Sep 15

Today’s News 15th September 2023

  • "A Declaration Of War On Europe" – Salvini Says 6,000 Migrants Landing On 1 Day Threatens To Collapse Italian Society
    “A Declaration Of War On Europe” – Salvini Says 6,000 Migrants Landing On 1 Day Threatens To Collapse Italian Society

    Via Remix News,

    Social media has been awash with videos of migrants storming the shores of Italy in recent days, and Italy’s nominally conservative government is being forced to respond.

    Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, known for his hawkish stance on immigration during his tenure as interior minister in 2018, said on Wednesday that when 120 boats filled with migrants arrive on the shores of Italy at the same time, “it is not a spontaneous phenomenon, it is a declaration of war on Europe.”

    The deputy prime minister of the right-wing government in Rome, who currently heads the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, referred to the fact that the boats with approximately 6,000 migrants docked on the island of Lampedusa in one day. He stressed that the problem was not exclusive to Lampedusa and that the situation threatened to “collapse Italian society as a whole.”

    Salvini said he is convinced that mass migration to Europe was being orchestrated by criminal organizations, including human trafficking organizations. He added that Europe had completely abandoned Italy to protect its land and maritime borders and that Rome should act on its own to further tighten national security and migration regulations.

    Salvini first met with League ministers, state secretaries and parliamentarians behind closed doors, before holding a press conference at the headquarters of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association in Rome. He also presented the issues on the RAI evening news program.

    “The united center-right that came to government almost a year ago is working well in Italy, the same united center-right that gives us hope to make a difference in Europe,” Salvini said.

    Video footage of boat after boat made waves on social media, with it serving as a visceral reminder of the spiraling immigration crisis Europe is facing.

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ran on a campaign platform of blocking migrants and setting up a “naval blockade;” however, since coming to power, she has overseen a record number of illegal migrants arriving in Italy and has even approved plans for Italy to accept over 400,000 non-EU legal migrants per year.

    Salvini, who managed to reduce illegal immigration dramatically when he served as interior minister, appears to value unity with Meloni at the moment and is not showing any public signs that he is ready to challenge his coalition partner. As Remix News previously reported, despite Meloni’s U-turn on immigration, she has maintained strong polling numbers in Italy, and the country’s growing immigration crisis does not appear to have dented her appeal with voters.

    Salvini stated that uniting European conservatives and moderates is the only way to “send the socialists home,” referring to the European Parliament elections next year. He noted that the stakes of the elections amount to the future of Europe.

    The immigration crisis could galvanize voters to swing to the right, but it could also backfire, especially if the scenes in Lampedusa and elsewhere in Italy begin to filter to the broader Italian populace, who may start to view the ruling the conservative government with skepticism. The EU, for its part, has done little to aid Italy, and if anything, could turn the screws on Meloni’s government if she takes any significant action to stem the immigration crisis.

    Salvini also announced that on Saturday and Sunday the traditional annual meeting of the League, to be held in Pontida, Lombardy, will be attended by Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Rally. Le Pen has come out in support of Salvini since the Meloni government formed, saying she is more ideologically aligned with the League party leader. Le Pen, in particular, says she rejects Meloni’s foreign policy stances.

    The League leader also touched on the war in Ukraine, saying that a small state like the Vatican is doing more to stop the conflict than many major powers. Salvini said that Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who is leading the peace mission launched by Pope Francis and is in Beijing for talks, has done more than the European Union.

    The war in Ukraine remains another major point of contention between Salvini and Meloni, with Salvini seeking to disengage Italy from sending weapons to Ukraine, whereas Meloni has taken a more pro-Brussels stance and sought to escalate Italy’s role in the conflict.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/15/2023 – 02:00

  • You Can't Fight The Culture War Without Making Movies
    You Can’t Fight The Culture War Without Making Movies

    Authored by Michael Pack via RealClear Wire,

    Conservatives complain that they are losing the culture wars. And they are right. That won’t change until conservatives actually produce culture, which would be good for everyone. American culture would be enriched by art made by artists with diverse viewpoints and experiences.

    Conservatives could start with independent and documentary films; they are increasingly influential but much less expensive than Hollywood movies. Yet, many, on both sides, don’t believe conservatives can make good films.

    I disagree, and I am in a position to know. Along with my wife and business partner, Gina Cappo Pack, I have been producing documentaries for many years. Over 15 of our films have been nationally broadcast on PBS. All have won awards and garnered many favorable reviews. (A full list of our films along with clips can be found here.) So, I am a practitioner, a maker of culture, rather than a critic or expert. 

    In addition, I have run some major cultural institutions, including serving as president of the Claremont Institute, senior vice president for television programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media, our government’s international broadcasters, including Voice of America. So, I also have the perspective of a media executive. Over the years, I have watched numerous conservative efforts to “take back the culture,” all pathetic failures.

    Capturing the Culture

    How did the left achieve cultural dominance? Not by accident or luck, but by hard work, a clear focus, and talent.

    In the late 1960s, the New Left called for a “long march through the institutions,” intending eventually to dominate all the elements of civil society. The phrase is attributed to German Marxist student leader Rudi Dutschke, who was echoing Mao’s famed actual “long march” leading to the Communists’ revolutionary takeover of China. The concept was picked up by the Frankfurt School and has roots in the influential Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, who believed that cultural struggle inevitably precedes revolutionary class struggle. Student radicals knew they had failed to foment Marxist revolution in the 60s, so they turned to capturing the West’s cultural institutions.

    Their first target was the university, where, as student radicals, they were already well-positioned. They soon expanded to Hollywood. For example, Bert Schneider, one of the producers of “Easy Rider,” helped finance and plan Black Panther leader Huey Newton’s flight to Cuba to evade charges of shooting a 17-year-old prostitute. To the Hollywood elite, Schneider was just earning his street cred. 

    Today, their success is undeniable – in the universities, in Hollywood, the tech sector, woke corporations, and the permanent government bureaucracy. Along the way, their hard-core Marxism has morphed into a softer wokeism, at least for now.

    The left owns the narrative. Their version of contemporary events and history dominates – we are told that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery, the Cold War ended thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev, transgender athletes have a civil right to compete in sports with biological women, and the rest of the woke litany. 

    In the past, conservatives have downplayed the importance of culture, seeing its airy fictions as less serious than economics or politics. After losing many of their children and grandchildren to the progressive left, they have come to see the error of their ways, at least in theory. Many quote Andrew Breitbart’s aphorism that “politics is downstream of culture,” as if this were a new idea. It isn’t: In 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that poets are “the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” and by “poets” he meant all artists. Plato and Aristotle understood this same idea thousands of years earlier, and they were none too happy about it, or at least ambivalent.

    The Importance of Story

    Conservatives talk about culture and storytelling all the time. But few of them really get it. 

    I watch a lot of conservative films, especially documentaries. Few are very good, as I am often told by my friends on the left, and most don’t even coherently tell a story. Preaching at the audience isn’t telling a story. A series of anecdotes is not a story. A story is something that happens to a protagonist, or a group of protagonists, with a beginning, middle, and end. It has a story arc. Characters change and develop. Ideas emerge from the action. 

    Let me offer two examples of how a story works, drawn from my own films. Our documentary, “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” tells the story of Justice Clarence Thomas, from growing up in the segregated South to the Supreme Court. We let him tell his story himself. He is the only person interviewed, except his wife, Ginni. He looks directly at the camera as if speaking directly to the viewer. 

    The trailer can be found here.

    The film deals with race in America, originalism, the principles of the Founding, being a black conservative, and much more. Not through experts telling us what to think but through Clarence Thomas his own life story. Viewers can see for themselves how his worldview arose from the events of his life. To make a compelling story, we needed to structure the narrative to build to the right climactic moments, employing music, editing rhythms, visual imagery, and the rest of the cinematic toolkit. 

    Good documentary filmmakers reveal their biases not so much by distorting facts but by the stories they choose to tell. Several progressive filmmakers have chosen to tell the Ruth Bader Ginsburg story. Ginsburg was graced with two documentaries and a fictional feature film and became a pop culture heroine. All three films were widely acclaimed, and Robert Redford invited her to the Sundance Film Festival to celebrate her even more. We chose to tell Clarence Thomas’ story. America needs both. 

    Our film, “The Last 600 Meters,” tells a different kind of story, depicting the biggest battles of the Iraq war, Fallujah and Najaf, in 2004. A climax is a scene toward the end of the film, one of the most intense firefights of the war, called Hell House. The clip can be found here.

    I am gratified that many senior military leaders have praised the film. For example, Gen. James Mattis, who was in charge of the first battle of Fallujah, said: 

    “The Last 600 Meters reveals the infantry’s world as it has seldom been seen by those who have not experienced it. “This film, uncaptured by politics or ideology, reveals the most bruising ethical environment on Earth and the character of the young men that our nation sends in harm’s way – its infantry. It does so without veneer or apology, and in the tumult shown, understanding builds to respect for those who do our nation’s bidding in the highly unforgiving environment of ‘The Last 600 Meters.’ This film is a classic, unique in its approach and unique in what it reveals.”

    However, the film has not yet been released. The reasons reveal how differently the left and right respond to movies and understand stories. 

    Although the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was the principal funder, PBS rejected the finished film, which had never before happened in my entire career. They said it was too pro-military and too sympathetic to the young soldiers and Marines. They accused me of using selective casting to make them look more attractive and articulate, as if they needed my help. In other words, PBS didn’t like what they took to be its message. 

    Next, we tried to raise money to release the film in movie theaters hoping to generate audience buzz, and perhaps a good cable or streaming deal. I went around the country screening the film and meeting with wealthy donors. I was accompanied by one of our executive producers, Steve Bannon (yes, that Steve Bannon, then a movie guy, and clearly a great salesman). Consistently, these potential donors told us that, while the film was emotionally moving, they didn’t know at the end what they were supposed to think. Was it pro- or anti-war? Why was there no “call to action”? At that time, we failed to raise the necessary funds. 

    Clearly, the film deals with issues like patriotism, honor, the nature of counterinsurgency warfare, and how the military functions – but through the medium of story. For our potential donors, it was not explicit enough. They were uncomfortable with the ambiguities of the story. But that was part of the point of the film. War is messy, and certainties vanish. (PBS executives, on the other hand, thought they could see past the ambiguities to what they took to be our message.)

    We still hope to release the film. Perhaps its moment has come. With the war in Ukraine, the debacle in Afghanistan, and other ongoing worldwide threats, we need to decide how we want to wage war. It would be wise to look back at what happened last time, during the biggest battles since Vietnam, Fallujah and Najaf. 

    What is wanted is not merely storytelling. Story is the beginning, not the end. The viewer’s mind must be teased to see more than just a rollicking good tale, through ambiguity, metaphor, and the rest. The story must be in the service of ideas. 

    The Left’s Documentary Ecosystem

    Not only does the left have a better intuitive grasp of story, but they are also more serious about developing the institutions to support story-telling culture. 

    Over the last 50 years, the left has poured time, money, and creativity into this project. Looking only at documentaries and small independent features, I estimate that the left spends tens of billions of dollars annually. For example, the annual budget of public broadcasting, radio, and television is about $2.5 billion. Netflix, according to the Wall Street Journal, spent $17 billion last year on content. Not all of this money is going to left-leaning products, but much of it is. And these are only two out of many left-leaning media enterprises. On the other side, the right spends, maybe, tens of millions of dollars on films and television. So, over 50 years, this gap has grown to hundreds of billions of dollars, which has underwritten a progressive ecosystem of supportive and reinforcing institutions, in addition to many, many powerful films. 

