Today’s News 14th June 2023

• Lukashenko's Latest Nuclear Bluster Comes Same Day US Signals Depleted Uranium Approved For Kiev
  Lukashenko’s Latest Nuclear Bluster Comes Same Day US Signals Depleted Uranium Approved For Kiev

  President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday he won’t hesitate to use Russian tactical nuclear weapons which are soon to be stationed on Belarusian soil if his country faces “an aggression”. 

  “God forbid I have to make a decision to use those weapons today, but there would be no hesitation if we face an aggression,” he said.

  

  Just last week, Russia’s President Putin told his Belarusian counterpart at a meeting Sochi that tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed in Belarus after hosting facilities are ready on July 7-8. Putin had unveiled plans to send nukes there in March. The weapons will be under Russian military control but hosted at Belarusian bases.

  While Lukashenko is known for this kind of maximalist and jingoistic rhetoric, often in reaction to developments out of NATO concerning new weapons systems to Ukraine, the timing of these new willingness to “make a decision” remarks is notable. 

  The threat comes the same day The Wall Street Journal reported the White House is set to transfer depleted uranium shells to Ukraine for the first time since the Russian invasion began. 

  Internal administration debate over the controversial munitions has been ongoing for several months, but an admin official quoted in WSJ says at this point there are “no major obstacles” to sending it, which will be used to equip M1 Abrams tanks provided by Washington. 

  As we recounted earlier, when the UK previously announced its authorization for depleted uranium for Challenger 2 main battle tanks, that’s when President Putin first said he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

  Putin had justified the move toward nuclear escalation very specifically in response to London’s decision at the time. But Washington has of course downplayed and rejected the association of depleted uranium shells with ‘nuclear weapons’.

  Regardless, as Lukashenko’s comments show, rhetoric regarding potential nuclear escalation continues to soar, at a very dangerous moment the world is already 90 seconds to midnight.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 02:45

• The EU Could Ban Imports Of Russian Natural Gas By Pipeline
  The EU Could Ban Imports Of Russian Natural Gas By Pipeline

  Authored by Tsvetana Parskova via OilPrice.com,

  The European Union could move to ban imports of Russia’s pipeline gas by the end of this year if it puts preliminary measures in place, Walter Boltz, energy advisor to the Austrian government, has told Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS).  

  

  The EU has seen increased recognition that it could cope without the remaining Russian pipeline gas it gets, but some countries still receiving natural gas via pipeline, most notably Hungary, could seek exemptions or not agree to an EU ban, according to Boltz.

  Gazprom has stopped publishing numbers on its gas deliveries to Europe. The Russian giant has seen exports to Europe decline since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, as Russia cut off gas supplies to a number of countries in Europe.

  Russia halted gas supply to Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland in April and May 2022, slashed gas deliveries via Nord Stream to Germany in June, then cut off Nord Stream supply in early September, weeks before the still mysterious sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea at the end of September. 

  Russia still sends some gas via pipelines to Europe via one transit route through Ukraine, and via TurkStream.

  Ukraine itself could have a strong case for lobbying the EU to ban Russian pipeline gas imports.

  “If you think that Russia is making $15-$25bn annually from gas sales and Ukraine only $800m in transit, it would make every sense in the world for Ukraine to forego the transit and stop Russia from getting this money,” Boltz told ICIS.

  Still, the EU is unlikely to agree to an idea to ban gas imports from the pipelines from Russia, where Moscow has already cut off the gas supply to Europe, EU diplomats told POLITICO last month. Analysts and EU officials told POLITICO there is no consensus to support the idea of banning the resumption of Russian gas flows.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 02:00

• Escobar: China's BRI Has Fundamentally Transformed Global Geopolitics
  Escobar: China’s BRI Has Fundamentally Transformed Global Geopolitics

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  In less than a decade, China’s BRI has fundamentally transformed global geopolitics. It is already far too late for the west to compete…

  

  It is important to recognize that the US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is simultaneously a war designed to interrupt the progress of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

  As we approach the 10th anniversary of the BRI, to be marked by the third Belt and Road Forum later this year in Beijing, it is clear the original Silk Road Economic Belt – announced by President Xi Jinping in Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2013 – has traveled a long way.

  By January this year, 151 nations had already signed up to the BRI: No less than 75 percent of the world’s population that represents more than half of the global GDP. Even an Atlanticist outfit such as the London-based Center for Economic and Business Research admits that the BRI may increase global GDP by a whopping $7.1 trillion a year by 2040, dispensing “widespread” benefits.

  Included in the Chinese Constitution since 2018, BRI constitutes the de facto overarching Chinese foreign policy framework all the way to 2049, marking the centenary of the People’s Republic of China.

  The BRI advances along several overland connectivity corridors – from the Trans-Siberian to the “middle corridor” along Iran and Turkiye and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) all the way to the Arabian Sea. Meanwhile, on the waterways front, the Maritime Silk Road offers a parallel network from southeast China to the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Swahili Coast, and the Mediterranean Sea.

  All that is mirrored by the Russian-driven Northern Sea Route, connecting the eastern and western sides of the Arctic, and reducing to and fro sailing time from Europe to Asia from one month to less than two weeks.

  Such a massive Make Trade Not War project, centered on connectivity, infrastructure building, sustainable development, and diplomatic acumen – focusing on the Global South – could not but be interpreted by western elites as a supreme geopolitical and geoeconomic threat.

  And that’s why every geopolitical turbulence across the chessboard is directly or indirectly linked to BRI. Including Ukraine.

  “A brand new choice”

  At the Lanting Forum in Shanghai last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was at ease presenting to a select foreign audience the key outlines of “modernization, the Chinese way” and how it can be applied across the Global South.

  For their part, Global South experts had a chance to dwell on the motives underneath the collective west’s constant “threat” paranoia. The bottom line is that for the US and its vassal allies, it is anathema that Beijing – based on its own success – is offering an alternative development model compared to the sole product on the market since 1945.

  Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, currently the new president of the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – explained to the forum how neoliberalism was forced onto Latin America as a false path towards economic success. The Chinese model, on the other hand, as she stressed, now offers a “brand new choice,” which respects national peculiarities.

  Zhou Qiangwu, the Chinese vice president of NDB, expects that this will push the IMF and the World Bank to give the Global South more say in their decision-making as part of new “governance solutions.”

  Yet that’s unlikely to happen because the US and its vassals are not mentally prepared to get rid of their baggage of centuries-old prejudice and sit down at the same table with Global South representatives and accept them as equals as well as qualified stakeholders.

  The Global South though, waits for no one. Round tables are already following each other at dizzying speed. A key case was the May 18-19 China-Central Asia summit in the former imperial capital, Xi’an, when President Xi met with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – the five former USSR republics in the Heartland.

  That followed Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting the same five “stans” in Moscow on the extremely significant 9 May, Victory Day.

  Diplomatically, that suggests an already evolving 5+2 axis uniting Russia, China, and the five stans operating via their own secretariat in a slightly different manner from BRI, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

  And why is that? Because of a problem that will be afflicting all of these new multilateral Global South-led organizations: Internal frictions.

  And that brings us to the presence of India inside the SCO, an organization that privileges consensus in every decision.

  That’s a huge issue when in contrast with the intractable India-Pakistan conflict, and even more sensitive when it comes to New Delhi’s wobbling stance regarding Quad and AUKUS. At least the Indians have not totally submitted to NATO in its hybrid war against Russia-China and its dream of dictating terms in the Indo-Pacific.

  “A large-scale Eurasian partnership”

  Xi and Putin have fully understood the strategic energy stakes: Increased shipments of Russian oil and gas to China equal way more transit across the Heartland. So a fully integrated strategy is a must. And it will have to be integrated at the level of BRI and EAEU interaction, even if there may be a “gap” inside the SCO.

  Practical examples include accelerating the construction of the ultra-strategic Xinjiang-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which has been delayed for years: That will boost further connectivity with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

  In parallel, CPEC will be extended to Afghanistan: That was finally decided on during an AfPak-China ministerial meeting in Islamabad on 5 May. Although a very thorny dossier still remains: How to deal with, cajole, and satisfy the Taliban leadership in Kabul.

  Xi and the Heartland leaders in Xi’an forcefully committed to preventing “foreign interference” and proverbial color revolution attempts. These are all engineered to disturb BRI.

  Now compare it with the G7 meeting in Hiroshima – which was yet another thinly disguised exercise about  “containing” China. The Hiroshima communiqué, issued on May 20, a day after Xi and Central Asia in Xi’an, was heavy on “de-risking” – the new Western mantra that replaces “decoupling.”

  The EU had already telegraphed the move via notorious European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: Deception rules, because the concept that really matters, “economic coercion,” persists. Yet no serious Global South player thinks he’s being “coerced” to join BRI.

  Comic relief was offered via the G7 committing to raise a whopping $600 billion in funding to build “quality infrastructure” via a so-called Global Infrastructure Investment Partnership: Call it the white man’s burden answer to BRI.

  The fact remains that no one – from the western-monikered “Indo-Pacific” to ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – is demonstrating any sign of being “coerced” by China, not to mention showing any interest in ditching or antagonizing a wealth of trade and connectivity prospects.

  At the EAEU summit in Moscow in late May, it was up to Putin to cut to the chase by emphasizing Russia’s active cooperation with BRICS, SCO, ASEAN, GCC, and multilateral organizations in Africa and Latin America.

  Putin explicitly referred to “building new sustainable logistics chains” and developing the key connection between the EAEU and the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INTSC).

  It gets better. He also emphasized working with China to “link the integration processes” of the EAEU and BRI, thus “implementing the large-scale idea of building a large-scale Eurasian partnership.”

  It’s all here: Everything that makes Atlanticist elites howl in desperation. Old fox Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has seen it all since his USSR days, summed it up thus: Combining integration efforts – EAEU, SCO, BRICS – “will contribute to the creation of the largest coalition of states.”

  And he came up with the money quote that will surely reverberate all across the Global South: “If we lose time – we will never make up for it. The one who runs faster now will be in the vanguard for a couple of decades.”

  The jade tiger pounces

  All that brings us to Shangri-La, East Asia’s premier dialogue platform in Singapore, this past weekend.

