- Next Level Banana Republic: Japan State Finance Minister Resigns After Getting Caught Evading Taxes
Next Level Banana Republic: Japan State Finance Minister Resigns After Getting Caught Evading Taxes
We have frequently said that Japan’s top government and central bank power echelons are nothing more than a grotesque circus of utter incompetence…
The Circus of Japan formerly known as the Bank of Japan about to enter all out panic mode again
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 12, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
… and the latest news out of that basket case banana republic have just confirmed out cynicism once again.
In a “shocking” twist of events out of the land of the rising
sunbanana, Japan’s State Finance Minister, Kenji Kanda – best known for doing nothing and just watching as Japan’s currency craters to record lows while unleashing historic inflation on the local population – has stepped down following allegations of tax evasion, delivering a fresh blow to the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which may well be the most incompetent in recent Japanese history, and which is already grappling with the departure of two other Cabinet members since the recent cabinet reshuffle in September.According to BNN, Kanda’s resignation came in the wake of a magazine report alleging that Kanda’s company had defaulted on its tax payments. The Finance Minister didn’t deny these claims. Instead, he confirmed that the authorities had seized his company’s land and property due to non-payment of fixed asset taxes.
The opposition parties didn’t let this opportunity slip by. They criticized Kanda for his financial improprieties, and there were widespread calls for his resignation. In the end, “Kanda had to bow to mounting pressure and vacate his ministerial post” or in other words, jump on the land mine and take one for the Kishida team which has at best bought itself a week or two of extra time.
The fourth-term lower house member Kanda has confessed that he had skipped compulsory annual lectures for tax accountants, as alleged by the Shukan Bunshun weekly, which also reported the tax scandal in early November.
“I became busy with national political affairs, and the weight of my tax accountant work decreased,” Kanda said in a parliamentary session last week. “Demand letters and other matters were left to the staff at the tax accountant’s office. I was too busy to get involved.”
Kinda like Tim “Turbo-Tax” Geithner… remember him?
An opposition lawmaker, who has called Kanda a “criminal,” said his tax delinquency had given the impression that people do not have to pay taxes. Kanda apologized but initially denied he would resign as senior vice finance minister.
Kenta Izumi, chief of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said it is “too late” for Kanda to decide to step down, adding, “Questions are being raised about Prime Minister Kishida’s responsibility for the appointment.”
Izumi indicated that his party will not participate in Diet deliberations on a supplementary budget for the fiscal year through March 2024 to fund the new economic stimulus package, scheduled to start later this month, unless Kishida replaces Kanda.
This incident marks the third time an official has resigned from a ministerial position since Prime Minister Kishida reshuffled his cabinet in September. The successive resignations have raised questions about Kishida’s choice of cabinet members and his ability to steer the government.
Akira Koike, head of the secretariat of the Japanese Communist Party, also criticized Kishida, telling reporters, “The prime minister’s responsibility for delaying this far is significant. It is a symbol of sloppy governance.”
Meanwhile, the grossly incompetent Prime Minister – whose recent track record culminates with crushing the currency, unleashing galloping inflation, and promising extremely unpopular fiscal stimulus and cash handouts with which to “defeat” inflation – has at most a few more months as his latest polls confirmed: according to an NHK poll published Monday, the approval for Kishida’s cabinet fell 7% to 29% the lowest since he took office in Oct. 2021.
In any other country, this would have been a sufficient condition for angry riots in front of the prime ministry. But for Japan’s zombified population of complacent sheep, where not even the historic currency collapse and near record runaway inflation seems to register, it’s unclear just what can finally wake the local gerontocracy out of its terminal coma.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 23:40 - Aircraft Carrier USS Dwight S. Eisenhower Now in Gulf of Oman
Aircraft Carrier USS Dwight S. Eisenhower Now in Gulf of Oman
Navy aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and its escorts are operating in the Gulf of Oman after leaving the Red Sea earlier this weekend, USNI News reported.
Ike and its escorts were operating off the coast of Oman as of Monday, according to the USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker, based on publicly available satellite imagery. The carrier passed through the Suez Canal on Nov. 4 and sailed through the Red Sea and past the Bab el Mandeb through the Gulf of Aden to its current location.
The move is part of the overall U.S. naval buildup in Europe and the Middle East following the Hamas attacks outside of Gaza and the ongoing conflict in Southern Israel.
While Ike is operating off the Arabian Peninsula, carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and its escorts remain on station in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea along with U.S. command ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20), the amphibious warship USS Mesa Verde (LPD-19), elements of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit and French and U.K. warships.
Nearby in the northern Red Sea, USS Bataan (LHD-5) and USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) and the rest of the 26th MEU have been on station with a group of guided missile destroyers. Last month, USS Carney (DDG-64) shot down a series of drones and land attack cruise missiles fired by Houthi militants from Yemen over the Red Sea.
U.S. warships and other units have flowed into U.S. Central Command in an effort to keep the conflict from spreading beyond Israel. To that end, the Pentagon has said there has been an uptick in attacks by forces sympathetic to Hamas on installations in both Iraq and Syria. The U.S. has about 3,400 troops split between Iraq and Syria, Reuters reported.
As of Thursday, there had been almost 50 attacks on U.S. installations in both Syria and Iraq.
On Sunday, the U.S. Air Force made two air strikes in Syria in response to ongoing attacks on U.S. forces in the region.
“U.S. military forces conducted precision strikes today on facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran-affiliated groups in response to continued attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria. The strikes were conducted against a training facility and a safe house near the cities of Abu Kamal and Mayadin, respectively,” reads a Sunday statement from the Pentagon.
“The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 23:20 - The Declaration That Wasn't Supposed To Happen
The Declaration That Wasn’t Supposed To Happen
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,
It’s been a continuing mystery for three years, at least to me but many others too.
In October 2020, in the midst of a genuine crisis, three scientists made a very short statement of highly public health wisdom, a summary of what everyone in the profession, apart from a few oddballs, believed only a year earlier.
The astonishing frenzy of denunciation following that document’s release was on a level I’ve never seen before, reaching to the highest levels of government and flowing through the whole of media and tech. It was mind-boggling.
For proof that nothing in the document was particularly radical, look no further than the March 2, 2020, letter from Yale University signed by 800 top professionals. It warned against quarantines, lockdowns, closures, and travel restrictions. It said such extreme measures “can undermine public trust, have large societal costs and, importantly, disproportionately affect the most vulnerable segments in our communities.” That document appeared only two weeks before the lockdowns announced by the Trump administration.
That was the period of the grant amnesia. The conventional wisdom turned on a dime toward full backing of regime priorities, a shift more extreme and mind boggling that anything in dystopian fiction.
Seven months later, the Great Barrington Declaration said something very similar to the Yale document. It was a summary statement concerning what governments and society should and should not do during pandemics. They should seek to allow everyone to live as normally as possible in order to avoid guaranteed damage from coerced disruptions. And the vulnerable population – those who would experience medically significant impacts from exposure – should be protected from exposure insofar as doing so is consistent with human rights and choice.
It was nothing particularly novel, much less radical. Indeed, it was accepted wisdom the year before and for the previous century. The difference this time, however, is that the statement was released during the wildest and most destructive science experiment in modern times. The existing policy of lockdowns was utter wreckage: of businesses, schools, churches, civic life, and freedom itself. Masks were being forced on the whole population, including children. Governments were attempting a regime of test, track, trace, and isolate, as if there were ever any hope of containing a respiratory pathogen with a zoonotic reservoir.
The carnage was everywhere already and obvious from a look at every downtown of every city in the US. Stores were boarded up. The streets were mostly empty. The professional class was hunkered down, binging on streaming and gaming services, while the working class was hustling everywhere to deliver groceries to doorsteps. In short, insanity had broken out.
Several groups of doctors had already made strong statements against the goings on, including the frontline doctors group on Capitol Hill and the brilliant Bakersfield doctors, among many individuals. However, they were quickly shot down by major media and blasted for failing to support the great undertaking. Even that was astonishing to watch unfold. It didn’t matter how exalted the reputations of the doctors or scientists were. They were all shot down, more or less instantly, as crazies and cranks.
It was like living in a horror house of mirrors where nothing appears as it is supposed to. At the time, I chalked it all up to mass confusion, cultural amnesia, bad education, government overreach, media ignorance, or just some general tendency of humanity to go mad that I had not previously seen in my lifetime but had only known from history books.
Several top epidemiologists felt the same way. They were Martin Kulldorff from Harvard, Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford, and Sunetra Gupta from Oxford. Together they wrote a very short statement in hopes of bringing public officials and common people back to good sense and rationality. We had the idea of putting it online and inviting others to sign. We were racing against time because there were several interviews coming up. Lucio Saverio-Eastman, now with Brownstone, skipped a nights’ sleep to create the website. He tells the story here.
