- Escobar: The Geopolitics Of Al-Aqsa Flood
Escobar: The Geopolitics Of Al-Aqsa Flood
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,
Global focus just shifted from Ukraine to Palestine. This new arena of confrontation will ignite further competition between the Atlanticist and Eurasian blocs. These fights are increasingly zero-sum ones; as in Ukraine, only one pole can emerge strengthened and victorious.
Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was meticulously planned. The launch date was conditioned by two triggering factors.
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First was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flaunting his ‘New Middle East’ map at the UN General Assembly in September, in which he completely erased Palestine and made a mockery of every single UN resolution on the subject.
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Second are the serial provocations at the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, including the straw that broke the camel’s back: two days before Al-Aqsa Flood, on 5 October, at least 800 Israeli settlers launched an assault around the mosque, beating pilgrims, destroying Palestinian shops, all under the observation of Israeli security forces.
Everyone with a functioning brain knows Al-Aqsa is a definitive red line, not just for Palestinians, but for the entire Arab and Muslim worlds.
It gets worse. The Israelis have now invoked the rhetoric of a “Pearl Harbor.” This is as threatening as it gets. The original Pearl Harbor was the American excuse to enter a world war and nuke Japan, and this “Pearl Harbor” may be Tel Aviv’s justification to launch a Gaza genocide.
Sections of the west applauding the upcoming ethnic cleansing – including Zionists posing as “analysts” saying out loud that the “population transfers” that began in 1948 “must be completed” – believe that with massive weaponry and massive media coverage, they can turn things around in short shrift, annihilate the Palestinian resistance, and leave Hamas allies like Hezbollah and Iran weakened.
Their Ukraine Project has sputtered, leaving not just egg on powerful faces, but entire European economies in ruin.
Yet as one door closes, another one opens: Jump from ally Ukraine to ally Israel, and hone your sights on adversary Iran instead of adversary Russia.
There are other good reasons to go all guns blazing.
A peaceful West Asia means Syria reconstruction – in which China is now officially involved; active redevelopment for Iraq and Lebanon; Iran and Saudi Arabia as part of BRICS 11; the Russia-China strategic partnership fully respected and interacting with all regional players, including key US allies in the Persian Gulf.
Incompetence. Willful strategy. Or both.
That brings us to the cost of launching this new “war on terror.” The propaganda is in full swing. For Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Hamas is ISIS. For Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev, Hamas is Russia. Over one October weekend, the war in Ukraine was completely forgotten by western mainstream media. Brandenburg Gate, the Eiffel tower, the Brazilian Senate are all Israeli now.
Egyptian intel claims it warned Tel Aviv about an imminent attack from Hamas. The Israelis chose to ignore it, as they did the Hamas training drills they observed in the weeks prior, smug in their superior knowledge that Palestinians would never have the audacity to launch a liberation operation.
Whatever happens next, Al-Aqsa Flood has already, irretrievably, shattered the hefty pop mythology around the invincibility of Tsahal, Mossad, Shin Bet, Merkava tank, Iron Dome, and the Israel Defense Forces.
Even as it ditched electronic communications, Hamas profited from the glaring collapse of Israel’s multi-billion-dollar electronic systems monitoring the most surveilled border on the planet.
Cheap Palestinian drones hit multiple sensor towers, facilitated the advance of a paragliding infantry, and cleared the way for T-shirted, AK-47-wielding assault teams to inflict breaks in the wall and cross a border that even stray cats dared not.
Israel, inevitably, turned to battering the Gaza Strip, an encircled cage of 365 square kilometers packed with 2.3 million people. The indiscriminate bombing of refugee camps, schools, civilian apartment blocks, mosques, and slums has begun. Palestinians have no navy, no air force, no artillery units, no armored fighting vehicles, and no professional army. They have little to no high-tech surveillance access, while Israel can call up NATO data if they want it.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant proclaimed “a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly.”
The Israelis can merrily engage in collective punishment because, with three guaranteed UNSC vetoes in their back pocket, they know they can get away with it.
It doesn’t matter that Haaretz, Israel’s most respected newspaper, straight out concedes that “actually the Israeli government is solely responsible for what happened (Al-Aqsa Flood) for denying the rights of Palestinians.”
The Israelis are nothing if not consistent. Back in 2007, then-Israeli Defense Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin said, “Israel would be happy if Hamas took over Gaza because IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state.”
Ukraine funnels weapons to Palestinians
Only one year ago, the sweaty sweatshirt comedian in Kiev was talking about turning Ukraine into a “big Israel,” and was duly applauded by a bunch of Atlantic Council bots.
Well, it turned out quite differently. As an old-school Deep State source just informed me:
“Ukraine-earmarked weapons are ending up in the hands of the Palestinians. The question is which country is paying for it. Iran just made a deal with the US for six billion dollars and it is unlikely Iran would jeopardize that. I have a source who gave me the name of the country but I cannot reveal it. The fact is that Ukrainian weapons are going to the Gaza Strip and they are being paid for but not by Iran.”
After its stunning raid last weekend, a savvy Hamas has already secured more negotiating leverage than Palestinians have wielded in decades. Significantly, while peace talks are supported by China, Russia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – Tel Aviv refuses. Netanyahu is obsessed with razing Gaza to the ground, but if that happens, a wider regional war is nearly inevitable.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah – a staunch Resistance Axis ally of the Palestinian resistance – would rather not be dragged into a war that can be devastating on its side of the border, but that could change if Israel perpetrates a de facto Gaza genocide.
Hezbollah holds at least 100,000 ballistic missiles and rockets, from Katyusha (range: 40 km) to Fajr-5 (75 km), Khaibar-1 (100 km), Zelzal 2 (210 km), Fateh-110 (300 km), and Scud B-C (500 km). Tel Aviv knows what that means, and shudders at the frequent warnings by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that its next war with Israel will be conducted inside that country.
Which brings us to Iran.
Geopolitical plausible deniability
The key immediate consequence of Al-Aqsa Flood is that the Washington neocon wet dream of “normalization” between Israel and the Arab world will simply vanish if this turns into a Long War.
Large swathes of the Arab world in fact are already normalizing their ties with Tehran – and not only inside the newly expanded BRICS 11.
In the drive towards a multipolar world, represented by BRICS 11, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), among other groundbreaking Eurasian and Global South institutions, there’s simply no place for an ethnocentric Apartheid state fond of collective punishment.
Just this year, Israel found itself disinvited from the African Union summit. An Israeli delegation showed up anyway, and was unceremoniously ejected from the big hall, a visual that went viral. At the UN plenary sessions last month, a lone Israeli diplomat sought to disrupt Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi’s speech. No western ally stood by his side, and he too, was ejected from the premises.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping diplomatically put it in December 2022, Beijing “firmly supports the establishment of an independent state of Palestine that enjoys full sovereignty based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. China supports Palestine in becoming a full member of the United Nations.”
Tehran’s strategy is way more ambitious – offering strategic advice to West Asian resistance movements from the Levant to the Persian Gulf: Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Hashd al-Shaabi, Kataib Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and countless others. It’s as if they are all part of a new Grand Chessboard de facto supervised by Grandmaster Iran.
The pieces in the chessboard were carefully positioned by none other than the late Quds Force Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qassem Soleimani, a once-in-a-lifetime military genius. He was instrumental in creating the foundations for the cumulative successes of Iranian allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Palestine, as well as creating the conditions for a complex operation such as Al-Aqsa Flood.
Elsewhere in the region, the Atlanticist drive of opening strategic corridors across the Five Seas – the Caspian, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Eastern Mediterranean – is floundering badly.
Russia and Iran are already smashing US designs in the Caspian – via the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – and the Black Sea, which is on the way to becoming a Russian lake. Tehran is paying very close attention to Moscow’s strategy in Ukraine, even as it refines its own strategy on how to debilitate the Hegemon without direct involvement: call it geopolitical plausible deniability.
Bye bye EU-Israel-Saudi-India corridor
The Russia-China-Iran alliance has been demonized as the new “axis of evil” by western neocons. That infantile rage betrays cosmic impotence. These are Real Sovereigns that can’t be messed with, and if they are, the price to pay is unthinkable.
A key example: if Iran under attack by a US-Israeli axis decided to block the Strait of Hormuz, the global energy crisis would skyrocket, and the collapse of the western economy under the weight of quadrillions of derivatives would be inevitable.
What this means, in the immediate future, is that he American Dream of interfering across the Five Seas does not even qualify as a mirage. Al-Aqsa Flood has also just buried the recently-announced and much-ballyhooed EU-Israel-Saudi Arabia-India transportation corridor.
China is keenly aware of all this incandescence taking place only a week before its 3rd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. At stake are the BRI connectivity corridors that matter – across the Heartland, across Russia, plus the Maritime Silk Road and the Arctic Silk Road.
Then there’s the INSTC linking Russia, Iran and India – and by ancillary extension, the Gulf monarchies.
The geopolitical repercussions of Al-Aqsa Flood will speed up Russia, China and Iran’s interconnected geoeconomic and logistical connections, bypassing the Hegemon and its Empire of Bases. Increased trade and non-stop cargo movement are all about (good) business. On equal terms, with mutual respect – not exactly the War Party’s scenario for a destabilized West Asia.
Oh, the things that a slow-moving paragliding infantry overflying a wall can accelerate.
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The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle or ZeroHedge.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 23:20 -
- Visualizing All Attempted & Successful Moon Landings
Visualizing All Attempted & Successful Moon Landings
Since before Ancient Greece and the first Chinese Dynasties, people have sought to understand and learn more about the moon.
Curiosity and centuries of study culminated in the first moon landing in the 1960s. But there have been many other attempted moon landings, both before and after.
This chart by Visual Capitalists’ Preyash Shah illustrates all the moon landings using NASA data since 1966 when Soviet lander Luna 9 touched down.
Race to the Moon
The 1960s and 1970s marked an era of intense competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as they raced to conquer the moon.
During the Cold War, space became a priority as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower, and its political-economic system.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy set a national goal to have a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth.
After several failed attempts from both sides, on July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission was successful and astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon.