  The real highlight was State Councilor and Defense Minister General Li Shangfu explaining China’s “New Security Initiative” in detail.

  Li stressed the concept of “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.” Remember: That’s exactly what Moscow was proposing to Washington in December 2021, which was met with a non-response response.

  He noted that China is “ready to work with all parties” to strengthen the awareness of an “Asia-Pacific community with a shared future” (Note: Asia-Pacific is the denomination everyone in the region understands, not “Indo-Pacific”).

  And then he got to the nitty-gritty: Taiwan is China’s Taiwan. And how to solve the Taiwan question is the Chinese people’s business. The message could not be more straightforward:

  “If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will resolutely safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity without any hesitation, at all cost, and not fearing any opponent.”

  The Chinese delegation at the Shangri-La totally dismissed the “so-called ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’” as a tawdry Hegemon rant.

  What Shangri-La unveiled was, in fact, Beijing’s clear, concise response to all those dismissals of BRI, all that carping about “debt trap” and “economic coercion,” all that “de-risking” rhetoric, and all those mounting intimations of false flags in Taiwan leading to the “real” war that the neocons in charge of US foreign policy dream about.

  Obviously, intellectually shallow Beltway types won’t get the message. Especially because Li Shangfu was as polished as a jade tiger – elegantly pouncing over an avalanche of lies. You wanna mess with us? We’re ready. The barbarians predictably will keep rattling at the gate. The jade tiger awaits.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/14/2023 – 00:05

• Walmart Builds New Beef Plant To Bolster Meat Supply Chain
  Walmart Builds New Beef Plant To Bolster Meat Supply Chain

  Covid sparked beef and pork shortages, leaving shelves at Walmart stores bare throughout the US. Government-forced shutdowns and Covid outbreaks forced dozens of meatpackers across the US to shut down, reducing meat supplies reaching Walmart and other retailers. To safeguard against future supply disruptions, Walmart is bolstering its supply chain by building its own meatpacking facility in America’s Heartland. 

  “Today, we’re excited to share how Walmart is furthering that commitment by announcing plans for our first owned and operated case-ready beef facility, opening in 2025,” a Walmart press release read. 

  The new facility will be constructed later this year in Olathe, Kansas, about 25 miles southwest of Kansas City. It’s “an important milestone for Walmart as we continue to build a more resilient supply chain and identify ways to increase access to high-quality Angus beef for our customers,” America’s largest retailer said. 

  According to Bloomberg, Walmart’s move comes “as the Biden Administration pushes for more competition in the meat sector, where just four companies control about 85% of US beef-processing capacity.” 

  Once opened, the new meatpacking plant will package and distribute beef from Sustainable Beef LLC in North Platte, Nebraska, to serve stores across the Midwest. 

  Walmart wants to avoid severe supply chain challenges faced during Covid years, which resulted in some stores running out of beef and pork products. 

  

  Even though 600 jobs will be created at the new facility in Olathe, we suspect the future of meatpacking plants will involve a great deal of automation. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 23:45

• Unmasking The CDC's Medical CIA
  Unmasking The CDC’s Medical CIA

  Authored by Lloyd Billingsley via American Greatness,

  The swampy origins and foreign interests of the Epidemic Intelligence Services of the CDC need to be exposed…

  

  CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is departing at the end of June and Joe Biden has tapped former North Carolina health boss Dr. Mandy Cohen to replace her. More important than the identity of the CDC director is what goes on behind the scenes, and hints have been emerging. 

  In April of 2021, the CDC reassigned Dr. Nancy Messonnier, longtime director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). In a May 7, 2021 White House briefing, Walensky suddenly announced that Messonnier was stepping down.

  “Dr. Messonnier has been a true hero,” Walensky told reporters. “And through her career, in terms of public health, she’s been a steward of public health for the nation. Over this pandemic and through a many-decade career, she’s made significant contributions, and she leaves behind a strong, strong force of leadership and courage in all that she’s done.”

  Walensky neglected to mention Messonnier’s series of telebriefings in early 2020, conducted on January 17, January 24, January 29, January 30, February 3, February 5, February 12, February 25, and March 10.

  In these sessions, not shown to the public, Messonnier warned that a “novel coronavirus” had emerged from the “Wuhan market” and the highly contagious new virus would “gain a foothold” in the United States. According to Messonnier, many people would be infected, and there was “no immunity.” Some reporters were curious about people traveling to the United States from Wuhan.

  “That’s something I’m not at liberty to talk about today,” Messonnier said in the February 5 briefing, without revealing why that was so, or who was laying down the rules. On January 24, reporters who asked about China were told, “CDC has a team that’s been in China for many years where we work closely with the Department of Health in China.” There was information “from China” but Messonnier wasn’t giving it out.

  “I think we should be clear to compliment the Chinese,” Messonnier said, “on the early recognition of the respiratory outbreak center in the Wuhan market, and how rapidly they were able to identify it as a novel coronavirus.” And so on, a veritable recitation of China’s talking points, but there was more to it.

  In May of 2021, Walensky also failed to mention that “true hero” Nancy Messonnier was an officer of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), the CDC’s elite team of “disease detectives,” patrolling the world to prevent epidemics from arriving on American soil.

  “EIS officers serve on the front lines of public health, protecting Americans and the global community,” the CDC claims. When diseases and public health threats emerge, “EIS officers investigate, identify the cause, rapidly implement control measures, and collect evidence to recommend preventive actions.”

  In practice, as Peter Duesberg noted in Inventing the AIDS Virus, the EIS functions as a “medical CIA,” a support network for the CDC in government, academia, and media. For example, EIS veteran Lawrence Altman became a medical writer for the New York Times and in 2010 rendered a worshipful account of the intelligence service.

  In 1995, after completing her residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Nancy Messonnier went straight into the EIS. She shows up in the 2013 EIS conference report as a co-author of two studies on vaccine effectiveness, one in Burkina Faso and one in Washington, “among adolescents vaccinated with acellular pertussis vaccines.”

  Messonnier’s Wikipedia profile shows the EIS officer in a jacket emblazoned with medals. According to the site, she was born Nancy Ellen Rosenstein, sister of Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who launched the investigation of President Trump for allegedly colluding with Russia. 

  Messonnier’s connection to Rosenstein, and her experience with the EIS, did not emerge at the outset of 2020. By October, the EIS did briefly expose itself. 

  “We are proud of our training and service in the EIS, promoting CDC’s vital mission to protect the health of the American people,” claims an October 14, 2020 “Open Letter by Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers Past and Present—in Support of CDC.”

  As the letter explains, “the US epidemic is sustained by deadly chains of transmission that crisscross the entire country.” 

  How the deadly epidemic managed to escape the intrepid EIS, land stateside, and crisscross the entire country the letter does not explain. The signers “express our concern about the ominous politicization and silencing of the nation’s health protection agency during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.” 

  In reality, the CDC was anything but silent—except on the EIS connections of Nancy Messonnier, their major mouthpiece on the pandemic. The 2013 conference she attended provides enlightenment on the CDC’s medical CIA. 

  “Fifty-seven of the new officers are women (70%), and 12 are citizens of other nations (15%),” explains Douglas H. Hamilton, director of the EIS division of applied science.

  “Besides the United States, this year’s officers represent Cambodia, China, Kenya, Mongolia, Nepal, Nigeria, Peru, South Korea, Taiwan, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.” (emphases added) 

  The CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service is actually a multinational body that includes “officers” from the People’s Republic of China. Embattled Americans might wonder which nation’s interests the Chinese EIS officers represent, and if any were on the CDC “team” working with China for many years.  

  The CDC’s intrepid disease detectives obviously failed to prevent the “novel coronavirus” from arriving in America, crisscrossing the country, and causing untold misery and death. The people have a right to wonder what the EIS officers, including any Chinese nationals, were doing at the time.

  Remember, when reporters asked Nancy Messonnier about travel from Wuhan, she wasn’t “at liberty to talk about that.” The “true hero” and outgoing CDC boss Walensky needs to talk about it now, under oath, for as long as it takes.

  Embattled Americans have a right to know which government official or politician slapped a gag order on Messonnier. The people also need to know the identities of all EIS officers in China in 2019 and 2020, their activities, travel schedules and a lot more. Biden CDC pick Dr. Mandy Cohen provides another opportunity.

  Cohen is the lockdown promoter who once strapped on a mask bearing a portrait of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime NIAID boss who claimed “I represent science.” Fauci also funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct the gain-of-function research that makes viruses more lethal and transmissible.

  Fauci claims that the COVID virus arose naturally in the wild. By contrast, when former CDC director Robert Redfield found evidence of a laboratory origin, he got death threats. No word of any FBI investigation, but FBI Director Christopher Wray now assesses that “the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

  In the confirmation hearing for Dr. Cohen, someone should ask the Biden pick if China, the EIS, Fauci and Messonnier ever said or did anything with which she disagreed. The struggle against white coat supremacy is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 23:25

• It's "Buy The Rumor" Time For Chinese Markets
  It’s “Buy The Rumor” Time For Chinese Markets

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg markets reporter and analyst

  The surprising rate cuts by the People’s Bank of China on Tuesday signaled that policy makers have shifted to stimulus mode after watching the economy languish over the past few months. The magnitude of the potential stimulus package remains to be seen. But as far as the market is concerned, the window of buying the rumor has opened —  at least before reality sets in again.  

  Two days before President Xi Jinping’s 70th birthday, the PBOC delivered a gift to investors by unexpectedly lowering the seven-day reverse repurchase rate and the standing lending facility rate. As Bloomberg economist David Qu noted, it’s almost guaranteed that the central bank will follow up by cutting the key rate on the medium-term lending facility on Thursday.

  The direct impact of a 10-bp rate cut is minimal, potentially lifting GDP this year by only 0.1 percentage points. More importantly, it’s not the cost of money that is ailing the economy. It’s the lack of demand for money, as private firms and households are pessimistic about the business and income outlook.

  

  That point is highlighted by credit data released late Tuesday. Both total social financing and new bank loans missed already low expectations. Corporate bond issuance took a hit amid renewed concern about local-government financing vehicles, while household borrowing remains sluggish, reflecting low demand for mortgages.