The blowback began within hours. It was really something to behold. Twitter accounts came out of nowhere to smear the document and its producers and the institution that hosted the event where the scientists explained their thinking. The calumnies and attacks were coming in so quickly that it was impossible to respond. The website itself was subject to open and admitted sabotage, with fake names. That required some fast patches and new levels of security.
It was a storm of frenzy the likes of which I had never seen. It’s one thing to object to a point of view but this was next-level. The hit pieces were pouring out of huge venues, almost as if they had been ordered from the top. Much later we found out that they had in fact been ordered: Francis Collins, the head of National Institutes of Health, called for a “quick and devastating takedown” of the document.
When that revelation came out, it didn’t make much sense to me. I get that this view had become what seemed to be a minority view but how do you “take down” the public health wisdom of one hundred years? The GBD was not the outlying position; the lockdowns were the radical move that never had a scientific justification. They were just imposed as if they were normal even though everyone knew they were not.
Lately we’ve been flooded with more information that starts to make sense of this puzzle.
As Rajeev Venkayya had told me the previous April, the whole point of the lockdowns was to wait for the vaccine. Frankly, I didn’t believe him at the time. I should have. After all, it was he who had invented the idea of lockdowns, worked for the Gates Foundation as head of its vaccine advisory, and then moved to a vaccine company thereafter. If anyone knew the real plan, it was he.
In the meantime, we now know there was then being built a vast censorship machinery involving the federal government, outposts as universities such as Stanford and Johns Hopkins, tech companies, and media embeds in all important outlets. It was not only being built but being deployed in order to craft the public mind in ways that would maintain the spirit of fear and the reality of lockdowns until the magic inoculation arrived. The whole plot sounds straight out of a bad Hollywood movie, but it was a plot being enacted in real life.
Think here of the timing of the Great Barrington Declaration. It came out barely a month before the election, after which the plan from the top was to release the vaccine, presumably after the sitting president was defeated. That way the new president could get the credit for the distribution stage and thus would the pandemic end.
The underlying dynamic of the timing of the release of the GBD – we had no clue at all that this was going on – worked utterly to subvert the entire censorship regime. The perception too was that this document would undermine vaccine acceptance. At that point in the great plan, all focus was on molding the public mind toward mass jabbing. That meant cultivating among the population the appearance of expert unity.
“Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed,” said the document.
“As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.”
Further, “the most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk.”
Reading those words today, in light of what we now know, we can start to make sense of the sheer panic at the top. Natural infection and immunity? Can’t talk about that. The end of the pandemic is not “dependent upon” the vaccine? Can’t say that either. Go back to normal for all populations without significant medical risk? Unsayable.
You need only reflect on the astounding barrage of vaccine propaganda that began immediately upon release, the attempt to mandate it on the whole population and now the addition of the Covid jab to the childhood schedule even though children are of near zero risk. This is all about product sales, as you can easily discern from the unrelenting ad videos made by the new head of the CDC.
As for the product effectiveness itself, there seems to be no end to the ensuing problems. It was not a sterilizing inoculation, and it appears that the manufacturers always knew that. It could not stop infection or transmission. The hazards associated with it were also known early on. Every day, the news gets more grim: in the latest revelation, the CDC seems to have kept two separate books on vaccine injury, one public (showing harms without precedent but which has been deprecated by officials) and one yet to be released.
Even now, therefore, there is every effort being made to keep a lid on what surely ranks as the greatest failure/scandal in the modern history of public health. Some brave experts called it out before the whole calamity unfolded even further.
The problem with the Great Barrington Declaration was not that it was not true. It’s that – unbeknownst to its authors – it flew in the face of one of the most funded and elaborate industrial plots in the history of governance. Just a few sentences sneaking through the wall of censorship they were carefully constructing was enough to threaten and eventually dismantle the best laid plans.
Sometimes just telling the plain truth in well-timed ways is all it takes.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 23:00 - Housing, Credit Data Spotlight China's Slump
Housing, Credit Data Spotlight China’s Slump
By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
When President Xi Jinping meets his US counterpart Joe Biden this week, he will have relatively little evidence to cite while talking up the Chinese economy. In fact, the latest credit and housing data shows growth is again losing momentum.
Data on Monday showed China’s credit growth remained steady in October, thanks to a jump in government bond sales, which helped mask the underlying weakness of the private sector. Even so, the flow of aggregate financing still fell short of economists’ forecasts. Those figures made clear that without the government stepping up borrowing, credit growth – the lubricant greasing the wheels of the economy — would have collapsed.
In addition, M1, a measure of money supply that includes corporate demand-deposit, grew only 1.9% from a year earlier, suggesting that nominal GDP is struggling. The weak M1 growth likely reflects the continued liquidity stress of property developers, according to Morgan Stanley.
Historically, the housing market, via borrowing from developers and home buyers, had been one of the main drivers of China’s credit growth. But despite various easing measures, the housing slump deepened.
Since the start of November, average new home sales volume in 21 major cities tumbled 44% from the pre-pandemic level in 2019, compared with a 31% decline in October, according to Nomura economist Lu Ting. That is similar to the pace of contraction in July, before Beijing started a new round of easing measures to stabilize the property sector.
The housing market isn’t the only place where consumers are reluctant to spend money. During Singles’ Day, the annual bargains extravaganza in days around Nov. 11, the total gross merchandise value (GMV) sold through the e-commerce platforms edged up 2% from the same shopping event last year, according to Nomura, citing data from Syntun, a third-party research firm. That marks a sharp slowdown from a growth pace of 14% in 2022.
All told, until housing market stabilize and consumer confidence rebounds, Beijing needs to do more to shore up the economy.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 22:40 - Fewer Americans Are Interested In Fighting Wars For The Regime
Fewer Americans Are Interested In Fighting Wars For The Regime
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
Good news: the Pentagon is having trouble meeting recruiting goals, and an increasingly small portion of the American public is interested in fighting wars for the regime.
It’s been apparent for several years now that the Pentagon is having serious trouble with recruitment.
In September, the New York Post reported that “Much of the military will fall short of recruitment goals by as much as 25% this year.”
2023 is the first time the Air Force has missed its recruiting goals since 1999.
Moreover, a Gallup poll in June found confidence in the military declined for a sixth consecutive year, to 60 percent.
It doesn’t look like a major war will induce most Americans to sign up either. For example, Newsweek reports today:
A poll by the research institute Echelon Insights of 1,029 likely voters, conducted between October 23-26, found that 72 percent of those asked would not be willing to volunteer to serve in the armed forces were America to enter a major conflict, compared with 21 percent who would. The remainder were unsure. The poll was conducted after Hamas led an unprecedented militant attack on Israel on October 7.
Note how the question is phrased. It’s not asking people if they would fight to defend their communities. Rather, the question is whether or not one would be willing to volunteer to fight in “a major conflict.” Few are apparently interested, and why should they be? It has become abundantly clear over the past 25 years that the elective wars fought by the US regime have nothing to do with the defense of Americans or their communities. The US bombing of Libya and Syria has had nothing to do with keeping Americans safe. The multi-decade wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had nothing to do with keeping Americans safe. After all, the US lost the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, with no invasion of the United States imminent as a result. In fact, those wars likely increased the danger to Americans by destabilizing the region—the US invasion made ISIS possible—and making more enemies for the US around the world.
Sadly, every American who died in those conflicts died for little except to enrich local warlord “allies” in those countries made rich by suitcases full of US taxpayer dollars.
In 2023, the “we’re fighting them over there so they don’t fight us here” slogan only works on the most gullible of Americans, and fewer than ever are falling for it. That worked well in 2001. Most have now caught on to the ruse.
On the other hand, it’s worth noting that a majority of Americans still say they’d volunteer to fight if the United States were actually invaded. Newsweek continues:
At the start of October, a survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted by J.L. Partners for the Daily Mail found that while an overall majority of Americans said they would die fighting for their country were the U.S. invaded…
Discerning potential recruits have figured out the reality which is that joining the military most likely means being shipped 10,000 miles away to do the bidding of wealthy arms dealers, White House officials, and uniformed politicians—known as Pentagon generals. At any time these political cliques could ask ordinary American soldiers to do any of the following:
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Provide security guarantees to the dictators of Saudi Arabia.
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Fight to prop up the Ukraine regime, known to be one of the most corrupt governments on earth.
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Fight in a war against Iran because some Washington interest groups don’t like that country.