Mission Launch Date Operator Country Mission Type Outcome Ranger 3 26-Jan-62 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Spacecraft failure Ranger 4 23-Apr-62 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Spacecraft failure Ranger 5 18-Oct-62 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Spacecraft failure Luna E-6 No.2 4-Jan-63 OKB-1 ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Luna E-6 No.3 3-Feb-63 OKB-1 ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Luna 4 2-Apr-63 OKB-1 ☭ USSR Lander Spacecraft failure Luna E-6 No.6 21-Mar-64 OKB-1 ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Luna E-6 No.5 20-Apr-64 OKB-1 ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Kosmos 60 12-Mar-65 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Luna E-6 No.8 10-Apr-65 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Spacecraft failure Luna 5 9-May-65 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Spacecraft failure Luna 6 8-Jun-65 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Spacecraft failure Luna 7 4-Oct-65 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Spacecraft failure Luna 8 3-Dec-65 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Spacecraft failure Luna 9 31-Jan-66 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Successful Surveyor 1 30-May-66 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Successful Surveyor 2 20-Sep-66 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Spacecraft failure Luna 13 21-Dec-66 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Successful Surveyor 3 17-Apr-67 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Successful Surveyor 4 14-Jul-67 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Spacecraft failure Surveyor 5 8-Sep-67 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Successful Surveyor 6 7-Nov-67 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Successful Surveyor 7 7-Jan-68 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander Successful Luna E-8 No.201 19-Feb-69 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Luna E-8-5 No.402 14-Jun-69 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Luna 15 13-Jul-69 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Spacecraft failure Apollo 11 16-Jul-69 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander/
Launch VehicleSuccessful Kosmos 300 23-Sep-69 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Kosmos 305 22-Oct-69 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Apollo 12 14-Nov-69 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander/
Launch VehicleSuccessful Luna E-8-5 No.405 6-Feb-70 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Apollo 13 11-Apr-70 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander/
Launch VehiclePartial failure Luna 16 12-Sep-70 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Successful Luna 17 10-Nov-70 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Successful Apollo 14 31-Jan-71 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander/
Launch VehicleSuccessful Apollo 15 26-Jul-71 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander/
Launch VehicleSuccessful Luna 18 2-Sep-71 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Spacecraft failure Luna 20 14-Feb-72 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Successful Apollo 16 16-Apr-72 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander/
Launch VehicleSuccessful Apollo 17 7-Dec-72 NASA 🇺🇸 U.S. Lander/
Launch VehicleSuccessful Luna 21 8-Jan-73 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Successful Luna 23 16-Oct-75 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Partial failure Luna E-8-5M No.412 16-Oct-75 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Launch failure Luna 24 9-Aug-76 Lavochkin ☭ USSR Lander Successful Chang’e 3 1-Dec-13 CNSA 🇨🇳 China Lander Operational Chang’e 4 7-Dec-18 CNSA 🇨🇳 China Lander Operational Beresheet 22-Feb-19 SpaceIL 🇮🇱 Israel Lander Spacecraft failure Chandrayaan-2 22-Jul-19 ISRO 🇮🇳 India Lander Spacecraft Failure Chang’e 5 23-Nov-20 CNSA 🇨🇳 China Lander Successful Hakuto-R Mission 1 11-Dec-22 ispace 🇯🇵 Japan Lander Spacecraft failure Chandrayaan-3 14-Jul-23 ISRO 🇮🇳 India Lander Successful Luna 25 10-Aug-23 Roscosmos 🇷🇺 Russia Lander Spacecraft failure After the Apollo missions, the fervor of lunar exploration waned. From 1976 to 2013, no moon landing attempts occurred due to budget constraints, shifting priorities, and advances in robotic missions.
However, a new chapter in space exploration has unfolded in recent years, with emerging players entering the cosmic arena. With its Chang’e missions, China has made significant strides, landing rovers on the moon and exploring the far side of the moon.
India, too, has asserted its presence with the Chandrayaan missions. In 2023, the country became the 4th nation to reach the moon as an unmanned spacecraft landed near the lunar south pole, advancing the country’s space ambitions to learn more about the lunar ice, potentially one of the moon’s most valuable resources.
Exploring Lunar Water
Since the 1960s, even before the historic Apollo landing, scientists had theorized the potential existence of water on the moon.
In 2008, Brown University researchers employed advanced technology to reexamine lunar samples, discovering hydrogen within beads of volcanic glass. And in 2009, a NASA instrument aboard the India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe confirmed the presence of water on the moon’s surface.
Water is deemed crucial for future space exploration. Beyond serving as a potential source of drinking water for future moon explorations, ice deposits could play a pivotal role in cooling equipment. Lunar ice could also be broken down to produce hydrogen for fuel and oxygen for breathing, essential for supporting extended space missions.
With a reinvigorated interest in exploring the moon, manned moon landings are on the horizon once again. In April 2023, NASA conducted tests for the launch of Artemis I, the first American spacecraft to aim for the moon since 1972. The agency aims to send astronauts to the moon around 2025 and build a base camp on the lunar surface.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 22:45 - "We Can't Force The Human Body To Accept Foreign Genetic Code'' Dr. McCullough On mRNA Technology
“We Can’t Force The Human Body To Accept Foreign Genetic Code” Dr. McCullough On mRNA Technology
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough warned that messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines inject “foreign genetic code” into human beings, which the body fails to break down or expel for a prolonged period of time.
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (purple) infected with a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (pink), isolated from a patient sample. (NIAID via The Epoch Times) Research on mRNA “has been going on for decades,” Dr. McCullough said during an Oct. 5 interview. The 2023 Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to two scientists for making “messenger RNA long-lasting in the human body,” he said. “I mean, it has been tested in multiple applications … It’s an absolute bust. It was just the worst idea ever to install the genetic code for a lethal protein without being able to shut it off. It wasn’t the fact that it was rushed; it’s just ill-conceived from the very beginning.”
“We can’t force the human body to accept foreign genetic code and produce a foreign protein … Messenger RNA for vaccines is a completely failed concept. It’s a dangerous concept, and the U.S. government wasn’t honest. They should have been honest. Trump should have come out and said, ‘Listen, it’s on our website; our military’s been working on this since 2012.’”
During a testimony at the European Parliament last month, Dr. McCullough said, “There’s not a single study showing that the messenger RNA is broken down” in the human body once it is injected.
“There’s not a study showing it leaves the body.” Since the vaccines are “made synthetically, they cannot be broken down.”
He added that the lethal protein from the [COVID-19] vaccines found in the human body after vaccination was found to be circulating “at least for six months, if not longer.”
In the case of seasonal jabs, that is, taking an injection or booster at the end of six months as recommended by the authorities, “there’s another installation in more circulating potentially lethal protein.”
Scientist Drew Weissman, who won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his role in developing mRNA technology, warned in a 2018 paper that not only did clinical trials of mRNA vaccines produce “more modest [results] in humans than was expected based on animal models,” but that the “side effects were not trivial.”
Dr. Mccullough’s comments come as the Gates Foundation is spending $40 million on countries in Africa and other economically backward nations to produce new mRNA vaccines in efforts to prevent diseases like tuberculosis and malaria.
Concealing a ‘Global Security Threat’
In the Steve Deace interview, Dr. McCullough said that the ineffectiveness of the technology was not unknown to the government since they’ve been testing it for nearly 40 years.
He referred to a February 2023 paper published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), which cited that the U.S. government has been investing billions of dollars in developing messenger RNA technology since 1985.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began investing in mRNA tech in 2011. DARPA then launched the Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) program in 2016 that sought to produce “relevant numbers of doses” against infections within 60 days of identifying them.
The ADEPT P3 was a program by the U.S. military “to end pandemics in 60 days.” There is no other technology “that our government has invested more in,” Dr. McCullough said.
Dr. McCullough cited another paper that stated there were “over 9,000 patents on messenger RNA. And all the patent assignees are big entities. At the top is Sanofi, then Cervavac, BioNTech, Moderna, and the U.S. government. No single person invented messenger RNA. Someone who comes up in 2021 and says, ‘You know I invented it’. That’s impossible. This has been going on for decades.”
Dr. McCullough pointed out that the United States and China have been in “collaboration for years” in their research on infectious and lethal coronavirus.
However, officials like Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Francis Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and “a whole cadre of scientists, they collaborated to conceal this global security threat.”
“They actually intentionally lied to the world and said the virus came out of nature. They knew it came out of the Wuhan lab,” he said, citing a research paper by Ralph Baric and Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi that was published in the Nature journal in 2015.
Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi is affiliated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, while Mr. Baric is from the Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“They said they created SARS-CoV-2 virus. They called it the Wuhan Institute of Virology 1 virus. That was the prototype SARS-CoV-2. So, that’s in 2015. Instead of bringing Ralph Baric out [and asking] ‘Dr. Baric, how do we get ourselves out of this disaster,’ you masterminded this virus funded by the US.”
‘Pull All COVID-19 Vaccines Off the Market’
In his interview, Dr. McCullough made three recommendations. “I say number one, I’ve called in the US Senate [and] now the European Parliament [to] pull all COVID-19 vaccines off the market before anyone else is harmed.”
“Number two, US, EU and all westernized Nations [should] pull out of the WHO. They’re not trustable. And number three, I’m following the World Council for Health. I am recommending a halt on all childhood vaccines, the entire vaccine schedule until this is clarified since messenger RNA is now on the schedule without any concerns for safety.
Cardiologists Dr. Aseem Malhotra (left) and Dr. Peter McCullough (right) in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 29, 2022. (Bao Qiu/The Epoch Times) While some studies related to the safety of COVID-19 vaccines have shown the jabs to be safe, others have raised concerns about the safety of the shots.
A December 2022 study analyzed trials comparing vaccine recipients with individuals who did not receive a vaccine or were given a placebo.
It concluded that “compared to placebo, most vaccines reduce, or likely reduce, the proportion of participants with confirmed symptomatic COVID-19, and for some, there is high-certainty evidence that they reduce severe or critical disease.”
However, a June 2022 study that looked at mRNA vaccinations found that “Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were associated with an increased risk of serious adverse events of special interest (AESI).”
“The excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest surpassed the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalization relative to the placebo group in both Pfizer and Moderna trials.”
‘Shedding’ the Infection
During the interview, Mr. Deace asked about hearing issues that he and his colleague suffered and whether they had any ties with the vaccines. While he did not take a COVID-19 shot, the colleague was vaccinated. Mr. Deace asked if this was “further proof that basically the last few years Peter everybody was a lab rat whether you took the vaccine or not.”
Syringes and vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are prepared to be administered at a drive-up vaccination site in Reno, Nev., on Dec. 17, 2020. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images) “It’s true, nearly all of us have been exposed to the Wuhan spike protein,” Dr. McCullough replied. “When I see patients in the office, we check antibodies against the spike protein. Invariably, they’re elevated. Rarely, I’ll find somebody who hasn’t been exposed.”
Dr. McCullough pointed out that there are “clear-cut papers” showing individuals suffering hearing loss after taking COVID-19 jabs. “It’s all related to the spike protein,” he said. mRNA vaccines work by instructing cells in the body to produce the spike protein found on the surface of the COVID-19 virus.
Once vaccinated, an individual’s muscle cells begin producing spike protein pieces, displaying them on cell surfaces, which end up triggering the immune system to create antibodies. When such an individual gets infected with the COVID-19 virus, these antibodies will then fight the virus.
Dr. McCullough warned that even people who have not received mRNA COVID-19 vaccines can eventually get affected by messenger RNA through a vaccinated individual via “shedding.”
“Shedding means that one has been exposed to the spike protein or to the messenger RNA from close contact with another individual. We know both of them can travel via exosomes which are small phospholipid packets that can be exhaled [via] breath, through sweat, [and] various forms of body fluid, typically you know very close contact.”
“There was a big project called the Eva project in the UK showing 78 percent of women who take a vaccine—they actually have menstrual abnormalities. And those who even didn’t take a vaccine, they end up having menstrual abnormalities. There’s been plenty of these reports that have occurred.”
Dr. McCullough cited an interview he did with scientist Helene Banoun, an expert on shedding, who believes such things “clearly happens, for sure, in people who’ve taken the vaccine within 30 days, close contact.”
“Now, two studies—one in the United States, one in Japan—[show] the messenger RNA comes through breast milk. The spike protein may be shedded potentially for a much longer duration of time. It’s been shown in the human body now for months, maybe even years afterward. And that’s the rationale for what our recent proposal to actually undergo spike protein detoxification.”
The cardiologist pointed out that “every signal” related to cardiovascular disease, neurologic disease, blood clots, immune disease, and cancer “is up.”
“There can be debates on why all these chronic diseases are up, all-cause mortality up in every single area of the world,” he said. “The two big exposures we’ve had are COVID-19 infection and now COVID-19 vaccines, and I think both mechanisms have led to this wave of disease.”
“I think more powerfully with the vaccines since the vaccines are largely genetic, they’re given every six months, and they install the genetic code for the disease-promoting and lethal Wuhan spike protein.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 22:10 - Why Do Democrats Keep Farting On Camera?
Why Do Democrats Keep Farting On Camera?
Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA (emphasis ours),
Last week, Rep. Alexandrio Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hopped on a livestream to give a ‘very fine people on both sides’ damage control speech regarding the situation in Israel, after the Democratic Socialists of America came out for Hamas following last weekend’s brutal attack on Israelis.