  It’s not surprising, then, that investor sentiment is depressed. Bank of America’s global fund-manager survey showed that investors’ expectations on the Chinese economy have drooped to the lowest level since the reopening from the pandemic late last year.

  

  And shorting Chinese equities is considered the second-most crowded trade after “Long Big Tech.” In addition, 13% of investors surveyed considered the Chinese housing market to be the most likely source of global credit risk.

  

  The good news is that Beijing seems to be ready for action. Bloomberg reported that policy makers are considering a broad package of stimulus measures, including supporting the real-estate market.

  Strategists at Clocktower Group are turning bullish:

  The bottom line is that we expect the material constraints from a burgeoning deflationary spiral to soon outweigh Beijing’s preference to remain patient, implying a potential stimulus announcement around the July politburo meeting. As such, Chinese risk assets are likely very close to, if not have already reached, the bottom in the near-term, especially given the overwhelming pessimism currently priced in the market.

  Keep in mind, though, that Beijing is facing significant constraints. Unless the government is willing to unwind some of Xi’s signature policies, including the notion that “housing is not for speculation,” and de-risk local government debt, there’s a good case to be made that any stimulus is likely to be moderate.

  When rumor — or “little articles” as Chinese investors call them — is driving market expectations and imaginations, the sky is the limit. The bad news is that when the actual policy initiatives are announced, the market may shift to sell-the-fact mode again.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 23:03

• Orange County Anatomy Teacher Placed On Leave Following Clip Discussing Sex Toys, Sexual Pleasure
  Orange County Anatomy Teacher Placed On Leave Following Clip Discussing Sex Toys, Sexual Pleasure

  Authored by Micaela Rocaforte via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Placentia-Yorba Linda School District teacher was placed on leave last month after a video was posted online of her explaining how to sexually stimulate the prostate gland to a high school class.

  

  El Dorado High School anatomy and environmental science teacher Judy Rehburg is seen in the video telling students how the male prostate gland can be stimulated through both external touch and anal penetration.

  “That’s why, for male and male, anal sex is still very pleasurable,” Rehburg said in the video.

  The teacher also discussed the use of sex toys, telling students such are available at local stores such as Target and CVS.

  The teacher has now been placed on paid administrative while district officials investigate the incident, a district spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

  The spokesperson said the district trusts employees to adhere to its set of expectations and exercise judgment when discussing sensitive topics.

  “Please know that our school district has a very explicit set of expectations for the conduct of our employees,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “District employees are trusted to exercise professional judgment when deciding whether or not a particular issue is suitable for study or discussion. In the classroom, employees act on behalf of the district and are expected to follow the adopted curriculum, and they should not advocate personal opinions or viewpoints.”

  Some criticized Rehburg’s lesson as inappropriate for students in a June 6 board meeting.

  “What Ms. Rehburg did is sexual harassment,” one parent said at the meeting. “We need to protect our children from this.”

  Another parent echoed similar sentiments at the board meeting.

  “This was a completely inappropriate, obscene and perverse discussion being had by this teacher with high school students paid for by our tax dollars,” the parent said.

  But others said Rehburg was simply doing her job.

  “Students asked the question,” said one parent during a June 6 board meeting. “She was answering the question in good faith to try to give that student a complete and well-thought-out answer to keep them from going home and googling it. This is not part of the teachers’ normal curriculum.”

  Additionally, a student at the board meeting who is in Rehburg’s anatomy class said the video was taken out of context.

  The student said Rehburg gave students a Google survey form for students to anonymously submit questions on reproductive anatomy, and made it clear she would answer such questions only in the context of anatomy.

  The student said that in the video, Rehburg was responding to a question a student had submitted about the male prostate, according to the post.

  “I don’t think an almost 20-year career should be thrown away for a one-minute video that was taken out of context,” the student said.

  Following Rehburg’s leave, an anonymous Instagram account @freejudy began posting statements from students who were in the room during the lesson.

  In one post, an anonymous student explained that Rehburg was teaching a reproductive anatomy unit, and that parents and students were required to sign off on the class syllabus at the beginning of the year.

  “I am more than certain not a single student felt uncomfortable in that class,” the post stated. “She made sure to tell us about the whole curriculum at the beginning of the year, and students and parents were required to sign a syllabus at the beginning of the year.”

  Rehburg was not immediately available for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 22:45

• First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources
  First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag via Public (emphasis ours),

  After years of official pronouncements to the contrary, significant new evidence has emerged that strengthens the case that the SARS-CoV-2 virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

  

  According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket, the first people infected by the virus, “patients zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses, which increases the infectiousness of viruses.

  More than three years after the pandemic’s outbreak, many around the world had given up on learning the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the highly infectious respiratory virus that has killed millions, and the response to which shut down businesses and schools, upended societies, and caused enormous collateral damage.

  Public officials in the U.S. and other countries have repeatedly suggested that uncovering the pandemic’s origin may not be possible. “We may never know,” said Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who oversaw pandemic response for two administrations.

  Now, answers increasingly look within reach. Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus.

  As such, not only do we know there were WIV scientists who had developed COVID-19-like illnesses in November 2019, but also that they were working with the closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2, and inserting gain-of-function features unique to it.

  When a source was asked how certain they were that these were the identities of the three WIV scientists who developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the fall of 2019, we were told, “100%”

  “Ben Hu is essentially the next Shi Zhengli,” said Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and coauthor with Matt Ridley of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid19. Shi is known as “the bat woman of China,” and led the gain-of-function research at the WIV. “He was her star pupil. He had been making chimeric SARS-like viruses and testing these in humanized mice. If I had to guess who would be doing this risky virus research and most at risk of getting accidentally infected, it would be him.”

  

  Hu and Yu researched the novel lineage of SARS-like viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 hails, and in 2019 coauthored a paper with Shi Zhengli that described SARS-like lineages they had studied over the years.

  Jamie Metzl, a former member of the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing who raised questions starting in early 2020 about a possible research-related pandemic origin, said, “It’s a game changer if it can be proven that Hu got sick with COVID-19 before anyone else. That would be the ‘smoking gun.’ Hu was the lead hands-on researcher in Shi’s lab.”

  Sources tell Public and Racket that other news organizations are chasing aspects of this story. On Saturday, The Times of London quoted an anonymous U.S. State Department investigator saying, “It has become increasingly clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in the creation, promulgation, and cover-up of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

  Public and Racket are the first publications to reveal the names of the three sick WIV workers and place them directly in the lab that collected and experimented with SARS-like viruses poised for human emergence.

  Next week, the Directorate of National Intelligence is expected to release previously classified material, which may include the names of the three WIV scientists who were the likely among the first to be sickened by SARS-CoV-2.

  A bill signed by President Biden earlier this year specifically called for the release of the names and roles of the sick researchers at the WIV, their symptoms and date of symptom onset, and whether these researchers had been involved with or exposed to coronavirus research.

  On Dec. 29, 2017, two years before the pandemic began, Chinese state-run television aired a video that includes a scene of Ben Hu watching a lab worker handle specimens. Neither are wearing protective gear. The same video shows WIV scientists hunting for bat viruses with little protective gear. “If they were worried about being infected in the field, they would need full body suits with no gaps” to be safe, said Chan. “That’s the only way.”

  The WIV research with live SARS-like viruses was performed at too low of a safety level, “BSL-2,” explains Chan, “When we now know that the pandemic virus is even capable of escaping from a BSL-3 lab and infecting fully vaccinated young lab workers.”

  While scientists justify such research as necessary for developing vaccines, President Barack Obama banned federal funding for gain-of-function research of concern in 2014, because experts had come to the consensus that it was too dangerous. However, the National Institute of Health and NIAID headed by Francis Collins and Fauci, and a major U.S. government grantee, EcoHealth Alliance, deemed their work on SARS-like viruses as not falling under the gain-of-function research of concern definitions and funded this project in China and Southeast Asia.

  In March 2018, the WIV, the EcoHealth Alliance, and the University of North Carolina applied for a $14 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency DARPA to engineer “furin cleavage sites” into SARS-like coronaviruses to study how this affected their ability to grow and cause disease.

  Scientists say the key piece of the COVID-19 virus, which made it so transmissible compared to its closest relatives, was its unique furin cleavage site.

  DARPA rejected the grant, but it now appears the WIV went forward with the research anyway. The Times of London reported that US collaborators of the WIV had come forward and said the Wuhan scientists had put furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses in 2019.

  Hu co-authored multiple papers on coronavirus research, including a 2017 paper on chimeric bat coronaviruses with Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance, which was funded in part by the NIH and the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT Program. Data privately shared with the NIH revealed that these chimeric SARS-like viruses grew far more quickly and caused more severe disease in humanized mice in the lab.

  

  When the WIV put out their first paper about the pandemic virus, they failed to point out the novel furin cleavage site despite having had plans to and allegedly putting such gain-of-function features into SARS-like viruses in their lab. “It’s as if these scientists proposed putting horns on horses, but when a unicorn shows up in their city a year later they write a paper describing every part of it except its horn,” said Chan.

  Public sent emails and made phone calls to the NIH, WIV, EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak, Hu, and Shi over the last several days and did not hear back.

  It is unclear who in the U.S. government had access to the intelligence about the sick WIV workers, how long they had it, and why it was not shared with the public. “You would expect the country of origin to be defensive,” said Chan, “but you wouldn’t expect a country receiving the virus to be withholding key evidence.”

  On January 15, 2021, five days before President Joe Biden took office, the U.S. State Department published a fact sheet that pointed to the likelihood of a lab leak as the cause of a pandemic.

  Already, the State Department in 2021 suspected that the WIV had lied to the public. “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. That raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was ‘zero infection’ among the WIV’s staff and students by SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.”

  In February of this year, the Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, told a reporter that “the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

  The Times of London reported that State Department investigators “found evidence that researchers working on these experiments were taken to hospital with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019.” As previously reported in Vanity Fair, some of the information State Department investigators found in 2021 was “sitting in the U.S. intelligence community’s own files, unanalyzed.”