Of course, most service members won’t ever be in combat. They’ll spend their time doing more mundane tasks—such as computer programming or logistics planning—to justify a defense budget that now nears a trillion dollars per year.
One thing that is clear to most, however, is that virtually none of this has anything to do with defending the United States from invasion, so most young people who have real talent, skills, and plans know they can contribute to the community is far more useful ways. Ordinary nurses, truckers, roofers, private-school teachers, and insurance salesmen do far more net good for their communities than any member of the military who spends his time guarding a hill of sand in Syria or protecting the dictators of Kuwait.
If the US military wants to see a return of enthusiasm for enlistment, there are some things they could do:
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End all foreign deployments of National Guard troops, and make the National Guard a strictly domestic defense force controlled by state governments.
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End all US military foreign deployment to any place where the US Congress has not formally declared war against the local regime.
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Stop fighting elective wars that have nothing to do with the defense of Americans in America.
Of course, doing those things would put significant obstacles in the way of the regimes that seeks to ever expand an de facto American global empire that reserves to itself the right to invade or bomb any country on earth at any time for any reason.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 22:20 -
- High Stakes And A Simple Choice: "I'm 94 Years Old & Saddened By What I See Happening To America"
High Stakes And A Simple Choice: “I’m 94 Years Old & Saddened By What I See Happening To America”
Authored by Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, via RealClear Wire,
I am 94 years old and like many of you, I am exhausted by politics and saddened by what I see happening to America. I had hoped it was time for me to move to the sidelines and let younger generations continue the fight to preserve America’s founding freedoms and values. But, like so many of us, I realized that I could not let myself walk away; the stakes are just too high.
We cannot let the America we see today be what we leave to our children and grandchildren. Many of our once-great cities have devolved into lawlessness with random violent attacks on innocent people, rampant looting, and large-scale homeless encampments. There are rarely consequences for the wrongdoers because George Soros-elected prosecutors across America refuse to prosecute them.
Moreover, our southern border is unprotected, and millions of people we know nothing about pour into our nation to receive care and benefits that we cannot afford to provide to our struggling military veterans. Worse, many of the border crossers may be gang members who commit violent crimes here. Schoolchildren across America cannot read, write, or do basic math, while our educational leaders tell us that they know better than parents how to raise our children. Working men and women are struggling to provide for their families and must raid their retirement funds just to feed, clothe, and take care of their children. These are just a few of the problems America is facing after three years of bad government policies. They cannot be our legacy.
This should not be a partisan issue. This should be an issue for all Americans – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – that I hope to reach with this op-ed. You enjoy the freedoms and values on which the nation was founded. Sadly, I see these freedoms and values being eroded today as government gets bigger and weaponized against its political opponents.
I wrote this op-ed because of my love for America, not for any financial gain or advantage. I have been retired for 30 years and spend my time engaged in philanthropic causes, with which I have committed to share 90% of my net worth. I was born here and can give testimony about The American Dream. I lost my job and was broke when I was 48 years old. A dear friend of mine suggested that my misfortune presented a great opportunity to build a small business based upon an idea I had shared with him. Only in America, the land of opportunity, could being without a job and broke be a great opportunity. In 1978, my partners and I built four hardware stores, and this small business grew and is known as The Home Depot. We could only have done this in America because of America’s system of free enterprise and pro-jobs growth government policies. The state of America today, especially record inflation, government over-regulation, and the problems of the last three years, would prevent my partners and I from succeeding as we have.
Part of our legacy must be passing on to future generations of Americans our founding freedoms and values, including The American Dream. We must change the current trajectory of the nation and solve the problems created in the last three years. We must also reject calls from some politicians to replace our free market system with big government socialism. Most of them seem to have never had a job outside of government. All they know is making government bigger and more intrusive in the lives of its citizens.
I wrote above that I wanted to sit on the sidelines of politics, but the stakes were too high for me just to walk away. The stakes are America’s path forward. Do we want to continue the perilous trajectory we are now on? I do not because it would be disastrous for all Americans except the political elite.
For Democrats, the choice is simple. If you feel that you are better off now than you were three years ago, you should vote for Joe Biden or whoever is the Democrat candidate. For Republicans, the choice is also simple. Let’s face it: Donald Trump is going to win the nomination. You should be doing all you can to ensure his winning the general election.
I understand the frustration of some of my Republican friends who do not like or are offended by things Donald Trump does and says. I, too, have been frustrated at times, but we cannot let his brash style be the reason we walk away from his otherwise excellent stewardship of the United States during his first term in office. Now is the time for unity to save The American Dream for future generations.
For these reasons, I endorse Donald J. Trump as the nominee of the Republican Party and as our next President. I endorse him not only because he has the best chance of winning the general election but because he is the best person to take on and dismantle the administrative state that is strangling America. The new war in the Middle East will present great challenges for the free world for some time, especially in keeping other terrorist groups or nations out of the conflict. This will require a president with the judgment, strength, decisiveness, and courage that Donald Trump displayed in his first term when he ordered the strike that killed the Iranian terrorist Gen. Qasem Soleimani and dissuaded Russia from invading Ukraine. Many, including myself, believe that Hamas would not have unleashed its barbarism and cruelty on Israel if Donald Trump was our president today. The reason is America’s enemies respect and, more importantly, fear Donald Trump’s judgment, strength, decisiveness, and courage. It is critical that America’s next leader have these attributes in the face of Hamas murdering innocent babies, old people, including Holocaust survivors, entire families; burning alive innocent people; raping women and young girls; and other unspeakable acts.
I urge my fellow Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to put their love for America above all else. I urge the Republican National Committee to end the Republican debates that only benefit ad makers and political consultants. They are unproductive and embarrassing.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 21:55 - Introducing ZeroHedge Live Debates: Laura Loomer Vs. Dave Smith In Wednesday Showdown Over Israel-Hamas War
Introducing ZeroHedge Live Debates: Laura Loomer Vs. Dave Smith In Wednesday Showdown Over Israel-Hamas War
Add this online event to your calendar:
Modern discourse has devolved into headlines and soundbites. Gone are the great debates of decades past, when luminaries such as Buckley and Vidal, Chomsky and Foucault, or Tucker and Carville spent the better part of an hour hashing out issues on the national stage. These unfiltered, pre-internet debates, untainted by self-serving echo chambers and the biased lens of corporate media, served to actually inform – not manipulate – the public, and shape official policy.
In the same vein, and in hopes of short-circuiting the endless media noise, ZeroHedge is going back to basics with a series of live, spontaneous, unscripted and interactive debates, with no commercial breaks, which we hope will inspire discussion on a wide variety of controversial topics, ranging from war to finance, to unsustainable debt, to crypto, to society and religion, and everything in between.
Why? Because we realize that only free, uncensored debate can crush bad ideas before they evolve and lead to social and economic misery, suffering and death… because only dialogue can save the world.
Imagine a world where those who lie and lead us into wars do not go on to shape national dialogue through establishment outlets which exist to control narratives – providing revolving-door cover for their benefactors and ideological allies. We can counter this when the marketplace of ideas is alive and thriving. When it’s not, when the market has been manipulated and curbed for the benefit of those in power, that’s when catastrophic outcomes become inevitable.
Ultimately, exposing ideas to public scrutiny is the only way to separate the wheat from the chaff, to distinguish good from bad.
Our first debate features Dave Smith and Laura Loomer, who will discuss the Israel-Hamas war. We will also dedicate a portion of the debate to responding directly to questions submitted by our readers on X/Twitter.
The winner of the debate will be chosen by you, the readers, through a poll immediately following the debate.
As this novel ZeroHedge project moves forward (please bear with any glitches especially in the beginning), we seek to collaborate with anyone interested in rational debate on one of the largest free-speech platforms in the world – including members of the Intellectual Dark Web, Munk, and others in the alternative media space who wish to amplify their message and reach a huge audience.
Tune in on Wednesday, Nov 15 at 7:30 PM ET for the Inaugural, interactive, and commercial-free ZeroHedge Debate, which will be broadcast live on X and on ZeroHedge.
Add this online event to your calendar:
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 21:52 - Trump Will File For Mistrial In NY Fraud Case 'Soon,' Attorney Says
Trump Will File For Mistrial In NY Fraud Case ‘Soon,’ Attorney Says
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team will “very soon” file for a mistrial in the New York fraud case to address a range of “issues,” said his attorney on Sunday.
Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom with attorneys Christopher Kise and Alina Habba during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York City, on Nov. 6, 2023. (Brendan McDermid-Pool/Getty Images) Attorney Alina Habba was asked during a Fox News appearance about whether they will file a mistrial, she said it would come “soon” and “very soon.” She added the former president is concerned about the judge and the clerk in the trial, saying that a gag order prevented her from issuing a full response.