She did anything but clear the air… as Twitter followers couldn’t help but notice that during the 45-second livestreamed social-media broadcast, the socialist lawmaker unmistakably appeared to break wind around the 38 second mark.
It came at a particularly awkward moment, during which “AOC” happened to be accusing Israel of genocidal war crimes after it struck back for the slaughter of more than a thousand innocent civilians—including the rape and torture of many—and the kidnapping of roughly 150 others whose fate remains unknown.
“[T]he United States has a responsibility to ensure accountability to human rights to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and to ensure that horrors do not happen in the names of victims who do not want their [fart] tragedy used to justify further violence and injustice,” she said.
The United States’ responsibility is to human rights. That means supporting the safety of the Israeli people and preventing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. pic.twitter.com/7CsuN6uO3w
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) October 12, 2023
But while few would have predicted it to be the next development in a story that has shocked the world and fueled global anxieties like never before about the outbreak of World War III, it is not the first time farts have become an unwanted diversion for AOC.
One of her first acts as a freshman lawmaker was to draft the “Green New Deal,” a multi-trillion-dollar framework for revamping the entire U.S. economy in order to achieve net-zero carbon emissions.
Unfortunately, the plan was widely ridiculed for its outlandish proposals—not the least of which was its fixation on regulating cow farts.
Despite the popular rejection of it at the time, leftists and globalists have continued to push the Green New Deal agenda under different labels, including President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan and the “smart city” initiatives being coordinated by the World Economic Forum.
And at least one nation—New Zealand—has attempted to impose a tax on cow farts—although it is unclear how they are assessed.
In all likelihood, Ocasio–Cortez, who let the video remain up on her Twitter site as of Friday morning, felt no sense of shame over her own methane emission.
She has performed other acts of public humiliation before, including dancing to bongos while enraged citizens jeered her at a town-hall meeting.
Dare you to find something more cringey than these AOC dance moves pic.twitter.com/X8tz8BJ7YF
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 20, 2022
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However, the Bronx boofer may have doomed her future presidential aspirations if history offers any indication.
At least two past Democratic presidential candidates who have publicly cut the cheese went on to bomb in the ballot box.
Hillary Clinton left the normally loquacious Sens. John Edwards and Barack Obama practically speechless after a burst during a November 2007 CNN debate ahead of the Democratic primary.
Although Clinton was by far the better known name and widely considered to be the frontrunner at the time, Obama wound up closing the gap and going on to win the election—and two terms in office—while Clinton would go on to win the nomination in 2016 only to lose the general election.
In 2019, while conducting an on-camera interview with then Hardball! host Chris Matthews, Rep. Eric Swalwell, considered to be a serious political upstart with a bright future and a formidable political adversary for then-President Donald Trump, appeared to shift a bit in his seat.
Shortly thereafter, Swalwell let out a ripper that reared back his shoulders, but continued to make his point without missing a beat.
At that point Swalwell already had launched and failed a short-lived presidential campaign, which lasted only about three months. However, the fart—and subsequent news of an affair with a Chinese honeytrap spy named Fang Fang—not only raised serious concerns about Swalwell’s judgment and integrity, but also made it hard to take him seriously.
In January, Swalwell was one of three Democrat lawmakers who was stripped of his committee assignments due to concerns that he was unfit to serve on the House Intelligence Committee since he was potentially a compromised Chinese asset.
And who could forget when Rahm Emanuel farted on the Charlie Rose show?
Or when Rep. Jarrold Nadler (D-NY) may have duked in his diapers.
Jerry Nadler poops his pants, Pelosi calls him distinguished, Nadler waddles off stage. pic.twitter.com/zcJ8jrV6GF
— Jesse Watters’s hand (@JesseWatersHand) September 24, 2020
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How much did he poop? Depends…
Rudy toot toot?
It’s not just Democrats…
I present this clip of Rudy Giuliani testifying without editing or commentary. (Watch for the 👀) pic.twitter.com/h4ndjLO56p
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 3, 2020
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And last but not least, current independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was caught in a fart scandal in July, but not one of his own making.
While attending a private dinner with several members of the New York media at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, RFK Jr. was upstaged by the evening’s host, literary agent Doug Dechert (a conservative), who began to argue about global warming while several cups deep into the evening’s libations.
When the debate with his friend across the table became too tiresome, Dechert shut it down with a “loud, prolonged fart,” wrote Page Six reporter Mara Siegler, “while yelling, as if to underscore his point, ‘I’m farting!’”
The moment apparently left many at the table shell-shocked, but perhaps not RFK Jr.’s campaign manager, Dennis Kucinich, who had dealt with public flatulence at least once before.
Kucinich also was a candidate in the 2008 Democratic primary and was onstage during the Hillary Clinton incident.
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 21:35 - US Confirms 2nd Carrier Group En Route To "Deter Hostile Actions Against Israel"
US Confirms 2nd Carrier Group En Route To “Deter Hostile Actions Against Israel”
Update (2100ET): The Pentagon has ordered a second carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, according to two US officials, as Israel prepares to expand its Gaza operations.
The first carrier strike group, led by the USS Gerald R. Ford, arrived off the coast of Israel earlier this week.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced on Saturday night that the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrying nine aircraft squadrons, as well as two guided-missile destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser, will soon join the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group in the region to “deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack on Israel.”
The Biden administration made clear that the carrier, and its accompanying force, are not there to engage in combat activities on behalf of Israel but rather to deter others from entering the conflict, including Hezbollah.
“The increases to US force Posture signal the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war,” Austin stated.
Additionally, the US administration has so far ruled out sending military personnel into Gaza as part of any Israeli ground invasion or attempt to free American hostages there, only aiding the IDF with intelligence and operation planning.
* * *
Update (1330ET): The Israeli military has announced it is prepared for a coordinated air, ground and naval offensive in the Gaza Strip “very soon,” according to reports from AP.
In a nationally broadcast address Saturday night, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari issued a new appeal to residents to move to the southern Gaza Strip.
“We are going to broadly attack Gaza City very soon,” he said.
He accused Hamas of trying to use civilians as human shields.
Meanwhile, the social media rhetoric between leaders has gone to ’11’…
Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei expects a “complete victory”…
With God’s grace, this movement that has started in #Palestine will advance and result in a complete victory for the Palestinians.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) October 14, 2023
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Calling on all Muslims to join the fight…
Everyone in the Muslim world has a duty to support the Palestinian people.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) October 14, 2023
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Israeli PM Netanyahu made his views very clear:
Make no mistake, Israel will win. 🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/QzOVxUJs6E
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 14, 2023
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Live feeds below on Gaza:
* * *
Israeli media is reporting a “greenlight” has been given for the expected major Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip as massive convoys of Palestinian civilians have been observed fleeing to the southern part of the densely populated strip. So far there has been limited ground incursions by the army into the strip, targeting Hamas operatives and reportedly to gain intelligence on the whereabouts of hostages.
The United Nations has issued a report saying at least 423,000 Palestinians have already been internally displaced within Gaza and this massive figure is expected to ratchet further. Likely it has surpassed a half-million as of Saturday, following the Israeli-issued evacuation order, which included dropping thousands of leaflets and warnings over Gaza City.
Via The Guardian The UN said it “considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences.” Middle East Eye and other regional sources have said over 700 Palestinian children were killed in one week of fighting. As of Friday Israel authorities tallied that over 1,300 Israelis were killed by the Hamas terror attacks on the southern settlements and the music festival, and rocket fire, with at least 3,200 wounded. 27 among the dead were Americans.
Middle East Eye on Saturday reports the following of the mounting Palestinian death toll in both Gaza and the West bank as follows:
Israel has killed at least 2,215 people in Gaza over the past week, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Of those killed, 724 are children and 458 are women. Some 8,714 people have been wounded in the besieged enclave in that time, it added.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have killed 54 people and wounded 1,100 others in the occupied West Bank.
According to a review of the last hours of developments, the population is about to run out of water as the remaining supply dwindles after Israel cut off external supply sources:
- UN agency for Palestinian refugees says its shelters in Gaza “are not safe anymore” as it warns water running our for besieged enclave’s residents.
- More than 320 Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours, including many women and children killed in Israeli air raids on convoys fleeing Gaza City, according to health officials.
- The rising toll comes as Israel continues bombing Gaza a day after telling 1.1 million residents to head south ahead of a looming ground offensive following Hamas’s attack inside Israel last week.
- At least 2,215 Palestinians have been killed and 8,714 wounded in Israeli air attacks on Gaza. The number of people killed in Israel has reached 1,300, with more than 3,400 wounded.
- In the occupied West Bank, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the past week has topped 50. More than 1,000 have been wounded and hundreds arrested.
🛑A matter of life and death: water runs out for 2 million people in Gaza
🛑 No humanitarian supplies have been allowed into Gaza for a week
“It is a must; fuel needs to be delivered now into📍#Gaza to make water available for 2 million people”https://t.co/StJVfFn3Xh pic.twitter.com/T1IhCP9C2w
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 14, 2023
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The fate of the estimated 100 to 200 hostages in Hamas captivity still remains largely unknown, but Hamas in statements which have been underreported in Western press has claimed that over two dozen of the hostages have been killed by the IDF’s ongoing aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip:
Hamas’ Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades said nine more captives were killed in indiscriminate Israeli shelling in the last 24 hours, including a number of foreigners.
Qassam has previously announced the death of 17 captives in Israeli air stikes in Gaza over the past week.
Sky News and others are also reporting, based on Israeli sources, that bodies of hostages have been recovered after some of the initial IDF infantry cross-border raids which began Friday into Saturday:
Raids carried out on the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces discovered human remains of those who had been missing since Hamas’s attack last weekend, local media is reporting.
According to Haaretz, armed forces entered an enclave where it is thought up to 200 people were being held hostage by Hamas, and retrieved the bodies of several people.
Items belonging to the missing people were also discovered.
The US said Friday it chartered its first successful evacuation flight, with talk of more to come.
TOI: A military official at the forensic center at the Military Rabbinate’s headquarters in Ramle stands in front of the remains of the victims of Hamas’s October 7 shock onslaught in Israel, October 13, 2023. Flash90 There are Americans (many of them likely dual nationals) among the population of Gaza, which Washington says it is trying to facilitate safe exit for as Israeli airstrikes continue. Dangerously, the lone Raffah border crossing into Egypt has at this point been bombed several times.
But regional media is reporting there’s been a diplomatic breakthrough on this front, as Israel, Egypt, and the United States have forged an agreement to let foreigners residing in Gaza pass through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
Scene from the frontlines as the IDF build-up outside Gaza continues:
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) October 14, 2023
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Huge civilian convoys have been witnessed fleeing to the southern half of Gaza, creating bottlenecks…
One of the main evacuation routes from northern Gaza, al-Rasheed street, is absolutely flooded with residents attempting to evacuate south.
This footage was taken just south of the IDF-declared demarcation line of Wadi Gaza. pic.twitter.com/EaUZc2tScW
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 14, 2023
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The Times of Israel cites a senior Egyptian official as follows:
The official says Israel has agreed to refrain from striking areas the foreigners would pass through on their way out of the besieged Palestinian territory. He adds that Qatar was involved in the negotiations and the participants received approval from the Palestinian terror groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The agreement does not deal with hostages being held by Hamas.
A second official at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing point says they received “instructions” to reopen it on Saturday afternoon for foreigners coming from Gaza.
But Egypt is by and large not letting Gazans exit, even erecting bigger concrete barriers of extra border protection, amid what’s setting up to be a catastrophic humanitarian crisis as the Israeli pressure ratchets.
The IDF says it is about to attack the northern half of the Gaza Strip with “great force” – while the US and other countries are urging for caution regarding Palestinian civilians. Below is rare footage of an elite Israeli rescue squad in action (intentionally blurred by IDF sources):
Israeli operators from the Special Tactics Rescue Unit 669 conduct a combat casevac near Zikim beach.