    The left starts nurturing young filmmakers right from the beginning of their careers and then at every step along the way. 

    It starts with film schools. Virtually every college and university in America has a film school, and there are about 4,000 colleges. Almost every film school professor is a self-described progressive. I have never met one who is conservative. Every year, these film schools graduate hundreds of thousands of progressive aspiring filmmakers (along with camera operators, editors, film composers, etc.). Only a small percentage have the talent, ambition, and drive to succeed, and they become the basis for the next generation of progressive creative talent. On the right, we have no such winnowing process. We are left with the few filmmakers who fall off the left-wing apple cart. 

    After film school, there are many training programs for progressive young filmmakers to sharpen their skills and make industry contacts. 

    Then, when looking for their first job, they can apply to any of the vast networks of progressive film companies, which range from one-man shops to divisions of major studios. 

    When our budding young progressive filmmakers have acquired enough experience and are ready to make their first big film, they can turn to an extensive network of progressive funding sources. All the largest American foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, have divisions devoted to supporting “social justice” documentaries. The federal government funds documentaries through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation, among others. The staff of these government entities is very focused, explicitly, on social justice and DEI, and their grants reflect that. 

    For-profit funding is also available. Several boutique distribution and production companies have been created by wealthy leftist billionaires, often from Silicon Valley, to support woke films, such as Participant, bankrolled by eBay founder Jeff Skoll. HBO, Showtime, Amazon, Netflix, and other cable and streaming companies commission woke documentaries and nonfiction series, in addition to acquiring them. 

    As these young progressives start to produce their films, they can rely on a talent pool of skilled artists and craftsmen, from cameramen and composers to editors and computer graphics artists, who proudly call themselves progressive, too. 

    When their woke film is finished, how do they make sure a large audience sees it? Our up-and-coming progressive filmmakers have a host of options, especially among cable and streaming services. Years ago, we all hoped that these new companies, like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, would provide a diversity of programming, different from the standard Hollywood fare. This has failed to materialize, in part because they are run by the same progressive Hollywood and New York elites that run the legacy media companies. 

    Finally, our progressive filmmakers can enter their films in prestigious film festivals, like Sundance or Telluride, or the many smaller ones, including ones dedicated to environmental, LGBT, or other niche markets. Then, they might be lucky enough to get an award, from the Oscars and Emmys to many others, all run by the same woke club. 

    Not surprisingly, with all this attention and need for content, there is a renaissance of documentary and nonfiction filmmaking. Both feature-length documentary films and short documentaries are being produced in large numbers. Many are of very high quality, but almost all are very progressive, especially in the choice of subject. For example, the proposed Emmy nominees for nonfiction in one year included documentaries and series celebrating Stacey Abrams, Greta Thunberg, progressive Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, and the ’70s black militant group MOVE, a virtual litany of woke causes and progressive heroes and victims. None had voices questioning the saintly nature of their protagonists. 

    The Myth of the Left’s Artistic Superiority

    The left’s dominance of the culture may seem daunting. This should not deter us. To put our problem in perspective, look back at how radical leaders felt when they began their march through the institutions. They, too, were discouraged. 

    Frankfurt school writers decried the hopelessly bourgeois nature of mid-century America, narcotized, according to them, by TV shows like “Bonanza” and “Father Knows Best.” How would they ever radicalize these comfortable middle-class Americans? But they persisted and are now rewarded with success. We can succeed, too. A restoration is easier than a revolution. 

    Cowards who want to surrender in the culture wars often claim we can’t fight back because “the left is naturally more artistic and given to storytelling. Our side is more interested in politics and making money.” This may describe our society as it is now, but it is not a natural law. 

    I am not even sure what this assertion means. Great art and artists are hard to pigeonhole, and the politics of the past are very different from the politics of the present. Just to cite a few examples: Virgil’s Aeneid, the most influential poem in human history, glorified the Roman Emperor Augustus. Dante’s Divine Comedy longed for a reconstituted pan-European monarchy and a universal church. Shakespeare’s history plays celebrated and justified Elizabethan rule. 

    Whatever you call these works, they are not left-leaning or anti-authoritarian. 

    The trope of the radical artist defying convention and society is comparatively recent, a creation of the Romantic Movement, with its Byronic rebel artists and its critique of industrialization and the values of the rising bourgeoisie. But, over the last two centuries, there are plenty of exceptions to this Romantic myth, from Robert Frost to T. S. Eliot. 

    My part of the cultural battlefield is the movies. The movie industry itself is the best rejoinder to the myth of leftist artistic superiority. Hollywood, in its golden age, from the 1920s through the 1950s, consistently made movies with a patriotic subtext, selling the American Dream to audiences here and all over the world. These movies celebrated faith, family, and individual opportunity. Hollywood moguls, like Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, and Samuel Goldwyn, were Jewish immigrants who fled oppression and pogroms in Eastern Europe. They prized American liberty and freedom, having bitter memories of its opposite. And, of course, selling the American dream was good business, leading to immensely popular movies, since these movies mirrored the values of their countrymen. 

    The iconic American genre is the Western, whose greatest director was John Ford, and its greatest star was John Wayne. Ford’s movies, like “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” or “The Searchers,” tell complex stories of the settling of the West, which are basically positive but with complicating features. John Wayne often portrays the rugged individualist hero, who is maybe too violent for civilization but necessary for its success. These movies, and icons like Wayne, made people all over the world want to come to America and be Americans. 

    When it comes to storytelling, in truth, the advantage is all on our side, not on the left’s. Our stories, especially about America, have heroes and villains, and great world-changing adventures. These are stories past generations of Americans have loved hearing. Moreover, they are actually true and reflect even deeper truths. The left has had to turn all this on its head, with anti-heroes, nihilistic postmodern Westerns, dystopian anti-free market fantasies, and the rest. With the help of deep pockets and the control of all cultural institutions, they have done surprisingly well with a weak hand. 

    Solutions

    America may be in a culture war, but only one side is fighting. The progressive left is making culture. We, on the conservative right, merely complain about it. Imagine a war where one side deploys troops and weapons, and the other side complains about the first group’s inhumane behavior. No wonder we are losing. We haven’t really begun to fight, to get our troops into the field. 

    We need to start producing culture. To give you an idea of what can be accomplished, let me describe what my team is doing. We have launched a new production company, Palladium Pictures, to help fill this need. We aim to tell stories the progressive left ignores, downplays, or covers in a one-sided fashion. Fortunately, we have a generous multi-year grant to help us get started. Naturally, we will need to fundraise aggressively to realize the grandest of our ambitions.

    Our plan has three parts: new long-form documentaries, short documentaries, and an incubator to train the next generation of right-of-center filmmakers.

    Long-Form Documentaries

    As is typical for a production company, we have many projects in development and the list is always growing. Let me briefly describe three from this list, without too much detail. 

    “Seattle 2020” (working title): The protests and riots following the death of George Floyd, whatever their political goals, also led to billions of dollars of property damage and many violent crimes. Yet, there are no major documentaries about those riots, while, according to the Washington Post, there are over a dozen films in production about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

    The events in Seattle that summer are a good window into what was happening across the country and into some of the movements and issues that are still with us. Immediately after George Floyd’s killing, protests and riots began, first in downtown Seattle and then in the fashionable Capitol Hill area. Eventually, the police decided to abandon the Capitol Hill police station and permit the protestors to run the six blocks around it as they saw fit, with barriers to entry and their own security force. The protestors first called the area The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) but later changed the name to The Capitol Hill Organized Protest (the CHOP). Police, fire, and EMS were forbidden entry. During the day there was free food, music, and speeches, while nighttime was more violent: Many stores were looted, there were several shootings, and, finally, two murders forced the city to clear the CHOP, though protests continued throughout the year. We will examine the story from all sides, giving all points of view, from protestors to police to city officials, a chance to speak.

    “Fracking” (working title): Extracting natural gas through hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, commonly called “fracking,” has revolutionized energy production in the U.S. We have gone from a net importer of petroleum products to a net exporter, not without controversy. Critics claim fracking is polluting drinking water and releasing large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas, into the environment. Defenders of the method point to the huge new resources of natural gas that can be reached by horizontal drilling, fueling economic growth in America and around the world. They add that natural gas replacing coal has lowered America’s CO2 emissions.

    Rather than feature the argument or profile victims, as is often done, we will follow a few fracking entrepreneurs as they try to drill for natural gas, encountering opposition from regulators, environmentalists, and government at all levels. Although all these people will get a chance to make their case fully, our story will be driven by our entrepreneurs’ ongoing efforts to find the energy the world needs and to pursue the American dream of success through achievement.

    “Rediscovering Thomas Jefferson”: America’s Founding Fathers are under attack as never before, from tearing down their statues to the 1619 Project’s claim that the American Revolution was mainly about protecting slavery. So, this seems to us a good time to reexamine our founding. We have done two previous films on founders, “Rediscovering George Washington” and “Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton,” which placed their lives in the context of today’s world. 

    Next, we want to turn to Thomas Jefferson. These days he is under attack not only for being a slave owner who is believed to have fathered children with an enslaved woman, but also for his Enlightenment ideas, as realized in the Declaration of Independence, whose vision of “equality” differs from contemporary notions of “equity.” We will present him, warts and all, but not just the warts, the brilliance, too. 

    These are three very different documentaries. Together they can begin to change the debate about the recent past, the present, and our history – and point the way for others to do so, too. A small number of well-crafted, fair-minded films can make a difference.

    Short Documentaries

    We are working with a major media organization to put out a series of short documentaries, telling the full story behind news items and recent events. Topics under consideration include aspects of the response to COVID-19, cancel culture, and the parent movement to challenge public schools.

    These shorts will deal with issues by finding the human story that reveals the essence of what is at stake, rather than being issue-oriented essays, with a lot of explanation and narration. The format will be closer to the New York Times’ Op-Docs, rather than the video essays popular on conservative websites. Although topical, these films will not be advocacy. While relying on good reporting, presenting a fair consideration of the issues, and featuring all sides, these will be primarily emotional and thought-provoking films. The New York Times’ Op-Docs, and others on the left, do this well. We need to catch up.

    Since are partnered with a major media organization and will be producing several every year, these shorts will be able to gradually grow their audience and become a brand. We will use all the new ways of delivering video, from streaming services to X (formerly known as Twitter) to new social media outlets.

    These docs will enable us to deal with hot-button issues with a quicker turnaround time, before the conventional wisdom is settled. If the news is the first draft of history, these will be the second draft (and our longer docs, the third draft). In a world bogged down by the 24-hour news cycle, these docs will offer in-depth journalism that captivates as much as it investigates and informs. 

    Incubator

    In the future, who will make movies that will tell “the other side of the story,” neglected by Hollywood and today’s cultural establishment? How can we create the missing talent pool, cast aside by the progressive left’s ecosystem of institutions from film school to the Oscars?

    To solve that problem in the nonfiction realm, we are launching an incubator program to train and nurture a core group of the next generation of right-of-center documentary filmmakers. Through a competitive process, we will select several fellows, whose short film project we will fully fund and distribute. These films will be made under our direct supervision and tutelage, so the filmmakers will receive mentorship and guidance. In the course of making these short films, a new generation of non-woke filmmakers will learn producing skills, narrative techniques, and journalistic judgment. 

    Each year this network of young, talented filmmakers will grow. They will go on from our incubator to make bigger and better films. They will help and collaborate with each other. We are committed to helping them throughout their careers. Over time, as a group, they will change the documentary film landscape, challenging the notion that conservatives can’t make movies, not in theory, but by producing great films.

    The program is outlined here.