  “Ever since I put out my [May 2020] preprint [research paper] saying that an accidental lab origin was possible, I was criticized as a conspiracy theorist,” said Chan. “If this info had been made public in May of 2020, I doubt that many in the scientific community and the media would have spent the last three years raving about a raccoon dog or pangolin in a wet market.”

  Identifying the first COVID-19 case as a Wuhan Institute scientist overseeing gain-of-function research has significant ramifications for investigators in search of a motive for a cover-up.

  Politicians, scientists, journalists, and amateur researchers for years now have zeroed in on the possibility that Covid-19 may have resulted from U.S.-funded gain-of-function research conducted in China.

  Publications ranging from the Washington Post to the Intercept to the Wall Street Journal have uncovered suggestive details, including the fact that the NIH awarded funding for at least 18 gain-of-function research projects between 2012 and 2020, and NIH scientists in 2016 expressing concern about supposedly paused hybrid “chimera” virus research.

  Had the information come out earlier, governments may have responded to the pandemic differently. After Public shared the information with Chan, she said, “I feel vindicated, but I’m frustrated. If you knew that this was likely a lab-enhanced pathogen, there are so many things you could have done differently. This whole pandemic could have been reshaped.”

  Said Metzl, “Had US government officials including Dr. Fauci stated from day one that a COVID-19 research-related origin was a very real possibility, and made clear that we had little idea what viruses were being held at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, what work was being done there, and who was doing that work, our national and global conversations would have been dramatically different. The time has come for a full accounting.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 22:25

• Government Overreached In Identity Theft Case, Supreme Court Rules Unanimously
  Government Overreached In Identity Theft Case, Supreme Court Rules Unanimously

  Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Supreme Court limited the reach of the federal Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, unanimously rebuffing the Biden administration’s efforts to prosecute a man already convicted of Medicaid fraud with a separate charge of aggravated identity theft arising out of the same fraud case.

  

  The 9–0 opinion (pdf) in Dubin v. United States (court file 22-10) was issued on June 8 and authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Neil Gorsuch filed a separate concurring opinion.

  The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act mandates a two-year prison sentence for violations.

  When then-President George W. Bush signed the law in 2004 he said it established the federal “offense of aggravated identity theft” to ensure someone convicted of that crime would receive jail time “for stealing a person’s good name.”

  “These punishments will come on top of any punishment for crimes that proceed from identity theft,” the 43rd president said at the time.

  The act, Bush added, “raises the standard of conduct for people who have access to personal records through their work at banks, government agencies, insurance companies, and other storehouses of financial data.”

  But the Supreme Court disagreed with the U.S. Department of Justice’s argument that petitioner David Fox Dubin was automatically guilty under the act because a fraudulent Medicaid billing form include the patient’s Medicaid reimbursement number as a “means of identification.”

  Dubin worked as a managing partner for PARTS, a company in Austin, Texas, created by his father, licensed psychologist William Dubin.

  Both men were convicted by a U.S. district court for a scheme to defraud Texas’s Medicaid program.

  Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that serves low-income people of all ages and varies from state to state. It is run by state and local governments within federal guidelines. Each state sets its own rules about eligibility and services.

  Bound by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit precedent, the U.S. district court allowed Dubin’s conviction for aggravated identity theft to stand even though the district court believed the crux of the case was fraudulent billing, as opposed to identity theft. A divided 5th Circuit upheld the conviction in March 2022 despite its acknowledgment that according to the government’s interpretation of the act, “the elements of [the] offense are not captured or even fairly described by the words ‘identity theft.’”

  Dubin’s attorney, Jeffrey L. Fisher, a professor at Stanford Law School, said he was pleased with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

  “We’re grateful for the Court’s decision for Mr. Dubin’s sake and are pleased in general that the Court has reigned in the prosecutorial overreaching the statute allowed,” Fisher told The Epoch Times by email.

  The case goes back to 2013 when David Fox Dubin filed a claim with Medicaid for $540 for services provided to someone identified as Patient L. The government did not dispute that the psychological examination practice treated the patient or had the authority to use the patient’s name in the billing process, according to Dubin’s petition (pdf) that was filed with the Supreme Court in June 2022.

  “Instead, the government’s theory was that [the] petitioner overbilled Medicaid for the services provided,” which was sufficient for a conviction for health care fraud.

  “But the government was not content with that conviction. It also indicted [the] petitioner for aggravated identity theft,” the petition stated. The government’s position was that Dubin violated the identity theft law because he placed Patient L’s “identifying information on the fraudulent Medicaid claim form.”

  Justices pushed back against the government’s arguments that were presented by U.S. Department of Justice attorney Vivek Suri at a hearing on Feb. 27.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 22:05

• Report Alleges Catholic Hospitals Linked To Transgender Surgeries, Abortions
  Report Alleges Catholic Hospitals Linked To Transgender Surgeries, Abortions

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The largest Catholic health system in the nation has allegedly funded and performed transgender surgeries and other “gender-affirming” medical interventions, defying traditional Catholic teachings, according to an investigative report released to The Epoch Times.

  

  The report by the Lepanto Institute, a Catholic research and education organization, released on June 12, exposes CommonSpirit Health, a Catholic entity, for its alleged performance and funding of transgender surgeries and therapies,” including prescribing and providing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to patients.

  A promotional video accompanying the report asserts: “The transgender craze has seized the world by the throat and is choking the life out of the bedrock of civilization: the family. And this is happening right under the nose of the Vatican.”

  In the 64-page exposé, “CommonSpirit and the Sex-Change Industry,” author Michael Hichborn, founder and president of the Lepanto Institute, explains the connections within the Catholic health network in the United States and its direct ties to the Vatican.

  Hichborn, a self-described lifelong Catholic, said he is both “saddened” and “horrified” by the moral decline within factions of the Catholic Church, and wants “to make sure that Catholics are Catholics and that those who operate in the name of the Catholic Church do so in line with all of her teachings.”

  

  He claims that these medical interventions are happening in “gross defiance” of official values held by the Catholic Church, which has traditionally rejected transgenderism, homosexuality, abortions, and contraception—all of which the report alleges CommonSpirit is promoting at dozens of hospitals and medical facilities in the U.S.

  “In addition to performing sex-change operations, CommonSpirit provides employee benefits that cover sex-change operations, transgender hormone treatments, and even puberty blockers for kids,” according to the report.

  While it’s not known if CommonSpirit Health has performed transgender surgeries on children, the use of puberty blockers suggests it is treating minors for gender dysphoria in some capacity, Hichborn told The Epoch Times.

  “The horrifying thing when you start getting into the science of the puberty blockers and the transitional hormones, is they do permanent damage to these kids. They talk about how puberty blockers just kind of put a pause on puberty or pubertal development, and that’s a lie,” he said. “It doesn’t put a pause on it; it actually damages these kids to the point that many of them wind up being sterile.”

  CommonSpirit Health derives its Catholic identity from the Catholic Health Care Federation whose authority is granted by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rome, the report states.

  “The only authority in the church that has the ability to judge the actions of CommonSpirit is the Vatican,” Hichborn told The Epoch Times. “Because CommonSpirit is a subsidiary of the Catholic Health Care Federation, it is subject only to the Pope and the Pope’s governing bodies in Rome.”

  Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 990 forms not only confirm that CommonSpirit Health benefits from religious exemption tax breaks, but that the organization is part of the Catholic Church, Hichborn said.

  CommonSpirit has allegedly promoted the LGBT agenda including transgender ideology and transitioning children in its podcasts and at its conferences, has raised funds for sex-change surgical equipment, performed surgical sterilizations, and at least one of its hospitals has reportedly performed elective abortions, the report indicates.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 21:25

• Putin Declares Ukraine's Counteroffensive Failing, Mulls Grain Deal Exit
  Putin Declares Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Failing, Mulls Grain Deal Exit

  In rare, detailed remarks on the state of how the war is going in neighboring Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is failing, stating that Kiev has at this point lost a total of 25 to 30 percent of the military vehicles which had been supplied by the West, including tanks.

  Putin further affirmed that the counteroffensive began on June 4 and has “not been successful in any area” – and claimed that casualties on the Ukrainian side are ten times greater than Russia’s.

  

  The comments came the same day the Russian Defense Ministry released video showing damaged and abandoned NATO-supplied armored vehicles, including a German Leopard 2 tank and American Bradley infantry vehicles. 

  The New York Times seems to somewhat agree with the Kremlin’s assessment that no serious gains have been made by Ukrainian forces, with its headline, “Ukraine Claims More Small Advances in Counteroffensive, but No Breakthroughs”…

  Ukraine claimed small advances on Monday in its counteroffensive in the southeast of the country, hunting for a place to drive a wedge through Russian defenses, a key to its hopes for recapturing wide swaths of territory lost to the Russian invasion last year.

  After a week of fierce combat with infantry, artillery and tanks, across a mostly agricultural landscape, Ukrainian forces, newly armed and trained by Western allies, have retaken seven small villages and settlements, Hannah Malyar, a deputy defense minister, wrote on the messaging platform Telegram, including one that the military said it had captured on Monday.

  The deepest advance was about 4 miles, and “the area of territory taken under control is 90 square kilometers,” about 35 square miles, she wrote.

  NYT adds a couple of the following admissions: 

  Progress is measured in yards, or at most a mile or so, the Ukrainian gains have involved tiny farming villages, and there has been no sign so far of a significant break in the Russian occupiers’ dense network of defenses.

  Horrific scenes of close-up combat, including trench warfare reminiscent of WWI, continue to emerge:

  War up close: Russian units assault an AFU trench.
  -> These trench up close battles terrify me … I hope that stops soon. pic.twitter.com/DfpY3yuBvt

  — Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) June 13, 2023

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

  And tellingly:

  Ukraine has not disclosed losses, but its attacks against Russian trenches, bunkers, minefields and gun emplacements are likely to be taking a heavy toll on its forces, analysts say, and there have been some confirmed losses of both troops and advanced weaponry newly donated by allies.

  Thus in this rarest of moments, in seems that Putin and the NY Times agree on something.

  Putin additionally commented on the UN-backed grain deal on Tuesday, saying Russia is seriously considering withdrawing from the agreement. He stressed Moscow has been “cheated” regarding its own exports.