(Rough subtitle translation) pic.twitter.com/uQ8IGiBWpE
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 14, 2023
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Washington has still all the while said it “stands with Israel” – and has not tried to actually halt the unrelenting IDF bombardment of civilian areas.
Meanwhile, things continue ratcheting in south Lebanon, with reports of new strikes being exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah, and other pro-Palestinian factions.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 21:00 - Ukraine Vs Israel: Can The West Arm Both?
Ukraine Vs Israel: Can The West Arm Both?
Authored by William Van Wagenen via The Cradle,
Just three days after the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance launched an unprecedented military offensive against Israeli military posts and settlements by land, sea, and air, Israeli officials began begging their US sponsors for additional weapons. Politico reported this week that according to a senior Pentagon official, “The Biden administration is surging weapons to Israel, rapidly sending air defenses and munitions in response to Israeli officials’ urgent requests for aid.”
“Planes have already taken off,” the senior official told reporters. Amidst this escalating crisis for the occupation state, it’s worth pondering a crucial question: Can the US sustain a commitment to two significant existential conflicts involving vital allies in separate geographies simultaneously?
The answer is likely no. Washington has already devoted over $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine to fight Russia, while facing a national debt spiraling out of control and spiking inflation.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Ukraine war was meant to be easier; the isolation and economic unraveling of its Russian adversary, was a cinch. Instead, 18 months on, the US is struggling to support Ukraine in a bloody war of attrition. Worse yet, Kiev’s well-publicized spring offensive that was meant to flip those odds has come to naught in the face of Russia’s overwhelming advantage in artillery and advanced missiles.
AFP/Getty Images Little territory has changed hands since Russian forces withdrew from Kharkiv and Kherson in late 2022, but the Ukrainian army has since been decimated by Russian artillery in theatres such as Bakhmut.
“We think that Ukrainians have lost somewhere between 300 to 350 thousand dead, maybe more, hundreds of thousands of wounded,” retired US Colonel Douglas Macgregor bluntly stated in August. “These attacks have utterly bled Ukraine white.”
This grim reality has given rise to what the BBC has described as “Ukraine’s army of amputees.” In the first half of this year alone, some 15,000 soldiers joined their ranks, surpassing the total amputees the UK produced over six years during World War II.
While Ukraine faces a severe manpower shortage, western powers find themselves faced with a dearth of available weaponry to send to Kiev. Admiral Rob Bauer, NATO’s highest-ranking military official, candidly admitted on October 3rd, “The bottom of the barrel is now visible” concerning the west’s ammunition stockpile.
In a sign of the mounting strain, the US began transferring to Ukraine 300,000 155-millimeter shells it had stored in Israel as part of the War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel (WRSAI) program.
According to one Israeli officer, “Officially, all of this equipment belongs to the US military …. If, however, there is a conflict, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] can ask for permission to use some of the equipment.”
Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder claimed the US would replenish these stocks of artillery shells stored in Israel. But the US does not have the ability to do so, as Ukraine has been using between 3,000 and 6,000 rounds per day, a quarter of what Russia has used on the battlefield.
CNN reported at the time that “The strain on weapons stockpiles – and the ability of the US industrial base to keep up with demand – is one of the key challenges facing the Biden administration.”
Israel’s plea for US weapons
The US military-industrial complex is heavily geared to produce high-cost weapons systems and hardware, like the $412 billion F-35 warplane. While these programs undoubtedly benefit weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, they fall short in delivering the essential artillery required in vast quantities for a war of attrition against a formidable military.
Now that war has broken out between Israel and the Palestinian resistance, Kiev faces a competitor not only in Moscow, but in Tel Aviv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on 9 October expressed the fear that US and European support would shift away from Ukraine and toward Israel, and claimed on the social media platform X:
“We have data very clearly proving that Russia is interested in inciting war in the Middle East so that a new source of pain and suffering would erode global unity and exacerbate cleavages and controversies, helping Russia in destroying freedom in Europe.”
While the Ukraine lobby enjoys clout in Washington, the Israel lobby reigns supreme. It is unlikely the former will be able to override the efforts of the latter to redirect what few US weapons remain available away from the defense of the Jewish state.
Israel had consistently refused to send weapons to Ukraine…
Israel was heavily criticized for refusing to donate weapons to Ukraine. Now obvious that was a wise decision. Serious nations prioritize their own security. pic.twitter.com/d5CMsJ7p3Z
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) October 8, 2023
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That Israel is begging for US weapons just days into a conflict with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is alarming for the occupation state’s supporters, considering that none of the remaining Axis of Resistance members, including Hezbollah, Syria, Ansarallah, Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) and Iran, have yet formally entered the conflict.
Should Hezbollah fully join the fight, Israeli planners expect the Lebanese resistance movement to fire 4,000 missiles a day from northern Lebanon and send thousands of elite troops into Israel to take over towns or military bases.
Lessons from the 2006 war with Hezbollah
Israel and Hezbollah fought a major battle in 2006, which forced the Israeli military to wage war against a more “conventional” military opponent, in contrast to the Palestinians it confronts daily in the West Bank and Gaza.
According to Matt Mathews of the US Army’s Combat Studies Institute, Israel was woefully unprepared to fight a “real war” in that conflict. He notes that as a result, Mossad Chief Meir Degan and the head of Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, pointedly told then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “the war was a national catastrophe and Israel suffered a critical blow.”
The 2006 war also exposed Israel’s reliance on US weapons, which nevertheless proved insufficient to defeat Hezbollah. During the war, Israel requested to access the WRSAI stockpile and that the US expedite the delivery of precision-guided munitions to Israel. Within just 10 days of fighting, Israel used most of its ammunition stock.
Years later, in July 2014, during Israeli military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel was again forced to rely on the WRSAI stockpile to replenish 120-mm tank rounds and 40-mm illumination rounds fired from grenade launchers.
The problems Israel faced in 2006 and 2014 will be compounded if the Axis of Resistance now takes the step of initiating its “unification of the fronts” campaign.
David Wurmer, Middle East adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney, told the Wall Street Journal on 10 October that “The nightmare scenario for the Israelis is that they go a week or two shooting down 6,000 to 10,000 Hamas missiles, and then they have nothing left to stop the Hezbollah missiles.”
The silent threat of Iran’s missiles
The situation for Israel becomes even more challenging if Iran joins the conflict, as the Islamic Republic possesses substantial stocks of short-range and medium-range missiles capable of reaching both Israel and US bases in the region.
The US and Israel often warn of the alleged threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, despite its civilian orientation, but seldom mention the threat posed by Iran’s burgeoning conventional missile program.
Israel’s actions express its worries more clearly than its words: in February of this year, Israel launched a drone attack against an Iranian military facility in Isfahan. According to Danny Yatom, a former head of the Mossad, the attack targeted a facility developing hypersonic missiles, which the New York Times described as “long-range munitions capable of traveling up to 15 times the speed of sound with terrifying accuracy.”
A very different Palestinian resistance
In 1993, when Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn with President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the Soviet Union had recently collapsed, while Iran was recovering from a bloody war with US-backed Iraq that killed one million people on both sides.
When Arafat signed the accords, accepting US and Israeli promises that they would pave the way for a future Palestinian state, the Palestinians had few allies they could rely on and were blindsided by Tel Aviv’s actual intentions to fragment and destroy the Palestinian nation.
Through Oslo, the US and Israel created the “shared fiction,” to use New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s words, that a Palestinian state would be established at some future date. According to Friedman, this allowed Israel to continue to confiscate land to build Jewish settlements, while the US could keep “peace hopes there just barely alive,” as cover.
But now, more than 40 years later, the Palestinians are not alone. They are part of a region-wide Resistance Axis that has defeated US and Israeli agendas in a number of West Asian states, gaining invaluable fighting, organizational, and planning experience alongside reliable allies.
Meanwhile, the pile of recent US-side failures keeps mounting: Russia’s global clout spiked during the US proxy war in Ukraine; US adversaries China and Russia forged a multipolar world when Washington came at them; economic sanctions designed to cripple Russia and Iran only strengthened both states and sparked military collaborations.
Crucially, Russia and Iran today possess the industrial capabilities to produce the military firepower the US and NATO cannot provide to allies in either Tel Aviv or Kiev.
Israel has already started the fight it may not be able to finish by declaring total war on Gaza’s civilian population, killing over 1,000, including hundreds of women and children, and flattening large swathes of the Gaza Strip in airstrikes.
For Tel Aviv, Gaza has always been low-hanging fruit – the punching bag it seeks when it needs to look tough. But today, one misstep, one badly aimed missile, or one step too far, and Israel will face a regional war it cannot withstand for any significant period of time.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 21:00 - 'No Regrets': Former CIA Director Repeats Debunked Russian Disinfo Claims About Hunter's Laptop
‘No Regrets’: Former CIA Director Repeats Debunked Russian Disinfo Claims About Hunter’s Laptop
In an interview last night with Fox’s Bret Baier, former CIA Director Leon Panetta humiliated himself as he defended the letter that he and 50 other so-called ‘intelligence officials’ signed suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
Even more unsettling were his comments that he believes it could still be Russian disinformation.
“That letter was used in the debate, I haven’t asked you this but do you have regrets about that now looking back, knowing what you know now?” Baier asked.
Panetta explained that he was “extremely concerned about Russian interference” in the run up to the 2020 Presidential Election between then-former-Vice President Joe Biden and then-President Donald Trump.
He claimed that intelligence agencies discovered that “Russia had continued to push disinformation across the board.”
He said that he wanted to “alert the public” about the “disinformation efforts” to influence the election.
“And frankly, I haven’t seen any evidence from any intelligence agency that that was not the case,” Panetta said.
“You don’t think that it was real?” Baier asked.
“I think that disinformation is involved here. I think Russian disinformation is part of what we’re seeing everywhere,” Panetta responded.
“I don’t trust the Russians, and that’s exactly why I was concerned that the public not trust the Russians either.”
And finally, Baier asked if Panetta had any regrets over how he handled the story.
“No, I don’t have any regrets about not trusting the Russians,” Panetta said.
As Jonathan Turley pointed out,Panetta simply refused to acknowledge:
(1) American intelligence quickly debunked the claim and said that there was no evidence of Russian disinformation behind the laptop,
(2) the emails contained in the laptop were quickly authenticated by the other parties,
(3) the FBI authenticated the laptop,
(4) Hunter Biden has since sued over the use of his laptop, and
(5) the media has independently authenticated the laptop.
This was the man in charge of our CIA.
As a reminder, it has also been shown that the Biden campaign and associates coordinated the letter.
Watch the lying liar lie below…
Here’s the clip of Leon Panetta telling Bret Baier he has no regrets about the MIS-information that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation operation. He wouldn’t get this question on the lefty networks. pic.twitter.com/rHRDRsaS4H
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) October 13, 2023
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We give the last word back to Turley who summarized the former spook’s self-immolation perfectly: “Panetta has become the personification of the economic theory of path dependence. No matter how much countervailing evidence is presented to Panetta, he still refuses to accept the authenticity of the laptop.”
However, in order to admit to these facts, Panetta would have had to admit that he was a willing or unwitting dupe of the campaign. It is easier to simply continue to claim that this could all be the invention of the Russians.
Yet, as Turley exclaims, Panetta is still sought for his advice on other intelligence matters as he continues to repeat disproven claims because the truth is simply too costly on a personal level to acknowledge.
What do we call false claims that are repeated despite being repeatedly debunked and disproven? Oh, yea, disinformation.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 20:44 - Don't Mess With Texas: Senate Passes Bill Allowing Local, State Police To Arrest Illegal Immigrants
Don’t Mess With Texas: Senate Passes Bill Allowing Local, State Police To Arrest Illegal Immigrants
The Texas Senate on Thursday approved a bill that will give local and state police the authority to arrest illegal migrants by making it a state crime to cross illegally into the United States. The bill, SB11, enables law enforcement to arrest those who violate the law.