    Conclusion

    Contrary to conventional wisdom, I am much more optimistic about the changing the culture, especially through the story-telling media, than about reforming politics and the government. Sure, conservatives can win elections, but the permanent bureaucracy has spent decades burrowing in and is protected by civil service rules so even victories at the ballot box don’t mean what they once did. Yet, anyone can make a movie. Although all the supporting institutions are on the left, entertainment remains a free market.

    We can nurture our own filmmakers and make our own movies. Today, there are many more ways for a non-woke film to reach an audience. You can stream it from your own YouTube site. You can make a deal with one of the several new conservative streaming sites. It’s also possible that you can persuade one of the major streaming services to pick it up. After all, we have been successful for decades in getting our films nationally broadcast in primetime on PBS, hardly a right-wing outlet. The key is to have truly excellent content, whose value cannot be denied. Content is indeed king. 

    We can also build cultural institutions of our own – and create an alternative ecosystem, modeled on the successful one the left has built over the decades. By learning from their experience, we can do it all much faster, using newer technology.

    America, it is often said, is roughly divided into thirds: one-third on the left, one-third on the right, and one-third in the middle. I believe the latter two-thirds would support and welcome documentaries and feature films that present a positive, but accurate, portrait of America, reflecting traditional values without preaching and without distortion. 

    We need to summon the will to do it – and the funding.

    Michael Pack is a documentary filmmaker, who has produced over 15 award-winning documentaries which were nationally broadcast on public television, most recently “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.” He has also served as a media, government, and non-profit executive.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 23:40

  • As Historic Auto Union Strike Starts, White House Prepares Emergency Aid
    As Historic Auto Union Strike Starts, White House Prepares Emergency Aid

    Update (2320ET): For the first time in history that the 146,000-member union has simultaneously gone on strike against Ford, General Motors(GM) and Stellantis, according to Reuters.

    “Tonight, for the first time in our history, we will strike all three of the Big Three at once,” UAW President Shawn Fain says.

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

    UAW President Shawn Fain announced that the strike would begin on Friday at three plants:

    • GM’s midsize truck and full-size van plant in Wentzville, Missouri;

    • Ford’s Ranger midsize pickup and Bronco SUV plant in Wayne, Michigan; and

    • Stellantis’ Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio

    …while not yet committing to a complete strike for all its members.

    Pro-union President Biden is walking a very thin line.

    Even though the president and other officials in his administration have repeatedly said they’re not concerned about impending labor action, the Washington Post reports Biden officials “are preparing economic measures to protect suppliers to the auto industry from long-term damage.” 

    People familiar with internal conversations said the White House is very concerned about the strike that could “wipe out the thousands of suppliers” critical for Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis’ complex supply chains. The chaos at the supplier level “could impede the broader US auto supply chain even after the possible strike ends,” the people said.  

    The type of support being offered is unclear, but one possibility could be in the form of grants via the Labor Department to assist workers at firms affected by strikes. Another option could be loans to these firms supplied by the Small Business Administration. 

    “The administration wants to be sure to do what it can to protect the Detroit supply chains,” one of WaPo’s sources said, adding, “They have to worry about how some of the less well-capitalized firms could be at risk.”

    If these sources are correct, it would contradict the president who stated ten days ago while at his luxurious beach house in Rehoboth beach: “I’m not worried about a strike. I don’t think it’s going to happen.” On Monday, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo reaffirmed Biden’s position that ‘strikes will be averted’. 

    On Wednesday, UAW boss Shawn Fain told members in a Facebook Live event that talks with General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis were still ‘far apart‘ and, “We are preparing to strike these companies in a way they’ve never seen before.”

    This week, UAW dropped their wage hike demand from 40% to 36%, but even then, that’s still far off from auto companies offers:

    Ford is proposing a 20 percent raise over 4½ years, up from its initial offer of 9 percent. General Motors is offering an 18 percent raise over 4½ years, up from 10 percent earlier. And Stellantis, the parent company of Jeep and Chrysler, is offering 17.5 percent raises over that same time period, up from 14.5 percent. -WaPo

    Fain said a strike would begin in a “select few” manufacturing plants to keep automakers guessing where the next labor action will emerge:

    “This is going to create confusion for the companies. It’s going to keep them guessing on what might happen next, and it’s going to turbocharge the power of our negotiators.” 

    The union boss has a 2200 ET Facebook Live Event scheduled for tonight. 

    Last week, Bank of America Securities warned clients that a “strike is almost guaranteed.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 23:20

  • How To Select A Town The Rich Won't Gentrify And Ruin
    How To Select A Town The Rich Won’t Gentrify And Ruin

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    Let’s review how to select a town that the rich won’t ruin via gentrification / swarming in en masse and driving out locals who have to work for a living.

    Yesterday I discussed how those enriched by two decades of Federal Reserve-inflated bubbles make housing unaffordable for the bottom 90% by gentrifying previously affordable neighborhoods and towns. Once the truly wealthy have snapped up all the most desirable properties in the most desirable enclaves, the merely millionaires start snapping up nearby properties, fueling a bidding war that soon pushes valuations out of reach of the working populace.

    As I discussed in STVR/Airbnb Has Destroyed America’s Resort Towns (8/30/23), the net result is the workforce of the gentrified town can no longer afford to buy or rent shelter near their work place. This forces them to commute long distances or give up and move away, leaving the town short of people to actually do the work of keeping the town operating.

    Let’s review how to select a town that the rich won’t ruin via gentrification / swarming in en masse and driving out locals who have to work for a living. 

    Let’s start by dividing the wealthy seeking a nice place to live where we can park some of our excess capital into four very different classes:

    1. The most desirable class of wealthy residents is old money, families with deep roots in the town who quietly fund needed improvements and services with their wealth and who are protective of what makes the town a nice place to live. They have the clout to protect the town from the entitled vultures seeking to make a quick buck off gentrification and low-quality development.

    Recent arrivals (within the past 20 years) can qualify if they follow the same script of quietly donating large sums to local needs and quietly working to keep out the vultures of gentrification. This class of wealth isn’t interested in scooping up all the land for their own mini-empire; they own enough for their own comfort but are not trying to own the whole area like the wealthiest, greediest vultures.

    2. The second most desirable class is the entrepreneurial wealthy, those who earned their capital via hard work, thrift and building enterprises that add value–in other words, the opposite of the entitled wealthy whose money is the unearned spawn of Fed-inflated bubbles.

    The entrepreneurial wealthy are less likely to be toxically entitled, more likely to be down to earth and more likely to invest for the long-term in local businesses that provide employment and services.

    3. The least desirable class is the entitled bubble-wealthy who are cluelessly self-absorbed and demanding. They expect locals to be uncomplaining servants / serfs who will do whatever the entitled wealthy want done for low wages. They arrive with bloated self-importance and a toxic sense of entitlement, as if everything they want should be available to them wherever they are on the planet. They are ignorant of local history and culture and have little interest in fitting in and zero interest in contributing any real work to the community.

    4. The most destructive class is the vulture-developer class who want to swoop in, build a bunch of low-quality strip malls and shoddy houses for the entitled bubble-wealthy that overburden the town’s limited infrastructure of roads, water service, etc., ruining it for residents new and established alike.

    Somewhat tongue in cheek, here is a list of attributes you want to look for to avoid, as they’re magnets for the entitled bubble-wealthy and the the vulture-developer class:

    The click-bait articles touting “the 25 best towns in America” serve one useful function: cross those towns off your list, as they’ve already been ruined by the influx of entitled, self-absorbed outsiders.

    A more valuable use of time is to research what the entitled wealthy are looking for, and avoid those towns and small cities that check all the boxes the wealthy consider “must-haves.”

    This includes a nearby highly rated hospital, as the wealthy are anxious to access the same high-quality care they’re entitled to, should anything untoward happen to their precious bodily fluids.

    High-end healthy cuisine is also a must. If haute cuisine isn’t available, there must be tony cafes and bistros offering fish tacos, fresh fusion-inspired sandwiches made with artisan bread and similar light fare, vegan and vegetarian options and an acceptable selection of wines, craft beers and other beverages.

    The town must have a decent bakery and butcher, and a farmer’s market, of course, as the wealthy are too busy day-trading, logging onto conference calls or jetting off for their next vacation-business meeting to actually grow any real food themselves.

    A handful of cutesy shops for browsing is also essential, as is some live entertainment venue.

    A cafe that grinds its own coffee and stocks luxury beans for grinding at home is also a must, a place expensive enough that locals will stay away, so the wealthy newcomers can gather to complain about the scarcity of quality “help” locally, as they’re accustomed to hiring undocumented immigrants for scandalously low rates of pay.

    The police or sheriff’s department must be responsive to their calls, of course, as they’re entitled to special consideration due to the taxes they pay (as if locals don’t pay taxes, too…).

    An absolute must is a nearby major airport, as the wealthy are always jetting around and it’s terribly inconvenient to have to drive a tediously long way to a commercial airport.

    Competent tradespeople, mechanics and techies are high on the priority list, as it’s extremely annoying not to have someone who can fix the pool pump in summer, trim the hedges just so, maintain the fast Internet connection and do all that bothersome work keeping the short-term vacation rentals spiffy.

    Fast Internet service is of course a must; spotty Starlink service will nix a locale immediately.

    If you want to find some place the entitled wealthy are unlikely to ruin because they won’t move there–or if you want to get there before the hordes of entitled but-not-quite-rich-enough-to-buy-an-elite-enclave arrive–find a town that lacks some or all of these essentials, a place the wealthy will turn up their noses to, a town with the few things you care about but not enough to spark the interest of the entitled wealthy.

    A town with minimal tourism is a good start, as the wealthy are drawn to unspoiled rural idylls that they can “improve” (i.e. destroy) with their entitled demands for a neofeudal arrangement of locals serving their whims without complaint for low pay.

    *  *  *

    My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 23:00

  • China Data Dump Largely Beats Estimates As Slumping Economy Finally Rebounds
    China Data Dump Largely Beats Estimates As Slumping Economy Finally Rebounds

    In retrospect it was clear that China was poised for a rebound when the latest edition of the BofA Fund Manager Survey published earlier this week – which without fail exposes the prevailing wrong groupthink on Wall Street and is one of the best sources of contrarian alpha – showed that China sentiment had hit rock bottom.

    And indeed, just days after we reported that China’s new credit had rebounded sharply in August thanks to a surge in new mortgage loans, leading to a 3.12TN yuan jump in China’s Total Social Financing…

    … moments ago we got the latest Chinese data dump for the month of August, which showed that – as expected – the world’s 2nd biggest economy has rebounded from the bottom and may be stabilizing. Here are the highlights:

    • August Retail sales +4.6%, beating exp. +3.0%, Last +2.5%
    • August Industrial Output +4.5%, beating exp. +3.9%, Last +3.7%
    • Jan-Aug Fixed Investment +3.2%, missing exp. +3.3%, Last 3.4%
    • Jan-Aug Property Development investment -8.8%, Last -8.5%
    • China apparent oil demand +22.7% to 14.74mm b/d, unchanged from July
    • New property construction falls -24.4% YTD y/y to 639MM sq.m
    • August new home prices, excluding affordable housing, -0.29% m/m

    And while we would report the most important data point of all, China’s record youth unemployment which last month hit a record high of 21.3% (and which according to some is now 50% or more), we can’t because Beijing decided to suspend the data series in August after it was clear that the only way to avoid exposing the collapse of China’s labor market was to stop reporting about it altogether.

    Commenting on the data dump, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said that domestic demand expanded as supportive policies were rolled out and employment situation improved in August, but challenges remain.