“I can tell you that we will be filing papers to address all of those issues,” Ms. Habba told the outlet. “The problem is, with all of these things, such as filing a motion for recusal, which we have done twice, is that the judge has to be the one that decides—is he going to recuse himself? Does he feel that there was a mistrial?”
Because it is a “bench trial” and one judge, Arthur Engoron, is involved, he has to make those determinations, the attorney added. “At this point, I don’t have any reason to believe he shouldn’t after what we have learned, if it’s true,” she said.
On Monday, the former president’s legal team is expected to present their case in New York, where President Trump faces a $250 million lawsuit that was brought about by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
She has alleged that the Trump Organization engaged in fraudulent activities over a decade, while accusing the former president, his sons, and the real estate firm of falsely inflating the value of its assets. The former president and his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, have denied wrongdoing, while President Trump has said it’s part of a politically motivated bid to derail his third presidential campaign.
In a separate interview with Fox News on Sunday, Ms. Habba claimed that the Trump Organization can prove that no lenders were harmed and were paid on time, with interest, and made money. Instead, she added, it is because Ms. James wanted to make a name for herself, making note of a statement the attorney general had made during her first campaign about prosecuting President Trump.
Judge Arthur Engoron presides over former President Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York Supreme Court, on Oct. 3, 2023. (Dave Sanders/Pool Photo via AP) “She should really dismiss this case, it’s making her look bad, frankly, and the city needs her attention elsewhere,” Ms. Habba added, referring to Ms. James. Another problem they “have is the judge is the one that’s going make those decisions and he’s proven himself to be quite motivated by the other side,” she also said.
Late last week, a top House Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a filed an ethics complaint against Judge Engoron, alleging he has displayed a “clear judicial bias” against President Trump and his company. Her letter said that the judge has failed to honor President Trump’s due process rights under the U.S. Constitution and made note of the former president’s status as a clear GOP presidential front-runner for the 2024 race.
“I filed an official judicial complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron for his inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance in New York’s disgraceful lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization,” Mrs. Stefanik said in a statement to several news outlets. “Americans are sick and tired of the blatant corruption by radical Leftist judges in New York. All New Yorkers must speak out against the dangerous weaponized lawfare against President Trump.”
So far, Judge Engoron has not issued a public comment about the letter. Before the trial started, the judge ruled in September that he believes the Trump Organization defrauded banks and insurers by inflating the value of its assets, ordering that some of the former president’s business licenses be rescinded as punishment.
“In the defendants’ world, rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies,” Judge Engoron wrote in a 35-page ruling. “That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”
However, some real estate professionals have cast doubt on the judge’s ruling, namely regarding President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Judge Engoron ruled that President Trump over-valued Mar-a-Lago by a significant margin.
“Appraisal values and market values are just not the same thing. It’s a well-known fact,” Eli Beracha, chair of the School of Real Estate at Florida International University, told CNN last month. “That’s especially true for properties that are unique. And it’s very easy to argue this is a unique property.”
About a month after his ruling, a New York appeals court judge temporarily halted the process of breaking up President Trump’s businesses. The appeals court judge, however, rejected President Trump’s attempt to dismiss the fraud trial.
Other than the fraud case, the former president separately faces criminal charges in Georgia, Washington, D.C., Florida, and New
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 21:40 - New York's Hunger Games Governor Is Now "Collecting Data" From "Surveillance Efforts" On Social Media To Monitor "Hate Speech"
New York’s Hunger Games Governor Is Now “Collecting Data” From “Surveillance Efforts” On Social Media To Monitor “Hate Speech”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced threw off some serious Hunger Games vibes Monday, announcing that the state of New York has been ‘collecting data’ from social media platforms in order to combat “hate speech” following an alleged rise in antisemitic attacks.
The announcement came after Hochul met with the state’s Jewish leaders, local law enforcement and federal authorities.
“It’s painful to me as the governor of this great state — that has been known for its diversity, and how we celebrate different cultures, different religions, different viewpoints — it’s painful to see the cruelty with which New Yorkers are treating each other,” she said, not letting a crisis go to waste.
“Everywhere from college campuses, to our streets, to schools, to playgrounds; even as they’re entering their houses of worship,” Hochul said, noting that she “immediately deployed the State Police to protect our synagogues and yeshivas and mosques and any other place that could be susceptible to hate crimes or violence.”
Kathy Hochul announced that New York is “collecting data” from “surveillance efforts” on social media
Hochul says the social media analysis unit will contact people who commit “hate speech”
This is to “ensure safety” Even though they got rid of Guiliani’s Stop and Frisk which… pic.twitter.com/QjlPiXfRpz
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) November 13, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
According to the NYPD, hate incidents against Jews have increased nearly 331% in New York City since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
And after meeting with top Jews in NY, Hochul plans “to catch incitement to violence” and “direct threats to others” via social media surveillance.
“We’re very focused on the data we’re collecting from surveillance efforts – what’s being said on social media platforms. And we have launched an effort to be able to counter some of the negativity and reach out to people when we see hate speech being spoken about on online platforms,” she said, adding that New Yorkers “should feel they have to hide any indications of what their religious beliefs are.”
Some definitions of ‘hate speech’ and ‘incitement to violence,’ plus a list of who’s judging speech to be hateful, would be nice.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 21:20 - Victor Davis Hanson: The Damage Of The 'White Privilege' Smear
Victor Davis Hanson: The Damage Of The ‘White Privilege’ Smear
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
One of the many satanic paradoxes of the Third Reich’s architecture of the Final Solution was the requirement – mandated after the 1939 outbreak of the war – that Jews anywhere under German rule or occupation had to wear a yellow badge or armband with the Star or David.
Yet was not all this elaborate bureaucratic need for identification embarrassing to the Nazi apparat?
After all, if Nazi doctrine about supposedly manifest Aryan “racial” superiority – Nordic looks and build, superior intelligence, stable disposition – were so persuasive, then why the need for Jews to identify themselves?
In contrast, the Star-of David IDs were prima facie proof that the entire bankrupt Nazi project was based on the unspoken fear that millions of Jews were indistinguishable in all respects from other Europeans.
In other words, on the fascist right, anti-Semitism was predicated on the pseudo-science that Jews were not European and thus somehow racially inferior. Yet currently, the entire industry of anti-Semitic hatred has flipped, from Jews as toxic non-whites to Jews as toxic whites. The two common denominators of racial obsession and hating Jews remain the same.
One of the key reasons leftwing anti-Semites have been so effective at galvanizing campus hatred of Israel, and by association of Jews in general, is their careful effort to brand themselves DEI victims why tarring Jews with the empty white supremacy slur.
Accordingly, Jews and Israel now supposedly enjoy toxic white privilege.
They are libeled as veritable white supremacists illegitimately in the Middle East to colonize “Palestine,” and as European imperialists picking up the mantle of the earlier 19th century British and French—as if a prior 400 years of Ottoman imperialism in the Middle East never occurred.
As now-privileged white victimizers, contemporary Jews are not seen as victims of the Holocaust, explaining the comfortable alliance between Islamist Holocaust deniers and the DEI crowd.
It was no accident that a racist BLM on news of the October 7 massacres quickly issued posters glorifying Hamas hang-gliding murderers.
It was no surprise that DEI czars and professors in various ethnic and race studies programs proved the most prominent on campus in damning Israel and its Jewish citizens as racists. And who was shocked when university administrators—the cowardly MIT campus is a good example—simply warned Jews of no-go zones, rather than ensured there were no such zones anywhere on campus for anyone?
Jews seem to be collateral damage from the damning of an entire group of people, namely white Americans and Europeans. In a society that is supposedly wedded to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dictum that we should be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin, it is shocking how the racist DEI and woke industries have been given a complete pass to castigate and demonize an entire group, without any concern for individual characteristics, or for class, religious, or ethnic differences.
Indeed, white is as sloppy a term as Hispanic. Just as third generation Cuban-American professionals have almost no intrinsic ethnic, political, class, or often even linguistic affinities with impoverished Oaxacans who just crossed illegally into America—and vice versa—so too a white male from rural America working as a welder in the Ozarks or a logger in the Sierra Nevada has zero solidarity with a white Bay Area techie at Google or an Ivy League legacy preppie screaming “from the river to the sea” in Harvard Yard.
But “white” is not just a ridiculous construct that ignores the multiplicities of European ethnic and religious fault lines, the vast differences in “white” class, income, and politics, and the increasing frequency of whites marrying non-whites. When joined with the tired epithets “privilege,” “supremacy,” and “rage,” the result grows even more incoherent and sinister.