Under current law, state and local authorities must seek federal permission before arresting illegals.
“Texas reached a record number of illegal immigrant apprehension in fiscal year 2023, with over 1.84 million apprehensions in Texas Sectors,” said state Sen. Brian Birdwell, author of the legislation. “As a result of the federal government’s unwillingness to enforce federal immigration laws and secure our southern border, Texas has stepped up and devoted time and resources to combat the unprecedented border crisis that the state is facing. SB 11 will give out troopers more authority to control the border and keep Texans safe.”
Last night during the 3rd special session the Senate passed five bills, descriptions attached, including SB11, which I authored, creating a new state crime for entering Texas improperly from a foreign nation. All of these bills are now in the House for their consideration #txlege pic.twitter.com/i7T4KiUD8C
— Sen. Brian Birdwell (@SenatorBirdwell) October 13, 2023
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The bill passed late Thursday along party lines in a 19-12 vote, and is expected to advance following Gov. Greg Abbott’s show of support for the measure earlier this week.
State & local police would have unprecedented power to arrest illegal immigrants under a bill that took a critical step forward Tuesday.
The bill would make entering the United States illegally a criminal offense of up to 180 days in jail. https://t.co/SEPMj6Wv5N
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) October 12, 2023
First time offenders face up to one year in jail, while convicted felons with multiple illegal entries could face life in prison.
According to Lt. Gov. Dan Partrick, “This is the third time the Texas Senate has passed this critical legislation. The Senate is committed to securing the southern border and will pass this bill over and over again until it passes the Texas House, where it has died previously.”
In an aerial view, migrants are seen grouped together while waiting to be processed on the Ciudad Juarez side of the border, in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2023. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/TNS) Earlier this month, Abbott called lawmakers back for a third special session, with border security a central focus, along with school choice, public safety and prohibiting employers from forcing employees to take COVID-19 vaccines.
Mr. Birdwell said the bill aims to deter illegal crossing while encouraging immigrants to enter legally through one of the state’s 29 ports of entry, where they can be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities.
During Tuesday’s Border Security committee hearing on the bill, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said an estimated 1.5 million immigrants cross illegally into Texas each year.
Mr. McCraw said DPS troopers could arrest about 72,000 to 75,000 illegal immigrants if the law is passed. He said DPS made 35,000 criminal arrests last year. –Epoch Times
State Democrats have responded to the bill like typical NIMBYs…
“Where do we put all the people?” asked State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa.
State Sen. César Blanco (D) said he voted “no” on SB 11 due to the existing federal laws against “unlawful entry” into the country.
“The federal government already has an offense for unlawful entry into the US, but that has not turned away desperate migrants looking for a better life,” he wrote on X. “I voted against SB 11 because this bill will only overwhelm local prisons and court systems with non-violent offenders and raise taxes on border communities while doing nothing to mitigate the humanitarian crisis on the border.”
Last night during the 3rd special session the Senate passed five bills, descriptions attached, including SB11, which I authored, creating a new state crime for entering Texas improperly from a foreign nation. All of these bills are now in the House for their consideration #txlege pic.twitter.com/i7T4KiUD8C
— Sen. Brian Birdwell (@SenatorBirdwell) October 13, 2023
If the bill is signed into law it will take effect Dec. 1.
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Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 20:25 - Culture And Military Suicide: A Willful Blindspot
Culture And Military Suicide: A Willful Blindspot
Authored by Seth Allard via RealClear Wire,
“If the Marine Corps is mostly white males, why do we need to understand culture?”
I was shocked by the Defense Suicide Prevention Office pushback on exploring the role of culture in military suicide. But not surprised.
The study of suicide continues throttling towards the statistical and biomedical, leaving culture in the dust amid a continuing suicide epidemic. The prevention and research landscape resembles “Dragnet” – Psychiatrists, psychologists, epidemiologists, and AI-tech experts seeking ‘just the facts.’ But our ‘facts’ are incredibly incomplete.
“I think,” said researcher Craig Bryan, addressing the scarcity of cultural research, “one issue involves assumptions about the causes of suicide. I would argue that contemporary thinking about suicide is very biomedical in orientation and has become increasingly so over time. This bias almost certainly influences the availability of funds. A good portion of the research dollars have focused on developing and testing treatments and interventions to be delivered within healthcare systems. One could therefore argue that biomedical and clinical researchers have better access to resources to pursue such work.” Rajeev Ramschand at RAND echoed this sentiment in my article “Cultural Problems Require Cultural Solutions”, with three focus points for future research:
“What is the mental health culture in military settings and how does it vary? This would address questions beyond individual questions about stigma to understand how military personnel perceive mental health treatment, how leaders perceive treatment, how other support personnel (e.g., chaplains) see mental health treatment, and even how mental health providers perceive military-sponsored mental health treatment. What does the culture of mental illness look like in military settings?
“What is the culture of support in military settings? Beyond mental health, how strong and where are these deficiencies in cultures of support? Do people know when each other is struggling (relationally, alcohol use, financially) and do they offer support or ignore problems until they reach crisis points?
“How have needs changed? Does the new cohort of military recruits have norms and expectations that will require changing the ways the military “does business” and how? Is the current structure and operations across the military supportive for helping new recruits function well, thrive, and does it promote health and well-being?”
Bryan and Ramschand served on the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee, providing 117 recommendations to DOD, duplicating many previous recommendations. Despite several mentions of culture – “greater care in the promotion and leadership selection process at all levels of the military could create a culture and environment that reduces vulnerability to suicide” – SPRIRC did not recommend shifting research from the biomedical and clinical to the cultural, which is tantamount to a trauma center treating gunshot victims while ignoring bullet holes.
“Suicide,” said Matt Miller, Executive Director of VA Suicide Prevention, during a Senate Committee hearing on Veteran suicide, “is a complex problem with a multifaceted interweaving of potential contributing factors. In addition to mental health risk factors for suicide, we must look at a broader array of other contributing factors such as sociocultural risk factors and health related social needs that are also associated with suicide ideation and attempts.” Despite acknowledgement of the complexity of suicide, academia, military leadership, and government institutions that oversee research and policy are deeply resistant to studying culture. Thomas Joiner, head of the federally funded Military Research Suicide Consortium – billed as “multidisciplinary,” despite being restricted to one profession – and editor of a top academic journal, actively prioritizes quantitative, clinical research to the detriment of less “rigorous” and therefore less valuable qualitative and cultural approaches to understanding suicide. Conventional suicidologists boil down suicide to statistically relevant risk and protective factors, seeking the “gold standard” of research – randomized control trials – to test clinical interventions. Such research removes “confounding factors” or messy aspects of behavior and environment that challenges accepted theories, making it less valid (or publishable).
The hyperfocus on clinical settings and interventions, to the exclusion of cultural perception and context, clearly explains our 20-year losing battle with military suicide. This willful blindness to cultural research is couched in academia’s culture of “publish or perish.” Obsessed with seeking grants, publishing papers in high impact factor journals, and getting tenure at major universities, most academics do not prioritize solving chronic health disparities. Like suicide itself, the burgeoning field of biomedically and risk centered suicide research shows no sign of slowing, presenting a disturbing correlation with increases in suicide.
This trend is aided by the Institutional Review Boards, oversight bodies that review research proposals in a highly complex and bureaucratic process of evaluating risks and benefits of research involving human subjects. Though refuted, DOD and VA IRB bodies make it extremely difficult to implement novel research and interventions. While the “Not Just A Number Act,” requires VA to provide “more comprehensive data regarding those who have committed suicide” and holistic picture of suicidal veterans’ interactions with the VA, this policy fails to incorporate the cultural perspective and lived experience of veterans, families, and even healthcare providers, let alone the culture of the VA itself.
While there are programs that attempt to prevent toxic climates from continuing, such as the Collaborative Assistance Team program stood up to “prevent ‘Another Fort Hood’,” these programs largely exclude in-depth cultural analysis and individuals with appropriate training, education, and aptitude for ethnography, the primary method for gaining in depth, contextual understanding of cultures and societies. Rather, such projects take an ‘organizational psychology’ tack and utilize SMEs with valuable, but limited awareness of ethnographic methods, confusing their results, (which can still be highly valuable), for ‘cultural research.’ It is also questionable how independently such projects and personnel operate or are seen by servicemembers.
Some leaders in the military and veteran community, however, step strongly into this cultural breach using creativity and organic resources and knowledge. Senior enlisted conduct service wide “listening sessions” and utilize social media and Reddit. Equipped with cultural experience and language, hundreds of Veteran-led nonprofits reach out directly to Veterans. Many Veterans enter government, administrative and public health roles to provide leadership from within. Such initiative, more than anything, holds suicide at bay, and highlights the bureaucratic and risk averse nature of military, healthcare, and policy arms of government. Real change in suicide prevention challenges the status quo, defies dysfunctional power structures – a missing piece of the puzzle also seen in military sexual assault.
My attempt to ‘give back’ by providing free culturally adapted Mental Health First Aid training to SOI (West) and prepare Marines to respond to mental health crises, was defeated by a risk averse climate, an excuse being that similar training exists in UMAPIT 3.0 training. Yet, MHFA is provided to civilian personnel, but not Marines, a reason being, one senior civilian personnel reviewing the proposal disclosed, “what if we talk about suicide and a Marine kill themselves?” It did not help that another leader at SOI East accused me of attempting to “experiment” on Marines. Despite support from two Chaplains, one high ranking in a nearby command, and the suicide prevention specialist, and facilitation by education and training staff, the proposal died. Yet, risk averse leadership torpedoed the training with unclear explanation. As for UMAPIT training – why would alternative training be supported on the ground if the current training were effective enough to prevent suicide? Could the answer be that required training are commonly designed and delivered as “check the box bull****” that fails to empower Marines and prevent suicide? Let the reader view a clip of UMAPIT 3.0 to see how inspirational and skills based the training is.
In 2018 I approached Joiner at a conference, a veteran speaking to someone with great influence over suicide research and advocating for more focus on servicemembers’ lived experience and perspective on mental health and suicide. His response? About a minute-long silent stare down. The need to understand culture did not register with a leading suicidologist, just as servicemembers’ and veterans’ experiences are not registered by bureaucrats or academics. Working with America’s Warrior Partnership, I learned that Veteran suicides themselves often do not register, instead chalked up as overdoses. We are seen through the sanitized lens of statistics and genetics, a walking infographic of risk and protective factors, data to be mined, not as complex, ever evolving, highly social creatures who possess strengths. Bryan described his experience with the SPRIRC changing his view of suicide and the contributing quality of life issues in the military as a “death by a thousand paper cuts.” The only force that causes death by a thousand paper cuts is culture. It is the ethical responsibility of researchers and policy makers, when their framework for understanding and solving problems is proven ineffective and the problem is out of their scope, to include new working strategies and people who do have the right tools.
As retired General Steve Salazar, president of leadership training organization 360MVP, says, we must focus on “Making the Strong Stronger.” During a visit by Senator Angus King’s staff, an airman and self-described “wrench turner,” emphasized that mental health challenges are unique to specific occupations and environments. This insight informed provisions backed by King that requires suicide reporting by branch and occupation. What a retired General and a serving “wrench turner” recognize, which we must recognize, is that lived experience, cultural context, and our strengths must be incorporated proactively to produce working solutions. As one of my teachers, Jessica Harrington, from the Health Policy Research Scholars program at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says, “Policy without people becomes politics.” What culturally centered and collaborative research can accomplish, and clinical approaches cannot, is realignment of suicide prevention and research with a humanistic approach that is not beholden to a risk-averse or stuck mindset.