    The domestic economy is still facing “structural and cyclical problems” and policy makers’ focus will be on expanding domestic demand, NBS spokesman Fu Linghui said at a briefing in Beijing Friday. Still, officials expect the domestic economy to continue to recover and improve.

    Frances Cheung, a rates strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking in Singapore, agreed and after the report said that China’s August economic data points to some some stabilization in economic activities, which will set a floor to CNY interest rates, says  “The improvement in industrial production and retail sales is encouraging”

    Cheung also said that the policy strategy appears to be putting forward numerous measures within a short period of time to achieve some amplified impact, and added that “the outsized MLF together with the more permanent liquidity released from the RRR cut shall provide a strong support to the market.” The unchanged MLF rate suggests policy focus moves away from the price of money to more direct support via fiscal spending and liquidity injection; The cut in the rate on the 14-day reverse repo is simply a catch-up.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 22:46

  • New Program Tracks Foreign Forces Killing Civilians With US Weapons
    New Program Tracks Foreign Forces Killing Civilians With US Weapons

    Authored by Jessica Corbett via Common Dreams,

    Human rights advocates and some congressional Democrats on Wednesday cautiously welcomed Washington Post reporting that the Biden administration has created a program to track and investigate allegations of foreign forces harming or killing civilians with weapons provided by the United States.

    “The United States clearly has a vested interest in knowing what harm its weapons sales and security assistance cause to civilians,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) deputy Washington director Nicole Widdersheim told the newspaper. “Let’s see if the Biden administration puts political will behind this good idea.”

    Jihadists in Syria, including ISIS, had displayed American weapons on videos and in photographs, via Flashpoint/NBC

    Annie Shiel, U.S. advocacy director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), called the initiative “an important step” but added that “of course, its impact will come down to the details of implementation.”

    The Quaker group Friends Committee on National Legislation noted Shiel’s remarks on X—formerly Twitter—while celebrating the “positive news… on accountability for harm caused by U.S.-supplied weapons.”

    The U.S. State Department, which is leading the program with the help of “personnel from the Pentagon, intelligence community, and other agencies,” announced the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG) in an August 23 cable to American embassies and consulates, according to the Post.

    A State Department spokesperson told the Middle East Eye on Wednesday that “CHIRG establishes a process to respond to new incidents of civilian harm and prevent them from recurring, and to drive partners to conduct military operations in accordance with international law,” but declined to say whether the probes will be made public.

    The new initiative resembles a Defense Department effort launched last year that focuses on injuries and deaths of noncombatants caused by American forces—one which Shiel said at the time “offers opportunities to address long-standing structural flaws in U.S. policy and practice, prevent future harm, and provide civilians harmed by U.S. operations with the recognition and response they deserve.”

    U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said on social media that he was “pleased to see” the State Department adopting an element of the Safeguarding Human Rights in Arms Exports Act, which he introduced with House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.).

    Passing such legislation, the Post pointed out, “would ensure that the new procedures can’t be abolished by a future administration, along with establishing other steps to prioritize rights concerns in arms sales.”

    U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday also welcomed the new program while highlighting her related efforts on Capitol Hill. Over the past year, she has joined Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) in sending letters to the departments of Defense and State.

    CIVIC advocacy and legal fellow John Ramming Chappell stressed on X that the program “comes after years of congressional pressure” and “would not have been developed without demand from the Hill.”

    “Questions remain, of course,” he noted. “What will actually happen when U.S. officials find U.S. arms have been used in war crime or human rights violation? Will there be meaningful accountability, or will perpetrators just get a slap on the wrist? Will close partners get special treatment?“

    Former longtime HRW executive director Kenneth Roth also raised a question: “But what about forces armed by the U.S. that use other arms to kill civilians? That’s wrong, too.”

    Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is now a Crisis Group senior adviser, wrote on social media that the program is “a notable step” in monitoring civilian deaths and injuries but also warned observers to “be wary of relying on U.S. embassies, given ‘clientitis.'”

    Finucane added that such monitoring “is more likely to be effective” if it is “statutory-mandated” versus administrative policy, is “as independent as possible to insulate from those in bureaucracy with interests in selling arms,” and incorporates information from all sources.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 22:20

  • Manhattan Rental Market 'Peaks' As Affordability Wanes
    Manhattan Rental Market ‘Peaks’ As Affordability Wanes

    Demand for apartments across Manhattan slowed in August, a month typically marked by a surge ahead of the back-to-school season. This indicates that record-high rents have likely pushed potential renters to the sidelines. More broadly, this supports the latest inflation trends that show easing shelter costs. 

    Last month, the median rent in Manhattan was signed around $4,400, or unchanged from the record set in July, according to Bloomberg, citing new data from Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The plateau in rent prices indicates consumers are balking at prices that have jumped 7.3% from a year ago and 35% from August 2021. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    According to Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, August is usually one of the hottest months of the year as renters flock to the borough before the fall semester. However, last month, activity was underwhelming and slower than in May and June. He said new leases plunged 14% from a year ago to 5,025. 

    “We’re still at or very near all-time highs, but we’re continuing to see new leasing activity fall, and that’s an indicator that the market is topping out,” Miller said.

    If Miller is correct, then the topping of rent prices in Manhattan would line up with broader shelter trends that have also eased. 

    Recall that we told readers in April: “Shelter has topped out.” 

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    Miller said the number of available apartments declined from July, suggesting some renters renewed leases rather than going out and finding an entirely new place. Data showed competition and bidding wars on apartments have slowed. He added that only “11% of leases were signed after bidding wars, compared with 19% a year earlier.” 

    He also expects landlords to lower rent prices this fall as demand subsides. Still, he doesn’t expect significant declines: “No one is expecting a rent correction unless we have some severe economic event.” 

    High rent prices in the borough have deterred many young TikTok influencers who aspired to nothing else in life but to make short videos about their lives. 

    The solution for some has been finding roommates. 

    Miller was correct last month when he warned that the rental affordability breaking point is quickly approaching. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 22:00

  • Post-Postmodern America
    Post-Postmodern America

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    When the progressive woke revolution took over traditional America, matters soon reached the level of the ridiculous.

    Take the following examples of woke craziness and hypocrisy, perhaps last best witnessed during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

    The Biden administration from its outset wished to neuter immigration law. It sought to alter radically the demography of the U.S. by stopping the border wall and allowing into the United States anyone who could walk across the southern border.

    Over seven million did just that. Meanwhile, Biden ignored the role of the Mexican cartels in causing nearly 100,000 ANNUAL American fentanyl deaths.

    Then border states finally wised up.

    They grasped that the entire open-borders, “new Democratic majority” leftwing braggadocio was predicated on its hypocritical architects staying as far away as possible from their new constituents.

    So cash strapped border states started busing their illegal aliens to sanctuary blue-state jurisdictions.

    Almost immediately, once magnanimous liberals, whether in Martha’s Vineyard, Chicago, or Manhattan, stopped virtue-signaling their support for open borders.

    Instead, soon they went berserk over the influx.

    So now an embarrassed Biden administration still wishes illegal aliens to keep coming but to stay far away from their advocates—by forcing them to remain in Texas.

    That means the president has redefined the US. border. It rests now apparently north of Texas, as Biden cedes sovereignty to Mexico.

    Precivilizational greens in California prefer blowing up dams to building them.

    They couldn’t care less that their targeted reservoirs help store water in drought, prevent flooding, enhance irrigation, offer recreation, and generate clean hydroelectric power.

    Now an absurd green California is currently destroying four dams on the Klamath River. In adding insult to injury, it is paying the half-billion dollar demolition cost in part through a water bond that state voters once thought would build new—not explode existing—dams.

    The Biden administration is mandating new dates when electric vehicles will be all but mandatory.

    To prove their current viability, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm led a performance art EV caravan on a long road trip.

    When she found insufficient charging stations to continue her media stunt, she sent a gas-powered car ahead to block open charging stations and deny them to other EVs ahead in line.

    Only that way could Granholm ensure that her arriving energy-starved motorcade might find rare empty charger stalls.

    In some California charging stations, diesel generators are needed to produce enough “clean” electricity to power the stalls.

    The state has steadily dismantled many of its nuclear, oil, and coal power plants. It refuses to build new natural gas generation plants.

    Naturally, California’s heavily subsidized solar and wind plants now produce too much energy during the day and almost nothing at night.

    So the state now begs residents to charge their EVs only during the day. Then at night, Californians may soon be asked to plug them in again to transfer what is left in their batteries into the state grid.

    Apparently only that way will there be enough expropriated “green” electricity for 41 million state residents after dark.

    One of the loudest leftist voices to defund the police, and decriminalize violent crimes in the post-George Floyd era, was Shivanthi Sathanandan, the 2nd Vice Chairwoman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

    She was recently not shy about defunding: “We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. Say it with me. DISMANTLE.”

    But recently the loud Sathanandan was a victim of the very crime wave she helped to spawn.

    Four armed thugs carjacked her automobile. They beat her up in front of her children at her own home, and sped off without fear of arrest.

    The reaction of the arch police dismantler and decriminalizer on her road to Damascus?

    The now bruised and bleeding activist for the first time became livid that criminals had taken over her Minneapolis: “Look at my face. REMEMBER ME when you are thinking about supporting letting juveniles and young people out of custody to roam our streets instead of HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.”

    Andrea Smith was an ethnic studies professor  at the University of California, Riverside. But now she has been forced out after getting caught lying that she was Native American.

    Prior to her outing, she was well known for damning “white women” (like herself) who opted to “become Indians” out of guilt, and (like her) for careerist advantage.

    The common theme of these absurdities is how contrary to human nature, impractical, and destructive is utopian wokism, whether in matters of energy, race, crime, or illegal immigration.

    There are two other characteristics of the Woke Revolution.

    • One, it depends solely on its advocates never having to experience firsthand any of the nonsense they inflict on others.

    • And two, dangerous zealots with titles before, and letters after, their names prove to be quite stupid—and dangerous.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 21:40

  • "Never Embrace Socialism… Or The Siren Song Of Social Justice" – Argentine Presidential Candidate Milei Warns Tucker Of The Dangers Of Statism
    “Never Embrace Socialism… Or The Siren Song Of Social Justice” – Argentine Presidential Candidate Milei Warns Tucker Of The Dangers Of Statism

    Argentina’s leading presidential candidate Javier Milei – a self-described anarcho-capitalist who won the primaries with 30% of the vote – sat down with Tucker Carlson this week in Buenos Aires for a wide-ranging discussion.

    Prior to the interview, Carlson documented first-hand the hyperinflationary perils of statism run wild…

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    Carlson and Milei talked about why the citizens of Argentina are fed up with the relentless lack of change and the relentless economic decline, echoing many similar patterns taking place in America, with the one-time congressman explaining his platform of radical change which would include the dissolution of numerous socialist institutions and the very central bank which has led Argentina into multiple fiscal crisis events.

    Milei’s advice to Americans is simple: “Never embrace the ideas of socialism.”

    “Never allow yourselves to be seduced by the siren song of social justice. Don’t get caught up in that terrible concept that where there is a need, there is a right. But that can’t happen on its own.

    We have to be prepared for this, and wage a cultural war every single day and we have to be careful because they have no problem with getting inside the State and employing Gramsci’s techniques: seducing the artists, seducing the culture, seducing the media or meddling in educational content.”

    Reflecting in the slippery slope of American leftist politics, Carlson noted that Argentina has adopted many left-wing social issues.

    “I didn’t fully appreciate the degree to which the Argentinian government had embraced fringe academic, American-style social justice,” Carlson told Milei, adding that “a businessman told me at lunch today that people who identify as transgender pay lower taxes, and that in 2019 you had a Ministry of Women and Diversity created in this country for the first time. What does that ministry do?”