Is proof of the privilege of “whites” that their life expectancy is lower than Hispanics and Asians?
A suicide rate higher than blacks, Asians, and Hispanics?
Dying in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq at double their numbers in the general population?
An inordinate percentage of fentanyl deaths?
A current percentage of whites in Ivy League freshman classes of 20-40 percent, despite making up 55 percent of the youth demographic?
Why does “white rage” not result in whites being overrepresented as perpetrators of “hate crimes,” as are Latinos and blacks? Or in relatively rare interracial crimes, why are blacks far more likely to assault or kill whites than vice versa? In the DEI lexicon of reductionist stereotypes, is there a term “black rage” that reflects FBI statistics on hate or interracial crimes?
Woke and DEI fads have created entire anti- “white privilege” industries.
One result was the epidemic of careerism-inspired and media-fed hoaxes, such as the Duke Lacrosse lie, the Covington Kids myth, and the Jussie Smollett fiasco.
All were predicated on the idea the white male smear would alone obviate the need for evidence—and would provide exemption when the fakers were exposed.
Another bastard child of the “white privilege” myth was the ironic but pathetic effort of whites to fake a non-white identity to win privileges in hiring, admissions, and status.
What, after all, drove the transitioning of Sen. Elizabeth Warren to declare herself the first “native American” professor of law at Harvard, or careerist professor Ward Churchill to outfit himself in buckskin and beads—not to mention the famous Rachel Dolezal, former head of the NAACP in Spokane, Washington?
Identity fakery is traditionally an empirical guide to privilege, or otherwise nonwhites would be transitioning to white status, as in the segregationist and overtly racist days of the Old South.
In that regard, why did the New York Times dub Hispanic, half-Peruvian George Zimmerman “White Hispanic,” when they had never used that phrase for any other person, even though two thirds of “Hispanic” Americans self-identify as white? Because it was an acceptable affront in demonizing Zimmerman, but would have been considered a racist slander against another Hispanic American?
A hallmark of the white-privilege slander industry is the one-way application of “disproportionality,” or the idea that coveted or celebrity billets must reflect demographics.
Such institutionalized discrimination is now applied in crude fashion throughout companies and universities, but not when inconvenient. In professional sports, where meritocracy is deemed essential and whites are “underrepresented,” or in recording contracts, or even in the US postal service, there is no such sin in any group’s overrepresentation.
Another dividend of the blanket white privilege/supremacy slur is the racial shakedown industry. The BLM movement in the wake of George Floyd’s death ended up extorting millions of dollars from guilty or scared corporations. The vast majority of donations ended up unaccounted for, but likely enriched the founding grifters of BLM.
Ibram X. Kendi earned lucrative fees and honoraria espousing “anti-racism” and founded an “anti-racism” academic center that produced no tangible research. All that and more followed from his academic mish-mash of writings justifying racism against whites to “stop racism.”
The industry of white demonization also plays a role in the drastic reductions in U.S. armed forces recruitment.
The Pentagon insists that labor shortages, obesity, criminality, gang affiliations, or drugs explain their current alarming dearth of recruits.
But the drop-off in white rural and suburban males is demonstrable, and the reason is most likely their weariness with constant woke hectoring and discrimination.
Such pandering was on display when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley in his June 2021 testimony to Congress pontificated about ferreting out “white rage” and “white privilege” in the ranks—despite providing no evidence or data to back up his white bias and racism allegations.
Indeed, the Pentagon publicly quotes in detail the racial makeup of almost every branch and rank of service—except the disproportionately-white demographics of combat deaths, which are considered taboo and inherently macabre and “divisive.”
The DEI virus and the incessant “white privilege” stereotyping infect all areas of American life, and have rendered our society obsessed and hypocritical, if not incoherent as it equates everything from meritocracy to punctuality to toxic “whiteness.”
The normal rules of media sensationalism dictate that when any law enforcement officer lethally shoots an unarmed suspect, especially at a distance that posed no direct threat to the shooter, the name of the officer is immediately released.
But when a capitol officer shot and killed the unarmed January 6 protestor Ashli Babbitt for the likely misdemeanor of entering a broken window in the Capitol, his name and identity were immediately hidden from the public for months.
The same coverup was at work in the suppression of the manifesto and diaries of the self-declared trans mass shooter in Nashville—given that current leaks reveal one of her motivations was sheer hatred of what she deemed “white privileged” children, or, as she also called them, “crackers.”
If New York Prosecutor Letitia James had been a white male conservative activist prosecutor, seeking fame and an upward political career in his state by indicting Barack Obama in an election year for some suspicious financial transactions or sweetheart real estate con from years ago, he would have been denounced as racist.
And what if said prosecutor was on record screaming, not the now socially acceptable and common slogan “too pale, too male, and too stale,” but something about the overrepresentation of the “not pale, not male, but stale?” Would the result be the summary dismissal of an embarrassing, superfluous, and racist writ by a grandstanding, incoherent political hack?
Inconsistency is a final hallmark of “white privilege” ideology.
What characterized the exemptions given to the summer of 2020 riots—with 35 dead, 1,500 law enforcement officers injured, $2 billion in damages, and a courthouse, police precinct, and historic church torched—was their pretense that white privilege had resulted in George Floyd’s death and anti-racist violence was justified.
Black Lives Matter therefore was to be immune from consequences in its “rage” against “white supremacy.”
During the lockdowns, when minor infractions of the quarantine warranted everything from social ostracism to jailing, thousands of health-care professionals—once the most adamant in insisting on the shutdowns—hit the streets claiming that they were marching against white privilege and therefore exempt from the very protocols they had inflicted on others.
By contrast, both the peaceful protestors and the rioters of January 6 were alike dubbed “white supremacists” and “insurrectionists,” and given harsh sentences.
Some no doubt deserved such arrest and punishment, but the single-day event was hardly comparable to the 120 days of rioting, looting, arson, and killing associated with the Antifa/BLM-engineered 2020 riots.
The low bar for “insurrection,” of course, was white-privilege-inspired.
Note the contrast with the recent “pro-Palestine” demonstrations.
Ostensibly these protests should have qualified for all the new requirements of “insurrection” established by the official responses to January 6.
Some of them entered the Capitol rotunda, where protests are forbidden. They interrupted a session of Congress, yelling and disrupting congressional hearings. They defaced government property, smearing fake-blood on the White House stone wall and swarming iconic statues. The genocide of Jews was the theme of their “river to the sea” monotonous chants.
And to make the analogy with the January 6 “insurrection” complete, a prominent politician, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, delivered a speech to the protestors prior to their entry into the Capitol. In fact, she too implicitly fired up the volatile crowd by calling for the destruction of Israel by demanding a Palestine “from the river to the sea.” Yet in contrast to the January 6 protestors, there were very few arrests and likely will be fewer convictions.
In sum, for years the left has been exempted for what in normal circumstance would be a cardinal civil rights sin. They demonize and stereotype an entire group solely on the basis of their skin color, attributing to them collective negative characteristics that trump all individual differences by presenting them as if frozen in a time warp of the pre-1960s.
Anti-Semitism is on the rise and fortified by the campus DEI and woke crowd.
Hate crimes are soaring. Violent crime in general is on the upswing. Military recruitment is dropping. Trust in the media is plunging. Anti-Semites are proud and not ashamed of acting out their hatred. The progressive woke agenda is imploding.
The one common denominator is the now-acceptable notion that it is not just permissible but encouraged to smear without evidence over two-thirds of Americans as the sole beneficiaries of “privilege,” prone to rage, and conspiring to ensure racial supremacy—all lies.
But they are lies nevertheless as useful to their promulgators as they are toxic and incendiary to a multiracial consensual society if not addressed, refuted, and discredited.
It is past time for Americans to reject all racial stereotyping and the racist careerists who leverage it – before we all descend into tribal nihilism.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 21:00 - Retailers In Boston Are Rushing Out Of The City And Into Suburbia
Retailers In Boston Are Rushing Out Of The City And Into Suburbia
In what might be the most least surprising news of the week, retailers are ditching cities and moving to the suburbs. It’s a trend we’ve already seen in places like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.
Now, it’s taking place in Boston. According to a new report from Bisnow, the retail sector in Boston’s suburbs is experiencing a revival, with locals spending less time traveling to the city center and seeking more shopping and dining alternatives in their own neighborhoods.
The report says that retailers are adapting to changing consumer trends by moving towards suburban areas. However, this shift is bypassing traditional enclosed malls in favor of suburban main streets and open-air lifestyle centers, as reported by brokers and landlords.