It is past time to look into the mirror, face the ugliness of dysfunctional institutions and their cultural antecedents, become conscious of problems and our participation in them, and do the work of change, which reflects a time-honored tradition of ethical and disciplined warrior practice. I do not know if those in authority possess the courage to accomplish this task. With a legislative requirement to incorporate cultural research and collaborative partnerships with troops on the ground, and a working system to ensure that policies like “Not Just a Number” are implemented with intent and effect, we can save lives. Until then, it is up to us as the military and veteran community to save ourselves.
Seth Allard is a former Marine Infantryman (2004 – 2009, active), a PhD student of social work at Wayne State University, and a member of the Sault Ste Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Seth’s focus is on both Native American and Military/Veteran suicide and mental health, and cultural approaches to understanding and preventing suicide and improving mental health. He has published with Marine Corps University Press, Marine Gazette, Routledge Press, and the Havok Journal. He is also a Health Policy Research Scholar with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is continuing his education in clinical social work intern with the Veterans Justice Outreach program at the VA Ann Arbor.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 19:50 - Leftist Media Call Trump-Supporters "Far-Right"… For What?
Leftist Media Call Trump-Supporters “Far-Right”… For What?
Authored by Jack Hellner via AmericanThinker.com,
As far as I can tell, anyone who supports Trump – say, Jim Jordan – is labeled hard right.
So which policies made Trump far-right, according to the media and other Democrats?
Enforcing border laws that Congress passed and building a wall? The public seems to support that, so that would be a middle-of-the-road policy.
Opposes sanctuary cities and states. It appears that the leftists who claimed they were sanctuaries are rethinking their disastrous policies.
Being tough on crime instead of supporting soft-on-crime D.A.s. That is not unpopular.
Supporting limits on abortion. Two thirds of Americans support limiting abortion to the first thirteen or fifteen weeks, just like Europe.
Supporting lower tax rates and fewer regulations. Those are not unpopular positions. In fact, they lifted up the people at the bottom of the economic ladder. Real wages rose rapidly, and poverty hit a record low at the end of 2019. How can that be hard right?
Opposing the teaching that the U.S. is a racist country.
Trump repeatedly denounced white supremacists just like almost all Americans.
Trump didn’t want people to be fired for refusing to take a vaccine just like most Americans.
Trump moved rapidly to get schools and businesses back open after the initial shutdown. That is certainly not a far-right position.
Trump supports school choice for the poor, just like the majority of Americans, especially minorities.
Trump opposes allowing men to compete against women, just like most Americans. He opposes allowing men to expose themselves in women’s locker rooms.
Trump supported drilling and energy independence. That kept inflation low and helped the poor, the middle class, and small businesses.
Trump does not believe that climate change is the greatest existential threat.
Trump sought to make NATO pay what they were supposed to. Why would that be an unpopular policy or far-right?
Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, just as Congress and previous presidents had promised.
Trump put a squeeze on Iran. Why would it be far-right to cut off funding from a country that pledges death to America and death to Israel?
Trump and his son-in-law made great progress in the Middle East with the Abraham accords. That certainly is not hard-right.
Trump challenged the 2020 election, just like how Democrats challenged the 2000, 2004, and 2016 election. There is nothing far-right about challenging elections.
Trump told people to march peacefully and patriotically to the capital to protest the election. What is far-right about peace and patriotism?
Trump told the Germans they were stupid to rely on Russia for their energy. He was right.
Putin has attacked Ukraine while Obama and Biden were president, not Trump.
Trump asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens for corruption. It would be a dereliction of duty for a president to learn of corruption and not investigate. Sadly, the media and other Democrats impeached him for doing his job.
Basically, Republicans like Trump and Jordan are called far-right by the media and other Democrats to intentionally mislead the public, just as they did with the fictional Russian collusion story.
Democrats don’t want to debate their leftist policies because they are unpopular so they always go to the same playbook. Call Republicans sexists, bigots, racists, and far- or hard-right. They sure don’t care that the corrupt Clintons and Bidens have lined their pockets with illegal kickbacks for years.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 18:40 - Second Largest US Lab-Grown Diamond Producer Goes Bust
Second Largest US Lab-Grown Diamond Producer Goes Bust
The second-largest US producer of lab-grown diamonds has filed for bankruptcy amid a massive glut of fabricated gemstones and plunging prices.
Financial Times reports that Washington-based WD Lab Grown Diamonds filed for Chapter 7 in a Delaware bankruptcy court and had total liabilities of around $44 million and assets of $3 million. The company listed it had between 100 and 199 creditors.
In 2020, WD Lab Grown Diamonds became the first diamond company to be certified under the “Standard for Sustainable Diamonds” by third-party verifier SCS Global Services. Operations began in 2008 and have played a pivotal role in innovating the lab-grown diamond industry, generating roughly $33 million in revenue last year.
Paul Zimnisky, an independent diamond analyst, said the collapse of WD Lab Grown Diamonds is a sign it struggled to compete with Chinese and Indian producers.
In the last seven years, a single-carat lab-grown diamond has plunged more than threefold due to a flood of supply, a massive relief for mining companies who have seen natural diamond prices crash.
Real diamond prices
The slide in real diamond prices comes as consumers pivot to cheaper lab-grown stones. Also, there’s an ongoing global luxury spending slowdown as recession risks rise.
As for the lab-grown diamond industry, it’s a race to the bottom as more supply only pushes prices lower, slashes margins, and ultimately results in business failures.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 18:05 - Bob Menendez Is A Symptom
Bob Menendez Is A Symptom
Authored by John Tamny via RealClear Wire,
In 1988, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Hedrick Smith authored “The Power Game: How Washington Works.” It was a fascinating, if unflattering, portrait of the nation’s capital that not only has proven prescient, but remains relevant today.
Having arrived in Washington in 1962, Smith charted what he called “stunning transformations” in the previous two and a half decades. These ranged from “the new congressional assertiveness” engendered by Richard Nixon’s resignation and the revolt by young members against the seniority system, to how the utter supremacy of television had warped the system and produced “a new generation of video politicians whose medium was the tube rather than the political clubhouse.”
These words were written, mind you, when Matt Gaetz was seven years old – and two years before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born. But the most significant change Smith documented was the stunning proliferation of lobbyists, hangers-on, and congressional aides.
Many of these aides were not just career politicians, but men and women who’d never had any other career other than politics. One of the subjects highlighted in Smith’s book had worked on Capitol Hill as a staffer, only to run for Congress. He won. His quip to Smith upon reaching Congress as a back-bencher (lightly paraphrased) was that “never has one individual so willingly given up so much power.”
Sen. Robert Menendez is a poster boy for this new ethos. He ran for student body president in high school and won, and never really stopped angling for office. While still in college, he served as an aide to the mayor of Union City, N.J. At 20, he was elected to the local school board. A few years later, he ran against the mayor he worked for. Menendez lost that first campaign, but won the rematch in 1986. The following year, he ran and won a seat in the state legislature, and in a sign of the avaricious nature that would later get him indicted, he kept the mayor’s office (and salary) serving in both posts at once.
From there, it was the state Senate in Trenton, a House seat in Washington, and in 2006, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate seat he still holds, at least for now. And while the greed alleged in a criminal indictment filed last month by federal prosecutors has alienated even his fellow Democrats who have called for his resignation, there’s a case to be made that Bob Menendez isn’t the problem as much as he’s a symptom of the problem of a system dominated and warped by career politicians.
Consider a description from the New York Times about how Menendez has operated:
“He accepted rides on private plans, luxurious vacations, and other perks from wealthy friends while freely using his office to advance their interests.”
Contrast that description with the Hedrick Smith anecdote about a newly elected pol. While until recently Menendez was the picture of power, including routine visits to the smoking porch at Morton’s (his annual bill at the steak chain alone was reported to be $16,000) where he enjoyed the best of the best cigars, the newbie in Congress was a bit of a nobody. Well, of course.
This may be Menendez’s nature, as reporters haven’t yet gotten around to digging into what he was up to for all those years in Union City and Trenton. But one thing is clear. He certainly learned the ways of Washington: getting to know the right people (elected and unelected) while perfecting the skill of moving money to the programs and projects desired by those with money, or who wanted to attain it. Menendez, the New York Times also noted, helped bring home the bacon for his constituents as well, from a Hudson County light-rail network to billions of dollars in federal aid to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy ravaged the state in 2012. Recently, he’s credited with securing funding for a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River, currently the nation’s largest public works project.
Little of the federal funding Menendez directed to New Jersey could have been secured by a rookie senator. But Menendez learned, and learned well, the ways of Washington over time. As former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey put it to the Times, “Bob labored intensely to master detail.” This political mastery is what made him such a magnet for money, as those who can move billions of dollars around tend to be.
“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session,” is an old saw of American politics. It’s even truer for Congress. And one moral of the Menendez story, whether he beats the rap or is convicted, is that term limits would limit the time spent in Washington, time in elected office that is so instrumental in one’s ability to grow government.
It’s something to think about. The easy, politically expedient thing to do is make political hay of Menendez’s obnoxious ethical lapses. But if the desire is to at least try to fix the system, one solution might be limiting time in office so that elected officials don’t have the time to amass the power and learn the skills that it takes to act unethically.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 17:30 - Rent Control Is A Disaster – Don't Let It Spread Across The Nation
Rent Control Is A Disaster – Don’t Let It Spread Across The Nation
Authored by Betsy McCaughey via The Epoch Times,
America’s renters – more than one-third of the nation’s households – are in for trouble.
Left-wing politicians are demanding rent regulation from coast to coast. Wherever it is adopted, the result will be a disastrous reduction in the rental housing supply, leaving renters desperate for places to live.
New York is the poster child for the failures of rent regulation. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently mulling a challenge to the constitutionality of the city’s rent regime.
Whatever the justices decide, the public needs to consider less destructive, more targeted ways to help low-income people pay for housing. The court of public opinion needs to consider these facts.
Fact No. 1: Rent regulation isn’t targeted to the poor.
In New York, there’s no means test. What you need is luck or connections. The mean income of a rent-stabilized apartment dweller is $47,000, but census data show that tens of thousands of them earn more than $150,000 per year. Some occupants use what they’re saving on rent to pay for a weekend place in the Hamptons or New England.
The pols don’t object—a sure sign they’re calling for rent regulation to help themselves politically, not the poor.
In New York, 44 percent of rental apartments are regulated by the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), established in 1969, which sets the maximum amount by which landlords are allowed to raise the rent. Those limits apply to all buildings of six or more units built before 1974.
In 2022, the RGB set the maximum rent hike at 3.25 percent on one-year leases and this year at 3 percent. Never mind that last year, fuel costs to heat the buildings soared by 19 percent and overall inflation hit 8.3 percent.
The decisions are political, not economic. Many Democratic politicians vilify building owners as “greedy landlords” and depict themselves as the champions of the downtrodden. It’s a scam.
Fact No. 2: Winners and losers.
The winners are the lucky few with rent-regulated apartments and the pols who count on an army of tenant activists to turn out at the polls. The losers are the 56 percent of renters who don’t score a regulated apartment and have to scour neighborhoods for an unregulated place that they can afford. They’re paying more.
Why? Because regulation causes some landlords to walk away, reducing the overall supply of apartments. The laws of supply and demand mean rents go up. New Yorkers in unregulated apartments are paying the highest rents in the United States for a one-bedroom apartment. They’re the real victims, and they should be furious.
Yet the left-wing press pretends that rent control offers only benefits. The New Republic warns that the Supreme Court challenge threatens “laws that have benefitted the city’s tenants for generations.” Sorry, untrue—only some tenants, and not always the neediest.