    “In theory, it is supposed to deal with women’s issues,” Milei said.

    “But when you look at the results, you find there aren’t any. Just writing songs…”

    “Are women happier here?” Carlson asked.

    “No,” Milei said. “Because there are no real results.”

    And added, “why isn’t there a Ministry of Men?”

    Then, Milei really touched the third rail… by supporting President Trump, and offering him some advice:

    “[Trump] should continue his fight against socialism. Because he is one of the few who truly understood that we are fighting socialism, that we are fighting the statists.

    He understood perfectly that the generation of wealth comes from the private sector.

    The State does not create wealth, the State destroys it.

    The State can give you nothing, because it produces nothing. And when it attempts it, it does so poorly.”

    “So I’d say, if I could humbly offer advice, all I could say would be to double down on his efforts in the same direction: defending the ideals of freedom and refusing to give an inch to the socialists,” he continued.

    The discussion included Milei’s controversial denouncement of the Pope, his views on abortion, and his belief that climate change is a “socialist lie.”

    Watch the full interview below:

    • (0:00) Intro
    • (3:32) Inflation
    • (6:00) Gender ideology
    • (9:57) Abortion
    • (11:45) Pope Francis’ affinity for dictators
    • (14:45) Architecture
    • (17:52) Advice to Americans and Donald Trump
    • (22:23) Climate change
    • (27:55) China
    • (29:18) Prayer
    • (30:39) Violent political protests

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    *  *  *

    As Manuel Garcia Gojon writes, at The Mises Institute, Milei’s full plan – which he laid out in some detail on August 2nd, is nothing if not pragmatic from an anarchist point of view.

    The first measure consists of an organizational reform of the government, going from 18 to 8 ministries. The ministries to be included are interior, foreign relations, defense, economy, justice, security, infrastructure, and human capital. No career bureaucrats are to be fired initially, but they will be reassigned. The political appointees will not be renewed and will be kept to a minimum. All government employee privileges, such as bodyguards and drivers, will be eliminated, except in the cases in which they are absolutely necessary for security reasons. This measure also includes initiating the privatization or closure process of all state-owned companies.

    The second measure consists of a significant reduction in public spending. For the first budget, they seek to eliminate expenditure items amounting to 15 percent of GDP, taking it from a deficit to a surplus. On the revenue side, they seek to eliminate 90 percent of taxes, which only raise an amount equal to 2 percent of GDP but have a distortive effect. There is also an intention of lowering the taxes that remain.

    The third measure consists of a flexibilization of labor regulations. Firing an employee is currently very costly in Argentina between litigation and compensation. This measure is geared toward reducing those costs by making it easier for companies to fire new employees. The balancing side of this measure is the implementation of a private unemployment insurance scheme. With this measure they seek to take formal employment in the private sector from 6 million positions to 14 million positions.

    The fourth measure consists of a liberalization of trade. The goal of this measure is unilateral free trade in the style of Chile. This includes the elimination of all import and export tariffs and the reduction of regulatory restrictions.

    The fifth measure consists of a monetary reform. This measure includes allowing the use of any commodity or foreign currency as legal tender and the liquidation of the central bank, which would result in the elimination of the Argentine Peso. There are alternative plans for the implementation of this measure, but the leading one is the one developed by Emilio Ocampo and Nicolas Cachanosky. In terms of timing, it would take between nine and 24 months. The conversion would be made at the market exchange rate. Once two thirds of the monetary base has been converted, a countdown for the last date to convert would be triggered.

    An additional challenge for this measure is that the central bank has remunerated liabilities three times the size of the monetary base. These are like the Federal Reserve’s program of paying interest on reserves in order to sterilize increases in the quantity of money. The central bank does have some commodities and foreign currencies in reserves but most of the assets consist of government bonds that currently trade at a third of their face value. To access the necessary liquidity to liquidate the central bank, the bonds would be transferred to a fund which would acquire the necessary line of credit using the bonds as collateral. The line of credit has already been confidentially agreed upon. The bonds are guaranteed to increase in price if the budget deficit is eliminated as specified in the second measure.

    The sixth measure consists of an energy reform. This measure intends to eliminate all subsidies to energy providers through a recalibration of the financial equilibrium to lower costs to keep the companies profitable and minimize the impact on the cost to the consumers. This measure opens a door to subsidies on the demand side for vulnerable households. They also seek to improve the energy infrastructure through a scheme of public interest declarations for projects which would be financed and executed by the private sector, but for which the government might provide a minimum revenue guarantee.

    The seventh measure consists of fostering investment. This will be done through a special legal arrangement for long term investment with a focus on mining, fossil fuels, renewable energy, forestry, and other sectors. In order to foster investment, they will also aim to eliminate foreign exchange restrictions and export fees.

    The eighth measure consists of an agrarian reform. This includes the elimination of the foreign exchange spread between the official exchange rate and the market exchange rate through the liquidation of the central bank, the elimination of all export fees and retentions, the elimination of the gross revenue tax, the elimination of all restrictions to foreign trade including quotas and the need for authorization, the promulgation of a new seeds law, and the improvement to road infrastructure through private enterprise.

    The ninth measure consists of a judicial reform. This measure includes the designation of a Minister of Justice with the consensus of the judicial branch, as well as the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice without political affiliations to fill the present vacancy, prohibiting members of the judicial branch from engaging in partisan politics, and promoting the budgetary independence of the judicial branch. Furthermore, they will seek to implement jury trials and oral proceedings throughout the country.

    The tenth measure consists of a welfare reform. Current welfare benefits will be initially maintained. They aim to move in the long term towards a private system in which users pay for the health and education services they consume. In the short term they aim to provide income protection programs to mitigate extreme poverty, nutritional programs, parental educational programs about cognitive stimulation, greater coverage for preschool, incentives for graduation, programs for the integration of people with disabilities, the promotion of access to private credit, and the elimination of all middlemen in the provision of welfare.

    The eleventh measure consists of an educational reform. They aim to move towards a greater degree of freedom to choose the curricula, methods, and educators. The measure also includes launching a school voucher pilot program. They will also establish an evaluation criterion for schools so that they may compete for incentives.

    The twelfth measure consists of a health reform. They aim to transfer the subsidization of healthcare from supply to demand to allow for greater freedom of choice and competition. This measure includes providing the existing healthcare benefits as vouchers so that there is no restriction to a specific provider.

    The thirteenth measure consists of a security reform. This measure includes reforms to the homeland security, national defense, and intelligence laws, as well as a reform to the penitentiary system to incorporate public private hybrids and intensifying the prosecution of drug trafficking.

    The Argentine election is on October 22nd.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 21:20

  • Doctor's COVID-19 Protocol: FTC Suppressed Solution For Recovery
    Doctor’s COVID-19 Protocol: FTC Suppressed Solution For Recovery

    Authored by Christy Prais via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    While many general practitioners shuttered their doors in early 2020 amid spreading lockdowns, leaving those with COVID-19 to seek treatments at emergency rooms, Dr. David Brownstein, a family physician, and medical director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and his colleagues, remained steadfast in their commitment and oath as doctors—to keep their doors open and do what they did best—treat sick patients.

    “I said to my staff, patients are going to be scared and if they get sick, they’re going to need a place to go—we’re going to be there for them and help them out,” said Dr. Brownstein in a recent interview on Discovering True Health, a YouTube channel and podcast dedicated to health and wellness.

    “We’ve been treating viral infections and other flu-like infections using a holistic approach for close to 30 years, and we’re pretty damn good at what we do,” he noted.

    Dr. David Brownstein (Photo courtesy of Dr. Brownstein)

    Early Days of the Pandemic

    It was the beginning of March when COVID-19 hit Michigan. Intent on protecting his staff and their healthy patients, Dr. Brownstein and his team bundled up and set up an outdoor COVID-19 treatment assembly line—despite snow on the ground and temperatures frequently below 30 degrees. IVs hanging from standing poles flapped in the frigid wind as Dr. Brownstein and his staff treated patients in their cars.

    As the weeks went by Dr. Brownstein recounts, “There were some days when cars were 10 deep in the parking lot and we were working until nine or ten at night using flashlights on our phones to see the veins for IVs.”

    Dr. Brownstein providing intravenous care to his patient in the parking lot of his clinic. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Brownstein)

    What stood out to Dr. Brownstein was the respiratory issues he was witnessing. “These people couldn’t breathe. I’ve heard the lungs of many patients with respiratory viruses but this was a different sound, the air was there, but the air was not being utilized,” he said.

    Because Dr. Brownstein had been employing a nutritional and oxidative protocol for treating a variety of viral illnesses during flu seasons for over three decades he felt that although SARS-CoV-2 was a new virus, it was still part of the coronavirus family. 

    Dr. Brownstein felt that since up to one-third of all flu-like infections come from the coronavirus family, his protocol had a good chance of being successful. “For nearly 30 years, we have had good success treating viral illnesses, why should this be any different?” Dr. Brownstein asked.

    Every year between 12,000 to 52,000 Americans die during flu season from influenza. “None of my partners or myself could recall any of our patients dying from the flu over the last 30 years, and none of us can recall the last time we had a patient hospitalized from the flu,” said Dr. Brownstein.

    “Think about it—let’s say 25,000 Americans die every year due to flu-like illnesses. Multiply that by 30 years and that is a lot of patients dying. I think we haven’t seen our patients dying because of the support we were providing to their immune systems,” he said.

    One of the treatments Dr. Brownstein used for those with respiratory issues was a dilute solution of hydrogen peroxide and iodine—administered via nebulizer—every hour until they felt better.

     “We’ve used this treatment for nearly three decades for lung problems. And the consistent theme I heard from people was after the second dose of that nebulizer solution they could breathe, and they felt like they were moving forward towards recovery,” said Dr. Brownstein.

    Dr. Brownstein would call his COVID-19 patients daily until they were no longer at risk from the virus, and as treatments continued, reports were coming in that patients with even severe respiratory issues were feeling better.

    Dr. Brownstein outlined his treatments in a peer-reviewed study titled, “A Novel Approach to Treating COVID-19 Using Nutritional and Oxidative Therapies,” published in Science, Public Health Policy & the Law in July 2020.

    His study reported his treatment of 107 patients at the time diagnosed with COVID-19. Three were hospitalized (3 percent) with two of the three hospitalized before instituting his treatment protocol and only one requiring hospitalization after beginning his treatment protocol. There were no deaths.

    Based on the case fatality rate at that time, two to 10 deaths as well as at least eight hospitalizations would have been expected

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 21:00

  • New Bill Combats Tyrannical Democrats From Declaring Nationwide Public Health Emergency To Enforce Gun Control
    New Bill Combats Tyrannical Democrats From Declaring Nationwide Public Health Emergency To Enforce Gun Control

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America, 

    For those unaware, Gun Owners of America recently filed suit against New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for her unconstitutional ban on carrying firearms.

    Governor Grisham banned open and concealed carry under the guise of a “public health emergency.” The ban drew a surprisingly bipartisan backlash from both Republicans and Democrats.

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

    The consensus from both sides of the aisle is that the government cannot suspend constitutional rights even for a so-called public health emergency.

    Well, last month, Senate Democrats from the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions voted to strike down an amendment from the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act that would have prevented the President of the United States and the Department of Health and Human Services from declaring a public health emergency to push gun control.

    The Braun Amendment, named for Senator Mike Braun, who introduced it, would protect gun owners from tyranny in the name of public health.

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    Critics of the Braun Amendment said that the government would never use a public health emergency to push gun control. Now, a month later, the critics of the Amendment have been proven wrong by the Governor of New Mexico.