Bisnow notes that the high demand has led to lower vacancy rates, enabling property owners to increase rents and transfer expenses to tenants. Simultaneously, this trend is challenging for new businesses seeking to establish themselves in these areas, prompting developers to consider increasing supply.
Bialow Real Estate CEO Corey Bialow commented: “The suburbs have been on fire. I’ve never seen such a landlord-favored market. It’s become the norm that if any good space comes up in a strong suburban shopping center, there’s four or five offers right out of the box.”
He added: “As people are spending more time at home instead of going to lunch down on Boylston Street, they’re having lunch around the corner from their house in downtown Newton or downtown Beverly. We’re just seeing a lot of these small downtowns re-emerge, which is good for the community.”
Boston’s consumer behavior shift will become evident in the upcoming holiday season, expected to be robust. Deloitte’s Holiday Retail Survey indicates Boston shoppers will spend an average of $1,883, up 16% from last year and 14% above the national average. This expenditure includes non-gift items like personal clothing and home furnishings, with 81% of respondents planning such purchases, the report says.
The pandemic’s impact on work and commute patterns has shifted retail hotspots from downtown areas like Newbury Street and the Seaport to suburban town centers. These New England main streets in Newton, Brookline, Dedham, Arlington, Wellesley, and Lexington, known for their quaint low-rise buildings and local retail, are in high demand but face low vacancy rates. For instance, Newton Centre has less than a 2% vacancy, making it challenging for new businesses to enter these bustling retail corridors.
Whitney Gallivan, managing director at Boston Realty Advisors, added: “There’s certainly been a flock to the suburbs. With the access to the work-from-home environment, as well as hybrid workplaces, I think more and more people are able to gravitate further away from the city.”
“Young families and young people want their suburbs and want their town to have more. They want the fitness concept, they want the fast-casual place to grab food, they want a brewery. We are starting to see the suburbs light up,” Gallivan added.
Judy Cazeau, associate retail broker at Avison Young’s Boston office, added: “You’re looking at astronomical numbers to get your storefront running. I’ve seen several landlords, even in markets that aren’t even in Boston, asking for 5% annual increases, and it’s kind of jaw-dropping.”
She concluded: “Cities and towns are just becoming a little more hip. They’re investing in their smaller communities and small businesses.”
You can read Bisnow’s full report here.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 20:40 - "This Is The End-Process That We've Been Softened Up For…"
“This Is The End-Process That We’ve Been Softened Up For…”
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
“I hope you realise the ideological brain worms possessing group narcissists preclude condemnation of anything done in the name of the cause no matter how evil. The ends justify the means — no matter how depraved. This is why you can’t reason with them. Ideology binds and blinds.”
– Aimee Therese on X
The sun is low on the horizon all day long now, and darkness creeps in like a home invasion of your mind. Demons descend through a red and black sky and no help is on the way. Our country is so mentally hog-tied trying to unravel the twisted events of just a few years past that it has no mojo left for rationally anticipating the events of just a few years ahead. Have you ever felt more alone?
This is the end-process that we’ve been softened up for: the inability to think and plan. The gigantic “intel community” evolved from something intended to act as sensitized antennae for detecting threats against our republic into what is now a remorseless mind-fucking operation against our republic. That word, by the way, derives from the Latin res publica: the public thing, a society that literally belongs to the people, who decide its affairs. Now, so much is mysteriously decided for us, and not in any good way.
It’s no wonder more than half the country can’t think straight, and it’s a whopping irony that this group comprises most of our country’s thinking class —the bureaucratic managers, the professors, the curators, the editors, the reporters lost in mis-reporting. This group used to play a critical role in the res publica: to earnestly determine what is true and what is real, and to present us with a way of understanding all that so we can think and plan. They appear to be captured by malign forces. The scribes are hard at work defending every act of official malice. The dishonesty at work is epic. You need a decoder ring to keep your mind right.
You are probably desperate to understand why this is happening — how, for instance, a blatantly corrupt and ignorant attorney general in New York state can get away with bringing a politically-motivated nonsense case against the leading presidential candidate in a courtroom ruled by a judge who acts like a jester in a Shakespeare play. New York AG Letitia James gets away with it because the flagship organ of the thinking class, The New York Times, is in on the gambit. But why?
We struggle to sort this out.
One explanation is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has infiltrated the management of our country at every level so as to eventually conquer our territory for its resources while eliminating or enslaving the population?
Surely, the CCP has made significant inroads, starting with the successful bribery and compromise of “Joe Biden,” probably other elected officials, too, in placing many CCP agents in the vast array of university research departments, NGOs, PACs, and lobbying gangs, and extending to the purchase of vital businesses and farmland to prepare the gameboard for eventual takeover. My opinion is they’ve accomplished a good bit of this, but it’s not the answer you’re seeking.
Another popular idea out there is that a sinister cartel or cabal composed of the World Economic Forum, the WHO, the EU, and a claque of super-rich megalomaniacs (e.g., Bill Gates, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg) trying to usher in the so-called “transhumanist” next chapter of human history.
This scheme is so full of preposterous contradictions that it remains hard to take seriously. The main one is that their engineered collapse of techno-industrial civilization would destroy the very network of complex systems that might support their supposed cyborg nirvana, especially a reliable electric grid. Secondarily, collapse would result not in centralizing power but just the opposite, re-localizing power away from the center, negating the possibility of global rule.
A third theory is that the USA has somehow gone “communist.”
The universities have, for sure, but in a most half-assed way imaginable that presents more as a case of collective mental illness than a true political ideology. Higher education has lately enjoyed stupendous subsidies and revenues that funnel down to the miserable cat-ladies who have taken over the faculty department chairs, plus the deans and president’s offices. The Niagara of grants and lavish salaries has funded the dissemination of incoherent cat-lady ideas, such as the foundational notion that all men are hopelessly defective except the ones who pretend to be women or vice-versa. Such postulations lead to ridiculous actions like the drag queen story hour, or men competing in women’s swim competitions. These actions-and-effects are “communistic” only insofar as the induce some Marxist-Gramscian overthrow of normality (i.e., a coherent cultural consensus) in order to usher in the utopia of perfect social equity, where nobody is allowed to do better than anybody else — that is, a society of cat-ladies (plus men pretending to be cat-ladies), all equally miserable.
Are the editors and reporters of The New York Times all bought off by the CCP, Soros, Gates? I doubt it. That’s not what’s going on here. And the same goes for the Intel Community, much of the rest of the executive branch of the US government, the various “blue” state and blue city governments, and the great social media companies. Are all the employees of these vast bureaucracies dedicated communists? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha….
What’s going on is that all these players are now desperate to evade the blame for and consequences of their many crimes. Hundreds of top bureaucrats and elected officials will be liable for prosecution for monstrous acts of perfidy and treason against our republic and its citizens. The New York Times and other compliant news outlets that lied about everything from Russian collusion to election fraud to the safety of Covid-19 vaccines to protect their fumbling allies in power are desperate to save their reputations — though that will be impossible as the truth eventually unfolds, and it will. Their knowing lies did real and lasting harm to the public thing.
Take heart in these darkening days. The light will not be extinguished. It will return, as everything does in this universe of endless cycles. A nation turned upside down will find its feet again. The wicked will answer. The counter-revolution has begun. You are not alone.
* * *
Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 20:20 - 'QAnon Shaman' Jacob Chansley Launches 2024 Congressional Bid
‘QAnon Shaman’ Jacob Chansley Launches 2024 Congressional Bid
Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Jacob Chansley, the Arizona man who entered the halls of Congress shirtless while wearing patriotic face paint and horned fur headgear on Jan. 6, 2021, has filed paperwork to run for Congress as a Libertarian.
Jacob Chansley outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Brent Stirton/Getty Images) According to the filings, Mr. Chansley is seeking to fill the seat currently held by Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), who announced in October that she won’t be running for reelection in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. The congresswoman’s term ends in January 2025.
Others seeking the seat include Blake Masters, a Republican who lost to Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly in last year’s election, and Republican state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was labeled an “insurrectionist” by Arizona Democrats for being present at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington.
Mr. Chansley, better known as “QAnon Shaman,” was among the first batch of the “Stop the Steal” rally attendees to enter the Capitol. Images of him sitting in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair in the Senate became iconic representations of that day, when thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered in the nation’s capital, urging Congress to halt the certification of electoral college votes from states they believed had serious problems of election integrity.
Jacob Chansley, also known as the “QAnon Shaman,” inside the U.S. Senate chamber after the U.S. Capitol was breached on Jan. 6, 2021. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) After he was charged with obstructing an official proceeding, Mr. Chansley pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 41 months in prison. In May, after serving a prison sentence of 29 months, including two months in a halfway house, he was released from custody and began a 36-month period of supervised release.
