see police officers from Capitol police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Departments viciously attacking crowds of people assembled outside the Capitol. Mendoza’s testimony also confirmed that Capitol police officers used nonlethal “munitions” on hundreds of individuals beginning shortly after 1:00 p.m. Weaponry included pepper balls—projectiles containing a chemical irritant shot from a launcher similar to a paintball gun—gas, rubber bullets, and flashbangs, a less-than-lethal grenade that likely caused the fatal heart attacks of two Trump supporters that afternoon.
Not only will the public see what happened to those two men, Kevin Greeson and Benjamin Phillips, but they will also see evidence of the numerous, serious injuries inflicted on dozens of people, including children and elderly women, at the hands of police. Are Americans prepared to see how law enforcement handled the dead bodies of Ashli Babbitt and Rosanne Boyland?
It will be tough to watch.
More importantly, the footage will indicate which cameras were disabled before the protest. The government’s claim that security cameras are not installed outside the Columbus Doors is questionable at best. A full comparison between the Capitol’s closed-circuit television system and the cameras operable on January 6 is a must.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday endorsed Gaetz’s calls to release the footage.
“I think the American public should actually see all what happened,” McCarthy told reporters.
“Yes, I’m engaged to do that.”
If McCarthy follows through on his promise, the world will see the biggest inside job—an actual coup—in U.S. history unfold before their eyes.
Not only is it necessary to expose the truth of January 6 but to exonerate innocent Americans whose lives have been destroyed in the aftermath.
Roll the tapes…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 19:40 - US Navy Veteran Released From Russian Custody In Kaliningrad
US Navy Veteran Released From Russian Custody In Kaliningrad
Another American who had been quietly held in Russian detention, and whose case has received no media spotlight or coverage since his arrest, has been released by the Kremlin after a year of detention.
US Navy veteran Taylor Dudley was released where he had been in detention in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between Poland and Lithuania. It comes following last year’s high profile prisoner exchange involving Brittney Griner and Victor Bout, and involved the mediation of former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Dudley was delivered to the Polish border by Russian authorities, where he crossed back. The US had deemed his a “wrongful” detention.
Taylor Dudley, NBC News screenshot But unlike with the Griner case, or with other still detained Americans like Paul Whelan or Marc Fogel, the 35-year old Dudley – a Michigan native – had crossed into the Russian province of Kaliningrad during the Ukraine war, in April. The other American cases involved arrests and detentions prior to the Feb.24 Ukraine invasion.
“Today, the Russian govt released my client, Taylor Dudley, a Navy vet, cross the Polish border,” , a spokesperson for the family, Jonathan Franks tweeted Thursday morning.
According to background first reported in CNN:
Taylor Dudley, 35, of Lansing, Michigan, was detained by Russian border patrol police in April 2022 after crossing from Poland into Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave which is territory governed by Moscow between Poland and Lithuania. He was in Poland attending a music festival, and it is not clear why he crossed the border.
Dudley’s detention – which the US government had not deemed as “wrongful,” or based on arbitrary and discriminatory motivations – had not been widely publicized…
Working alongside Gov. Richardson was the US Embassy in Warsaw, the Steve Menzies Global Foundation, and the James Foley Foundation – all who helped secure the release of Dudley.
Franks’ tweet said additionally that “For every case in the James Foley Foundation count that is public, there are 3 that aren’t, and this is one of those cases.” Thus it appears the family and negotiators intentionally kept knowledge of Dudley’s plight out of the public eye, presumably to not negatively impact the negotiation process.
CNN and others are reporting that no known exchange was made for Dudley. “The past 9 months have been difficult ones for the family and they ask the media to respect their privacy and give them the space to welcome Taylor home,” a family statement added. It’s still as yet unclear why he crossed the border in the first place, with all media statements describing this in an ambiguous and somewhat mysterious way.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 19:20 - Yes, Virginia, There Is A Deep State… And It's Worse Than You Think
Yes, Virginia, There Is A Deep State… And It’s Worse Than You Think
Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,
Mention the term “deep state” in polite company and most likely no one will want to speak to you the rest of the evening. The deep state is what Wikipedia calls “discredited,” something reeking of conspiracies, false accusations, and the substitution of fantasy for the truth.
After the FBI raided Donald Trump’s home in Florida, Trump alluded to “deep state” actions, which brought predictable ridicule from the mainstream media. Trump was speaking conspiratorially, and if one follows the mainstream media these days, the only conspiracies are on the right. (You know, like the one in which the unarmed, ragtag January 6 rioters nearly overthrew the US government.)
After the recent revelations about how Twitter worked to hide the story of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop, Trump attributed the secrecy to a plot by the “deep state.” However, while the facts of the story really are outrageous, I don’t believe it was as much a secret conspiracy as a case of people being able to engage in certain actions with no political consequences.