    Watch: Ben from the Minuteman Moment details how the Biden Administration’s Health and Human Services Appointee Xavier Becerra is working to impose gun control under the guise of a public health emergency.

    We’ve seen disasters weaponized for gun control before. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the federal government confiscated firearms from American citizens, treating those same law-abiding gun owners like criminals because they had “emergency powers.”

    Because of this, GOA worked to prohibit the confiscation of firearms in the National Disasters Emergency Act. Now, it has some of the best protections against misuse.

    The situation in New Mexico shows that allowing “public health emergencies” to push gun control is ripe for abuse. Gun owners should have the same level of protection from government overreach during a health emergency as they do during a natural disaster.

    Now, we need your help. Congress must pass the Protecting the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act—which is a standalone version of the amendment Senator Braun offered at the committee. The bill is soon to be reintroduced in the House and Senate, and every member of Congress ought to cosponsor.

    Please call your Senators and Representative and let them know that the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act must not be passed without protections to prevent tyrants like Governo Grisham from being able to push gun control using the federal government in the future.

    *   *   * 

    We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 20:20

  • Baltimore City Official Blames Cars, Not Crime, For Population Collapse 
    Baltimore City Official Blames Cars, Not Crime, For Population Collapse 

    Baltimore City’s population has plunged to a century low. Instead of acknowledging that failed progressive policies have transformed the metro area into a crime-ridden hellhole and, in return, the continuation of a multi-decade exodus of residents, a Democratic city lawmaker blames the “automobile” as the primary culprit behind population decline.

    “Our population loss is directly aligned with the trajectory of car-dominance and the City’s investment to cater and shift to car-dominance,” Democratic City Councilman Ryan Dorsey wrote on X. He said, “You cannot properly understand or effectively address population loss without directly confronting car-dominance.” 

    Dorsey’s claim that automobiles caused the population collapse reflects a trend among Democrats who seem unwilling ever to acknowledge their party’s progressive policies have failed major cities. 

    Democrats have held control of Baltimore City for five decades. 

    During that time, the city’s population has collapsed. 

    “With all due respect councilman, populations has less to do with cars that it does with access to well paying jobs, the availability of affordable modern single family homes, blight, and crime. One could use Atlanta in comparison. As we’ve lost, they’ve increased,” one X user told Dorsey. 

    Commenting on the outrageous quote from the delusional city official, Republican State Del. Nino Mangione from Baltimore County stated:

    Nothing that comes out of Baltimore’ leadership’ surprises me. But, I must say, this may be the most absurd thing I’ve heard yet. Here is a little truth as it relates to Baltimore.

    Fact: The problem in Baltimore is violent crime. People are scared to live there or go there. Not to mention it has the highest property taxes in the state.

    Fact: The leadership in the Mayor’s office and on Council is awful. All should immediately resign based on the results in Baltimore from violent crime to failing schools.

    Sometimes facts are hard and words seem unkind but I believe it is time to start laying out the facts and demanding accountability. The state of Maryland spends millions trying to prop Baltimore up and the leadership fails every time.

    Besides residents fleeing, financial firms whom we speak with have cited crime as their reasons why they’re actively searching for new offices outside of the city — not the automobile. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 20:00

  • Truckload Carriers See Market Moving Toward Equilibrium
    Truckload Carriers See Market Moving Toward Equilibrium

    By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves

    A couple of truckload carriers said the bottom of the cycle has likely occurred but acknowledged that any material positive inflection in fundamentals won’t happen until sometime in 2024. That likely means a “muted peak season” again this year.

    “I think there will be some signs of seasonal activity across September, October, November,” Schneider National CFO Steve Bruffett said at a Morgan Stanley investor conference Tuesday in Dana Point, California. 

    “I think that sets us up for a more constructive start to 2024. I wouldn’t call it robust but I would call it a more balanced and more in equilibrium type of setup than what’s been in place entering any of the last … four years.”

    He said after months of a very flat freight environment marked by customers rightsizing inventories, there is some merchandise restocking occurring currently. Bruffett noted demand improvement during the back-to-school shopping season and said Halloween-related goods are doing a little better than expected. Neither category, however, is expected to make much of an impact on the carrier’s results.

    Carriers weigh in on peak season expectations at Morgan Stanley’s investor conference

    Schneider lowered 2023 earnings guidance when it reported second-quarter results in early August. It expects the third quarter to be the low point of the cycle from an earnings perspective as the full impact of contractual bid season is represented across its entire customer book.

    The Contract Load Accepted Volume Index measures accepted load volumes moving under contractual agreements. It excludes all rejected tenders. CLAV.USA is closing in on year-ago levels. To learn more about FreightWaves SONAR, click here.

    Management from Werner Enterprises echoed a similar outlook at the event. Derek Leathers, the company’s chairman and CEO, said the “overcapacity marketplace coupled with overstocked inventories” has passed.

    Werner’s biggest customers, which include discount stores that specialize in household essentials, are in a good position with their stock levels, Leathers noted. He expects restocking to occur during peak season but said customers are likely to be a bit more conservative this year to avoid the demand miscalculations that resulted in stuffed warehouses last year.

    Along those lines, Werner’s biggest customer, Dollar General recently said it would implement promotional markdowns to rightsize inventories. The actions are expected to equate to a $95 million hit to operating income in the back half of the year.

    “We’re fairly optimistic as we look forward but we’re certainly still in a day-to-day fight,” Leathers said.

    Werner is expecting to see some type of peak this year but it has a tough comparison to a year ago, which benefited from a decent amount of project freight.

    “We’re only now starting to really find some sense of balance in the market,” Leathers said. While truckload capacity has been leaving in dribs and drabs for a year now, the exit rate is increasing. “I think you’re going to start to see that wash increase from here.”

    There has been a net decline in trucking authorities during most weeks of 2023

    The change is noticeable with smaller carriers predominantly hauling spot-market freight.

    Spot rates have been in decline for more than a year, only recently bouncing off a low established in May. The consensus throughout the industry is that smaller fleets have burned through the cash positions they built during the freight boom. The group now faces the highest interest rates in two decades and widespread cost inflation, including diesel prices that are up 20% since early July.

    The National Truckload Index (linehaul only – NTIL) is based on an average of booked spot dry van loads from 250,000 lanes. The NTIL is a seven-day moving average of linehaul spot rates excluding fuel. Spot rates are still 15% lower year over year.

    Bruffett is seeing capacity exit as well. He noted an increase in the availability of qualified drivers and said Schneider’s leasing business has seen an uptick in returned equipment. The company’s brokerage unit has also seen a decline in the number of carriers renewing their authorities.

    It’s still too early to forecast what might happen on contract rate renewals next year, but a decline is unlikely, Jim Filter, Schneider’s group president of transportation and logistics, said.

    “I don’t think there’s a level below where we’re at right now from a contract rate and our customers — I believe they understand that.”

    A proxy for truck capacity, the Outbound Tender Reject Index, shows the number of loads being rejected by carriers. Carriers are currently rejecting 4% of all loads tendered under contract. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 19:40

  • "This Seems Flawed" – 0-DTE Options ETF Launch Sparks Debate
    “This Seems Flawed” – 0-DTE Options ETF Launch Sparks Debate

    What could possibly go wrong? Doesn’t anyone remember TVIX? Or XIV?

    Today saw an ETF based on zero-day-to-expiry (0-DTE) options start trading for the first time in history.

    Defiance ETFs, a small Miami-based thematic house with $860mn in five ETFs, has listed the Defiance Nasdaq Enhanced Option Income ETF (QQQY) on the Nasdaq stock exchange, opening the door for less sophisticated traders to participate in this hot new gambling market with the strategy designed to use these daily options to produce income.

    As we have detailed numerous times, popularity of 0-DTE options has soared in recent months:

    “The daily notional trading value of 0DTE options has skyrocketed to about $1tn,” said Sylvia Jablonski, chief executive of Defiance ETFs.

    “These ETFs exemplify our commitment to innovation and to meeting the evolving needs of investors. With daily options at the core of these products, we’re unlocking a new dimension of income generation within the ETF space.”

    0-DTE options now account for a record 49% of S&P volume…

    For now, the 0-DTE options market remains directionally-balanced with puts and calls each making up 50% of volume – however, with the introduction of QQQY, that may shift the balance towards puts.

    Each day, QQQY plans to sell at- or slightly in-the-money puts tied to the Nasdaq 100 with an expiration of 24 hours.

    QQQY will hold cash and short-term Treasuries as collateral for its derivative investments.

    QQQY traded just over 14,000 shares on its opening day today…

    Today had some interesting characteristics from a 0-DTE perspective.

    While QQQY is a 0-DTE Nasdaq ‘put-selling’ strategy, we saw massive 0-DTE CALL-SELLING in the afternoon…

    Source: SpotGamma

    And in the S&P (which will soon see the launch of JEPY – Defiance S&P 500 Enhanced Option Income ETF), we saw multiple bouts of heavy 0-DTE put-BUYING…

    Source: SpotGamma

    As Bloomberg reports, Defiance isn’t the only firm aiming to ride the 0DTE craze. ProShares filed in May to start an ETF employing the contracts, though it has yet to launch.

    “0DTEs have become the hot new thing and it was only a matter of time before ETF issuers incorporated them into a fund,” said James Seyffart, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

    SpotGamma had some initial thoughts:

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    As they explain in the clip, Defiance is ‘naked short puts’ – so if the market drops sharply, you have that full exposure

    And so, as @Talley_trey noted on X:

    “…as ivol slides lower in up markets, their 25bps income target will naturally move them closer to the money, just as the propensity of a market fall becomes more probable.

    Without making mountains out of molehills, this seems flawed?“

    Flawed indeed…

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    Unlike covered call funds, they do not hold the underlying equities, instead owning a portfolio of Treasury bonds that are used as collateral against the options they write. Both ETFs will charge annual management fees of 0.99 per cent, according to filings.

    “Retail and institutional investors have shown great interest in alternative income products,” said Sylvia Jablonski, co-founder and chief investment officer at Defiance.

    “These ETFs will seek to even further enhance the income outcomes the market has thus far experienced.”

    The ETFs bear some resemblance to the $94mn WisdomTree PutWrite Strategy Fund (PUTW), which sells put options written on the S&P 500, although that fund uses one-month, rather than zero-day, options.

    “QQQY is attempting to timely scratch two itches, potential income from an asset that doesn’t typically generate income and exposure to the sudden popularity of trading ODTE options,” said Lois Gregson, senior ETF analyst at FactSet Research Systems.

    But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

    “The fund is ‘betting’ the market will rise more often than fall,” Gregson said, noting that the portfolio manager would have to buy back the short put options potentially at a loss.

    “The strategy is similar to picking up dimes in front of a bulldozer. The income potential is there, but there are times you could also get run over,” Gregson said.

    As The FT reports, Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, a financial adviser, noted that with the recent surge in popularity of 0-DTE options, “it’s absolutely no surprise to see ETF issuers looking for ways to capitalise.”

    However, Geraci said:

    “My concern lies around the complexity of options-based strategies in general. Zero-day options are essentially daily bar bets. While longer-term strategies can certainly be constructed around these options, my fear is that investors might not fully appreciate the complexities and risks involved.”

    Finally, we couldn’t help but notice that with VIX hitting a 12 handle today, the timing of the launch of an ultra-short-dated vol-selling (income-generating) ETF seems… interesting…

    “Everybody is looking for that free money,” said Ayako Yoshioka, senior portfolio manager at Wealth Enhancement Group.

    “It fuels speculation.”