  “Probably, for the guys who are fighting, it’s not clear why we are letting the grain through. I understand,” Putin told journalists, while explaining that the deal asymmetrically benefits Ukraine and its ability to keep selling primarily to Europe. “We do it not for Ukraine, but for the friendly countries in Africa and Latin America. Because grain should go first and foremost to the poorest countries in the world.”

  That’s when he confirmed: “We are now thinking about whether to leave the grain deal,” also given the persistent Kremlin accusation that Ukraine is using the grain corridor “to launch maritime drones” against Russian naval assets.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 21:05

• The Collapse Just Won't Stop: 10 Weeks Later, Tranheuser Busch Sales Still Cratering, Down A Reccord 27%
  The Collapse Just Won’t Stop: 10 Weeks Later, Tranheuser Busch Sales Still Cratering, Down A Reccord 27%

  The historic, unprecedented self-sabotage at Tranheuser-Busch at the hands of woke, underqualified, virtue-signaling idiot, just refuses stop.

  Ten weeks after the attention-starved Dylan Mulvaney posted an April 1 video on his Instagram account to promote Bud LIght, which was promptly led to a boycott by tens of millions of warm-blooded Americans (and foreigners) who have had it up to here with the tranny lobby shoving itself down everyone’s throat – both literally and metaphorically – (Tr)anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light brand continued to see steepening volume declines, Citi reports, citing the latest weekly US Nielsen data through June 3.

  According to Citi Analyst Simon Hales, the latest weekly US Nielsen data through to 3rd Jun shows that Bud Light volume declines accelerated last week to -29.9% vs -26.1% in the week ending 27th May, and sales worsened to -27.0% from -23.3%.

  

  On a relative share basis, volume share was down -342bps vs -316bps in the previous week and value share was down -280bps vs -263bps implying an acceleration in share losses vs recent weeks.

  

  Moreover, there continues to be contagion to the wider ABInBev brand portfolio, with Budweiser, Busch and Michelob all weaker again. According to Citi, Busch volumes are down by -13.8% vs -12.2% and Stella Artois volumes down -9.9% vs -10.1%

  Meanwhile, Coors Light saw its recent market share gains accelerate over the last two weeks.

  

  The latest data shows little sign that consumers are moving on from the Bud Light controversy and Citi concludes that “aAs such, we expect the Bud Light controversy is likely to continue to dominate news flow and weigh on short-term investor sentiment.”

  More in the full Cit report available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 20:55

• 10% Of $4.2 Trillion US COVID Relief Was Lost To Fraud, Waste: Report
  10% Of $4.2 Trillion US COVID Relief Was Lost To Fraud, Waste: Report

  Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  As much as 10 percent of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has disbursed in COVID-19 relief aid may have been lost to fraud and waste.

  

  A new analysis of COVID relief spending by The Associated Press estimates that fraudsters collected more than $283 billion, while another $120 billion was wasted or misspent. The news outlet expects estimates of pandemic waste and fraud to grow as investigators continue to review additional potential fraud schemes.

  The U.S. government approved about $3.2 trillion in pandemic relief spending under President Donald Trump, and another $1.9 trillion under President Joe Biden. Of the about $5 trillion allocated for pandemic relief, about $1 trillion has yet to be paid out.

  Estimates for pandemic relief fraud and waste already vary widely. The U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General has indicated $191 billion in pandemic-era unemployment insurance (UI) payments may have been improper, while others estimate the total UI fraud and waste could be as high as $400 billion. Researchers have estimated as much as $80 billion of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans had indications of possible fraud.

  Those involved with tracking down the fraud say there was simply too little oversight and too few restrictions on who could apply for relief funds, making it all too easy for fraud to take place.

  While some individuals made off with millions in pandemic relief funds, the pilfering was often wide but not so deep.

  “Here was this sort of endless pot of money that anyone could access,” said Dan Fruchter, head of the fraud and white-collar crime unit with the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. “Folks kind of fooled themselves into thinking that it was a socially acceptable thing to do, even though it wasn’t legal.”

  The overall massive scale of the pandemic relief that went out also obscured multi-billion-dollar mistakes. While the IRS had a 99 percent success rate in handling an $837 billion stimulus check program, its 1 percent error rate amounts to about $8 billion going to “ineligible individuals.”

  In the seven decades before the pandemic, the Small Business Administration (SBA) had distributed $67 billion in disaster loans. During the pandemic, the SBA ended up handling more than a trillion dollars across the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan and PPP loans. As the SBA took on a much larger financial responsibility, it was tasked with rapidly processing loans.

  To speed up the process, the SBA allowed potential borrowers to “self-certify” that their application details were true. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act also barred the SBA from looking at tax return transcripts that could have identified potentially fraudulent or unqualified applicants.

  “If you open up the bank window and say, give me your application and just promise me you really are who you say you are, you attract a lot of fraudsters and that’s what happened here,” said Michael Horowitz, U.S. Justice Department inspector general and chair of the federal Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC).

  Clawing Back Relief Funds

  Hundreds of people have been charged in connection with various pandemic fraud schemes.

  In August 2022, Biden signed legislation to increase the statute of limitations to 10 years from five on crimes involving Economic Injury Disaster and PPP loans.

  Congress hasn’t yet approved a measure that would give prosecutors additional time to go after UI fraud.

  Earlier this year, Department of Labor Inspector General Larry Turner testified (pdf) that he expects his department to be busy investigating pandemic-related fraud through at least September 2026 “when the statute of limitations for most pandemic-related violations will have expired.” Without extending his deadline, Turner warned that people who stole the benefits may escape justice.

  In addition to providing more time to prosecute pandemic fraud, Republican lawmakers requested a return of unspent COVID relief funds during a recent debate over the debt limit increase. In total, Republicans reached an agreement with Democrats to rescind $30 billion in unspent COVID relief funds as part of the final deal to increase the debt limit earlier this month.

  The Associated Press contributed to this article.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 20:45

• 'Homophobic Statement Of The Decade' – Johns Hopkins Faces Backlash After Changing Definition Of 'Lesbian'
  ‘Homophobic Statement Of The Decade’ – Johns Hopkins Faces Backlash After Changing Definition Of ‘Lesbian’

  Johns Hopkins University has been blasted online this week for erasing women from its definition of the word “lesbian” in its LGBTQ glossary.

  The teaching university’s “Gender and Sexuality Resources” office contains a glossary of LGBTQ identities and terms.

  It includes a definition for the term “lesbian” that makes a point to exclude the word “woman.”

  It reads:

  A non-man attracted to non-men.

  

  But the term “gay man” has no such gender-inclusive phrasing in its definition:

  A man who is emotionally, romantically, sexually, affectionately, or relationally attracted to other men, or who identifies as a member of the gay community. At times, “gay” is used to refer to all people, regardless of gender, who have their primary sexual and or romantic attractions to people of the same gender. “Gay” is an adjective (not a noun) as in “He is a gay man.”

  The university makes a point of explaining its decision to remove ‘women’ from the lesbian definition… inclusivity?

  While past definitions refer to ‘lesbian’ as a woman who is emotionally, romantically, and/or sexually attracted to other women, this updated definition includes non-binary people who may also identify with the label.

  So, just checking – its more inclusive to exclude ‘women’ (which make up 50%-ish of the world’s population?)

  As you might expect, Johns Hopkins was slammed for the change. However, more notably, the abuse was ‘inclusive’ of the entire political spectrum, especially by LGBT commentators, on Twitter.

  “Why is a lesbian a non-man but a gay person isn’t a non-woman? Progressive misogyny,” lesbian political commentator Arielle Scarcella wrote over a screenshot of the glossary.

  What the actual f….? So now we’re not just reduced to being body parts or bleeders or a mere subset of women, we’re now “non-men”. 🤬🤬🤬 https://t.co/NCHAGfFDYZ

  — Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) June 12, 2023

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

  “Lesbians are being erased and it’s f***ing tragic,” Jaimee Mitchell, founder of Gays Against Groomers, replied to Scarcella.

  “Gender ideology at its core is deeply homophobic. The two cannot coexist. It’s time for a divorce. #LGBWithoutTheT”

  “Hi @JohnsHopkins,” lesbian journalist E.J. Rosetta tweeted.

  “Congrats! You’re winning ‘homophobic statement of the decade’ by defining lesbians as ‘non men attracted to non men.’ And during Pride month, too! Shame on you. Lesbians are female homosexuals. Put that on a post-it & memorise it. Aren’t you meant to be smart?”

  “Erasure of women continues @JohnsHopkins,” the Parents of Loudoun County tweeted.

  “So men get to keep their spaces and their terms but women don’t? This screams misogyny,” former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan added.

  “Inarguably, modern times are now the stupidest time and universities are leading the way,” Fred Sargeant, co-founder of the first Gay Pride parade, tweeted.

  J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and an outspoken critic of the transgender movement, shared a screenshot with the definitions of both “lesbian” and “gay man.”

  “Man: no definition needed,” Rowling captioned the tweet. “Non-man (formerly known as woman): a being definable only by reference to the male. An absence, a vacuum where there’s no man-ness.”

  Well, @JohnsHopkins gave us John Money so this is all congruent with the brand. https://t.co/BJLIkhP0aW

  — Gad Saad (@GadSaad) June 13, 2023

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

  We give the last word to Matt Margolis, writing at PJMedia.com, who summed up the situation perfectly: It is obvious that this effort of Johns Hopkins to be “inclusive” isn’t merely a shallow attempt to appease the LGBTQ crowd. Rather, it specifically panders to the transgender movement, which has become the most celebrated subset of the LGBTQ community, and sadly, as with everything else about the movement, women are the real victims.

  Margolis concludes, before long, they’ll have no privacy, opportunities, rights, or identity because of the transgender movement.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 20:25

• The Pandemic of Nuclear Trash Talk: Victor Davis Hanson
  The Pandemic of Nuclear Trash Talk: Victor Davis Hanson

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  After the world escaped a nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, it has been generally understood that nuclear-armed nations did not publicly threaten their rivals and enemies with thermonuclear weapons.

  

  Of course, there were occasional lunatic exceptions to the rule. Since 2006, when the unhinged North Korean regime acquired nuclear weapons, the world has periodically dismissed the zany threats from the Kim dynasty. Kim Jong Un has sporadically warned he might strike Japan, South Korea, and the United States—usually in an outrageous and outlandish fashion.