Furthermore, journalist Matt Taibbi’s stunning revelations regarding FBI and CIA agents’ outright interference in the 2020 election via Twitter on the pretense that Russian operatives were spreading disinformation has further exposed both the involvement of federal law enforcement agents in partisan activities and the sad fact that those agents need not worry about being held accountable – especially if they are engaged in a “progressive” cause.
The Standard Deep State Narrative
One does not have to believe in a single conspiracy (not even about the 9/11 attacks) to understand that there really is what we can call a deep state. Indeed, what we might call the real deep state has nothing to do with conspiracies, secret meetings, and the like. Instead, this deep state operates in the open and in broad daylight, and that makes the deep state narrative an even greater threat than the secret cabal narrative.
When I was a young adult, I read a novel by two anticommunist journalists called The Spike, in which a young, liberal, and crusading journalist uncovers a nest of Soviet agents embedded in the US government. The journalist’s story on the affair, however, is spiked by his employer (a Washington Post–like paper), but the protagonist manages to get the story out elsewhere. The result is that a compromised president is brought down and the federal government is able to ferret out the Soviet agents.
Thus, in a dramatic moment, a motivated journalist and political allies expose the equivalent of the “deep state” and the US government makes a rightward turn. The deep state goes away.
The Hard Truth
Unfortunately, no novelist can write out our present deep state because that would be a bridge too far. The reason is that our present deep state simply is the executive branch of government, which has been written into our laws and our courts, and this branch has taken over much of the role originally assigned to the judicial wing of government, that of interpreting the laws.
The real power of the modern state is in its civil service, which is composed of employees of all the federal departments and agencies—employees who hardly are neutral ideologically and politically, employees who are protected by civil service laws and by unions. When progressive regimes such as the Biden and Obama administrations occupy the West Wing and Congress, the federal courts become almost irrelevant. The president and his political appointees govern by executive orders, which, not surprisingly, the allegedly neutral government employees enthusiastically support.
Much of modern lawmaking is by executive order, with many orders not even having to square with the statutes underlying them, something that has gone on for a long time. For example, when President Franklin Roosevelt seized private gold holdings in 1933, he based his executive order upon the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. When President Biden announced student loan forgiveness, he based his order on the 9/11 Heroes Act, stretching that law and its obvious intent to the point that it was unrecognizable.
While not all executive orders have the effect of Executive Order 6102, they nonetheless involve the executive branch of the US government assuming powers that well may violate the Constitution yet are carried out without a worry that any outside agency—including the US Supreme Court—will intervene. (Yes, the courts so far have slapped down Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme, but the litigation process is not complete, and the courts can be unpredictable.)
All-Powerful Bureaucracy Has Progressive Support
One would think that educated Americans would blanch at the prospect of federal agencies making policies independent of congressional or court oversight, but the opposite is true, especially when federal agents pursue progressive policies. For example, when the Supreme Court placed some legal fences around the Environmental Protection Agency’s powers to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, the progressive establishment exploded in anger.
For example, the New York Times, which carries the progressive standard, declared that the court had placed American lives in danger:
Regulatory agencies staffed by experts are the best available mechanism for a representative democracy to make decisions in areas of technical complexity. The E.P.A. is the entity that Congress relies upon to figure out how clean the air should be, and how to get there. Asserting that it lacks the power to perform its basic responsibilities is simply sabotage.
Governance by “experts” has been the progressive mantra for more than a century, the idea being that so-called experts embedded deep in government should be free to make whatever decisions they believe best to govern the rest of us. The assumption of the editors of the NYT is that the “experts” always (or at least usually) know what is best for everyone else and how to achieve those important social and economic ends.
Likewise, the revelations that the FBI and CIA were coercing social media companies to censor anything that contradicted certain progressive narratives coming from Washington, DC, should have been banner headlines everywhere and the lead story on the evening news. Instead, mainstream progressive journalists attacked Matt Taibbi, or like David French, they downplayed the seriousness of what happened and made excuses for federal agents.
(French argued that the only real question was whether federal agents had “violated the First Amendment” and that anything else was not fit for discussion. And, yes, he concluded that those agents probably had not violated the Constitution.)
Conclusion
We are not speaking of secret conspiracies in which nefarious actions are carried out in the darkness. These things are carried out in daylight, complete with the names of the characters involved, yet people who raise serious questions about the legality of these actions, let alone the question of right and wrong, are excoriated and ignored by our institutional gatekeepers.