New Footage Helps Chansley
Mr. Chansley’s release came after Fox News in March publicized clips of surveillance camera footage in and around the Capitol complex on Jan. 6, 2021, on the prime-time program hosted by Tucker Carlson, who was fired from the media company two months later.
Among the footage was a clip showing Mr. Chansley walking alongside several U.S. Capitol Police officers who didn’t make any attempt to remove him from the building. At one point of the clip, an officer even opened a door to the Senate Chamber for Mr. Chansley before following the shirtless, American-flag-carrying man inside.
“The crowd was enormous. A small percentage of them were hooligans. They committed vandalism. You’ve seen their pictures again and again,” said Mr. Carlson, speaking of the “possibly thousands” of people who entered the Capitol over the course of two hours that day. “But the overwhelming majority weren’t. They were peaceful. They were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers.”
The footage prompted prominent public figures such as Elon Musk to call for Mr. Chansley’s release. The attorney representing the Arizona man also asked the court to vacate the prison sentence, arguing that the government violated his client’s constitutional rights by not handing over the potentially exculpatory footage.
“Because this material was favorable to Mr. Chansley for purposes of sentencing, and it was suppressed by the Government, Mr. Chansley’s due process rights were clearly violated by the failure to produce the CCTV camera video from inside the Capitol,” wrote his lawyer, William Shipley.
A Call for National Unity
In an interview with The Epoch Times after being released from prison, Mr. Chansley said he was being “targeted” while in custody in Washington.
“I experienced a certain level of prejudice, considering I was the guy in the horns, and they knew who I was,” he said of his 11-day stay in the Washington jail in February 2022, before being transferred to a facility in Alexandria, Virginia.
This experience, according to Mr. Chansley, allowed him to gain a deeper insight into America’s ideological polarization.
“The media sells outrage. They don’t sell truth,” he said. “And they never offer solutions. They only complain about the problem.”
He also said he believes that the government is “certainly corrupt on both sides of the aisle—Republicans and Democrats.”
“I think in America, we can actually agree on a whole lot more than we disagree on,” he told The Epoch Times.
He said he hopes to promote “a spiritual message of love, of peace, the power of love, the power of peace, the power of prayer, the power of forgiveness, the power of the truth.”
“That’s the only way we’re going to solve our problems,” he said.
Gary Bai contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 20:00 - Xi's Decision To 'Stay In Office For Life' Has Created Challenges: Hillary Clinton
Xi’s Decision To ‘Stay In Office For Life’ Has Created Challenges: Hillary Clinton
Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s life tenure has created not only political challenges at home but difficulties in the bilateral relationship with the United States, according to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton speaks onstage during the 22nd Annual Global Leadership Awards hosted by Vital Voices at The Kennedy Center in Washington on October 25, 2023. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Vital Voices Global Partnership) Mrs. Clinton’s comment at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore came as tensions between Beijing and Washington remain high, including over China’s military aggressions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea and the U.S. restrictions on high-end technologies exports and investment that has the risk of supping the communist regime’s military ambition.
The future of U.S.-China relations “really depends upon what Xi Jinping’s goals are,” Mrs. Clinton said at the summit via video link on Thursday.
“Once Xi Jinping decided to stay in office for life, that creates a lot of…challenges within their own system,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We’re seeing some of that with the removal of top officials, some of the economic problems in the Chinese economy, but it also creates a kind of chilling effect in terms of relations. “
“How do you deal with somebody who’s not going to be held accountable?“
Mr. Xi claimed a third term as the head of the state during the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament in March, completing the transition to the country’s most powerful chairman since Mao Zedong.
Now, he is poised to rule the country indefinitely. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has already cleared the way for that move, deleting the two-term limits on the country’s position of chairman from the regime’s Constitution in 2018.
While the position of the state chairman is a largely ceremonial role in China’s governing system—the main power coming from the role of Party chief — it’s the only post that Mr. Xi holds with term limits. The 70-year-old leader has two other titles: general secretary of the CCP and the chairman of the Central Military Commission that commends the Party’s military wing. Neither of them limits the tenures.
Mr. Xi, who became the state chairman a decade ago, has already stayed in power longer than his immediate predecessors—Jiang Zemin and then Hu Jintao — who stepped down after two five-year terms.
“Hu Jintao was a Chinese leader who decided he would not stay for life,” Mrs. Clinton said. “So there could be a constant renewing of both the Chinese government and, through that, the American relationship.”
Biden-Xi Meeting
Mrs. Clinton expected to see more coming out of the meeting between Mr. Xi and President Joe Biden at the sideline of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Fransico. The exchange on Nov. 15 will be the two leaders’ first in-person meeting in nearly a year amid growing friction between Beijing and Washington.
Mrs. Clinton said there has been “a real chill” from China about American business operating in the country. At the same time, there are pressures from the U.S. Congress to counter the threat posed by communist China, she said.
The Biden-Xi engagement, according to Mrs. Clinton, created “a terrific opportunity” for the world’s two largest economies to “reset the table.”
According to China’s foreign ministry, Mr. Xi will visit the United States from Nov. 14 through Nov. 17, the first trip in more than six years.
Mr. Xi’s upcoming U.S. trip came as geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington further dented foreign investors’ confidence in the country amid domestic economic woes. The real estate sector once contributing to nearly one-third of China’s GDP, is on the edge of collapse, threatening the savings of millions of middle-class families when the youth unemployment rate hits a record high.
Western businesses’ confidence in the country has dropped to the lowest point in decades, according to two recent surveys from China’s American and European business lobbying groups.
Concerns cited by the report from the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai include the tensions with the West, and the regime’s crackdown on foreign business. Officials have slapped Mintz, a U.S. due diligence firm, with a $1.5 million fine in a security crackdown after police raided its Beijing office and detained five of its local employees earlier this year.
Apart from Mintz, Chinese police have raided the offices of consultancy Capvision, questioned employees at U.S. due diligence Bain, and detained staff from Japanese drug maker Astellas.
The European Union Chamber of Commerce, in China’s paper, attributes investors’ sluggish confidence to the regime’s tightening control over perceived threats in data, national security, and espionage. In July, the updated anti-espionage law came into force. The legislation expanded the definition of espionage to include “all documents, data, materials, or items related to national security and interests,” but did not specify what falls under national security, adding to concerns among business leaders.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 19:40 - Flying Taxi Spotted In Lower Manhattan
Flying Taxi Spotted In Lower Manhattan
One of Joby Aviation’s flying taxis – or electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft – was spotted on a helicopter pad in Lower Manhattan.
A Sunday post by Joby on social media platform X showed the flying taxi surrounded by office towers but did not mention the location.
— Joby Aviation (@jobyaviation) November 13, 2023
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Dow Jones reporter Allen Root posted on X a photo Monday morning showing the eVTOL on the edge of a helipad in NYC.
Root said, “eVTOL getting ready to fly in NYC on a chilly, clear Monday.”
$JOBY eVTOL getting ready to fly in NYC on a chilly, clear Monday pic.twitter.com/rtruRX1epu
— Allen Root (@DowJonesAl) November 13, 2023
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We’ve all seen Dubai and other cities in the East commit to using flying taxis, but very little activity in the US.
NYC could be preparing for future flying taxi services, potentially displacing Uber helicopters as the FAA prepares for the first crewed flying taxi flights by 2027.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 19:20 - UofA Profs: Hamas Not Terrorists, Just An Anti-Zionist "Resistance" Group
UofA Profs: Hamas Not Terrorists, Just An Anti-Zionist “Resistance” Group
Authored by Dave Huber via TheCollegeFix.com,
A pair of University of Arizona education professors was recorded telling a “Cultural Pluralism for Young Children” class that Hamas is not comprised of terrorists, but is a “resistance” group merely opposed to Zionism.
Rebecca Lopez and Rebecca Zapien (pictured above), both of whom teach “teaching, learning & sociocultural studies,” initially appear to differ somewhat in their views in the audio obtained by the X account Israel War Room.
But not for long.
One of them concedes that Hamas representatives appear to be “like, speaking, like very antisemitic,” but is countered by her peer who says “they’re probably anti-Zionist, which, again, is about the Israeli state.”
“Antisemitism,” the second professor continues, “is different than being anti-Zionist.”
The first professor then claims the Hamas “movement” is about how Israel and the Zionists “have been taking away and taking away and blockading [Palestinians] so that they’re not allowed to leave, and they’re tired of that.”
She goes on to say it is “so exhausting” for Palestinians “to be constantly treated like crap, like you don’t matter,” and that Hamas is merely “responding” to this — much like the Black Panthers did in the U.S. during the civil rights struggle of 60-plus years ago.