  Kim finally was warned of the consequences of his brinkmanship rhetoric, most famously by Donald Trump in 2018. He reminded Kim that the American nuclear button was bigger than North Korea’s—an eerie counter-warning that for a time led to the cooling of North Korean rhetoric.

  Pakistan went nuclear in 1998. From time to time, its prime ministers have warned India that in any confrontation, what Pakistan lacked in numbers and arms would be made up by the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. But again, Pakistan’s threats, like those of Kim Jong Un’s, were dismissed as the rantings of the insecure and blustering, who were otherwise deterred by much larger nuclear arsenals.

  But the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine opened a new chapter in nuclear trash-talking. The Ukrainian war has proved dangerously unique in a variety of ways. True, there have been prior large land wars involving nuclear powers. The first Gulf War of 1991 saw Britain, France, and the United States combine to help crush Iraq without mention of nuclear arms. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 without such threats. Neither did China mention a nuclear option in 1979, despite a less-than-successful short invasion of Vietnam. Nor did Great Britain, in its 1982 retaking of the Falkland Islands, talk of the bomb, although recently declassified documents revealed that the Royal Navy carried 31 nuclear weapons on its expeditionary fleet—presumably depth charges, bombs, and missiles—to the chagrin of the current Argentine government.

  Yet the Ukrainian war is the first large conventional war on the very doorstep of a nuclear superpower. And additionally, it has become a proxy war between the nuclear-armed NATO alliance and nuclear Russia.

  There are other dangers as well. The old maxim that democratic governments do not pose existential threats to the same degree as their autocratic counterparts suggests that the Putin regime is a bit different, a bit more unfettered than its NATO enemies.

  Another challenge is the fact that the saga of Russian and Ukrainian borders is complex, with long messy histories analogous to the volatility of the Balkans, and especially accentuated with the collapse of the borders of the old Soviet Union.

  Much of western Ukraine was Polish until 1939, when it was gobbled up and never surrendered by Stalin in 1945, who had switched alliances in 1941 to the Allied side. Crimea had been Russian since 1783, when it was annexed from the Islamic Khanate. Much of Ukraine itself was part of Russia from the 18th century until the collapse of the Soviet Union. In sum, autocracy, irredentism, and nuclear war make for a volatile combination.

  But far more dangerous is the notion that Russia was a superpower and in some ways still is one, given its huge land mass, its rich natural resources of natural gas and oil, and its nearly 6,000 nuclear weapons—still the largest such stockpile in the world.

  But most importantly, Putin’s blatant aggression is now checked and stalemated, and thousands of Russians have died. Ukraine is on the offensive, and there have been prior attacks on the Russian Black Sea fleet, strikes inside Russia itself, and apparent drone missions against Moscow suburbs. No one knows who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, but assurances that it was not Russia’s enemies seem increasingly unconvincing, as new narratives emerge of Ukrainian responsibility, with likely Western support and perhaps foreknowledge.

  Ukraine’s stated war aims are not just to push Moscow back to the 2022 prewar border, but to cleanse Ukraine of all Russian troops and restore the 2014 Ukrainian nation, including all of Crimea and the disputed borderlands. That, of course, is a legitimate aim, given Russia’s cruel invasion and targeting of civilian targets. But the expansive agenda poses additional paradoxes and dangers—and what is a militarily sound and necessary strategy can often go out the window when nuclear weapons come into play.

  Putin first invaded Ukraine during the appeasing years of the Obama-Biden Administration. His sudden rashness likely was in response to the 2011 American Libyan misadventure, the empty Obama “redline” rhetoric in Syria, John Kerry’s request for Russia’s reentry into Middle East affairs, and Obama’s eerie “Tell Vladimir” quid pro quo “deal” of “space” for ending missile defense, all caught on a hot mic in Seoul in March 2012.

  In any case, no major Western leader, and especially not Barack Obama, ever had talked of supporting a counteroffensive between 2014 and 2022 to reclaim what had been lost in 2014. That current Western-sanctioned aim apparently emerged in 2023 in response to Russian setbacks and deeper Western supply intervention. Of course, new agendas always arise as a legitimate part of war, and hinge on the pulse of the battlefield. But again, there was no Obama-Biden post-2014 initiative to rally the West then to reclaim what it aims to now.

  A final wrinkle is the massive U.S. and NATO military aid to Kyiv, which in direct shipments, intelligence, and training might already have exceeded $100 billion. If so, Ukraine, in the most recent 12-month period, would have enjoyed the third-largest military budget in the world, behind only the United States and China—and nearly double the annual defense expenditures of Russia itself.

  Stranger still, Ukraine and its Western allies claim that such a staggering sum is insufficient, given that Ukraine needs far more offensive weapons to cut off the Russian supply chain, originating, of course, from inside Russia. That offensive agenda apparently is now to include F-15 and F-16 fighters, the most sophisticated German, British, and American armored vehicles, billion-dollar anti-missile batteries, and the most lethal artillery and missile weapons in the world.

  Add it all up, and what we are witnessing is a once haughty and aggressive dictatorial Russia so far increasing bleeding and humiliated in Ukraine—in large part thanks to the largest shipments of Western military support to any single country since the Anglo-American Lend-Lease supply of Soviet Russia in World War II.

  These weapons, necessary to the defense of an invaded Ukraine, largely explain Russia’s enormous losses, which may have reached or exceeded 200,000 or more dead, wounded, captured, and missing.

  Once-loose talk of incorporating Ukraine into NATO is now de rigeur. Next followed the admission into the alliance of Finland, with its 800-mile-long Russian border, and soon likely Sweden, which likewise possesses an extremely capable military and is a neighbor as well of Russia.

  What does all this mean to a humiliated Russia?

  The Putin dictatorship, which asked for such comeuppance, is flailing. The Russian military has suffered global disgrace. Moscow blames Western powers for ensuring the collapse of its offensive in its own backyard. Western leaders, including the U.S. defense secretary, have boasted that the Ukraine war is a needed proxy conflict in which the West will further weaken Russia and curb its aggression.

  Now Ukraine is targeting sites inside Russia—as traditional military doctrine would advise if its aim is to expel all Russians from its pre-2014 borders. But again, that was not the policy of the West from 2014 to 2021. Many of today’s loudest hawks were strangely silent when the Obama Administration appeasement led to the 2014 Russian invasion, that then was shrugged off as a permanent fait accompli throughout the Obama years.

  Russia is facing internal chaos and war resistance. An ailing Vladimir Putin is reeling. And the result is the largest epidemic of nuclear trash talk since the dawn of the nuclear age, almost all of it blithely dismissed as empty saber-rattling by an ailing thug who got his just deserts.

  Perhaps. But consider that the epidemic of nuclear bluster has exceeded the usual “one-bomb state” nuclear nonsense from theocratic Iran.

  For example, in summer 2022, Putin repeatedly suggested that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons if threatened with destruction. A few prominent Russians openly envisioned thermonuclear war. Alexei Zhuravlev, a member of the Russian parliament, boasted on Russian state television, “I will tell you absolutely competently that to destroy the entire East Coast of the United States, two Sarmat missiles are needed. And the same goes for the West Coast. Four missiles, and there will be nothing left.”

  In September 2022, as Russian fortunes in Ukraine became even more problematic, the threats increased. Former Russian lawmaker Sergei Markov warned of such intercontinental strikes with nuclear weapons, publicly warning London: “In Russia, there’s partial mobilization, and for your British listeners, Vladimir Putin told you that he would be ready to use nuclear weapons against Western countries, including nuclear weapons against Great Britain. Your cities will be targeted.”

  In March, the International Court at the Hague indicted Putin as a “war criminal” for the savageries unleashed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In response, a number of prominent Russians once again threatened a nuclear response. The former president of the Russian Federation and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, warned the justices, “It’s quite possible to imagine a surgical application of a hypersonic Onyx from a Russian ship in the North Sea to The Hague courthouse. So, judges, look carefully to the sky.”

  Margarita Simonyan, of the Kremlin-funded broadcaster Russia Today, likewise threatened, “I’d like to see a country that would arrest Putin under the ruling of The Hague. In about eight minutes, or whatever the [missile] flight time to its capital.”

  When a mysterious unidentified drone hit the Kremlin in early May, there was a chorus of renewed calls for nuclear action: “After today’s terrorist act, no variant remains other than the physical elimination of Zelenskyy and his clique,” once more thundered the megaphone Medvedev. And the chairman of the lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, warned the Ukrainian nation that he would demand “the use of weapons capable of destroying it.”

  Russia’s former space chief Dmitry Rogozin likewise tried to lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use: “According to our [nuclear] doctrine we have the right to use tactical nuclear weapons because that’s what they exist for . . . a great equalizer for the moments when there is a clear discrepancy in the enemy’s favor.” When still more likely Ukrainian drone bombers hit an upscale district of Moscow in late May last year, Medvedev again issued more of his nuclear bombast: “The West does not fully realize the threat of nuclear war . . . There are irreversible laws of war. If it comes to nuclear weapons, there will have to be a preemptive strike.”

  Accordingly, the threshold on nuclear trash-talking and preemptive war in general have been lowered elsewhere. In December 2022, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, explicitly warned Greece that newly acquired Turkish missiles could strike Athens itself—unless “you stay calm.” As Erdoğan more unabashedly defined his threats: “When you say ‘Tayfun,’ [“typhoon”] the Greek gets scared and says, ‘It will hit Athens.’ Well, of course, it will . . . We can come down suddenly one night when the time comes.”

  In December 2022, Iran was again talking of strikes against the Israeli’s nuclear reactor with threats to “raze Tel Aviv.” Tehran released a video showing simulated nuclear missile attacks destroying Israel. China is now in on the act, bragging about the virtual end of a defiant Taiwan, and has issued nuclear threats against both Japan and Taiwan, should they alter Taiwan’s status.

  All this rhetoric again is treated with nonchalance in the West—and occasionally with near glee as welcome symptomology of Russia’s crackup and the impending implosion of the Putin regime.

  Maybe, maybe not.