That is why I say that this version of the deep state is much worse than whatever the authors of The Spike might have believed to exist. The people involved do what they darn well please, all the while claiming they are the soul of democracy, and many Americans seem to either believe them or no longer care.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 19:00 - GOP-Led House Launches Probe Into Biden's "Absurd & Disgraceful" Botched Afghan Withdrawal
GOP-Led House Launches Probe Into Biden’s “Absurd & Disgraceful” Botched Afghan Withdrawal
The Republican-led House has launched a formal probe into the Biden administration’s chaotic and deadly Afghanistan troop withdrawal operation and evacuation of August 2021, which is to be complete with issuing subpoenas for US officials to undergo depositions, in order to gain a clear picture of what happened and the botched decision-making. This as there’s still yet to be any level of accountability for officials that oversaw the disaster.
The Hill reports Friday, “Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who served as its ranking member previously, said the Biden administration has so far refused to hand over documents but that he is now formally requesting compliance as chair of the panel.”
McCaul blasted the White House, saying “It is absurd and disgraceful that the Biden administration has repeatedly denied our longstanding oversight requests and continues to withhold information related to the withdrawal.”
Kabul airport blast aftermath, AFP via Getty Images “In the event of continued noncompliance, the Committee will use the authorities available to it to enforce these requests as necessary, including through a compulsory process,” he added.
A Thursday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanded the handing over of relevant intelligence assessments, and internal agency documents, as well as any communications with either the Afghan government or Taliban that occurred in the lead-up to and during the withdrawal.
It was among the most disastrous withdrawals from a foreign conflict theatre of US troops in American history, which closed a 20-year long. increasingly unpopular occupation. At the time, widespread comparisons were made with the April 1979 fall of Saigon and its images of American helicopters landing on the rooftop of the US embassy to evacuate desperate personnel and their families.
13 US troops died as a result of a terror attack targeting a gate at Kabul international airport. Additionally about 170 Afghans died, as they had been crowded up against the gate that US Marines were manning.
Other countries, notably China and Russia widely mocked the US and Pentagon for its handling of the Afghanistan pullout…
Here come the astonishing scenes from last year when crowds of Afghans chased a #USA military cargo plane as it took off, some even risked their lives to cling to the aircraft to flee #Afghanistan.pic.twitter.com/26MYotiAPJ
— Zhang Meifang张美芳 (@CGMeifangZhang) August 16, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The world also witnessed shocking scenes of two Afghans falling to their deaths after they sought to grab a hold of the undercarriage of a departing US Air Force C-17, after Kabul airport security broke down and huge crowds swarmed the runways. The body of another Afghan was found in the aircraft’s landing gear upon landing.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 18:40 - Comet Set To Graze By Earth For First Time In 50,000 Years – Might Be Seen With The Naked Eye
Comet Set To Graze By Earth For First Time In 50,000 Years – Might Be Seen With The Naked Eye
Authored by Michael Wing via The Epoch Times,
An icy visitor from the far reaches of the solar system is expected to shoot past Earth and the sun in the coming weeks and it might be visible with the unaided human eye. This visitor from afar is a comet believed to have brushed by Earth before – some 50,000 years ago.
Discovered in March 2022, the comet recently passed within Jupiter’s orbit and is heading for the inner solar system. Our witnessing the flyby soon to occur could be a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical occasion.
Bright Enough for Naked Eyesight?
Dubbed C/2022 E3 ZTF, the comet displays a greenish coma, the nebulous envelope surrounding a comet’s nucleus, and a yellow-tinged tail of dust and ion particles in its wake.
Initially showing a stellar magnitude of 17 when it was discovered, according to EarthSky, C/2022 E3 ZTF’s brightness will increase as it approaches the sun, as the frozen matter of a comet’s nucleus sublimates when exposed to solar radiation sometimes causing a spectacular green “glow.”
Just today the comet reached its perihelion, its closest distance from the sun, and currently shines with a magnitude of 7.4—The lower an object’s magnitude the greater its brightness. It’s magnitude is expected to increase to 5 or 6, the range visible to the naked eye, next month when it reaches its closest distance from Earth.
So with dark skies and minimal moonlight or streetlight, C/2022 E3 ZTF might be seen without binoculars or a telescope. However, comets are notoriously unpredictable; it could be even brighter.
The comet grows brighter as it speeds toward the sun. (Courtesy of Jose Francisco Hernandez)
C/2022 E3 ZTF exhibits a green coma and yellow-tinged ion tail. (Courtesy of Jose Francisco Hernandez)
Optimal Viewing Geometry
Typically, as comets near the sun, they are drowned out by sunlight and banished from sight but unlike other comets C/2022 E3 ZTF’s trajectory presents great geometry for viewing from Earth. Appearing slightly past midnight over the coming weeks, it will stay visible despite its proximity to the sun—This holds true for stargazers in the northern hemisphere at least.
Originally appearing in the north, the comet arced northwest to southwest and then seemed to loop as our vantage point on Earth changed while we orbited the sun. The comet then shot northward in early October, vanishing entirely from view for comet watchers in the southern hemisphere.