It’s economic madness. The saner way to help those who need assistance paying rent is with a voucher. We offer the needy SNAP debit cards to help them pay for groceries. No one slaps price controls on grocery stores or designates certain stores as “regulated,” forcing them to sell at below cost.
Yet New York forces certain landlords to pay what should be a public cost shared by all, an argument made to the court.
Fact No. 3: The Marxist fantasy that rent regulation will help the poor is spreading across the United States and Europe as well.
Maine and Minnesota have enacted laws allowing municipalities to impose rent regulations. In November 2024, California voters will be asked to approve a proposition allowing local governments to add additional restrictions to the state’s existing rent caps.
The laws of supply and demand are international. Berlin froze rents in 2019, and the rental supply plummeted, according to the Ifo Institute, a think tank.
Yet London Mayor Sadiq Khan is calling for freezing rents for two years. London provides housing vouchers to the poor—a smarter approach—but when the city froze the voucher amounts during the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer apartments were available in the price range. The answer is to raise the voucher amount. Freezing rents will only make the shortage worse.
Ignore the demagogues. The evidence is in: Rent regulation is a political scam. There are better ways to help Americans afford a place to live.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 16:20 - Watch: Baseless Gender Ideology Cartoon Now Part Of 4th Grade Curriculum In Wisconsin
Watch: Baseless Gender Ideology Cartoon Now Part Of 4th Grade Curriculum In Wisconsin
The case in favor of homeschooling is growing by the day. Multiple public school districts in the state of Wisconsin officially added gender fluid ideology as a part if their controversial “Human Growth and Development” curriculum that earned heat from critics in 2022. While Wisconsin allows districts to tailor their own sex education programs and not all districts are the same, basic lessons in many districts include teaching “gender role stereotypes” to second graders, third graders are urged to investigate their gender identity and sixth graders are instructed to refer to girls as “a person with a vulva.”
For 4th and 5th graders in the Superior School District of Wisconsin, the 2023-2024 required resource list includes a cartoon produced by the Canadian Public Broadcasting Service (CBC) called ‘Gender Explained.’ This is what they are now teaching to 9-year-olds in WI:
Below is the the portion of the Superior District required curriculum resources list that includes the CBC cartoon:
Gender ideology was initially taught covertly to children by activist teachers across the US, with teacher unions and organizations quietly encouraging the practice while also pushing for secrecy from parents. Progressives denied the practice for years, claiming that accusations were “paranoia and conspiracy theory” despite ample evidence to the contrary, including teacher’s own confessions on social media.
After exposure became widespread and parents realized that their children were being indoctrinated into the far-left fold instead of being taught reading, writing and arithmetic, the uproar did not lead to a change in momentum or an apology from schools. Rather, Democrat states and school districts doubled down, admitted that they were teaching gender fluidity to kids and started officially adding the lessons to the curriculum. This has been the case in Wisconsin.
Gender identity started as a fringe movement attached to LGBT organizations, but it has quickly mutated into a sweeping sociopolitical movement with the help of the entertainment industry, social media, corporate propaganda and most of all, public school teachers. Studies show a huge spike in trans identifying children from 2017-2021, right as gender curriculum was being secretly introduced in classrooms.
Trends among young people often die as quickly as they are adopted; the problem is that schools and government organizations are institutionalizing the trans fantasy as if it is proven science.
Keep in mind, there is no concrete scientific evidence supporting the notion that “gender” exists separate from biological sex, or that gender identity is fluid outside of an extremely rare mental illness known as gender dysphoria. In fact, trans activists have organized in an attempt to have studies disproving gender theory removed from major scientific journals.
For example, in March, activists were able to force a retraction on technical grounds of a paper on gender dysphoria by one of the world’s largest academic publishers, Springer Nature, which publishes Nature magazine and Scientific American. The paper found a large number of parents of gender dysphoric children said that their children suffered from long standing preexisting mental health issues. The study also reported a large number of parents surveyed thought their children’s gender dysphoria resulted from social contagion. In other words, kids are jumping on the bandwagon because it is seen as trendy, or because they are being brainwashed.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 15:45 - The Sword Of Damocles: An Economic Worst-Case Scenario For The Israeli-Palestine War
The Sword Of Damocles: An Economic Worst-Case Scenario For The Israeli-Palestine War
Authored by Tuomas Malinen via Substack,
On Tuesday, I published a post on X (Twitter), which summarized an economic worst-case scenario for the Israeli-Palestine war. It included 10 points:
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The conflict escalates into a regional war with the U.S. becoming directly involved.
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OPEC responds with an oil embargo.
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Iran closes the strait of Hormuz.
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The price of oil reaches $300/barrel.
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Europe succumbs into a full-blown energy crisis due to LNG shortage.
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Massive spike in energy prices reinvigorates inflation with central banks responding accordingly.
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Financial markets and the global banking sector collapse.
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Debt crisis engulfs the U.S. forcing the Federal Reserve to enact yet another financial market bailout.
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Petrodollar trade collapses.
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Hyperinflation emerges.
In this entry, I go through each step.
History rhymes?
In October 1973, Israel fought the Yom Kippur War against a coalition of Arab States led by Egypt and Syria. As a result of this, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries proclaimed an oil embargo against western countries supporting Israel. In six months, the price of oil rose by nearly 300%, globally, and even more in the U.S., which at that time had become dependent on the Middle-Eastern oil.
In the current time, in the worst-case, Israel launches a major counter-offensive against Palestine leading to a declaration of war, to Israel, from Iran and Syria (others may join too). In this situation, the U.S. would be almost surely forced to respond and take part in the defense of Israel. The Ford carrier strike group (which includes world’s largest warship, USS Gerald R. Ford) has been dispatched to eastern Mediterranean and the Biden administration has been reported of considering sending another carrier strike group to eastern Mediterranean. There are also rumors of U.S. military cargo planes making routine trips to Israel.
Any direct U.S. involvement in the war would almost surely force a response from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, or at least from some of its members. This would, most likely, take the form of an oil embargo to the U.S. and possibly Europe.
The strait of Hormuz is a pivotal, narrow strait for the global oil markets. One-sixth of all oil and one-third of all liquified natural gas, or LNG, consumed in the world passes through it. The strait includes eight islands of which seven are controlled by Iran, but it has a military presence in all eight. Thus, Iran has the military capacity to close the strait.
The means of closing the strait are plenty. Essentially, they range from a threat-based closing, where Iran threatens to sink any tanker passing through it, to actual sinking of a super-tanker into the strait closing it for an unknown period of time and also polluting the Persian Gulf. However, as close to 85% of Iranian imports pass through the strait, the latter option can be considered unlikely.
If the closing, or even a disruption of traffic through the strait of Hormuz would occur, with the Russian oil and gas embargo continuing, we would most likely, see the global prices of oil and LNG skyrocket to never-before-seen heights. This would reinvigorate rapid inflation, but there would also be more serious repercussions.
The Achilles heel of Europe
After closing most of the pipelines delivering Russian gas to Europe, the continent has relied on the global LNG market to fill the gap. Most importantly, Europe has relied both U.S. and Middle-Eastern sources for gas deliveries.
For example, Germany just signed a contract with Oman LNG for gas deliveries, which pass through the strait of Hormuz. Germany has also signed an agreement with U.S. based Venture Global on LNG deliveries making it the largest provider of LNG to Germany. However, VG has not even yet started building the facility where gas to Germany is delivered from.
The U.S. has accounted for little over half of Europe’s LNG demand during the past year, with Russia and the Middle-East providing around 30%. If both of these latter sources were cut, or their supply seriously reduced, it’s unlikely that the U.S. or other sources could fill up the gap, because the global LNG market is undersupplied. Moreover, combining Middle-Eastern (and possibly Russian) gas cutoff with a normal or a cold winter could create an utterly devastating conditions for the already “finely balanced” European gas market.
This means that the Israel-Palestine conflict has the capacity to derail all plans for energy security in Europe, as Russian gas has been cut (and blown) of. It’s hard to overstate the seriousness of this threat with German and European economies already sinking into a recession. Return of the energy crisis (with vengeance!) would most likely strike a mortal blow to the European economy and topple her banking sector with known global consequences.
From financial chaos to hyperinflation
Naturally, reinvigorated inflation pressures would force central banks to enact another round of interest rate rises. This would wreak havoc among consumers and corporations, but also in the capital markets. Yields of sovereign debt would likely explode. This would be followed by an utter collapse of asset and credit markets, á la spring of 2020.
At this point, we would most likely see the central banks take their “monetary perversions” to another level. This means that while they would be raising interest rates to quell inflation, they would also enact asset purchase programs to support the sovereign debt, credit and asset markets. The bailout of the financial markets would need to reach several trillions of USD, like during the spring of 2020. This would push a vast amounts of money and especially U.S. dollars into the global economy. This would naturally increase inflation pressures massively, but there’s a risk something even worse.
As a ‘nuclear option’, OPEC could stop using USD in the oil trade altogether. This would mean that the demand for dollars would suddenly collapse, and the “excess dollars”, formerly used to purchase oil, would eventually head home. This would create an unprecedented spike in the money supply of the U.S. creating perfect conditions for hyperinflation with collapsing production due to a deep recession fueled by rapid inflation, high interest rates and a banking crisis. Havoc in the U.S. economy, and thus the world, would be nothing short of apocalyptic.
Conclusions
As I am finalizing this (October 11), first reports of missile strikes to Israel from Hezbollah have surfaced in X (Twitter). At this point, it’s impossible to corroborate or debunk these claims. If these have occurred, we have just taken steps to reach the first point of the worst-case scenario.
In any case, the scenario outlined above underlines the seriousness of the situation we currently find ourselves in. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has the capacity to 1) deliver an energy checkmate for Europe and 2) initiate a devastating collapse of the U.S. economy.
However, it should be noted that, while it’s currently unlikely that we see all 10 points come to pass, if we reach even the first points, they would deliver a crushing blow to the fragile global economy. That’s why the situation needs to be followed very closely.
Regardless, it may not be a bad idea to buy gold, gasoline, gas and wood (if you have a stove).
We will continue to provide guidance for preparation in GnS Economics Newsletter.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 15:10 -
- Military Agrees To Pay $1.8 Million To Settle Lawsuits From COVID Vaccine Mandate
Military Agrees To Pay $1.8 Million To Settle Lawsuits From COVID Vaccine Mandate
Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (Emphasis ours),
In a settlement agreement submitted on Oct. 3, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro agreed to settle the pair of lawsuits—known as U.S. Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden and Colonel Financial Management Officer, et al. v. Austin—which challenged the legal basis of the military-wide vaccine mandate.
A soldier watches a colleague receive his COVID-19 vaccination from Army Preventive Medicine personnel in Fort Knox, Ky., on Sept. 9, 2021. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images) The two cases were brought by servicemembers from all U.S. military branches, including numerous officers and several members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs. The Navy SEAL plaintiffs initially filed their lawsuit nearly two years ago in October 2021 after President Joe Biden ordered that all U.S. troops and other executive branch employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Military servicemembers have raised numerous objections to the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate, including claims that the various military branches routinely rejected requests for religious accommodations to the mandates. Plaintiffs have also raised health concerns over the relatively condensed timeline under which the various COVID-19 vaccines were developed and then granted approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
While the various COVID-19 vaccines were originally made available to the general public under emergency use authorizations, the FDA eventually granted full approval to the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine version, later marketed as Comirnaty. President Biden introduced the vaccine mandate shortly after the FDA granted full approval for Comirnaty, but the lawsuits argued that the FDA-approved vaccine often wasn’t actually available to servicemembers, meaning that the military vaccine mandate effectively required service members to take versions of the COVID-19 vaccines that didn’t have full FDA approval.
Last year, Republican lawmakers introduced a provision in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that repealed the military’s vaccine mandate. President Biden ultimately signed the 2022 NDAA into law, despite objecting to the provision reversing his military vaccine mandate.