    Good luck everyone.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 19:20

  • Why Is Rhode Island Still Irrationally Targeting School Children With "Masking And Testing" Policies?
    Why Is Rhode Island Still Irrationally Targeting School Children With “Masking And Testing” Policies?

    Authored by Andrew Bostom via The Brownstone Institute,

    One of the consistent mercies of the SARS-CoV-2 “covid-19 pandemic,” even at its most virulent initial stages, has been the paucity of serious disease in children generally, and healthy children, universally. Covid-19 always was and remains a very highly age– and comorbid risk-stratified disease that targets the extremely frail elderly—especially those in congregate care—and the otherwise middle-aged to elderly with multiple (for example, ≥ 6!), severe, chronic comorbidities.

    For the vast preponderance of the world’s population, and workforce, i.e., the ~94 percent under age 70-years-old, we now know that the most aggressive early variants, such as the Wuhan, Alpha, and Delta strains, conferred a very modest infection fatality ratio (IFR; covid-19 deaths/total covid-19 infections) of 0.1 percent, or 1 per 1,000 infections. This seasonal influenza-like IFR for those < 70, overall, dropped precipitously further in the pediatric age range (0-19-years-old) to 0.0003 percent, or 1 in 333,333. Such unalarming IFRs among those < 70, especially children, for the early SARS-CoV-2 variants, have been reduced by at least 3-fold more (so 0.1 percent/3; 0.0003 percent/3!) since the advent of the Omicron wave in early 2022, and its perhaps even milder related subvariants, that are continuing to emerge through the present. 

    During 3+ years, including the period when the most virulent early SARS-CoV-2 strains were predominant, through the Omicron wave, and till now, not a single pediatric death due to covid-19, has been recorded in Rhode Island. This contrasts starkly with the three HINI influenza (swine flu) pediatric pneumonia deaths that accrued in a single flu season, during the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic, mirroring recent national US pediatric influenza death trends. Comparative US pediatric influenza vs. SARS-CoV-2 mortality data since 2009, underscore how both pandemic, and bad seasonal influenza outbreaks—with which we cope, appositely, minus hysteria—pose a greater mortality risk to children, than SARS-CoV-2. 

    We have also learned that SARS-CoV-2 transmission, like influenza transmission, is driven by persons with symptomatic infections. Both SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing studies, and an elegant experimental design tracking viral emissions from deliberately infected healthy subjects, just published in the Lancet, have reaffirmed this observation. Moreover, regardless of mode of transmission, it is also established that children did not “drive” the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

    Complementing these irrefragable SARS-CoV-2 mortality and transmission data, a century of uniform public health evidence, bolstered over the past four decades by randomized, controlled trial findings, demonstrates that community masking (with N95 masks, as well) does not prevent respiratory virus infections (influenza, SARS-CoV-2, RSV, and others) in adults, or children. 

    Blithely ignoring each of these four fundamental, evidence-based considerations, on August 24, 2023, just prior to the reopening of Rhode Island public schools after summer recess, the Rhode Island Department of Health’s (RIDOH) Center for Covid-19 Epidemiology (CCE), distributed a memorandum (original pdf here; archived here) to public “School and District Leaders,” with the following cover email from CCE “team leader,” Julia Brida:

    From: Brida, Julia (RIDOH-Contractor) <Julia.Brida.CTR@health.ri.gov>
    Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2023 1:51 PM
    Cc: COVID19Questions, RIDOH <RIDOH.COVID19Questions@health.ri.gov>
    Subject: [EXTERNAL] Center for COVID-19 Epidemiology- Back to School Memo
    Importance: High

    Good Afternoon,  

    We hope you have had a great summer! Ahead of the 2023-24 school year, the Rhode Island Department of Health Center for COVID-19 Epidemiology (CCE) wanted to share a memo to provide key updates and information regarding COVID-19. This includes: 

    • COVID-19 key recommendations 

    • Clinical guidance 

    • Tracking COVID-19 in Rhode Island  

    • COVID-19 operational updates 

    • Testing resources  

    • Outbreak reporting and support  

    Center for COVID-19 Epidemiology, Education Team 
    Julia Brida
    Senior PM | HCH Enterprises  
    Education Policy & Engagement Team Lead | Center for COVID-19 Epidemiology (CCE)
    Division of Emergency Preparedness & Infectious Disease (EPID) 
    Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH)

    The memo itself urged students and staff to: “[G]et tested when you have COVID-19 symptoms;” “If exposed to someone with COVID-19, monitor symptoms; test after day 5; and wear a mask through day 10;” and

    “If you have COVID-19, isolate at home for 5 days and wear a mask through day 10.” A so-called “Covid-19 Operational Update” section of the memo declared, “Testing remains an important tool to detect infection and prevent COVID-19 spread.”

    Glaringly absent from the memo (archived here) was any unambiguous statement that these recommendations were not compulsory for students (and their parents), staff, or administration, and non-compliance with them would not preclude an individual’s school attendance, limit their school activities, or affect school district funding.

    This current sorry situation, vis-à-vis “covid public health policy” for schools, continues the unbroken thread of Lysenkoist mismanagement which knits together Rhode Island’s response since children returned, gingerly, in part, to “in-class learning” during September, 2020. 

    RIDOH and the rest of Rhode Island’s “covid brain trust” have always enacted uncritically the policies hectored at the public by national covid leadership figures, such as former “Covid-19 Response Coordinator,” Dr. Deborah Birx. Dr. Birx was fêted at the University of Rhode Island in the fall of 2020, where she aggressively pushed mass, unselective covid testing because, “her main concern is (was) asymptomatic spread.” This misbegotten testing policy and the false construct of asymptomatic spread, were of course both rubber-stamped by RIDOH and its then generalissima, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott. Dr. Scott, as proof of her overzealous endorsement of the factitious mass testing/asymptomatic spread paradigm, had RIDOH issue an “early warning” asymptomatic press release, and a subsequent release crowing about the state’s completion of its “millionth covid-19 test.”

    Nearly a year later, despite the well-established futility of community masking, generalissima Scott angrily remonstrated, “Masks work,” in response to a query by independent journalist, Pat Ford. Ford’s preamble to his question raised the issue of potential harms of masking to children, which Scott ignored. 

    RIDOH Covid-19 Medical Director (later RIDOH Acting Director), Dr. James McDonald lied under oath in Rhode Island Superior Court claiming three RI children had died “as a result of covid-19.” Still under oath, about a week afterward, Dr. McDonald was allowed to “correct” this act of perjury, and only then did he acknowledge indeed there had not been any primary cause of pediatric covid-19 deaths in Rhode Island. McDonald also conceded, candidly, during this latter testimony, that a 16-year-old male admitted to a Rhode Island Emergency Department with an ultimately fatal gunshot wound to the head, who as part of his admission testing, coincidentally “tested positive” for covid-19, would be designated a “covid-19 death,” by RIDOH recording methods, since “it meets the definition of the CDC.”

    At a subsequent deposition, as Acting RIDOH Director, Dr. McDonald was questioned about a comprehensive Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal review—a journal that he claimed to be familiar with as a pediatrician—entitled, “The Role of Children and Young People in the Transmission of SARS-CoV-2.” The review concluded, 

    “[T]here is no convincing evidence to date, 2 years into the pandemic, that children are key drivers of the pandemic.” 

    McDonald while acknowledging he had not read the review nevertheless, defiantly, if (tragi-)comically proclaimed, “I don’t agree with that assessment.” The good Dr. McDonald predictably could not supply any published data to support his dogmatic contention. 

    Last December (2022) RIDOH’s Dr. Philip Chan helped gin up hysteria over a Rhode Island so-called “tripledemic,” the alleged confluence of covid-19, influenza, and RSV infections, affecting children, in particular. Dr. Chan’s claim proved to be contrived. Hard data showed minimal primary pediatric covid-19 admissions, a significant fall outbreak of RSV, accompanied by RSV hospital admissions, and to a much lesser extent, pediatric influenza infections, and influenza hospital admissions, driving total pediatric respiratory viral hospitalizations. 

    Once again, a tocsin of potential looming calamity is already being sounded, now, for another so-called tripledemic this fall by the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Mandy Cohen. Sadly, if inevitably soon, such overwrought “tripledemic” messages, with a repeat inappropriate focus on pediatric covid-19, are almost certain to be echoed by Rhode Island’s disingenuous local RIDOH public health brain trust. 

    RIDOH’s newly minted “back to school” covid policy recommendations will have no ameliorative impact, especially in light of covid’s near nonexistent threat to children. But their socioeconomic effects might continue to wreak unnecessary havoc on our communities, albeit not as extreme as lockdowns. How do we Rhode Islanders extricate ourselves from this hysterical, anti-scientific “covid school policy” morass? There are general, evidence-based templates we can cite.

    In Sweden, open primary schools with teachers providing face-to-face education, and no masking throughout the covid-19 pandemic, were associated with “No learning loss during the pandemic” vs. closed schools, “distance learning,” and mask mandates, in the US, yielding “historic learning setbacks for America’s children,” including Rhode Island schoolchildren. Furthermore, there were no covid-19 deaths among Swedish schoolchildren during the most virulent spring 2020 covid-19 wave, while teachers as a profession had similar or even lower serious covid-19 morbidity, vs. all other Swedish workers.

    Dr. Tom Jefferson is an internationally recognized evidence-based medicine research scholar whose ongoing pooled analyses of community masking for the potential prevention of respiratory viral infections extend back almost two decades. Responding to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent incoherent, vacuous “critique” of Dr. Jefferson’s 2023 Cochrane Review reestablishing the lack of randomized, controlled trial evidence supporting community masking, Jefferson noted,

    “So, Fauci is saying that masks work for individuals but not at a population level? That simply doesn’t make sense. And he says there are ‘other studies’…but what studies?  He doesn’t name them so I cannot interpret his remarks without knowing what he is referring to. It might be that Fauci is relying on trash studies. Many of them are observational, some are cross-sectional, and some actually use modelling. That is not strong evidence. Once we excluded such low-quality studies from the review, we concluded there was no evidence that masks reduced transmission.”

    We can also restate the evidence that mass asymptomatic testing, since SARS-CoV2 transmission is driven by symptomatic persons, are conjoined fool’s errands, made worse still if these practices are attached to punitive school policies. 

    Finally, concerned Rhode Island parents must demand, unequivocally, that RIDOH issue an immediate clarifying memo to “School and District Leaders.”

    This memo must state plainly that none of RIDOH’s covid-19 policy recommendations are mandatory, and failure to implement or comply with them will not result in any children or staff being barred from school, or school activities, nor will such failure jeopardize any school or district funding. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 19:00

  • Mr. Zelensky Goes To Washington, Again
    Mr. Zelensky Goes To Washington, Again

    Ukraine’s Present Volodymyr Zelensky is again expected to pay homage to the hands that feed him, as Bloomberg is reporting that another trip to the White House is imminent. 

    “President Joe Biden will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House next week, according to a person familiar with the plans,” the fresh Thursday report indicates.

    Via the Associated Press

    The Ukrainian leader’s first official visit to Washington had occurred in December 2022, and also had marked his first known trip outside his war-ravaged country since Russia invaded.

    But things have changed since he gave that “Christmas season” address in Congress, where then House speaker Pelosi treated him like a rockstar as she and VP Kamala Harris excitedly waived the Ukrainian flag around, hugging Zelensky in the process. Not only is the much-anticipated counteroffensive not going well, or even failing, but his personal ‘star status’ is waning too.

    Bloomberg notes the new context, namely that Republicans are less likely to sign off on massive new aid packages in the federal budget: 

    For the US president, it also coincides with an upcoming showdown over federal funding. Biden has asked Congress to provide $24 billion for the Ukraine war and related costs, but conservatives in the House are threatening to shut down the US government if they consider any funding bill a “blank check” for Ukraine.