C/2022 E3 ZTF is currently careening toward the Northern Crown and by month’s end will have neared Polaris, all the while getting brighter and closer to Earth. It will become visible to viewers south of the equator again in early February when it pops above their northern horizon.
The comet will reach its closest distance from Earth on Feb. 2 and you can find it transiting in between the constellations Draco and Camelopardalis just south of Polaris. As it travels in a retrograde orbit (the opposite way as Earth’s orbit), it will be moving very quickly. Try spying it with your naked eye, otherwise use a pair of good binoculars.
How Close?
As for the size of this comet, its nucleus was measured to be about 1 kilometer across, according to AFP—relatively small compared to more famous comets such as NEOWISE, which appeared in 2020; more famously, Hale-Bopp appeared in 1997 exhibiting a diameter of 60 miles (37 kilometers). But what C/2022 E3 ZTF lacks in size, it compensates for in closeness.
Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF presents optimal geometry in its trajectory, facilitating excellent viewing opportunities from Earth. (Courtesy of Jose Francisco Hernandez)
C/2022 E3 ZTF grows brighter as it approaches its perihelion, closest distance from the sun. (Courtesy of Jose Francisco Hernandez)
Having just reached its perihelion today, the comet now lies roughly 103 million miles (1.11 AU/166 million kilometers) from the sun. When it “grazes” by Earth on Feb. 2, it will be 27 million miles (0.29 AU/42 million kilometers) away, before it swerves outbound toward the outer solar system again.
This is the first time said comet has entered our solar system since the Upper Paleolithic period 50,000 years ago. Scientists say it could be permanently ejected once it makes its departure from the solar system, AFP reported.
But before we bid farewell, it offers an encore.
A Date With Mars … And Adios
Particularly for first-time comet spotters, C/2022 E3 ZTF presents a great sighting opportunity on Feb. 10 when it will appear extremely close to Mars. You can try taking a long-exposure photo for 20 to 30 seconds which might yield a fuzzy, tailed object beside the rust-red planet.
As for where C/2022 E3 ZTF is headed, we might ask where it came from. The comet is believed to originate from the Oort Cloud, a theoretical vast sphere that surrounds the solar system inhabited by mysterious icy objects.
The comet is set to near Mars as it makes its departure from the inner solar system. (Courtesy of Jose Francisco Hernandez)
As for the comet’s unwieldy name, here’s the story behind that. It was first discovered during a survey on March 2, 2022, by astronomers Bryce Bolin and Frank Masci using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), located at Mt. Palomar in Southern California. Its name denotes the facility where it was discovered (ZTF), the year of its discovery (2022), and that it was the third (3) such object found in the year’s fifth half-month (A, B, C, D, E), hence C/2022 E3 ZTF.
This visitor from afar will vanish from view by late April 2023.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 18:20 - Gallup: Americans Split On Companies Taking Political, Social Stands
Gallup: Americans Split On Companies Taking Political, Social Stands
Americans are almost evenly split on whether companies should take public stands on social and political issues. A new Bentley University/Gallup poll finds that 52% of U.S. adults disapprove of such public posturing, while 48% support it.
We hasten to note that the pollsters don’t seem to approach the topic from an impartial perspective. That’s initially evident from the name of the undertaking: “The Force for Good Survey.” Then there’s this language on the survey website:
“Business can be a powerful force for positive change in our society. But are businesses doing enough to live up to that potential and make the world a better place?”
That said, even if the survey seems prone to cultivating the leftist stance on this question — which is asked among a variety of others — it surely provides directional insights, so let’s have a look.
While the big picture shows a roughly even split, differences start to emerge when results are sorted by age, with younger adults more prone to support corporate stances on current events. The poll found 59% of those 18 to 29 years old approve, compared to 43% of those 60 and over.
Those substantial gaps turn into enormous divides when you get to party affiliation: 75% of Democrats want companies to share their beliefs, compared to 18% of Republicans. Only 40% of independents want companies spouting off on current events.
An example of corporate social posturing, via Coca Cola Turning to other crosscuts, strong majorities of Asians (74%) and blacks (72%) support corporate pontification, while just 49% of Hispanics and 41% of whites do.
Meanwhile, women are more likely to back corporate preaching than men, by a 52% to 43% margin.
The findings show the predicament companies face in deciding if they should speak out on everything from racism to LGBT activism and Covid policy, with substantial portions of the population on each side of that question. The pressures aren’t only external: businesses face pressure from their employees too.
Other top-level findings from the survey:
- 55% think business has a positive impact on society
- 71% of young Americans think business hurts the environment
- 84% of young Americans think businesses should promote diversity, equity and inclusion
- 62% of blacks and 33% of whites think the federal government is effective in making a positive impact on people’s lives
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/13/2023 – 18:00
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