  Yet with billion-dollar critical pipelines and dams blowing up, we are entering a new phase of the war, in which casual reference to hitting targets inside Russia, of nonstop bragging about the superiority of lethal Western weapons over their inferior Russian counterparts, of schadenfreude over the flailing Russians, and reports of horrendous losses to both Ukraine and Russia are all earning eerie nuclear backtalk that we have not heard in 60 years.

  Is it all just saber rattling, buffoonery, the last braggadocious mutterings of a failed regime? Cheap efforts to obtain deterrence that Russian arms have lost? Perhaps. And then again, perhaps not.

  The key to remember, however, is that there must be a near certainty that nuclear trash-talking is all cheap rhetoric, since the slight chance that it forewarns something deadly serious is . . . quite deadly, indeed.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 20:05

• NYC's Police Commissioner Abruptly Resigns; Days After Baltimore's Top Cop's Sudden Departure
  NYC’s Police Commissioner Abruptly Resigns; Days After Baltimore’s Top Cop’s Sudden Departure

  In less than one week, the top cops from two major metro areas in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast have suddenly resigned with no explanation. Last Thursday, Baltimore City Police Commissioner Michael Harrison stepped down as the progressive-run city struggles with homicides, a drug crisis, and a troubling rise in violence involving teenagers. Now NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced her resignation on Monday, an abrupt decision that has left “the nation’s largest police department shocked,” ABC7 New York reported. 

  Sewell was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in 2022 after he pledged to nominate a Black woman to head the department with over 36,000 uniformed officers during his campaign. The sudden resignation was announced at City Hall on Monday afternoon. 

  “I want to thank Police Commissioner Sewell for her devotion over the last 18 months and her steadfast leadership,” Adams said in a statement. He added, “Her efforts played a leading role in this administration’s tireless work to make New York City safer.”

  Sewell did not explain her abrupt departure in her resignation letter to the mayor. 

  As Bloomberg suggested, there could have been an internal power struggle between Sewell and Philip Banks III, who was appointed Deputy Mayor for Public Safety.

  Questions have swirled for months about whether Sewell’s authority was being undermined by Adams. He appointed Philip Banks III as deputy mayor for public safety, creating what was effectively another senior-level layer of supervision over the city’s law enforcement agencies. 

  The New York Post also noted an internal ‘power struggle.’ 

  

  ABC7 said, “The mayor was said to be surprised by the news” of Sewell’s resignation. Still, it’s unclear why she is departing. 

  In a recent interview, Sewell was asked about any book she was reading and replied, “stats.” 

  Perhaps out-of-control crime could be another reason for her resignation. New police data shows even though murders have slowed — there has been a jump in felony assaults and car thefts. 

  And as we noted in the beginning, Sewell’s resignation comes right after Baltimore City’s top cop abruptly resigned. 

  Progressive metro areas are realizing they must get a handle on crime after backfiring social justice reforms or risk ending up like imploding San Francisco. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 19:45

• New Jersey Bill Would Deny Funding To Schools If Their Libraries Remove Pornography
  New Jersey Bill Would Deny Funding To Schools If Their Libraries Remove Pornography

  By Dave Huber, Associate Director at College Fix

  Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey have proposed a bill which would deny state funds to schools that “ban” books from their libraries.

  So states a headline from The Philadelphia Inquirer. However, immediately below a sub-headline uses “restrict access” in place of “ban.”

  A subtle, yet distinct, difference.

  Last year there were 13 attempts to “restrict access” to books in New Jersey’s public schools, according to the American Library Association. One effort pertained to “Gender Queer” (pictured) — the ALA’s #1 most challenged book — which the Inquirer describes merely as the “chronicles [of] the author’s sexual identity journey.”

  That journey includes, unfortunately, sexually explicit artwork that isn’t permitted even in magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse.

  The synopsis of Bill S3907 reads “Prohibits public libraries and public schools from banning or restricting access to certain books; permits withholding of State Aid for non-compliance.”

  Thus, elementary and middle schools which “restrict access” to books like “Gender Queer” could lose funding.

  Bill sponsor Andrew Zwicker, who either has never seen what is in “Gender Queer” or believes it’s cool for children to view explicit material, told the Inquirer “I wish we didn’t have to do this. It’s really discouraging to see the number of attempts going on in New Jersey and around the country. It’s so unbelievable divisive and just wrong.”

  Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz, a co-sponsor, added “The bigger and larger issue is that this is not something I think school boards should be dealing with. Libraries are sacred.”

  From the article:

  Republican lawmakers say they want to make sure books distributed in public schools and libraries are age-appropriate. State Sen. Ed Durr […] is drafting a bill that would require an age-rating system for books in school libraries, similar to that used for movies, to determine appropriate reading materials.

  “It’s a total misrepresentation for Democrats to say that parents are looking to ‘ban books’ simply for expressing their concerns about the unrestricted availability of content that’s not age-appropriate in their school libraries,” Durr said.

  Nikki Stouffer, leader of the NJ Fresh Faced Schools group, opposes the measure and dismissed it as “the porn bill.” A mother of two, she has shared graphic content from books that her group says should be pulled from schools.

  “This isn’t education at this point,” said Stouffer, of Medford, a bio statistician. “It is not really appropriate for school.”

  Ewa Elliott, president of the New Jersey Association of School Librarians, said parents like Stouffer “shouldn’t be pushing the same rules on everybody’s children.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 19:25

• 22 US Troops Injured In Helicopter Accident Over Syria
  22 US Troops Injured In Helicopter Accident Over Syria

  The Pentagon revealed late Monday that on Sunday a major helicopter accident resulted in a large group of US military personnel being injured in northeast Syria. 

  While US Central Command is downplaying it as an aviation “mishap”, there were twenty-two US service members injured in the incident. Importantly, US Central command confirmed in a statement that “no enemy fire was reported.” 

  

  Ten of the wounded had injuries serious enough to be evacuated to hospitals outside of the region, presumably in neighboring Iraq where US personnel have a precent in Irbil in the north.

  The nearly two dozen personnel had “various degrees” of injuries, officials said. It’s unclear whether the presumed crash involved one or more helicopters.

  In April there had been a Department of Defense 24-hour stan-down of all aviation units after a string of deadly accidents, including two deadly mid-air helicopter collisions within a single month time frame.

  “The safety of our aviators is our top priority, and this stand-down is an important step to make certain we are doing everything possible to prevent accidents and protect our personnel,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said at the time.

  Sunday’s incident over Syria is believed to be a mechanical failure or pilot error, according to some reports. Meanwhile, some are questioning what American troops are still doing in Syria in the first place…

  28 Americans Wounded or Killed in Syria over last two months.

  What for? https://t.co/l3Wjwn96kt

  — Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) June 13, 2023

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

  At least 900 US troops (plus an unknown amount of State Dept personnel, contractors, and intelligence personnel) have occupied northeast Syria for years at this point. They control all of Syria’s main oil and gas fields, which were vital for meeting the population’s energy needs. 

  There have been recent reports of US soldiers and the Pentagon’s Kurdish SDF proxies “looting” Syrian oil, driving it across the border into Iraq. Sporadic drone and rocket attacks on US bases in Syria have resulted in dead and wounded US personnel over the past year, a trend which recently increased.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 19:05

• Tucker Carlson Pinpoints The Exact Moment That 'Permanent Washington' Decided To Send Trump To Prison
  Tucker Carlson Pinpoints The Exact Moment That ‘Permanent Washington’ Decided To Send Trump To Prison

  Tucker has delivered an epic tour de force condemning the Deep State, which over the past 6 years has been focused solely on one goal: to put away the one person who stands in its way, and in the way of countless neocons and war profiteers from attaining their trillions in deadly spoils: Donald Trump.

  Despite a ‘cease and desist’ order from Fox News, Tucker Carlson is back tonight with the 3rd episode of his ‘Tucker on Twitter’ show. After over 115 million views on his first and almost 60 million on his second, tonight’s discussion of the indictment of former president Trump is sure to be the most widely viewed news of the day (despite CNN/MSNBC’s euphoria at the day’s events).

  Reflecting on the day’s events in Miami, Carlson noted that “cable news carried every moment of it… but they weren’t shocked… anybody who’s been paying attention knew this was coming…”

  But, as he continues, “what just happened was always going to happen, it has been inevitable since February 16, 2016… that’s the day that Donald Trump may a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history – the US federal government.”

  How did he make that force an enemy? It wasn’t rapists from Mexico or trade with China – the stories that dominated the news at the time…

  “…what matters to ‘permanent Washington’ then and now is foreign policy – the invasions, the occupations, and proxy wars… the policies that come with trillion-dollar price tags”

  At 2:56, Carlson shows the exact moment that “permanent Washington” decided to send Donald Trump to prison – its from the Republican Candidates’ Debate …

  “we should have never been in Iraq, we have destabilized The Middle East… “

  But it was this line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest…

  “...they lied…they said there were weapons of mass destruction, there was none.. and they knew there were none.“

  That sealed his fate because:

  “That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides…”

  He accuses politicians from both parties, including Hillary Clinton, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and Mike Pompeo, of betraying Trump’s agenda and working against him from within.

  “…they were all guilty of it… they all knew and they all lied and to a person they hated Donald Trump for exposing them.”

  Carlson notes that Trump’s prosecution is seen as both political and ideological, aimed at disqualifying those who criticize wars, criticizing the Washington establishment for prioritizing global interventions and military actions over domestic concerns, and highlighting the disparity between the vast amount of government spending and the deteriorating state of public infrastructure across the country.

  Carlson crescendos with the following…

  “Trump is the only one who dissents from Washington’s long-standing pointless war agenda… and for that, that one fact, they are trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him…

  …and that should upset you more than anything that has happened in American politics in your lifetime...

  …Yes, Donald Trump is a flawed man; but his sins are minor compared to those of his persecutors.”

  The spectacle of Trump’s prosecution reveals the powerlessness of voters in America, and as Carlson concludes by urging people to preserve democracy: “America’s principles are at stake.”

  Watch the full show here:

  Ep. 3 America’s principles are at stake pic.twitter.com/eJNSUVvvqY

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 13, 2023

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

  Full Transcript below:

  The Biden Administration arrested Donald Trump this afternoon. They had him arraigned and fingerprinted in a Miami Courthouse, like the accused felon he now technically is.