Liberty Counsel, a religious liberty nonprofit that represented military plaintiffs in the two cases, celebrated the Oct. 3 settlement agreement.
“The military COVID shot mandate is dead,” Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver said in a statement. “Our heroic service members can no longer be forced to take this experimental jab that conflicts with their religious convictions.”
The $1.8 million settlement will be split between the two cases, with $900,000 being paid out for SEAL 1-26 v. Biden and the same amount being paid to the plaintiffs in Colonel Financial Management Officer, et al. v. Austin.
“Through our daily work with service members in every branch, we have had the privilege of knowing some of the finest people who love God and love America,” Mr. Staver said. “These heroes should not have been mistreated by our own government. At the same time, we have come to realize that many of the high-ranking members of leadership, the Pentagon, and the Biden administration need to be replaced. Collectively, they dishonored the brave men and women who defend our freedom. We stand ready to defend our defenders of freedom if any religious discrimination occurs in the future.”
Approximately 8,400 U.S. military servicemembers were involuntarily separated from the military as a result of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The majority of servicemembers received a general discharge, as opposed to a more favorable honorable discharge. Servicemembers separated under a general discharge can be barred from rejoining the military and don’t have full access to educational benefits under the GI Bill.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 14:00 - Watch: Leftist Activists Across The US Call For "Intifada" In Support Of Palestinians
Watch: Leftist Activists Across The US Call For “Intifada” In Support Of Palestinians
It is perhaps one of the strangest political alliances in existence today – The political left’s infatuation with Muslim extremism and supporting Islamic causes, despite the fact that the majority of leftists would likely be imprisoned or worse in Islamic countries for their beliefs.
Regardless of a person’s position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it cannot be denied that Muslim culture is inherently hostile to progressive concepts like women’s rights, gay rights, diversity and inclusion, sexual revolution, etc. Opposition to trans ideology in particular is one of the few areas, in fact, where orthodox Muslims and conservatives in the US tend to find common ground. In other words, Muslims have little or nothing in common with the political left in the west.
Where the movements seem to intersect is up for debate, but it is clear that leftist activists are quick to jump on any opportunity to provoke violent deconstruction. The past couple days have given rise to a series of leftist rallies, mostly in blue enclaves and university environments, all across the US. People bearing rainbow flags and Palestinian flags are calling for “one solution” – A violent intifada.
This is currently happening at the University of Washington.
“There is only one solution. Intifada Revolution.”
It’s insane how many college students are waving Palestinian flags while calling for genocide against Jews.
pic.twitter.com/BkEUbeo6X1— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 12, 2023
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The rallies all appear to be tied to far-left groups from Antifa to LGBT groups.
Transgender activists are coming out in support of Palestine. pic.twitter.com/sugpim0bFi
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 13, 2023
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From Portland, Orgeon…
Portland Antifa members are among those who joined the Palestine direct action in downtown coinciding with the Hamas call to action. The rally was organized by SUPER, a @Portland_State student group that posted in support of the antisemitic terror group. pic.twitter.com/VEY11w9kxp
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) October 14, 2023
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…to New York.
“There is only one solution, INTIFADA Revolution!” A call for more killing of Jews in Times Square by the crowd led by Students for Justice in Palestine activist Naya Idriss. This misnomer of “Justice” is now what passes for morality, not just by Hamas, but in NYC.… pic.twitter.com/2R6d471RZ8
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) October 10, 2023
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Even BLM wants in on the Intifada…
How leftist activists plan to reconcile their support of Islamic extremism with their own ideological taboos remains to be seen. Furthermore, with the majority of Democrat politicians including Biden publicly in favor of Israel, one wonders if there will be a considerable split in the Democrat party if the conflict continues to escalate beyond the borders of Gaza.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 13:25 - Ex-Walmart CEO Says US Consumers Reaching 'Breaking Point'
Ex-Walmart CEO Says US Consumers Reaching ‘Breaking Point’
Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The all-mighty American consumer, whose spending drives the economy, is reaching a breaking point and is on the verge of folding, according to former Walmart CEO Bill Simon.
Bill Simon, then-president and CEO of Walmart, speaks at an event in Chicago, Ill., on June 14, 2013. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) Mr. Simon told CNBC in a recent interview that a series of factors—political polarization, inflation, and high interest rates—were all working together to undermine consumers and their propensity to spend.
“That sort of pileup wears on the consumer and makes them wary,” Mr. Simon told the outlet. “For the first time in a long time, there’s a reason for the consumer to pause.”
Consumer spending is a major driver of the U.S. economy, accounting for roughly two-thirds of gross domestic product (GDP).
Mr. Simon, who now serves on the Board of Directors for Darden Restaurants and Hanesbrands Inc., said that, after a long period of cheap money cut short by the Federal Reserve’s rapid rate hikes in response to soaring inflation, consumers are now beginning to buckle.
“Consumers had an incredible 10-, 12-year run,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money” program. “Markets were buoyant. Interest rates were low. Money was available.”
But now, the music has stopped, and the party is grinding to a halt.
Faced with soaring inflation that remained persistently high despite predictions that the price spike would be short-lived, Fed officials have pushed the benchmark federal funds rate quickly from near zero in March 2022 to its current range of 5.25–5.5 percent.
Despite all the monetary tightening so far, inflation remains uncomfortably high.
The government released the latest data on inflation on Thursday, showing that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.7 percent in September, matching August’s pace. While that’s down from a recent peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022 and lower than the 8.2 percent pace a year ago, it’s still well above the Fed’s inflation target of 2 percent.
Even though a number of Fed officials have, in recent days, suggested that the rate-hiking cycle may have reached its peak, newly released minutes detailing internal discussions during the Fed’s latest rate-setting policy meeting in September show most of them think one more rate increase is in store—followed by a period of higher interest rates for “some time.”
The higher-for-longer interest rate environment means tighter financial conditions, marked by more expensive borrowing and reduced lending, putting a damper on economic activity. It also tends to mean less consumer spending.
Inflation ‘Still Above Comfort Levels’
Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that even though inflation has fallen from its recent peak, it’s still well above many consumers’ comfort level.
“For consumers trying to manage their personal finances amid inflation, the situation with prices is a bit like battling illness. Being past the worst of it isn’t the same as feeling better or robust,” he said.
Many economists see a relatively high probability of a recession in the coming year, with signals like waning consumer confidence an often-cited canary in the coal mine.
A customer checks prices while shopping at a retail store in Vernon Hills, Ill., on June 12, 2023. (Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo) Waning Consumer Strength?
With persistently high inflation and a deteriorating economic outlook, September saw consumer confidence fall for the second consecutive month to hit a four-month low, according to the Conference Board.
Also, expectations about the economic outlook over the next six months dropped below the Conference Board’s recession threshold of 80, reflecting waning confidence about business conditions, job availability, and earnings.
“Write-in responses showed that consumers continued to be preoccupied with rising prices in general, and for groceries and gasoline in particular. Consumers also expressed concerns about the political situation and higher interest rates,” Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board, said in a statement.
All that consumer worry is likely to translate into reduced spending if it hasn’t already. The latest consumer spending data is for August, and it shows personal consumption expenditures (PCE) growing 0.4 percent that month, less than half of July’s pace of 0.9 percent.
A recent survey carried out in September by CNBC-Morning Consult found that 92 percent of U.S. adults have cut back on spending over the past six months.
Looking forward, over three-quarters of those polled said they plan to cut back on spending for non-essential items.
Further, a recent survey of consumer expectations from the New York Federal Reserve shows that more U.S. households report being financially worse off now than they were a year ago.
Forty-one percent of households say they’re financially worse off than a year ago, up from 40 percent in August.
Unsurprisingly, given the Fed’s series of aggressive rate hikes and speculation that more could be in store, households’ perceptions of and expectations for credit conditions deteriorated.
The survey also gauged consumer spending intentions one year ahead. While these remained unchanged in September at 5.3 percent, they generally fell steadily from a peak of 9.0 percent in May 2022.
A number of large retailers, such as Target, have reported a drop in discretionary spending.
“There is some real concern about weakness in the consumer,” Sarah Hunt, a partner at Alpine Saxon Woods, told Bloomberg TV in an interview at the end of September.
“There’s a real spending issue coming up and I think that’s going to impact earnings.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 12:50 - France Deploys 7,000 Soldiers After Teacher Murdered; Louvre, Versailles Evacuated Over Bomb Threats
France Deploys 7,000 Soldiers After Teacher Murdered; Louvre, Versailles Evacuated Over Bomb Threats
France has deployed 7,000 soldiers to beef up security after a schoolteacher was stabbed to death and three others wounded, according to France’s interior minister, who said that the suspected Islamist attack was linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
CRS riot police arrive to cordon off an area near the Gambetta high school in Arras, northeastern France on October 13, 2023, after a teacher was killed and two other people severely wounded in a knife attack. © Denis Charlet, AFP Breaking News France: 7000 Soldiers are being deployed across France as #HamasTerrorist supporters continue to cause chaos and the French authorities scramble to prevent further killings. #France Mass uncontrolled #Illegals being allowed into the country are causing… pic.twitter.com/1PdVT61Ovw
— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) October 14, 2023
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A 20-year-old Russian-born Chechen, Mohamed M, was arrested shortly after the Friday attack at a secondary school in the northeastern city of Arras, roughly 115 miles north of Paris. According to interior minister Gerald Darmanin, who added that authorities have detained 12 people near schools or places of worship since the Hamas attack on Israel, Sky reports.
⚡Graphic Video
THE SCENE OF THE MURDER OF A TEACHER IN FRANCE
The suspect is a Chechen. Today he killed a teacher in the courtyard of a school in France. He was arrested and taken into custody.#France pic.twitter.com/BjhMFJfX8Q
— ⚡NOW⚡ (@warinsightshq) October 13, 2023
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The teacher’s murder comes nearly three years to the day after a Chechen Muslim beheaded a French teacher on Oct. 16, 2020, near his school in a Paris suburb.
“Three years after the assassination of Samuel Paty, terrorism has struck a school again and in a context that we all know,” said French President Emmanuel Macron.
Of note, France has banned all pro-Palestinian protests. Despite this, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in central Paris on Thursday.
“Pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited because they are likely to generate disturbances to the public order,” said Darmanin, who called on police to protect all locations visited by French Jews, such as synagogues and schools, and that any foreigner committing acts of anti-Semitism on French soil will be “immediately expelled.”
Meanwhile, the Lourve and the Palace of Versailles were both evacuated over bomb threats.
Le Louvre évacué en catastrophe après une alerte à la bombe.
L’invasion et l’islamisation du pays, ardemment voulues par les dirigeants de droite et de gauche depuis 40 se paient très cher.
Et ce sont les Français qui passent à la caisse.#attentat #islamisme #terrorisme… pic.twitter.com/h5ygei1Jxv
— Jean MESSIHA (@JeanMessiha) October 14, 2023
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Alarms rang out through the Louvre, a vast space also in a former royal palace Paris overlooking the Seine River, when the evacuation was announced, and in the underground shopping center beneath its signature pyramid.
Police cordoned off the monument from all sides, and the underground access, as tourists and other visitors streamed out. Videos posted online showed people leaving, some hurriedly and some stopping to take photos, others apparently confused about what was happening. -AP
The Palace of Versailles, Louvre Museum, as well as several other Tourist Locations in Paris, France are currently being Evacuated following a reported Bomb Threat. pic.twitter.com/qL9nP5ucSY
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) October 14, 2023
BREAKING: Bomb alert at Palace of Versailles in France, people evacuating pic.twitter.com/ujLoclDM5t
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) October 14, 2023
The Lourve welcomes some 30,000 – 40,000 visitors per day.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/14/2023 – 12:15
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