    Current funding for government operations runs through Sept. 20. Next week’s meeting was first reported by Reuters.

    And a fresh photo op with Zelensky is perhaps what Biden thinks he needs for a boost in domestic approval ratings, given not only is the mainstream media turning on him…

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

    …but he’s also newly focused his campaign going into 2024 on being the “tough” commander-in-chief who “protects” democracy around the world:

    “He entered Ukraine under the cover of night. And in the morning, Joe Biden walked shoulder to shoulder with our allies in the war-torn streets,” the narrator of a new one-minute Biden campaign ad begins.

    “Standing up for democracy in a place where a tyrant is waging war to take it away.”

    On the Ukrainian side, Zelensky could be coming also to bolster support and enthusiasm among GOP hawks and conservative supporters in order to get their fellow Republicans in line. Kiev has also expressed increased impatience and frustration of late when it comes to F-16 delivery timeline, and related to getting more advanced US weapons like long-range missiles.

    There’s currently talk within the administration of Ukraine getting approval for the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which has a max range of 190 miles. Certainly Zelensky is going to press for this and more. Will Biden make this the focus of a “big” announcement when he greets Zelensky in the White House next week? 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 18:40

  • Threads Blocks Search Results For 'COVID' And 'Vaccines', Upsetting Users
    Threads Blocks Search Results For ‘COVID’ And ‘Vaccines’, Upsetting Users

    Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

    Threads, Meta’s recent competitor to Twitter, is facing harsh criticism for blocking search results for terms related to the pandemic, including vaccines.

    The new text platform, which is linked to Instagram, rolled out its new search function last week, a major step towards giving it more parity with X, formerly known as Twitter.

    After Threads’ July release, Meta has been rolling out several much needed updates in recent weeks, including a requested desktop version and user search functionality.

    However, within 24 hours of the recent update, the social media giant was hit with controversy, as the new search function proved useless for those wanting to look for posts related to the COVID-19, reported The Washington Post.

    Threads Users Shocked to Find Search Results Blocked

    Many users were upset when their search on Threads for content related to “COVID” and “vaccines” was met with a blank screen and a pop-up redirecting them to the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    “Zuck treats users like children. He gets to decide what they will see and talk about. This is reason alone enough to reject Threads and embrace X,” said Michael Robertson, a tech CEO, in a post on X.

    Meta confirmed its search policy restrictions in a press statement, saying that the text platform is blocking users from searching for words that could bring up “sensitive” posts, for now.

    “The search functionality temporarily doesn’t provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content,” it said.

    “People will be able to search for keywords such as ‘COVID’ in future updates once we are confident in the quality of the results.”

    Meta acknowledged that Threads was intentionally blocking other terms but declined to provide a list of them.

    A search by The Washington Post discovered that the words “sex,” “nude,” “gore,” “porn,” “coronavirus,” “vaccines,” and “vaccination” were also among blocked terms.

    Health Experts Decry Censorship

    Public health experts and workers also were critical of the company’s decision, telling The Post that its timing was poor, especially amid reports of a recent virus uptick.

    “Censorship doesn’t work. Misinfo still gets circulated by code names & other platforms. Tech companies should invest in real solutions like moderation/education,” Lucky Tran, director of science communication at Columbia University, said in a post on X.

    Mr. Tran previously told The Post that the decision to censor searches about COVID will make it harder for public health experts and people who work in public health to get out important info to the public about how they can protect themselves.

    Hospitalizations in the United States rose nearly 16 percent last week, and have been rising steadily since July, but less than for the same week a year ago, according to the CDC.

    CDC statistics show that deaths from the virus are less than a quarter of what they were during the same period in 2022.

    The agency said cases of the virus are likely to continue into the winter.

    Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC’s “This Week” over the weekend that given the current level of immunity in the population, “the chances of this being an overwhelming rush of cases and hospitalizations is probably low.”

    Meanwhile, the FDA approved another round of COVID boosters on Sept. 11 that are expected be available in the coming days.

    New Meta Platform Sees Decrease in Users Since Launch

    Meta’s decision to block certain search terms illustrates its desire to avoid encouraging any topics that could be deemed “hard news” on its platform.

    “Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads—they have on Instagram as well to some extent—but we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals,” Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s chief who was instrumental in the launch of Threads, wrote this summer.

    However, Twitter’s ability to share real-time news and information was crucial to its rise to prominance and remains one of its core features.

    A 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center showed that about 4 in 10 Americans said that social media was an important source for news about the COVID-19 vaccine and virus.

    Ever since Threads launched over the summer in an effort to take advantage of some users’ disappointment with X after its take over by Elon Musk, the platform has since failed to maintain its momentum.

    Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasted after the launch that he was able to get 100 million new sign-ups within five days of it going live.

    “Threads reached 100 million sign ups over the weekend. That’s mostly organic demand and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet. Can’t believe it’s only been 5 days!,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a post at the time.

    Time spent on the app service has since fallen by 85 percent last month, according to tech blog Similarweb.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to Meta for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 18:20

  • Putin To Visit North Korea After Exchanging Rifles With Kim In Warm Visit
    Putin To Visit North Korea After Exchanging Rifles With Kim In Warm Visit

    North Korean state media announced Thursday that Russia’s President Putin has accepted a formal invitation from Kim Jong Un to pay a state visit to Pyongyang. 

    Kim hailed the “historic meeting and talks” with Putin on Wednesday, and he’s expected to be in Russia for further travel to to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where he’ll visit an aircraft plant. Putin is said to have “gratefully” received Kim’s invitation to visit his country.

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

    The two leaders have exchanged gifts, as Putin presented Kim with a Russian-made rifle “of the highest quality,” – while in return Putin received a North Korean rifle. Interestingly Putin also presented his North Korean counterpart with a glove from a space suit, after the two toured a space development center in the far east.

    Seoul meanwhile says it is ultra-alarmed at the prospect of military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.

    “We express our deep concern and regret that despite repeated warnings from the international community, North Korea and Russia discussed military cooperation issues, including satellite development, during their summit,” said Lim Soo-suk, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, as cited in AP.

    “Any science and technology cooperation that contributes to nuclear weapons and missile development, including satellite systems that involve ballistic missile technologies, runs against U.N. Security Council resolutions,” he told reporters.

    At the White House, NSC spokesman John Kirby issued a threat of sanctions, warning against North Korean weaponry and ammo for the Ukraine war:

    “No nation on the planet, nobody, should be helping Mr. Putin kill innocent Ukrainians,” Kirby said. If the countries decide to move forward with an arms deal, the U.S. will take measure of the arrangement and “deal with it appropriately,” he said.

    As for a potential upcoming Putin trip to North Korea, no timeline was given, but it certainly suggests that the West’s worst fears are indeed coming to fruition – namely a deeper Russia-DPRK relationship based on military ties and weapons deals. 

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

    However, if such a deal goes through, the Kremlin would face the diplomatic and trade wrath of South Korea, something it might not want to risk at this point at a moment Russia continues enduring sanctions from the West and efforts (thus far largely failing) to isolate it on the world stage.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 18:00

  • The E In EPA Certainly Isn't For 'Ethics'
    The E In EPA Certainly Isn’t For ‘Ethics’

    Authored by Michael Chamberlain via RealClear Wire,

    If President Biden is serious about finding a renewable energy source, he should look down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA’s door revolves fast enough to power the nation for decades, with the rate of spin exceeded only by the attempts to provide cover over possible ethics missteps.

    Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) has developed an extensive file of probable ethics violations by senior EPA officials. Many of these violations appear to occur because the EPA has ignored or sidestepped rules governing “the revolving door” between government and the private sector, though they certainly don’t stop there. As our Ethics Waiver Report demonstrated, the Biden Administration has perfected the practice of recruiting appointees from the universe of aligned environmental activist groups, state agencies, and universities. The inevitable conflicts of interest are buried under a blizzard of ethics waivers and then, after putting in enough time to learn the federal ropes, some go back to more lucrative and senior positions outside.

    For example, Casey Katims joined EPA from Washington State where he worked for Governor Jay Inslee, who helped create the U.S. Climate Alliance (USCA). As EPA’s deputy associate administrator for intergovernmental relations, Katims kept extremely close relations with USCA and eventually left EPA to join it as executive director.

    Melissa Hoffer departed the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office to become acting General Counsel at EPA, where she was given a waiver to participate in 37 pending matters involving Massachusetts. When she left the EPA, she ignored her obligation to timely advise the ethics office of negotiations to rejoin Massachusetts government as its first-ever “Climate Czar.” That failure is likely a violation of the Stock Act (a criminal statute) – inexcusable for a senior lawyer with Hoffer’s experience and responsibilities. It was made worse by the career agency ethics official, Justina Fugh, designated to enforce the rules. Sadly, this is far from the only incident in which Ms. Fugh appears to have played a central role in moving the goalposts to thwart violations from landing on senior officials.

    Many EPA appointments came from powerful, well-funded environmental special interest groups. Alejandra Nunez joined EPA from the Sierra Club. Tomás Carbonell was at the Environmental Defense Fund. Dimple Chaudhary worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council. All three were attorneys for organizations that constantly have business before the EPA, and as of January 2021 were party to dozens of pending lawsuits with the agency. Thus, perhaps unsurprisingly, attorney Marianne Engelman-Lado, who’d been at Vermont Law School, Yale, and Earthjustice, was granted a waiver to engage with a former client because the “overlap of recusals” threatened her office’s ability to function.

    Then there’s Joseph Goffman, the principal deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), who is currently performing the delegated duties of the assistant administrator and the subject of three PPT ethics complaints. Goffman, formerly with Harvard University, looked to the same career ethics official who sought to bail out Ms. Hoffer to “unring the [ethics] bell” of an admitted ethics violation. PPT discovered that at least five Harvard-affiliated individuals who reached out to Goffman were later hired at EPA, including in career positions, and that emails between him and his former employer in just his first few months at the agency totaled over 100 pages! Add in his apparent failure to timely divest from dozens of investments that created financial conflicts of interest and Goffman is a front-runner for favorite client at the EPA’s ethics office.

    Our concerns extend beyond communicating with and giving preferential treatment to former employers. EPA leadership, with the creative assistance of career ethics officials like Ms. Fugh, have also brushed aside emoluments clause concerns (senior EPA science official Christopher Frey’s ties to a Chinese university) and traditional outside solicitation restrictions (Georgetown Law Board of Advisors and senior EPA lawyer Susannah Weaver) when it meant allowing their appointees to maintain their private sector relationships. While congressional oversight has occasionally made a difference – Mr. Goffman remains unconfirmed and Mr. Frey was eventually forced to resign his Chinese university post – Administrator Regan and his subordinates seem undeterred from signing off on these decisions.

    Career officials also appear to have gotten in on the action. For instance, a pending consent decree concerning one of the largest Superfund cleanups in history (nearly $2 billion!) rests largely on the work of a former EPA employee, David Batson, who since leaving the agency in 2015 has gone on to land contracts with both the Department of Justice and the EPA to work on the same Superfund cleanup he actively worked on while at EPA. This is a big no-no, according to federal ethics laws.

    The near farcical reasoning for so many ethics waivers, “oops” violations, outside employment approvals, and discarded post-employment restrictions demonstrates a culture unmoored from ethical norms. While the undivided support from an ethics office along the way has provided plausible deniability, the reality is that it has only served to deepen the rot that has nearly destroyed the public’s trust in its government.

    Michael Chamberlain is the Director of Protect the Public’s Trust. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/14/2023 – 17:40

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