  These were the first steps in a process that is designed to put Donald Trump behind bars for the rest of his life.

  Cable news carried every moment of it live “it’s unprecedented” they told us with what looked like shock. But they weren’t shocked they knew this was coming. Everyone who’s paid attention knew it was what just happened was always going to happen.

  It’s been inevitable since February 16 2016. that’s the day Donald Trump made a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history which would be the federal government.

  Despite what you may remember it wasn’t anything that Trump had said about immigration, or trade with China, or rapists from Mexico – those are the stories that dominated the headlines that year – “Trump’s a racist they scream stop him.”

  But inside Washington that was just noise none of it really rated identity politics doesn’t mean much to permanent Washington what matters – then and now – is foreign policy the invasions and occupations and proxy wars: the decisions that determine which global populations will thrive and which will die. The policies that come with trillion dollar price tags, the ones that over time have made the counties around DC the richest suburbs in the world.

  In Washington that’s what actually matters and it’s obvious when you look carefully. When there’s a debate about anything else for example the debt ceiling, both sides take their assigned positions and they start yelling. But when Congress decides to start a war – no matter how foolish or counterproductive or obviously disconnected from America’s core interests that war may be – when that happens the leaders of both parties automatically jump behind it like circus clowns.

  And then they stay there, sometimes for decades. They defend that war relentlessly against all evidence, until somebody finally Rings the all clear Bell and they can begin to admit that actually maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. We meant well but it just didn’t work out the good news is we’ve learned a lot of important lessons.

  In the end they usually do say something like that, but only after emotions have cooled and the damning details have begun to fade from collective memory. It’s an apology that’s not actually an apology, much less repentance and it’s years too late to matter in any case.

  But until then that’s all you’re getting, until then no dissent is allowed – that’s the first rule of Washington.

  But somehow Trump didn’t bother to follow it. He is from out of town so maybe he didn’t know it was a rule or maybe he just didn’t care. Either way, seven and a half years later we can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. here it is it’s from the Republican candidates debate in Greenville South Carolina:

  “we should have never been in Iraq; we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, okay. They said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none there were no weapons of mass destruction.”

  We should never have been in Iraq, Trump said. We destabilized the Middle East. Now by the time Trump said that a lot of Republican primary voters were starting to reach the same conclusion; how could they not. But it was the next line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest. “They lied” he said, “there were no weapons of mass destruction” and they knew there were none.

  Now when he said that a few in the crowd booed, most just sat there in silenced stunned. Can he say that? Well he said it anyway and by saying that he sealed his fate. That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides, which on this topic is really just one side.

  Hillary Clinton was guilty of it, but so was Paul Ryan. All of them were guilty; they all knew, they all lied, and to a person they hated Donald Trump for exposing them.

  After that it was pretty clear that even if he did get elected president Trump was going to have a very hard time controlling the federal government he was supposed to be in charge of. Most of permanent Washington decided that thwarting Trump was the single most important mission in their lives. Everything depended on it, many of them said so publicly. But others didn’t say so publicly; in fact the stealthier ones took another path – they ran toward Trump not away from him. They sucked up to him, they ingratiated themselves-  the man they intuitively understood was susceptible to flattery which Trump is, and they did this in order to subvert his new Administration from the inside.

  There were a number of these and you could spot them immediately: they were flatterers. Invariably the ones who flattered Trump the most hated him the most and disagreed the most strongly with his views. You saw them in the hallways of the White House and at press conferences; they were there slobbering over their boss with elaborate self-abasement as if they were addressing a monarch or a God.

  It was a scene from the ottoman Court – it was filthy and decadent and it was false.  Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Lindsey Graham in the Congress. They all called Trump a Visionary genius… up until the moment he lost power and then they unsheathed their real agenda – as always the neocon war agenda – and they piled on with maximum Force.

  Here’s Mike Pompeo for example on Fox news this morning:

  “President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them. And then when given the opportunity to return them he chose not to do that for whatever reason… when somebody identifies that you got to turn them in. So that’s just inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers sailors, airmen and marines… and if the allegations are true some of these were pretty serious important documents… so that’s wrong“

  May future historians hoping to unlock the mysteries of late empire Washington study that clip, because it will reveal everything. That very same Mike Pompeo – the one who’s sneering at Donald Trump on TV this morning – that guy served Donald Trump as both CIA director and as Secretary of State. Those are the two most powerful jobs in the federal government and as he worked in those jobs, Pompeo promised – in fact he swore – to support the president’s agenda.

  Why? because that’s the way a democracy works: you vote for a candidate in the belief that his appointees will carry out the policies that you voted for. It’s not about the president, it’s about you the voter.

  But Pompeo didn’t do that he didn’t even try to do that. In fact he undermined Trump’s often stated commitment to peace and non-intervention abroad at every turn; his every waking hour was devoted to fomenting war in some Far Away foreign country or other. Iran, Syria Russia, North Korea… the list goes on but rather than telling Trump that he disagree with his ideas as a man would, Pompeo toadied up to Trump – a man he despised – in the oiliest, most over-the-top way imaginable.

  Ask anyone who worked in that white house at the time who is the appointee most likely to tell Donald Trump on a daily basis that he was handsome, virile, sleek and powerful. “Mike Pompeo” that will be the consensus answer. Those of us who saw firsthand Pompeo’s relentless cow Towing will never forget it – it was indelibly repulsive. No one with self-respect could do something like that, but Mike Pompeo did it effortlessly with relish and Verve. Now this same person is telling Fox News viewers that he fears for the safety of our military, our soldiers “Sailors Airmen and Marines” in the approved phrase, because Donald Trump took some classified documents home and didn’t immediately return them to the National Archives.

  What a lie that is: Mike Pompeo knows that’s a lie. He spent his entire life in Washington. Washington is a city where internal memos about Labor Day are classified because everything is classified. Your government has classified more than a billion Federal documents most of them boring and pointless and a danger to no one, and locked them away in secret. You can’t see them because you may be an American citizen, but not really… and therefore you don’t have the necessary clearances to know what’s going on.

  And by the way none of this is done in order to make America safer any more than Covid restrictions were designed to keep you healthy. No it’s a caste system that’s the point, and you’re the Untouchable in this hierarchy.

  Mike Pompeo knows that, everybody who works in Washington knows that.

  How many secret documents do you think Dick Cheney took home with him while he was running the Iraq War? How many did his wife read? She never had a clearance. We’ll never know the answer because there is no chance Dick Cheney will ever be investigated, or his staffers will be told to wear wires in his presence. He will never be indicted for this.

  Of course not: Dick Cheney is a neocon Donald Trump is not. Dick Cheney supports war with Russia, Trump does not. That’s the difference: the rest is just a distraction.

  The prosecution of Donald Trump is transparently political. He’s literally Joe Biden’s main political opponent. He’s polling over 60 percent among Republican voters right now. So Joe Biden is doing what no president has ever dared to do. He’s using law enforcement to lock up his chief rival: that’s happening right now, and anyone who denies it’s happening is lying to you.

  But actually it’s worse than that Trump’s prosecution isn’t just political, it’s ideological. Nobody with Trump’s views is allowed to have power in this country. Criticize our Wars and you’re disqualified, if you keep it up we’ll send you to prison.

  That’s the message Washington is sending, not just the Democratic party is sending but both parties are sending.

  Like so many Republicans, for example, the supposedly conservative governor of Texas Greg Abbott spent yesterday totally ignoring the destruction of the American justice system. Instead, he signed a highly important bill called the crown act which according to the celebratory tweet Abbott sent commemorating it will “prohibit discrimination based on Textures and hairstyles historically associated with race.” In other words in Texas cornrows are now protected by law, having unapproved views about Ukraine is not.

  That’s fine with most elected Republicans: they find Trump tiresome and embarrassing, their donors hate him; they will not be sad if he dies in jail.

  But what about voters: what are they learning from this spectacle? Well mostly they’re learning that they have no power at all because nobody cares about them. 

  But they already knew that. Unlike so many of our elected leaders, they have been to America recently. They know what it looks like. Have you seen it? If you’ve got a few days this summer find out take a road trip and see for yourself Drive 500 miles in any direction and then come home. How are things looking? Well they should look great – the federal government spent six and a half trillion dollars last year. That’s more than any government has ever spent ever. So at the very least you would expect pristine public roads. Oh no that’s not what you see when you drive around this country – there are potholes and Jersey barriers everywhere. Looks like Tegucigalpa before the Chinese decided to rebuild the infrastructure of Honduras. We don’t have China buying our roads so they’re falling apart.

  You’d think the people you would pass on your road trip would look happy and prosperous; again this is a very rich country. But a lot of them don’t. Quite a few appear to be strung out on drugs. You see them shuffling by shuttered storefronts in small towns. And you wonder as you see all of this where did all the money go, it’s certainly not here?

  Well, it’s in Washington, it’s in Fairfax, in Loudoun counties, and in leafy perfectly manicured Northwest D.C. And of course a huge chunk of it went to Ukraine to Zelenski and his friends. Not because you voted for that; you didn’t vote to give it to them you never would, but because Joe Biden and his many allies from Chuck Schumer to Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan and every single news anchor on all of Television all of them believe that Ukraine its borders its future its infrastructure are all more important than the town that you live in.

  They sincerely think that, and it’s obvious everyone in power thinks that… except for Donald Trump.

  Whatever else you say about him, Trump is the one guy with an actual shot of becoming president who dissents from Washington’s long-standing pointless War agenda. And for that that one fact they are trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him and that should upset you more than anything that’s happened in American politics in your lifetime.

  Even if you don’t plan to vote for Donald Trump, even if you would die before voting for Donald Trump – which is your right and a lot of good people feel that way – even still, the destruction of our democracy which is the right of Voters to support any candidate they want, even candidates who don’t want war with Russia, the destruction of that should keep you up at night.

  Yes, Donald Trump was a flawed man but his sins are minor compared to those of his persecutors.

  In this life we don’t get to choose our Martyrs we can only choose our principles… and America’s are at stake.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 06/13/2023 – 18:44

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