This professor then states Hamas “doesn’t represent the Palestinian people” as they are “not elected officials.”
(In fact, they are.)
She says she “thinks [she] thought [Hamas] was a terrorist group” because people “just say” so, and her peer notes that “language matters.”
Despite having the ability to target its weapons, Israel puts “churches, shelters, schools [and] hospitals” in its crosshairs, the first professor continues. The targeting “seems to be very intentional and deliberate,” she says.
After a student in the class says Zionists are “almost as cruel as Nazis” and another student objects, one professor jumps in to say “genocide is awful” and that the “part that’s really brutal to think about is that there have been many holocausts” … but “we’re only taught about World War II.”
One professor eventually informs the class what they can do to support the Palestinian cause: engage in boycotts (she specifically mentions the BDS — Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions — movement), contact various representatives and organizations, and participate in marches.
In an education class at @uarizona, these professors chose to discuss the current Israel-Gaza war and the broader Israeli/Palestinian conflict. What was shared was an entirely BIASED, ANTISEMITIC, BLATANTLY FALSE, and TERRORISM-SUPPORTING narrative. Listen for yourself. 🧵
(1/9) pic.twitter.com/rF4EQ9j5nC— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) November 12, 2023
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According to Ballotpedia, Zapien last year ran unsuccessfully for an at-large Tucson Unified School District school board seat. In 2020 she penned an op-ed blasting the district for having police, aka School Resource Officers, in its schools.
“Stop funding the false and dangerous narrative that SROs are safe for our brown and black youth,” she wrote.
“Stop participating in the school-to-prison pipeline and start practicing transformative justice.”
On her personal website, Lopez includes the “Mahatma Ghandi” [sic] quote “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 19:00 - "We Might Need To Let It Burn": Firefighting In The EV Era Is A Whole New Game
“We Might Need To Let It Burn”: Firefighting In The EV Era Is A Whole New Game
Firefighting is a whole new game in the electric vehicle era.
In fact, departments across the U.S. are finding out that the best way to “fight” such fires are to simply let them burn, according to a new report by the the Wall Street Journal.
The report points out that EV fires, unlike traditional gas-fueled car fires, are more enduring, challenging to extinguish, and prone to reigniting, according to firefighters and experts.
It also cites and example from Franklin, Tenn., where first responders encountered a Nissan Leaf EV fire in September, which required 45,000 gallons of water to douse, significantly more than the 500 to 1,000 gallons typically needed for gasoline vehicle fires.
Fire Marshal Andy King stated: “I think if we were faced with a similar scenario next time, we might need to let it burn.”
Photos: WSJ The Journal reported that in the U.S., over 170,000 vehicle fires occur annually. However, the National Fire Protection Association, relying on federal data, doesn’t categorize these fires by the vehicles’ power source.
Tesla claims its cars have a much lower fire incidence compared to the national average, a finding echoed by some independent studies regarding EVs in general.
Michael O’Brian, fire chief of Michigan’s Brighton Area Fire Authority and chair of the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ battery committee, told WSJ: “When we look at how much money is going into battery plants, into the EV transition, there hasn’t been that carve-out to prepare the fire service.”
EV fires typically originate in the car’s lithium-ion batteries, which hold vast energy. According to UL Solutions’ chief scientist Robert Slone, these fires can start due to poor design, damage, or internal lithium build-up causing “thermal runaway.”
These batteries, containing combustible chemicals and self-oxygenating properties, can reignite long after being extinguished. Tom Miller, an instructor at West Virginia University Fire Service Extension and the National Volunteer Fire Council, highlights that these fires also release extremely toxic fumes.
Fire departments are adapting to electric vehicle (EV) fires, which often originate in lithium-ion batteries. In New Jersey and California, firefighters let Teslas burn out after accidents, as water can be ineffective against battery fires, the Journal wrote.
Some firefighters are exploring techniques like using fog streams to cool fires enough to move the vehicle. New technologies, such as specialized nozzles and fire-suppressing batteries, are being developed to address these challenges.
The National Fire Protection Association recommends additional safety measures, like sprinklers in parking garages, to counteract the increased fire risks from modern vehicles. Meanwhile, car manufacturers and suppliers are working on innovations like early warning sensors and materials to contain battery fires, and research into solid-state batteries is ongoing.
Regardless, firefighting organizations continue to seek effective strategies for dealing with EV fires, with new guidelines expected in the near future.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 18:40 - Baker Hughes: Geopolitical Risks Are At The Highest Since 1973 Oil Embargo
Baker Hughes: Geopolitical Risks Are At The Highest Since 1973 Oil Embargo
By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com
The world faces the highest geopolitical risks since the 1973 oil embargo, the chief executive of one of the largest oilfield service providers, Baker Hughes, told the Financial Times.
“From a historical context I’ve heard people say, you go back to the oil embargo of 1973 — that being somewhat similar,” Baker Hughes CEO Lorenzo Simonelli told FT in an interview.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East could threaten further instability in the oil and gas markets, Simonelli noted.
The risks are stoking demand for LNG, a key growth area for Baker Hughes.
Global LNG demand is set to grow by 2% year-over-year in 2023, to reach close to 410 million tons annually, the company said last month as it reported higher-than-forecast earnings for the third quarter.
“Year-to-date, global LNG demand has reached record levels at just over 300 MTPA. This is despite softer than anticipated gas demand and economic weakness persisting in key LNG-consuming markets like Europe and China,” Simonelli said on the earnings call.
“Turning into 2024, we forecast LNG demand to increase by 3%, which should result in utilization rates remaining at elevated levels, as we forecast just 15 MTPA of nameplate capacity coming online next year.”
Baker Hughes believes that natural gas will play a critical role as both a transition and destination fuel.
“Accordingly, natural gas will be fundamental in satisfying the world’s energy needs for many decades to come, while also improving air quality and reducing global emissions, displacing coal in the broader energy mix,” Simonelli said last month.
Looking into 2024, geopolitical risk will be a very important factor to monitor, the executive said.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 18:20 - Biden Admin Thinks Israel Seeking Pretext For Wider War In Lebanon: Axios
Biden Admin Thinks Israel Seeking Pretext For Wider War In Lebanon: Axios
Some top level members of the Biden administration have warned that Israel could be seeking to provoke a broader war with Hezbollah with an aim toward drawing the United States into a deeper conflict with Iran and its proxies.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “expressed concern” over escalation with Hezbollah in a Saturday call with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant – with the White House also citing “growing anxiety” that Israel’s military action which could spark war in southern Lebanon.
The US has also been warning Hezbollah, as well as the Lebanese government, against escalating attacks on northern Israel, which have left about ten Israeli soldiers and civilians dead since last month. Hezbollah has also revealed that over 60 of its fighters have been killed.
This ‘warning’ has also come in the form of a US military build-up in the Eastern Mediterranean, which has significantly included a couple of aircraft carrier strike groups and ominously a nuclear-powered submarine.
SecDef Austin’s caution conveyed to Gallant about Israeli military actions in Lebanon was first reported in Axios on Sunday, which wrote based on three Israeli and US sources privy to the call:
Austin’s message to Gallant reflected growing anxiety in the White House that Israeli military action in Lebanon is exacerbating tensions along the border, which could lead to a regional war.
Some in the Biden administration are concerned Israel is trying to provoke Hezbollah and create a pretext for a wider war in Lebanon that could draw the U.S. and other countries further into the conflict, according to sources briefed on the issue. Israeli officials flatly deny it.
Israel has already evacuated tens of its citizens from near the border with Lebanon, comprising dozens of towns and settlements, given the exchanges of fire have grown daily.
There have been more clashes today between #Hezbollah and #Israel along the border with Hezbollah targeting Israeli military positions and Israel bombing the outskirts and homes in southern #Lebanon villages like Aita Chaab, Naqoura, Tayr Harfa. #حزب_الله #لبنان #إسرائيل pic.twitter.com/GPFfZlYxyC
— Nicholas Frakes | نيكولاس فريكس (@nicfrakesjourno) November 13, 2023
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Meanwhile, the border just witnessed a big escalation, with Times of Israel detailing that “at least 14 civilians were wounded, including one seriously, in an anti-tank guided missile attack by the Hezbollah terror group from Lebanon on Sunday, the military and medical officials said.” And a separate attack witnessed seven Israeli soldiers wounded by a mortar.
“The Hezbollah missile struck a number of vehicles near the northern community of Dovev, close to the border. Some of the victims were Israel Electric Corporation employees who had arrived to repair power lines damaged by previous fire from Lebanon,” the Israeli report continued.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/13/2023 – 18:00
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